April 2018 - Page 6 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Meet Candidates for Albany School Board April 9

The vote will take place May 15 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Meet school board candidates Damarise Alexander-Mann, Ellen Roach, and Tabetha Wilson Monday, April 9 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at 32 Colonial Avenue, Albany. Your presence is welcome.
Please note that the school board election has been moved to May, to match when Albanians vote on the school budget, finally bringing the city in sync with the rest of the state.

There are three seats open: two full four-year terms and one partial one-year term, resulting from Kenny Bruce’s resignation in 2017. Tabetha Wilson, whom the board appointed last year to fill that vacancy, is running. Ellen Roach is running for re-election. President

Sue Adler is not running for re-election.

The Albany school budget vote, Board of Education elections, and Albany Public Library budget vote will take place May 15. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at these locations, which may be different from those for the general election.

Citizenship question on the 2020 Census

Being an old Census geek – I was an enumerator, going door to door in 1990 – I was rather appalled when the U.S. Census Bureau delivered its planned questions for the 2020 Census to Congress, which include age, sex, Hispanic origin, race, relationship, homeownership status, and citizenship status.

Ron Jarmin, who is “performing the non-exclusive functions and duties of the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau” said, correctly: “The goal of the census is to count every person living in the United States once, only once and in the right place… The census asks just a few questions and takes about 10 minutes to respond.

“For the first time, you can choose to respond online, by phone or by mail.” They REALLY want you to answer it online because it’s cheaper for them, which means it’s cheaper for American taxpayers.

“The 2020 Census is easy, safe and important.” It will be incredibly easy. It is incredibly important too. “Data from the census and American Community Survey directly affect how more than $675 billion per year in federal and state funding are allocated to local, state and tribal governments. The data are also vital to other planning decisions, such as emergency preparedness and disaster recovery.”

But is the 2020 Census safe?

Stealing from Bob Scardamalia, former chief demographer for New York State:

“To many, using the Census to ask every individual in the country whether or not they are a citizen probably seems like a sensible thing to do. After all, isn’t the Census used to determine political representation and shouldn’t representation be based on citizens? Well, NO!

“Since we’re so concerned about Constitutional language these days, the Constitution says nothing about representation applying only to citizens. The Census Bureau is to count EVERYONE resident in the country at Census time regardless of legal status or citizenship… I’ve spent most of my professional life working with the Census Bureau and on Census issues and this proposal is dead wrong.

“Let’s be clear. We do already learn about citizenship through surveys and it is true that many previous censuses” – e,g., the long form from 1970 through 2000 – “have had questions on citizenship and various forms of identification of foreign-born population and naturalization. In the 2010 Census, that disappeared from the every 10 year Census because citizenship was captured in the American Community Survey starting in 2005.”

The ACS is an annual survey that provides key socioeconomic and housing statistics about the nation’s rapidly changing population every year. The old Census long form, and the current ACS, ask of a sample of residents, at numbers large enough to be statistically valid.

“The administration’s proposal is ostensibly to get more accurate data but this proposal does the exact opposite. It will heighten the fear among immigrants and non-citizens that has been growing and will keep them from responding to the Census – which they, and all of us, are legally required to do. The Secretary [of Commerce Wilbur Ross] indicated that it’s better to have the data on citizenship and risk people not complying with this legal requirement. Did he just say, violate the law? Did he just tell people to not respond?

“Another point to be clear about. The Secretary’s expressed reason for pushing this forward is for the enforcement goals of the Department of Justice. The Census data – your response – is confidential, period. The President can not get access to your responses. Census employees are subject to imprisonment and fines (up to $250,000) for disclosing your data.

“The data that DOJ wants is for non-citizens residing in each and every one of 11 million census blocks and with that data, they can find individuals who are non-citizens. That, my friends, is illegal. That is what enforcement means and this proposal should not stand in the courts.”

As the Times Union (Albany, NY) noted:

“Experts say that many [immigrants], regardless of whether they are in this country legally, may not respond to the census out of fear. That could lead to significant undercounting, particularly in states with large immigrant populations…

“That, in turn, could diminish those states’ seats in the House of Representatives, whose 435 districts are drawn on the basis of the census, and in the Electoral College, which is based on Congressional representation…

“On a practical level, this is about money: States and localities with undercounts could find themselves shortchanged on federal aid, forcing them to cut programs or raise taxes.

“But the long-term damage would be to democracy itself…. it’s about rigging elections. It should be of grave concern to anyone who understands the implications of one party being able to game the political system to amass for itself more power.”

At least five former directors of the Census Bureau, who served under Republican and Democratic presidents, have written a letter opposing the citizenship question in the 2020 Census. 12 states or more are moving to sue the regime over its plans.

Getting REAL ID, as opposed to a fake one

I had blocked out four hours for the task of getting a REAL ID.

I have known about the REAL ID program for some time. Passed by Congress in 2005, it requires that “the Federal Government ‘set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses'” in the wake of 9/11.

“The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards.”

With my card expiring on my last birthday, I looked on the NYS DMV page. Boy, they wanted a LOT for a REAL ID!

*Proof of identity, such as valid license, birth certificate or passport…
*Proof of Social Security Number (or Social Security Number ineligibility)
*Proof of your date of birth
*Proof of U.S. citizenship, lawful permanent residency or temporary lawful status in the U.S.
*Two different proofs of New York State residence such as utility bill, bank statement or mortgage statement

I brought all sorts of documents, including my phone bill, my bank statement, a credit card bill, and who knows what else that was lying around, but it took me an hour to gather it all because so much of what I pay is online and automatic.

Terrible stories about the DMV abound, so I had blocked out four hours for the task. I went to the first person, who was the gatekeeper. She sent me to a counter, and the clerk looked at all my documents but decided she needed only three: my current DMV card, my passport (still current), and my most recent W-2 tax form.

She sent me to another counter where that clerk verified the info. I got the picture taken, she wished me “Happy birthday,” and I was out of there in about 20 minutes total. Way too easy, for a change.

Doesn’t REAL ID, all in CAPS, seem vaguely Freudian?

The card came two weeks later. An odd thing is that it’s black and white, which is more difficult to forge, I take it? Moreover, my glasses look as though someone drew them in with a Sharpie. And I’ll have it for eight years.

I got the ENHANCED version, which cost $30 more, so when I get deported to Mexico, I can come back. Seriously, it DOES allow one to “cross a U.S. border coming from Canada, Mexico, and some Caribbean countries.”

The ZIP Code 12345, as shown in this sample, BTW, is the actual code for General Electric in Schenectady, NY.

50 years ago: the MLK Jr assassination

The Lorraine Motel, where MLK was killed. It is now a civil rights museum.

If I were a believer in conspiracy theories, I would wonder about this coincidence: on April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech against the US involvement in Vietnam, an address that most civil rights leaders opposed because it could threaten his relationship with President Lyndon Johnson. And on April 4, 1968, he was dead.

It was that speech, which I read only after the assassination, that really fueled my own antiwar sentiment, that U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia was imperialistic and that the war diverted resources from domestic programs created to aid the black poor. Further, “we were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

One could note that the struggle in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968 wasn’t the mere bigotry in public accommodations, which prompted the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott of 1955/56, but about government injustice that provided sanitation workers, all black men, with substandard wages and unsafe working conditions. And that was the city in which MLK died.

I vividly remember the I AM A MAN signs on the nightly news. The strike began on February 12, but it was King’s presence starting on March 18 that really attracted attention. The labor action didn’t end until April 16, 12 days after MLK’s murder.

I was home when I heard the awful news, and almost immediately my father, the late Les Green, went downtown to try to “keep the peace.” He had been involved with something called the Interracial Center at 45 Carroll Street in Binghamton.

In answer to a Facebook query I posted, someone wrote that my dad “was very involved with the kids who hung out there, talking to them, and a little counseling if needed.” Whatever his role might have been, Binghamton did NOT have any “rioting” that night, as many US cities did in that painful period.

In 1970, I got to go by the Lorraine Motel where MLK was killed. It is now a civil rights museum.

While the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. had an effect on me, his death may have had the greater impact.
***
Fort Wayne, IN tribute to MLK, April 7, 1968

M is for the US marijuana laws

Jeff Sessions is doing the bidding of an out-of-date law enforcement establishment that wants to wage a perpetual weed war.

Those of you not living in the United States may not understand the odd complexity of the marijuana laws across the country.

Several states have legalized the use of medical marijuana. A growing number of jurisdictions have made it available for recreational use.

The states have been serving as laboratories of democracy. It is “a phrase popularized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis…to describe how a ‘state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.'”

Though marijuana remained on the federal books as a controlled substance, the US Justice Department had agreed not to go after users and sellers who were operating legally in their states. That is, until early 2018, when the Justice Department rescinded that policy.

The Rockefeller Institute of Government released a policy brief on how U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recent actions put the Justice Department on a collision course with states. Know what to do and can marijuana actually help for PTSD treatment?

Even members of the GOP have blasted the new policy. US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said, “By attacking the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly favor marijuana legalization, Jeff Sessions has shown a preference for allowing all commerce in marijuana to take place in the black market, which will inevitably bring the spike in violence he mistakenly attributes to marijuana itself.

“He is doing the bidding of an out-of-date law enforcement establishment that wants to wage a perpetual weed war and seize private citizens’ property in order to finance its backward ambitions.”

This issue has affected my job. Even before the Sessions ruling, but since January 20, 2017, the SBDCs have cautiously determined that they cannot knowingly serve a business associated with marijuana, even in states where it’s legal.

Moreover, there is a very real fear that if centers were to go after alternative funding to serve those businesses, they could lose their SBA (federal) funding. So I can’t answer a reference question on the topic, or even refer them to NORML or another organization.

US Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote: “For decades, the failed war on drugs has locked up millions of nonviolent drug offenders, especially for marijuana-related offenses. This has wasted human potential, torn apart families and communities, and squandered massive sums of taxpayer dollars.”

He has introduced the Marijuana Justice Act, which will remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances. I’m personally agnostic about marijuana use, but am vehemently opposed to its recriminalization.

For ABC Wednesday