This is a reminder that primary elections for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees will be held tomorrow in New Jersey. Our polls are open from 6 AM through 8 PM. If you have any questions about the election please contact our Municipal Village Clerk at 201-670-5500, ext 201 or email Heather Mailander at [email protected]or Donna Jackson at [email protected].
As an additional reminder, there will be another election held on Tuesday, June 21st. This is a Ridgewood election that represents a binding referendum to approve the municipal financing of a parking deck at Hudson Street. If you are considering voting by mail-in ballot for this election, application forms are available at the Municipal Village Clerk’s Office and must be received by the County no later than June 14, 2016. Alternatively you can go directly to the County’s website to obtain a mail-in ballot form:
https://www.bergencountyclerk.org/web_content/pdf/voting/Vote-by-Mail-Application-English.pdf
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nearing the end of the primary season, a defiant Bernie Sanders predicted Saturday that the Democratic presidential process would lead to a contested summer convention against Hillary Clinton, pushing back against the likelihood that the former secretary of state will soon declare victory.
Speaking to reporters three days before the California primary, Sanders showed few signs of surrender, vowing to take his bid to the Philadelphia convention in July. He urged news organizations not to anoint Clinton as the presumptive nominee through a combination of pledged delegates and superdelegates.
“It is extremely unlikely that Secretary Clinton will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to claim victory on Tuesday night,” Sanders said. “Now I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night. I have reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate.”
By nightfall, Sanders was rallying supporters outside the entrance of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where he pointed to his differences with Clinton on super PACs, the federal minimum wage and the Iraq War.
The violent protests that erupted outside Donald Trump’s rally in San Jose on Thursday night, which included punches thrown, eggs pelted and Trump supporters’ hats stolen off their heads and set ablaze, are likely to have political fallout for Democrats.
The scene was an unwelcome one for the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Campaign Chairman John Podesta quickly moved to condemn this brand of civil disobedience, admonishing the violence in a tweet in which he included video of a Trump supporter being beaten.
by JOHN FUND June 3, 2016 4:00 AM @JOHNFUND Plan B for November
Hillary Clinton’s mounting political — and possibly legal — problems over her e-mail server led me to write a column speculating that Democrats might move to install Vice President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee if her poll numbers tank between now and the Democratic convention in late July. Biden might be joined on the ticket by fiery progressive senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in an effort to placate furious backers of Senator Bernie Sanders.
My NRO colleague Andrew C. McCarthy called my suggestion “increasingly plausible,” and pointed out that Democrats had made just such a switch in 2002 when their one-vote Senate majority was in jeopardy. An ethically challenged senator, Bob Torricelli of New Jersey, was trailing his GOP opponent by double-digit margins following release of a devastating Justice Department report on his involvement in bribery and campaign-finance scandals. Democrats made Torricelli “an offer he couldn’t refuse,” forcing him to leave the Senate race only 36 days before the election and replacing him with former senator Frank Lautenberg. “The lateness of the switcheroo denied Republicans a meaningful opportunity to campaign against Lautenberg, in violation of state election laws,” writes McCarthy. “But New Jersey’s solidly Democratic judiciary predictably looked the other way.” Lautenberg went on to win in November (although Democrats still lost their Senate majority, and didn’t regain it until 2006).
Hillary Clinton’s popularity has slumped in California under an unrelenting challenge from Bernie Sanders, who has succeeded in breaching the demographic wall Clinton had counted on to protect her in the state’s presidential primary, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll has found.
As he has done across the country this primary season, Sanders commands the support of younger voters by huge margins in advance of Tuesday’s primary — even among Latinos and Asians, voter groups that Clinton easily won when she ran eight years ago. Many of his backers come from a large pool of voters who have registered for the first time in the weeks before the election.
Things could be worse for Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy, perhaps an indictment pending in her email scandal, but these are still awful days in her campaign. While there are many threats to her prospects she cannot control, like an FBI investigation, she could surely butter up Bernie Sanders and stop bleeding support from his impassioned supporters. But instead, Clinton is making things worse.
Even though many Democrats are growing increasingly aggravated by Sanders overstaying his welcome in the primary contest, Clinton should leave it to others to throw salt in the wound. Declining a final debate with the Vermont senator and declaring herself the presumptive nominee on CNN last week has only made Sanders more defiant and could further injure Clinton’s own wounded campaign against a surging Donald Trump, who stands to win over some disgruntled Sanders voters on the issue of trade.
As Clinton urges Sanders to wrap it up and “do his part” to unite the party the way she did with thenBarack Obama in 2008, he is requesting a recount in Kentucky over a single delegate, planning floor votes over rule changes at what he predicts will be a “messy” convention in July and insists he is “invigorating” the party.
Sure he is losing staff and his money’s drying up, but it’s full speed ahead to try and win California on June 7 and undermine the former first lady despite knowing her delegate lead is “insurmountable,” as she has reminded him. Unity isn’t top of mind for Sanders these days. As he railed against the presumptive nominee for insulting voters from the nation’s largest state by refusing to debate, Sanders sniffed, he was “disappointed, although not surprised.”
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC LICHTBLAUMAY 25, 2016
WASHINGTON — The State Department’s inspector general has sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had.
In a report delivered to members of Congress on Wednesday, the inspector general said that Mrs. Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business” with officials responsible for handling records and security but that inspectors “found no evidence” that she had requested or received approval from anyone at the department to conduct her state business on a personal email.
The report also said that department officials “did not — and would not — approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business.”
It also added new detail about Mrs. Clinton’s motivation for using the private server, which she has said was set up for convenience. In November 2010, her deputy chief of staff for operations prodded her about “putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.” Mrs. Clinton, however, replied that she would consider a separate address or device “but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”
The report, as well as an F.B.I. investigation and other legal challenges seeking information about her use of the server, is certain to keep alive a controversy that has shadowed Mrs. Clinton’s campaign for the presidency. The events have all come to a climax just as she is close to defeating Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
As a whole, women support Clinton over Trump and Sanders, but 49% of women from across the political spectrum give her an unfavorable rating
Anoa Changa is a feminist who isn’t going to vote for Hillary Clinton. Last July, when the 34-year-old Atlanta-based attorney began volunteering with the grassroots organization Women for Bernie Sanders, she received immediate pushback from other women. Over social media, they accused her and other Sanders volunteers of betraying their gender, and of being fake feminists. Even former professors and friends questioned how she could support the Vermont senator over the secretary of state.
“Some women I encounter act as if I’ve betrayed some kind of secret society,” says Changa. “I reject this brand of feminism. I’m not only voting for my gender, I’m voting for other issues.”
For the first time in its history, America is close to electing a female president, yet many women from across the political spectrum don’t like Clinton.
Doubling down on his feud with the Democratic Party leadership, SenatorBernie Sanders said that if elected president, he will not reappointDemocratic National Committee chairwoman, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.
He made the comments during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that is set to air on Sunday. Mr. Sanders also said he was supporting Tim Canova, a law professor who has begun an insurgent campaign against Ms. Wasserman Schultz for her South Florida congressional seat. They will face off in a primary this summer.
“Well, clearly, I favor her opponent,” Mr. Sanders told Mr. Tapper. “His views are much closer to mine.”
For months, Mr. Sanders has accused the party of favoring Hillary Clinton, often calling her the “anointed candidate.”
He has criticized the party for a debate schedule that his campaign said favored Mrs. Clinton; an arrangement under which Mrs. Clinton raises money for the party; and the appointment of Clinton supporters as leaders of important convention committees.
Ridgewood NJ, Today May 17th is the deadline to register for New Jersey presidential primary. The GOP is settled but Democrats can still feel the Bern (Bernie Sanders ) or vote for Hillary Clinton.
In New Jersey, both the Republicans and the Democrats hold their primaries on the same day. This year it’s June 7.
If you are not registered, you need to register by May 17 in order to cast a primary ballot. (Use these links if you can’t remember if you are registered or if you’re looking for your polling location.)
New Jersey does not have online voter registration, Burns said.
“You have to print the form out, physically sign it, and mail it in,” she said. Forms are available through the state Division of Elections website, at county board of elections, at municipal town halls, and at social services agencies such as motor vehicle offices.
People can also call the League office to request that one be mailed to them. That number is 800-792-VOTE (8683).
On the registration deadline day, May 17, most county board of election offices will be open until 9 p.m.
In order to register in New Jersey you must be:
A citizen of the United States
At least 18 years old
A resident of your county for at least 30 days before the election
And not currently serving a sentence, probation or parole because of a felony conviction.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that his primary bid against Hillary Clinton was far from over, pointing to his victory in Indiana and strength in upcoming races as a sign of his durability in the presidential campaign.
“I know that the Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They’re wrong,” Sanders said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from New Albany, Indiana. “Maybe it’s over for the insiders and the party establishment but the voters today in Indiana had a different idea.”
Sanders spoke to the AP after he defeated Clinton in Indiana’s primary, predicting that he would achieve “more victories in the weeks to come” in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and California. The Vermont senator acknowledged that he faced an “uphill climb” to the Democratic nomination but said he was “in this campaign to win and we are going to fight until the last vote is cast.”
Sanders’ win in Indiana likely won’t make much of a dent in Clinton’s lead of more than 300 pledged delegates. Clinton is still more than 90 percent of the way to clinching the Democratic nomination when the count includes superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who are free to support the candidate of their choice.
by MATTHEW BOYLE AND ANDY BADOLATO26 Apr 20165,714
Election data compiled by Breitbart News on the Democratic Party’s primaries and caucuses in 2016 and 2008 show that turnout in is down significantly, nearly 20 percent, from the last contested election.
The data also show that the about 4.5 million fewer people have voted in the Democratic presidential contest this year versus 2008.
This year’s contest is a two-person race between Democratic Socialist
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
16%
of Vermont and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton is also a former U.S. Senator from New York, a position she held after eight years as first lady.
Hillary Clinton also ran for president in 2008, which makes this data all the more interesting: It’s essentially a comparison up against her previous failed race, when she was the frontrunning Democratic presidential candidate until then Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois blew past her late in the game taking the lead before winning the nomination and then eventually the presidency.
Back in 2008, as Obama battled Clinton, a whopping 23,715,866 people voted in primaries and caucuses nationwide in the states that have already voted this cycle. Fast forward to the next time there’s a Democratic primary for president, this year (since Obama was the incumbent president seeking reelection the primaries in 2012 were largely perfunctory), and turnout has dropped off significantly. Just 19,155,825 people have voted thus far in primaries and caucuses this cycle, a decrease of 4,560,041 voters or 19.23 percent.
The steep drop off is so significant on the Democratic side that the vast majority of states saw drops in voter participation in Democratic primaries and caucuses. The following contests saw less voters participate on the Democratic side in the primaries and caucuses than 2008’s contests: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Utah, Wisconsin, Vermont, American Samoa, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Washington state, and Wyoming.
Only a handful of states have seen increases in participation on the Democratic side, including Arizona, Michigan, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas and Maine. With the exception of Arizona, Sanders won—and Clinton lost—each of those contests. That means the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has only increased Democratic primary votes in one of the states she won this cycle as compared with 2008’s primary turnout. Every other state she has won this year has seen less turnout from last go-around.
Cory Booker is one of the most enigmatic people I have ever known. Rarely do you encounter someone with such overwhelming strengths combined with such unfortunate weaknesses. Cory was a breath of fresh air for Newark. He brought new respect to the city. He ended the succession of mayors who took office only to eventually find themselves behind bars. He elevated the urban issues of Newark and all cities like it across the country to a new level in the national consciousness. He is a truly inspiring and electric speaker. This is probably his greatest asset. He has the ability to electrify and galvanize an audience like Dr. Martin Luther King did. When you hear him speak it is truly moving. He is special. He is energizing to be around.
However, it is rare I have met someone who is that bright, that energetic, packs that kind of horsepower and, yet, allows himself to be “marginalized” by significant weaknesses. Cory Booker lacks executive ability. In my opinion, he should never be a Governor. He has demonstrated a limited ability and desire to administrate or supervise. And that is why I pen this editorial. I was hoping that Cory Booker would be an exceptional Mayor, one who would take Newark to the next level. In my opinion, that did not happen.
As Democrats – many of them in South Jersey pivoting hard from their agreement with Governor Chris Christie on Atlantic City in order to emphasize distance and convenient opposition – slam the governor on an insolvent state Transportation Trust Fund, Christie barked back at his would-be tormentors. Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJRead more
Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino – $138,000 in salary plus $129,987 from pension as an Emerson Borough police retire
MARK LAGERKVIST | MARCH 14, 2016
Loophole in law lets some state employees collect retirement money while working at new job
The ranks of retired public officials who collect more than $100,000 a year from New Jersey pensions have more than doubled in the past five years, according to an NJ Spotlight analysis of state Treasury data.
When 2015 ended, 2,296 retirees were collecting six-figure pensions from state pension plans. It is a 131 percent increase above 2010, when the count was 992.
The top of the “$100K Club is loaded with retired school executives. Former Essex County College president A.Z. Yamba leads the pack with $195,000 in annual retirement pay. Of the 30 pensioners who get $150,000 or more, 22 retired as educators.
But in sheer numbers, police and fire officials are predominate. Nearly half – or 1,131 pensioners – belong to the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System.
Of those PFRS retirees, 93 percent – or 1,050 – took advantage of a “special retirement” provision in state pension law. It allows law-enforcement officers – but not other public employees – to collect full benefits after 25 years of service, regardless of age.
When Joseph Blaettler opted for special retirement at age 46, the former Union City deputy police chief started collecting $134,773 a year from PFRS in 2009. If he reaches age 80 – his statistical life expectancy – he will cash more than $4.5 million in pension checks.
