The Filibuster: a parliamentary tactic through which a minority prevents the majority from passing legislation. Wait, what? Essentially, a filibuster stops congress from passing a bill. The minority party, or even a single Senator, can block legislation. The Senate allows for unlimited debate on a bill unless a cloture vote, literally a vote to end debate, is called for. If a senator so chooses he can force 3/5^ths of the Senate to vote for cloture, 3/5^ths currently equals 60 Senators.

Two types of filibusters are recognized. These are often referred to as the painless filibuster, and the painful filibuster. The painful filibuster is the stuff of Hollywood legend: a single admirable Senator fighting for what he knows to be right. This tactic is rarely seen, and aptly named. A Senator must talk – endlessly. The Senator cannot sit down, eat, drink, go to the bathroom, lean on anything, or really do anything other than talk. So, why do this at all? Because in the circumstance where a single Senator feels obligated to block legislation, he can do so until he can no longer talk.

The sheer endurance necessary for the painful filibuster has relegated it mainly to the history books. It has been replaced by the “invisible” filibuster. Essentially the invisible, painless, filibuster allows for 41 Senators, the number necessary to block cloture, to declare their intention to filibuster. This means that the filibuster can be used extensively and without much struggle. Recently the “invisible” filibuster, introduced as a rule by Robert Byrd in the 1970s has been used to block financial regulation, federal judge nominations, and healthcare reform.

The filibuster has been used to block major portions of the Obama administration’s agenda. In 2009, the minority Republicans forced a record 139 votes for cloture; and as of the end of February 2010, the Republicans had forced 40 votes for cloture. The filibuster has become a tool for minority obstruction, and a successful one at that.

As of November 29, 2009 following a referendum held in Switzerland, a ban on the construction of minarets was passed with 57% in favor. The ban is just the latest in a series of Islamophobic reactions coming out of Western Europe. Switzerland has 400,000 Muslims and four minarets and Swiss Muslims are among the best integrated in Europe.

Ironically this was condemned by the French who claimed that intolerance should not be tolerated, yet France earlier on September 2, 2004 had banned the wearing of symbols or clothing that showed religious affiliation in public primary and secondary schools. The ban included headscarves, crosses, kippah and turbans. The penalty for continuing to wear these were initially being sent home, but continued violation would result in meeting with the parents and ultimately expulsion from school. France has a rather strong style of secularism, the idea laciete calls for not just freedom of religion, but due to France’s history complete separation of religion from all aspects of public life. Perhaps taken in isolation these instances wouldn’t be particularly concerning, however a wave of such legislation is being passed in Western Europe.

Belgian municipalities have used municipal by-laws to ban the wearing of the burka and niqab. A Belgian town Maaseik was the first to implement such a ban. Regulations were then sent to all Flemish municipalities to ban facial coverings on the basis that it was necessary “ to protect the social order, which allows a harmonious process of human activities.” In 2008 the Danish government decided that judges in court would no longer be able to wear any religious symbol including headscarves and crucifixes. Half of the German states have placed restrictions on wearing headscarves however five of these states allow Christian religious clothing such as a nun’s habit to be worn. A regulation upheld in the state court despite its blatantly discriminatory nature. Two students that appeared at school wearing the burqa were suspended for “disturbing the peace.”

In 2006 the Dutch government strongly considered banning the burqa entirely. Amsterdam and Utrecht proposed cutting social security benefits to unemployed women who wore the burqa on the basis that they were unemployable. In Britain an employment tribunal ruled that a school could fire a teacher because she wore the veil, Tony Blair and British minister Phil Woolas personally demanded that teacher in question be fired, and she was. A ban on the niquab in schools is also being proposed by British authorities. The far-right parties of Europe like the BNP in the UK are often the strongest advocates of such legislation, yet they find broad support among the general population.

Certainly when one takes all this attempted legislation together it indicates a strong amount of paranoid xenophobia among the Western European states and its hard to imagine such legislation passing in the United States. First, however, let me get the following out of the way, by no means should we condone what Saudi Arabia, Iran, or the Taliban do when they enforce the facial veil, headscarves, burqa, or niquab on their women. Such actions are deplorable and their disgusting treatment of women should be strongly condemned by the international community. However by doing the opposite extreme these European states act no better than any of the autocratic states that we look down upon.

On some level one can understand why this type of legislation is being advocated. Europe has found itself faced with the problem of how it should go about integrating its religious minorities.  The question here is really the paradox of a liberal society. A liberal society ideally would allow anyone to hold whatever beliefs they wanted because that’s the nature of the liberal society.

The problem, as the Europeans see it, is when immigrants want to change the nature of the liberal society and turn it into something else. Ideally that should be allowed also. But what if the immigrants are all monarchists and want to establish a monarchy with a God-Emperor who rules with absolute power and destroy liberal democracy? Is that something we really want to allow? And what if they want to take away rights from women, or homosexuals? Is that something we should allow also? The majority of us who live in a liberal democratic society would say no, that such things should not be tolerated.

The people and governments of Western European countries, by supporting legislation such as banning the burka, seem to believe that the Muslim immigrants are incompatible with the liberal democratic values they believe in, that they’re radicals who want to impose Sharia law and oppress women. Feminists in particular believe that women who wear the veil, headscarves, burqa, and niquab are being oppressed by the men and being forcibly segregated from the rest of European society. Such attitudes are shockingly widespread among citizens of European countries. There are a few radicals who may support this perhaps, but I would venture that the majority of Muslims in Europe moved there not to change it but because they sought a better life in a new country, as is frequently the case with new immigrants.

Certainly some concerns are valid. Yet the solution of banning symbolic displays of Islam is misguided, bigoted, counterproductive, and odious to the very freedom and democracy that it ostensibly seeks to protect. Europe fears the radicalization of its Muslim population yet when it passes these discriminatory measures all it does is further isolate and inflames Muslims. Europe seeks to protect democracy and freedom yet it attempts to regulate the clothing of what its citizens may and may not wear. This is without a doubt one of the most slippery slopes I have seen, the logical result of this is to next pass legislation against a Goth with black makeup and piercings cover their face because they segregate themselves from society and make themselves unemployable. Once the government chooses to enter the private lives of its citizens then there is no stopping it. The wearing of a headscarf by a woman when she wears it willingly harms no one, and the construction of a minaret does not endanger Switzerland. If there are concerns about women being forced to wear it against their will then prosecute men who force their wives to do so, if there are concerns that radical preachers are advocating violence then arrest them for advocating violence. But targeting the headscarf and the minaret achieves nothing and is merely discrimination. Europe’s attitude toward Muslims is clearly a problem. Yet some of their concerns are valid regarding integration of Muslims. So what is the solution for it?

To discard the flawed notion of multiculturalism. Right now you are probably staring at the page in shock. Multiculturalism calls for tolerance of the group’s rights and in some cases the accordance of special privileges to the group. Take the Canadian notion of a tossed salad. That each immigrant group retains its culture, its beliefs, and values and they all add to the Canadian cultural mosaic. That has worked well for Canada yet when the European attempt to apply it has failed miserably, and I predict it will fail in Canada too. This idea of multiculturalism is entirely misguided; it is not groups we should be concerned about. It is individuals. The beliefs and culture of all individuals should be tolerated and respected. It is the individual that matters not the group. The mistake we make is when we create a group and give them special privileges.

The mistake we have been making all along is encouraging multiculturalism when we should have been encouraging assimilation. The United States is not a multicultural country. You’re probably staring at the page in shock again. It’s true. The dominant paradigm we hold, that we were told of in elementary school is the American Melting Pot ™ , each immigrant can maintain their traditions, culture, religion, and beliefs, each immigrant adds their own flavor, but all of them become Americans. Muslims can wear headscarves, Christians can wear their crucifixes, Jews can wear their kippah. Yet all immigrants learn English, adopt American values and adopt American culture. This is the model that the United States has followed since the time of its independence. Irish, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Cubans, Iranians, and Mexicans have all immigrated to America in large numbers.

They retain their own cultures and religions yet they think of themselves as American first. Of course this doesn’t go without a hitch; there are hiccups, from anti-Catholic sentiments to anti-Mexican sentiment. However, such views are time and time again proven wrong and each new group becomes a valuable and integrated part of American society.

For perhaps the first time, Europe should look to the US as a model. Europe lacks the same history of immigration that the US has. It has failed to impart a sense of “European-ness” into its immigrants. If Europe wishes to integrate its Muslims then it needs a melting pot. A melting pot that can meld its immigrants together into a coherent and functional whole, which can give rise to a peaceful society that, maintains individual freedoms and liberties while at the same time protecting the nature of a liberal society. This is the goal that all societies and governments must strive toward.

Many people consider these techniques employed by Mr. Bush’s administration to be torture, and almost all of them were banned in 2005 and 2006 when this story was the most prominent in the media and around the world. But the debate over what classifies as torture is not the only controversy of the issue. There has also been intense discussion over whether it was appropriate for the Obama administration to release the memos in the first place, perhaps causing national security risks by doing so.

Really, I do not believe there is any debate to be had over this issue. The methods that were revealed to not only have been used, but abused severely in some cases, definitely constitute torture. Besides for other international standards, the United States is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly outlaw water boarding and other methods used by the Bush administration. Torture not work, it does not protect us, it destroys our moral standing in the world, and it is a gross violation of the human rights of the victim, even if that victim is a terrorist or criminal.

Some may argue that during a time of war torture is necessary to save the lives of innocent people. I have yet to have seen or heard of a scenario outside of fictional TV shows like 24 where a situation like this one has actually occurred. In real life, our ethics as a nation should never be set aside out of fear. There are many other effective ways of protecting our country that do not compromise our value system, as has been evidenced by the capture of the recent underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is currently in the United States’ government’s custody. We gained far more valuable information from treating him ethically, than from torturing many prisoners in the past.

Finally, some might be asking, why does this debate matter now? President Obama staunchly supports the decision to outlaw the torture methods of the Bush administration, so maybe his decision to release this material is superfluous, or at worst a political ploy to focus public attention on the unpopular decisions of the past. I do not agree with this position because transparency in regards to an issue this important is paramount. If the legal basis by which these methods are outlawed is not airtight, it risks being altered in the future during other times of conflict. So in order to determine that basis, exactly what happened needs to be made public, and the Obama administration has performed admirably in it’s decision to release the memos.

]]> http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/2010/04/10/the-ethics-of-torture/feed/ 3 http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/2010/04/08/the-west-wing-and-the-death-penalty/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-west-wing-and-the-death-penalty http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/2010/04/08/the-west-wing-and-the-death-penalty/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:59:02 +0000 Naomi Michaelis http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/?p=440 In one episode of the popular political drama “The West Wing”, fictional President Josiah Bartlet managed to address one of the most difficult issues that this country faces on a regular basis- the separation between Church and State.  The episode, Take This Sabbath Day, addresses the morality of the death penalty.  President Bartlet needed to make one of the most difficult decisions, to spare the life of a man who committed murder, or to execute him.  The question that members of the executive branch face is whether to execute someone, which is legal, or to put their own morals and religious beliefs ahead of a court ruling.

President Bartlet had been looking for a reason to commute the sentence that people would accept that was not related to religion.  He spoke to a Quaker, a Jew (who had spoken with his Rabbi), and the Pope, but understood that he must respect the decision of the courts unless there is reasonable doubt. He also understood that people would not accept a Catholic president commuting a sentence because of his personal religion.  The rules of Catholicism, Judaism, and Quakerism gave President Bartlet reasons to want to commute the sentence. However, when it came down to it, the ruling by the judges ruled over the moral and religious conscience of President Bartlet.

With a country full of diversity, it is important for the courts to be able to fulfill their roles rather than a president take his religion and apply it to a situation.  If presidents use their religion to support their political beliefs they would be allowing religion to take over the country and would ultimately lead to the creation of a national religion, which would go against the First Amendment.  Simon Cruz, the character in question, was found guilty of murder, and the president chose to stand firm on his belief on separation of powers. In the end, he recognized the importance of keeping his own personal religion out of politics, an important precedent for future presidents

A few of the biggest criticisms of the bill puzzle me. First, it’s too long and too complicated. I’m at a loss to find any piece of congressional legislation that isn’t extremely long or complicated, let alone the most sweeping bill passed in half a century. So if you’ve only read the summary of the 1018-page bill, that doesn’t make you uneducated, nor does it mean Congress made it too wordy.

Second, it’s too expensive. Naturally the fact that the bill costs nearly $1 trillion over the next decade is somewhat concerning, but comprehensive healthcare is expensive by its very nature. We have similar health statistics to other industrialized nations with universal healthcare systems, yet we pay twice as much on average. Cost should not be neglected as a factor, but with all the billions of dollars Congress spends on an extremely colorful budget, the health and well being of the nation should not be relegated to a financial backseat.

Read the bill. Like me, you may not be a health insurance expert fluent in legal terms, and you may find some of the language less than succinct, but the single biggest difference I can cite between the future and the status quo is that we know what the status quo looks like. It’s a painful reality for most Americans, as nearly one-sixth of the nation isn’t even covered to wait in a doctor’s office. It’s a system so expensive, even for those who have coverage, that most conservatives I’ve spoken to are willing to admit that some kind of reform is needed.

So now we have something. Our generation, finding it increasingly difficult to find jobs, can remain on our parents’ healthcare until we’re 26. Insurance companies now must report their budgets to the government, and can no longer drop policy-holders who get sick – something I thought was the very point of having insurance in the first place. Consumer Insurance Information is now required to be online should we choose to look at it. Restaurant chains must display caloric information on their menus. Oh yeah, and you’ll be fined if you don’t have healthcare (unless for religious or financial reasons) by 2014. If you’re having financial difficulty affording it, the federal government will assist you (the main provision of the bill, and the general gist of a bunch of other points within it). Although I admit I’m a Democrat, I’d like to believe I’d be in favor of most of these points regardless.

Had President Obama’s predecessor received half as much vehement protest on any such issue (foreign or domestic), he would have accused his opponents of providing comfort and aid to our enemies. I believe it speaks to President Obama’s character that he has displayed almost no public animosity to those who compare him to every despicable leader who has ever existed, and instead try to work with them despite his larger congressional majority and electoral mandate.

In nearly every mid-term Congressional election, the President’s party is set to lose seats, sometimes even their majority. Since January 20, 2009, tax cuts have been granted to the less wealthy 95% of Americans, the stock market has rallied, and economic growth is up; still, Republican leaders whine and holler enough that they may well spark an electoral reversal for the Administration come November. However, while majorities are temporary and fleeting, major legislation stands. For better or for worse, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is the most important legislation passed in nearly fifty years. All patriotic Americans, no matter what their affiliation, should hope that at least some good will come of it rather than plotting its demise for their petty partisan purposes. All Americans should recognize that however they feel regarding the legislation, history has been made. Perhaps it’s time to take a while to reflect on that.

The political situation as it stands today is nothing short of dire. On one side, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded tepidly to the call for freezing settlements in the West Bank; on the other, the Palestinian leadership continues to drag its feet on sitting down for negotiations. In the meantime, the citizens of Gaza suffer from a crippling Israeli blockade and those in the West Bank and East Jerusalem face expansion of settlements that already infringe on their sovereignty. All the while, Israeli families in surrounding border towns and elsewhere live in continuous fear of rocket attacks and suicide bombers from Hamas. Ian Gallagher, a Rutgers Alumnus and Graduate Student at Boston University, majoring in Political Science, says:

I think that the issue is a centerpiece in America’s geopolitical strategy for the world and in particular the Middle East. It is obvious to Arabs living in the region that the occupation of Palestine is looked upon as a colonial settler state in the nature of Algeria or South Africa, backed by the US”, he contends.

After the Second World War, the Arabs in the region did have a relatively favorable view of the United States due to its history of anti-imperialist advocacy. However, geopolitics is not the only issue at hand, argues Lauren Sheppard*, a senior at School of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Political Science.

While it takes a toll on US with regard to its relationships with the Arab countries, it is worth it.  America can condemn Israel’s actions on a regular basis but when it comes down to it, the US has no bigger supporter than Israel in the region.

In the past, both the Israeli Government and Palestinian society have made serious strategic and moral errors, for which they pay the price today. Over the years, they mirrored each other’s hostility, adding fuel to fire with bouts of retaliation. Under such circumstances, it is not hard to understand the extent of aggravation and despair.

I visited Israel for only three months. I do not know that many people who live in Israel and I wonder what it is like for those people. How many countries have to constantly defend themselves and always be ready to fight a war?

At times, Palestinian society does tend to lend credence to violent uprising and anti-Semitism. Their misplaced faith in the morality and efficacy of such tactics took a lot of credibility away from their movement in the seventies, as witnessed by the aftermath to the Munich Olympics Massacre. Feverish calls for overthrowing the Israeli government are only surpassed by their penchant for praising martyrdom through suicide bombing. Ian Gallagher disagrees:

There may be instances of anti-Semitism, but they are very few. I spent months in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, telling everyone I met that I was Jewish and I never experienced a single instance of racism. It shows that the disputes are obviously political and anti-colonial in nature. Suicide terrorism was an effect of harsh repression of non-violent resistance during the first Intifada

So, is violence, as Gallagher posits, merely a response to past injustices inflicted on the Palestinians? Does Israel share some of the blame? Prior to its recent incursion into the Gaza strip, surrounding towns in Israel were showered with rockets almost every day.

The city of Sderot was attacked on a daily basis, but that fact was ignored because there were no casualties, the reason being the Israeli government takes care of its people; most Israelis have a bomb shelter that they can go to. In any form of war, civilians need to be protected. That being said, Hamas uses civilians, specifically women and children, as human shields, which is an atrocity.

The truth is both sides are guilty of crossing the line. The UN sanctioned Goldstone report accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of breaching the rules of engagement and even committing war crimes during the Gaza War of 2008. Israel claims to try to prevent civilian casualties, but often, their response to attacks is disproportionate.

Military errors aside, one of the biggest Israeli policy errors in the seventies was the decision to marginalize the moderate factions of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was largely a secular entity advocating for Palestinian sovereignty. Hoping to destroy Palestinian nationalism, Israel cynically exploited the divisions within the PLO, ultimately giving prominence and political influence to the more religious Hamas. As a result, the Palestinian Authority (PA) today derives its capacity entirely from Israel.

]]> http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/2010/03/27/blessed-are-the-peacemakers/feed/ 2 http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/2009/11/08/what-do-i-know-im-just-a-liberal-idealist/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-do-i-know-im-just-a-liberal-idealist http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/2009/11/08/what-do-i-know-im-just-a-liberal-idealist/#comments Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:01:46 +0000 Monika Chopra http://libertas.rudemocrats.com/?p=311

Many conservatives say that those of us who are Liberal are idealists. Recently, after receiving this label for the nth time, I started thinking about what it actually means. The concept of labeling liberals as ideal became perplexing.  The different ideologies of either side, in my opinion, lend more to …

Jon Corzine’s campaign website mainly focuses on the state of the economy, jobs, healthcare, education, and endorsements for the governor. Much of this focus is shown on the homepage as commercial ad attacks on Christie (most recently on mammograms and early childhood education) next to positive ads talking about Corzine’s successes on healthcare in the state. Chris Christie’s campaign website, on the other hand, focuses on his stance with law enforcement, teachers, and fire fighters. For his site’s overview of his policies, it displays an attack ad on Corzine and high property taxes and emphasizes “cutting taxes, controlling spending, and creating jobs”. The most recent set of the Chrisitie campaign’s press releases are all attacks on “Corzine taxes” declaring, “Everywhere we go… Jon Corzine’s property taxes follow.”

Many media outlets have been covering this election carefully, but how is the media reporting the candidate’s messages? One recent article in the Asbury Park Press challenged both major candidates on their lack of detail on the property tax issue. The article states that, “The topic is not addressed in their TV ads and given short shrift on their campaign web sites…[Daggett is the only] one of the three major candidates for governor that has offered a detailed plan to combat your highest-in-nation property taxes.”

An article on Politico.com entitled “Will Chris Christie be the Biggest Loser?” talked about a recent Corzine ad arguing that Christie was “throwing his weight around as district attorney” to get out of multiple traffic violations. The article goes on to focus on the ad’s visuals of the heavyset Christie getting out of his SUV in slow motion. This story even made its rounds on MSNBC’s Hardball and the New York Times as dirty negative politics coming from the Corzine campaign.

Unfortunately for both major party candidates, the media is reporting more and more that voters are being turned off by the negative ads coming from both campaigns. The New York Times reported, “[Corzine and Christie] appear to be turning off voters with nasty ads and personal attacks; Mr. Daggett is turning them on — or at least persuading them to give him a closer look.” Mr. Daggett has just won The Star-Ledger’s endorsement for his property tax plan.

With this growing trend within the media to focus on the seeming reluctance for detailed property tax initiatives, negative attacks coming from both Corzine and Chrisite, and the appeal of the independent Chris Daggett, how do these two campaigns use new media to push the messages they want out there? Corzine would like the focus to be on healthcare, his relationship with Barack Obama, the New Jersey Stimulus, and the shortfalls of his rival. Chrisite wants to focus on Corzine and his failures, cutting taxes, and stopping the Democratic State Senate from spending more.

Both the Corzine and Christie campaigns have turned to social networking websites to get their messages and ads out there. Twitter and Facebook users can follow both candidates and get links to videos, pictures, articles, or press releases that the campaigns want the voters to see. The campaigns have even implemented text-messaging systems, where people can subscribe to get text message alerts from the campaign on their cell phones. These include messages about registration deadlines, post-debate polls, and will provide them with a mass messaging system to alert voters to vote on Election Day. This has become a valuable strategy.

Pollster has showed in recent weeks since the debate that the race is continuing to tighten. It remains to be seen how effective Daggett will be in pulling votes from Corzine and Christie, but Corzine has nearly tied Christie in Pollster’s snapshot of polls at 40% to Christie’s 41.4% average. The trend shows a steady decline for Christie mainly due to his lacking performance in the debates and the effectiveness of negative attack ads coming from the Corzine campaign. Despite the media and voter’s rejection of negative attack ads, they appear to be effective for the Corzine campaign. Interestingly, Google Trends, Google’s search rating system, shows that in 2009 a search for “Jon Corzine” yielded a 3.2 search index less than “Chris Christie” at 3.9. This shows that more people are “googling” Chrisite.

Corzine’s ad campaign and political endorsements has helped him come back from a once certain death in the polls. The Christie campaign is now on the defensive, answering attack ads with attack ads and showing an inability to dominate the media frenzy. They have been even more unsuccessful in getting their message out to the public. The interesting trend to watch leading up to the election is the impact of Daggett, who is gaining the support of traditional media. The question is who will he hurt more?

The line began to form outside the gym hours before the event was to begin. The doors were supposed to open at 7:30pm, but ended up opening about an hour earlier to accommodate the huge turnout for the event. With their personal bubble’s shrinking as more and more people filed in, the people in the front desperately tried to catch a glimpse of Clinton as everyone gathered backstage.  After a series of speakers (the crowd growing more and more impatient to see Clinton with each) President Clinton finally took the stage with Governor Corzine and his running mate, Loretta Weinberg.

Corzine introduced Clinton by reminding us that America was “respected around the world and we were at peace” when Clinton was president.  Corzine promised not to talk long, knowing the crowd was desperate to hear Clinton speak, so he focused on encouraging students to vote. He emphasized how much elections matter, referencing the debacle that was 2000. He told the crowd to talk to their friends and family and make sure that everyone votes, no matter for whom. As a chant of “four more years” resounded throughout the gym, Corzine promised to fight for healthcare for everyone, more money for dorms, and to ensure that women have the right to make their own choices.

President Clinton took to the podium to a huge ovation and camera flashes worthy of Derek Jeter in the post-season. He began by praising Loretta Weinberg, calling her a progressive “Jewish grandmother”. He praised the audience, saying it was great to have such a diverse crowd, which would not have been the case in the past. While it was a great time to be alive, Clinton said our country faced three problems: it was unequal, unstable, and unsustainable. We need to create more winners and fewer losers, he said.

Clinton asked the crowd an important question: “Why is this a close race?” He continued by listing the statistics of Corzine’s previous four years in office. For instance, under Corzine, New Jersey was the first state in the Union to have an economic recovery plan, which was actually used as a model for the national plan. He also pointed out among other things that New Jersey is first in the nation for the number of high school graduates and second in solar, wind, and other clean energy use. Clinton also boasted that Jon Corzine had gotten over 3% of the federal stimulus money, which is a bigger percentage than New Jersey’s population is of the national population.

Like Corzine, Clinton emphasized the importance of getting out and voting in the upcoming election. We need to make our “good intentions into changes in other people’s lives.” Fewer people are better at this than Jon Corzine, he said. This should not be a close race, and as both Jon Corzine and President Clinton reminded us, the future is in our hands.