Letter: Why Send State Police To Baltimore To Be Target?

The expressed opinions or views of this letter does not necessarily represent the opinion of the MiddletownMike blog:



Dear Editor,

I am very much opposed to Governor Chris Christie’s decision to send the New Jersey State Police to Baltimore, to support a police force that has been accused of murdering Freddie Gray, a 25 year old African-American man.

The New Jersey State Police has had a long history of racism and abuse of minorities. The New Jersey State Police admitted to racially profiling and shooting at unarmed African-Americans and Hispanic drivers. These abuses resulted in a consent order with the Department of Justice.

Because of this history, it is entirely inappropriate for the agency to be involved in such racial tensions.

Thanks to Christie, the State of New Jersey has now become a target of any person or group who has been made to feel that the political and legal system has failed their communities and might take up a mantra of “by any means necessary”.

Bring our troopers home and let Baltimore deal with the mess they caused.



Eric Hafner
Toms River

Isn't It Time?

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:

For nearly a decade, the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) so-called “Demographics Unit” conducted wide-scale warrantless spying on Muslims, including at mosques, student associations, and businesses in New York City and even in other states, including New Jersey.  The NYPD targeted people based solely on their religious affiliation, without any reason to believe they were guilty of any crime.

By every metric, the Demographics Unit was a failure. The NYPD acknowledged that it never generated a lead in a criminal or terrorist investigation, and Muslim citizens have told me they felt the chilling effect of being singled out for suspicion by their own government. I have long fought to end this NYPD overreach, including by introducing a congressional resolution to condemn these illicit tactics.

This week brought good and long-overdue news: the NYPD is formally disbanding the Demographics Unit and ceasing its spying on our innocent neighbors.

The best conclusion to draw from the NYPD’s experience is that suspicionless surveillance doesn’t work; it squanders limited law enforcement resources on investigating the innocent; and it destroys the fundamental principle that the government must not treat any person as less than a full citizen above suspicion unless there is a probable cause.  The same conclusion can be applied to the on-going NSA surveillance of Americans.

Upcoming Office Hours in Your Community

Are you having any troubles with the Social Security Administration, the VA, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or any other federal agency?  Or would you like to learn about applying for federal grants or acquiring flags flown over the U.S. Capitol?

If so, I hope you will drop by my upcoming Community Office Hours, where I or a member of my staff will be glad to help.  In the next few weeks, we will be in Middlesex, Trenton, and Old Bridge, and many more events are scheduled soon.  A full schedule is available atholt.house.gov/officehours.

Honoring Significant Milestones

Recently, I heard from constituents in Trenton and in Plainsboro who hoped to surprise their mothers with notes from the President in honor of their 100th birthdays. On their behalf, I reached out to the White House, and the President sent very warm letters of congratulations to each of them.

If you are celebrating a special occasion, I will be glad to request a presidential greeting on your behalf. Generally, the President may send congratulations to U.S. citizens for weddings, births, adoptions, Eagle Scout or Girl Scout Gold Awards, Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, 50th and subsequent anniversaries, and 80th and subsequent birthdays. For further details or assistance, please contact my Staff Assistant, Ms. Wilsar Johnson at 202-225-5801 orwilsar.johnson@mail.house.gov.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress

Privatization Is Not The Answer

From the E-Newsletter of Congressman Rush Holt:

In 1935, being old generally meant being poor.  Yet today, only one in ten American seniors lives in poverty.  Indeed, seniors today are less likely than Americans in any other age group to live in poverty.

What is responsible for this turnaround?  The answer, of course, is Social Security, which marked its 77th anniversary last week.  In its nearly eight decades of existence, Social Security has lifted tens of millions of Americans out of poverty – including about 13 million today.  Social Security also assists many with disabilities and many children who survive the loss of a parent, as I did.

Although you would not know it from the hyperbole in Washington today, Social Security has never missed a payment and remains in pretty good financial shape. According to the two independent trustees overseeing the Social Security and Medicare programs, without any changes at all, the Social Security program can pay all benefits through at least 2036.  Even after that, it could still pay out about 77 percent of scheduled benefits.  

(Congressman Rush Holt)

This modest long-term shortfall in Social Security is a good reason to take steps to shore up the program.  Yet those who would use these challenges as an excuse to privatize Social Security, as Rep. Paul Ryan and others have proposed in recent years, are simply fear-mongering in hopes of advancing their impractical ideology.  Worse still, they are threatening the guarantee that is at Social Security’s heart.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said shortly after Social Security was created, “None of the sums of money paid out to individuals in assistance or in insurance will spell anything approaching abundance. But they will furnish that minimum necessity to keep a foothold; and that is the kind of protection Americans want.”

Ethnic Profiling Remains Ineffective and Offensive

In May, I wrote to you about the New York Police Department’s wide-scale, warrantless surveillance of innocent Muslims in states across America.  Muslims in New Jersey have told me that they felt the chill and intimidation from such profiling.

As I have said, profiling is a poor substitute for thinking, and it does not constitute good policing.  Now, there is evidence that the NYPD’s tactics were wholly ineffective.  As the Associated Press reported this week, the NYPD has acknowledged in court testimony that its six years of spying on Muslims never produced a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.

Spending limited law enforcement resources profiling the innocent rather than investigating the guilty is not just wasteful; it presumes a separate class of Americans who can be placed under suspicion in the absence of reasonable, specific evidence, violating fundamental national principles of liberty and equality. 

Thank You to Congressional Interns for Summer 2012

This month, the latest group of Congressional interns in my West Windsor and Washington, D.C. office finished their service.  It was a pleasure to welcome these interns to my staff, and I was impressed by their intelligence, willingness to learn, and commitment to public service.

If you are a high school or college student interested in interning in my office, please visit my website to learn more.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress

P.S. Just a reminder: I always want to hear from you, but to ensure a prompt response, please don’t reply to this e-mail.  Instead, please visitholt.house.gov/contact or call 1-87-RUSH-HOLT (1-877-874-4658).