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JustAnotherGen

JustAnotherGen's Journal
JustAnotherGen's Journal
June 12, 2013

Watchdog groups support effort to stop Christie from holding October election for U.S. Senate

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/06/watchdog_groups_support_effort_to_block_christie_from_holding_special_election_for_us_senate.html
TRENTON — A coalition of government watchdog groups and left-leaning organizations today filed briefs in support of a lawsuit seeking to block Gov. Chris Christie from holding an Oct. 16 special election for the seat left vacant by the death of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

NJ Citizen Action and NJ Communities United said Christie's decision to spend $12 million on a special election just three weeks before the November general election was a waste of taxpayer dollars and could disenfranchise voters. Christie has said it's worth whatever it costs to install a new Senator quickly.

On Friday, the chairwoman of the Somerset County Democrats, Peg Schaffer, challenged Christie’s authority to call for the election, calling it illegal and an attempt to suppress the vote. Schaffer said her law firm asked for and was granted permission by the state appellate division to file a motion for emergent relief.

“As New Jersey’s largest citizen watchdog organization, we felt it was important to do what we can to ensure our members and the public have a voice and real opportunity to participate in a fair election for the open US Senate seat,” Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action, said in a statement. "The governor’s decision to hold the special election less than three weeks before the regularly scheduled general election could cause voter confusion and disenfranchise newly registered voters as their registrations might not make it into the voting rolls by October 16."


Another article/commentary:

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2013/06/christie_may_be_underhanded_bu.html
Christie may be underhanded but he ain't playing beanbag

But here’s where the game gets underhanded. A special election for a single seat held on a Wednesday in October represents a recipe for low turnout. That’s good for Republicans. A putative candidate Booker would likely have to mount a major turnout effort almost three weeks before the general election. Many of those Democrats won’t turn out twice. The statewide Republicans’ expected Nov. 5 landslide remains on schedule.

The Democrats are crying foul. Somerset County Democratic chair Peg Schaffer is suing to halt the election on the grounds that Christie’s goal in calling it was to suppress turnout.

She certainly got that right. But Christie is a smart lawyer who has a whole lot of other smart lawyers working for him. They had that angle covered before they called the election. If turnout turns out to be low, that’s politics.
June 5, 2013

There's Something Rotten About Jasper TX

http://once.unicornmedia.com/now/adaptive/m3u8/3aaae01e-e0f4-439d-aa7a-8d5e3e774105/db6630fb-4bb5-45b9-ba6e-04014bcf7f30/63945127-e9de-4879-b74d-4e5b3b0d6a36/n_sharp_4caught_130604.m3u8?visitguid=f255d911-4fea-45b1-a1de-3021429d6dec&UMADPARAMsite=47418%26UMADPARAMzone=182322

At the link is a video of Reverend Al interviewing a woman and her Attorney - She was picked up for a $150 traffic ticket in Jasper, TX on Sunday May 5th. Hopefully the link works. Basically she takes a beating because she doesn't have the $150 to pay the ticket. No audio so we can't hear the exchange.

The two officers we're fired - but it begs the question - What else is going on down there. A whistle blower released the tape - but what if they had not? I can't believe this is the first time this happened.

As a reminder - Jasper TX is where James Byrd was dragged for a few miles in 1998 by truck until he was beheaded.


Sick sick sick. Something is sick in Jasper TX.
February 27, 2013

Only thing I care about today is the Voting Rights Act

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/27/us-usa-court-voting-argument-idUSBRE91Q0VM20130227

Figured I would post this here so we can hash this out as things procede . . .


Conservatives on Supreme Court cast doubt on voting law


Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote on racial issues, at one point during the argument said "times change" when it comes to weighing whether the nine states in question should be treated differently from other states.

This appeared to be a view shared by other justices on the conservative wing of the court, including Chief Justice John Roberts.

At one point, the chief justice asked the Obama administration's lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, if it was the government's position that "citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North." Verrilli said that was not the government's position.

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the other conservatives, said that the court should be skeptical of Congress' decision to reauthorize the law in 2006 because it would be politically damaging for politicians to vote against it.



Honestly - I just hate them. I know it doesn't matter to them - but maybe they 'feel it'. Maybe if enough folks hate them for hating us FIRST - they'll start to feel it in the place where they should have souls.


Here we go . . . Trying to re-litigate if black Americans are 'entire' people and 'real' Americans.
December 5, 2012

Hmmm not really

NJ pays a lot into the Federal till each year but we get back far less than what we put in. I guess I look at it as getting money back we've used to fund the lowest ten states in terms of what they put in vs. what they get back . . .


We have extremely high unemployment here (higher than national average) - and I don't think these issues are just the fault of the current government in Trenton. They are much larger and have a longer history than 2009. I was listening to 101.5 this am (98.3 keeps playing the same Christmas songs over and over and over again -not festive at all) - and the discussion was about reasons why folks would not vote for Christie again/or vote for him a first time when I switched over during my commute.


Know what one guy said? Turnpike rate increases and the one we are facing come January. Add that to the new toll increases into Manhattan/State Island via the bridges. My achilles tendon - is not doing enough bring blue collar jobs back to NJ. I'm sorry - but I'm beginning to believe that we need a corporate tax structure similiar to places like Alabama and Mississippi. Even if it's only temporary. . .

In the meantime - as a high earner living in NJ? I want my money back. We pay far more into the Federal till than we ever get back - other states that put in less - no one looks down their nose at them. Well - it's OUR TURN. We've offset state income tax for places like Florida for years - so now we need them to take the hit so we can get ours and get back to good.

And that goes for the citizens of NY state too . . . asking us to pay for Florida's state budget and NOT fixing Staten Island, and Queens and Brooklyn is criminal.

Sandy is gone - but the damage is still there. We need help. The Fed needs to pay for the $79 billion dollar recovery with the money that New Jerseyans and New Yorkers have been paying in all of these years. This way we support ourselves and move forward in other areas.



October 8, 2012

I read this book in August

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Without-Manifesto-Secession/dp/1451616651


Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession -

Chuck Thompson takes a hysterical look at the "threat" of "The South Is Gonna Do It Again" and turns the tables on the Take Our Country Back Crowd.

I have hesitated to post a review because we do have so many staunch liberal and progressive members at DU who come from the 14 states he makes a strong argument *nudge* for the rest of the country INSIST the South leaves the union.

The serious side of the book (layered throughout the humor) is the vast inequality that still exists in the South today. Example - how can we head into the future when the public school system is broken and RE- segregated? With people who wish to continue the inequality by their push of "charter" schools and the massive number of "Christian" (read whites only) schools that have sprung up in retaliation to the Brown V Board cases? Would the US be better to leave those 14 states Thompson outlines behind? Allow them to go so they can take science off the table and teach creationism without United States interference?

He touches on everything from the SEC College Football shakedown to the Jesus/Creation Museums, to the very definition of a Southern Strategy by one political party who benefits from the entrenchment of Confederate values, and how it could even become a huge tourist point for Americans . . . IE - made into an exotic foreign locale akin to Tanzania or Belize.

Might be worth a read - because while funny - its also a terribly sad analysis of perhaps WHY non Southerners and those who have no roots in the South (I'm in the North East - raised here but have Alabama red clay in veins) say . . . Why didn't we just let them go when we had the chance?
September 3, 2012

NJ's Hidden Poor

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/09/new_report_puts_a_harrowing_fa.html

Not a big fan of the Ledger - but read this yesterday. Highlights the Food Bank my husband and I volunteer at . . . We live in Bridgewater/Somerville. We "know" because of our efforts - but this rips off the Band Aid of those efforts.

HIGH COST OF LIVING
In a state with one of the highest levels for cost of living and lowest minimum wage (the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour), half of all jobs pay less than $20 an hour.

That’s not enough, says Joe Kunzmann, Somerset County Social Services director, who estimates a person living in New Jersey needs to make at least $25 an hour for a fair market rent apartment in Somerset County. Because Somerset is ranked among the top-10 wealthiest counties in the United States, according to Forbes magazine, its relative affluence drives up the cost of living for everyone. The Household Survival Budget for Somerset, as calculated by Hoopes Halpin, is $66,160 for a family of four.

"It makes it kind of harder for people that are just at the poverty level or above it to get by," Kunzman said. There’s this margin of error that is very slight. … If you’re making $12 an hour or $15 an hour and your car breaks down and you have to have it fixed and you need it to get to work, what do you pay? Do you have your car fixed or do you maybe not pay all your rent or do you skimp on your Public Service bill? A lot of people that we are seeing are people like that."


To follow DU rules - I selected as few paragraphs as possible. Good read when you dive into it on the working poor who are falling through the cracks.

July 20, 2012

She's no Marie Antoinette

*Reviewing what I've written below prior to hitting post and I want to make sure OP knows I'm not being snotty - just factual*.

Marie Antoinette never would have said and did not EVER say "You people'" - or "Let them eat cake/brioche" or "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche". It was most likely said 100 years earlier by Marie-Therese the wife of the Sun King Louis. She was too busy picking out shoes to even consider it. And keeping her hair from catching fire at parties.

Most of what has been attributed to her as 'legend/lore' was written by a German Author in a 1931 children's book. Chew on that a bit. Place France and Germany in that time and place understand the German perception that they were being punished by France by having to pay back debt from World War I.

And - if there is ever an inauguration of *I shudder at the thought* of a King Rmoney and Goody Ann - and if during the fireworks a stampede ensues - I highly doubt that they will do what Louis and Marie Antoinette did - and give their personal spending money for a year to those injured in said stampede or their surviving loved ones/families.

And in 1774 - when she became a very young Queen - she requested that a tax called "The Queen's Belt" be removed on the people of France.

Ann would do the opposite - The First Lady's Belt would be a tax imposed on those making less than 10K a year to make sure they have absolutely NOTHING so she can laugh at them and point her finger and call them 'you' people.

And with that said - it was the Propaganda of the Revolution that gave M.A. the horrible reputation. And it served it's purpose well.

I'm very well traveled to France, used to be highly conversant (learning Italian now since I married one ) and I am very well read on French history. She is one of the most fascinating female figures (she fascinates me in the way Mathilda of Tuscany does) of history - and her manners, reserve, discipline growing up in an Austrian household, sense of fashion - both glamourous and hippie, cosmetics, appearance, still influence women throughout the world to this day. You could say this leftist progressive feminist has a great deal of admiration for this woman who came into her own - could have saved her own neck, but insisted her husband was STILL the King of France and thus click, clack, chop.


Look up - Mrs. Romney is nothiiiiiiiiiiiiiing like Marie-Antoinette. She will never be. It is simply not in her to look at anyone else with empathy. Not even her dogs.

July 12, 2012

Rambling thoughts on Romney's speech at the NAACP Convention

So since yesterday - his speech has been critiqued, pulled apart, laughed at, and booed.

First rambling thought - No one in the media as stated this: When someone shows you who they are - believe them.

I think - that the attendees at the NAACP convention are the first group to see the REAL Romney. What he truly believes, no flip flopping, no bouncing all over the place, no etch-a-sketch stupidity.

In a weird way - it's kind of an honor for those who were able to attend his speech. The attendees truly got a glimpse into what a Romney candidacy would look like. Which leads to my second thought . . .

The black American exists in Romney's world to be a group to speak down to. I couldn't help hearing a touch of "I know better than you silly boys and girls." More of that - Black people should listed to wealthy white men to learn how to be better Americans nonsense.

Third - Booing in and of itself . . .
January 20, 2012
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-01-20/news/30649220_1_mitt-romney-george-romney-tax-returns

In regards to whether he would release his tax returns while in the heat of the Republican Primary:
"I don't know how many years I'll release. I'll take a look at what our documents are. And I'll release multiple years, I don't know how many years," Romney added, as some South Carolina crowd members voiced their disapproval.

While presidential candidates are not required to release their taxes, most usually volunteer the information. And the calls for Romney to do so are intensifying from Republicans and Democrats alike.


I did a quick dig through stories this morning from the time of that debate - and not ONE so-called journalist questioned the booing. No questions about whether or not it was appropriate, whether or not it was necessary, etc. etc. That same group of so-called journalists are pretty much ignoring the tax return issue now. Isn't that odd - if it was worth being booed at in the Primary and deserved lots and lots of media coverage - but the media now chooses to focus on 'booing at the NAACP' instead of important things . . . like Voter ID concerns and well - yep - his tax returns?


But when it's NAACP members - it's a Romney strength.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/07/mitt_romney_was_booed_when_he_addressed_the_naacp_.html

Or - it puts him in good company. . . They've likened in the below link Romney getting booed on serious issues like AHA and how he would be better for black Americans on par with First Lady Obama and Dr. Jill Biden being booed at a Nascar race, Sister Sarah Alaskastan's daughter on Dancing with the Stars, and then President Bush throwing out a pitch at a baseball game.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/romneys-not-alone-the-best-of-recent-political-booings/

Which leads me back to my first 'thought'. It's one women know who are SMART women and who choose romantic partners with a keen eye . . .

When someone shows you who they are - believe them. Oh - you better believe them.


Romney may very well be keeping the focus on what he wants it to be focused on, but he's already lost. "Obamacare" is here to stay . . . We have GOT to GOTV in the black community and make sure every single person has an ID, a blood sample, a DNA sample, a lock of hair from their first haircut, etc. etc. Especially in PA and Florida.

I don't think Texas is an option for Obama - but PA and FL have GOT to be won.

June 29, 2012

Rob Portman (Ohio) as Romney VP Pick?

https://www.facebook.com/CongressmanLance?ref=ts

I actually logged onto Facebook this afternoon to harass my CongressBullshitter but got distracted by a post he made on June 20th . . .

It was a pleasure chatting with U.S. Senator Rob Portman at a Capitol Hill event last evening.

Senator Portman is a true leader in the U.S. Senate on economic and fiscal issues and among Washington political insiders is considered one of the most likely to be picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate.


Thoughts? He's from Ohio. Listening to Sherrod Brown - it appears Ohio is very much behind Obama (policies which lead to job growth, auto industry, etc. etc.) . . . Any Ohio DU'ers know if this guy is super popular. I know the name - but not the 'legislator'.

http://portman.senate.gov/public/
June 8, 2012

So I come home to a 2012 Presidential Poll from Reince Priebus

Dear Fellow American: What issues do you want our Republican Presidential campaign to focus on in 2012 as we fight to make Barack Obama a ONE-TERM President? What follows is a four page back and front text dense letter filled with some of the stupidest drivel I've ever read.

Now- I'm not a Republican. And as I read through the questions on the enclosed document I said to myself, "Self ask not what would Audrey do. Ask - what would Jean Seberg do?"

And so I've answered such questions as:
How important is it to voters in your state to have candidates give attention to the following issues during the 2012 campaign?
Very important - Somewhat important - Not Important
*strengthening border security
*reducing federal spending
*keeping taxes low
*exposing Obama's radical left wing policies
*repealing Obamacare
*reining in government employee unions
*demanding free and open trade to get US manufacturing growing.

Everything is dripping in ObamaCare, Radical Liberalism, Reckless Spending, ans embarrassing foreign policy "statements"

My favorite question: Are you concerned that Barack Obama and the Democrats intend for their ObamaCare legislation to eventually lead to the creation of single payer government run health insurance and health care system?



My point in sharing this - they have mailed their ENTIRE play book to the enemy (based upon the language used throughout the documents we are indeed blood sucking cannibal lib'rals who exist to suck te bone marrow out of little Republican babies but I digress )!


You cannot read this and not see how their language is from their mouths to Bill O'Lielly's.

And the scariest question - as we have to gear up of a repeat from last August:

Section 2 - Economic Issues - Question 5
President Obama has indicated that if reelected (<- how they spelled it), he will fight to increase tax rates on individuals and families he considers to be wealthy. Do you support Obama's decision?


If re-elected . . . Not now. Not while these assholes have the House.

Truthfully - they have me convinced that this is the most liberal leftist progressive person to ever walk the face of the planet. A dangerous man who does not want to push the age one can collect social security back, a traitor who defied doma, a vile liberal who is so arrogant as to not want Roe v Wade overturned, and who believes in the public school system. They have me convinced he has a radical liberal agenda (they say it over and over and over and over again).

Now if someone who thinks a so-called radical liberal agenda is a GOOD thing is all excited to vote because she can see how they are trying to manipulate her - imagine this in the hands of a simpleton on the right.

You guys - we gotta win. If not for me - then do it for Jean Seburg. Because based on the language I've seen - that my home has been defiled with ths evening . . .they have very intention of doing to us what they did to her. I didn't even touch on so-called National Security Issues.

P.S. it's opposite day - opposite of everything they want to read. . With a few nasty barbs thrown in for good measure! You mail me Hate Mail and I'm going to retaliate.

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Gender: Female
Hometown: Western NY
Home country: US
Member since: Sat Aug 25, 2007, 01:21 PM
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