SCOTUS to hear free speech case of Paterson PO demoted over political sign
But still, Heffernan was demoted because city officials perceived him to be engaged in “overt involvement in a political election”. So, the heart of this matter remains free speech rights. NorthJersey.com reports:
Following – and honoring – Jimmy Carter
Daily Kos has a nice article about Jimmy Carter: how he’s dealing with cancer … the fact that he kept this country from war during his presidency … and about the man’s fabulous advocacy for the rights of women.
And here’s a Facebook page honoring President Carter. It reached the 50,000 Likes mark in just a few days and shares information about Carter’s life and accomplishments.
Love and light, Mr. Carter!
Biden helped put millions in prison & tightened noose on student loans
Along with Bill Clinton, Biden helped drastically increase the United States prison population. According to the ACLU 1 in 99 US adults are living in prison and, “One in 31 adults are under some form of correctional control, counting prison, jail, parole and probation populations.”
Bernie Sanders to reporters: do some real reporting for a change
Bernie Sanders in top form when he confronts reporters and tells them to stop making it look like presidential candidates are in a mud-wrestling contest with each other and do some real reporting – on the issues people care about. Because, “People are fed up.”
Truly.
#feelthebern
Expert framing of Jorge Ramos’ challenge to Donald Trump
Jorge Ramos, the influential anchor of Univision and an American immigrant from Mexico, has been denouncing Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Yesterday at a Trump press conference in Iowa, Ramos stood and questioned Trump on his immigration views. Trump at first ignored him, then scolded him for speaking without being called on and repeatedly ordered him to “sit down,” then told him: “Go back to Univision.” When Ramos refused to sit down and shut up as ordered, a Trump bodyguard physically removed him from the room. After the press conference concluded, Ramos returned and again questioned Trump about immigration, with the two mostly talking over each other as Ramos asked Trump about the fundamental flaws in his policy. Afterward, Ramos said: “This is personal. … He’s talking about our parents, our friends, our kids and our babies.”
Are New Jersey gentrifiers taking us for a ride?
Christie’s education voucher law allows public school students to attend schools in another district, with your tax dollars paying the receiving school’s tuition fees and the complete bill to, “provide and pay for students’ transportation to new schools up to 20 miles away.” Sounds a bit like specially chartered buses and other things extraordinarily expensive, doesn’t it? Wowza!
Bush started us on path to Nazi-ism. Trump goes much farther.
So, I’m reading this article shared by Truthout editor William Rivers Pitt about Trump’s extremist stand on deporting immigrants and his incessant hatemongering. And, I recently read a corroboration of Bernie Sander’s statement that Hitler was elected to govern Germany. All of a sudden that light-bulb goes on in my head: Trump could actually be a modern version of Hitler.
Trump’s fascist authoritarianism was thrown into stark relief by the courageous act of journalism “committed” by Mexican immigrant and Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos and Trump’s heavy-handed, dismissive treatment of him at a recent press conference. Ramos is one of the US Latino community’s most influential voices … Glenn Greenwald writes about the Ramos challenge:
The cost of “tough on crime” is $1B each year of your taxpayer money
vlogbrothers has created a sobering video about the “massive $75 BILLION per year failed experiment” we’re living in – which is what it costs American taxpayers each year to keep almost 1% of our neighbors in prison.
The video’s done in a light-hearted animation style and is under 4 minutes long, but pay attention to the scary statistics:
- By age 23, 41% of our country’s juveniles and young adults have been arrested.
- Our prisons violate international standards.
- Solitary confinement is considered torture under international law but in the United States it is a not governed or monitored by anyone except prison officials.
- This massive system costs taxpayers $75 Billion dollars each year.
- Private prison contractors have occupancy guarantees that mandate their prisons remain between 80 and 90 percent full.
Video brought to you courtesy of Natalie Hussein Wells‘ link to attn:‘s informative article. And remember, if you don’t want to support and pay for this crazy system, vote for politicians that favor reducing our incarceration rate, like 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Play about Central Park’s land 1825 Black Village showing at Kean U through 9/20.
…help justify destroying people’s homes and cemeteries, using eminent domain to make way for what would become the most visited city park in the country. The village was leveled in 1857, the same year construction began on Central Park.
Big Brands making a killing from inmate labor, a slavery replacement
Very neatly written exposition of how prisons have replaced slavery as a means of augmenting the wealthy of the wealthy – on the backs of society’s most vulnerable.
“Insourcing,” as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison.
US Colonel: slavery was the SINGLE reason for the Civil War (video)
Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, sets the record state on the question of what the reason was for the United States Civil War. In this interesting short video Col. Seidule makes the case that the single reason was slavery. Does a good job with it, too.
Here are some highlights:
The buzz term “States’ Rights” was coined by Southern state residents and referred to the right they believed they possessed, to continue slavery.
Look at these pictures of Gaza – they show a paradise
These are pictures of Gaza, which Hamas and people hostile towards Israel describe as a concentration camp. These are anything but concentration camp conditions – this is a paradise.
Gotta watch video of Sanders dressing Alan Greenspan right down
Bernie Sanders vigorously confronted Alan Greenspan on his flawed economic policies in 2003, 5 years before the Great Recession set in and Greenspan admitted to the Congressional Oversight Committee that he had been wrong for 40 years in his perceptions and the policies he had informed during his tenancy as Federal Reserve Chair.
Sanders told Greenspan that because he spent his social time in country clubs and cocktail parties, Greenspan had become so far removed from the lives of average citizens that he had no idea what their concerns and needs are. Women for Bernie Sanders offers the comment, “Bernie knew all along that it was a flawed ideology.”
Kasim Hafeez was raised to hate Jews and now defends Israel
Kasim Hafeez is a man raised in a fundamentalist Muslim household to hate Jews and Israel, who had a complete reversal of sentiment, and now loves my people. He established StandWithUs 12 years ago, an NGO that educates people around the world about why Jews and Israel are worth supporting rather than bashing.