#Bill Pascrell

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Paul V. Fontelo at Roll Call:

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat first elected to the House in 1996, died on Wednesday, his office announced on X. He was 87 and would have been the oldest member of the House if reelected in November.  “Bill fought to his last breath to return to the job he cherished and the people he loved,” the post said. “Bill lived his entire life in Paterson and had an unwavering love for the city he grew up in and served. He is now at peace after a life time devoted to our great nation America.” A veteran of New Jersey’s brand of politics who dominated his home Passaic County, Pascrell was known for his pugnacious demeanor in promoting tax enforcement and ensuring “tax fairness” for all income levels. To achieve that, “everybody’s got to pull on the rope the same,” he said.

An Army veteran and one-time semi-professional baseball player, Pascrell was a teenager when his uncle took him to his first ward meeting in the city of Paterson, then a factory town with a thriving textile business. The rough-and-tumble political arena left an impression on Pascrell. “There’s a lot of fist fights … I’m gonna like this,” he recalled in an interview. “I did. I stayed with it since I was 16 years old.” While he saw far fewer physical melees between parties in Congress, Pascrell said he stuck by the lessons he learned from his first exposure to politics. “See it through or else don’t start it,” he said. And when you are in a fight, “never yield.” In the 118th Congress, Pascrell was the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, having previously spent more than two years as the panel’s chairman. He and fellow Ways and Means Democrats scored several victories in the final months of the previous Congress, including enacting a major tax and social spending budget reconciliation law and, after years of legal battles, acquiring six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns in the lame duck session after the 2022.

Pascrell waged a long campaign to tax “carried interest,” a form of compensation for investment fund managers that is not taxed like ordinary income, a situation he called a loophole that allows rich individuals to avoid fair taxation. He repeatedly introduced legislation to change inheritance rules as well. His bill on the so-called stepped-up basis would have changed existing tax law so that when someone dies and passes on property, the inheritor would pay capital gains taxes based on the fair market rate of the inherited assets, with a few exceptions. Pascrell’s position on the Ways and Means Committee also gave him a platform to fight to restore deductions for state and local tax payments, which Republicans capped in their 2017 tax law. The cap on the SALT deduction hit people in the top income brackets hardest, but in states with high local property and income taxes such as New Jersey, it was also felt by less wealthy families. As a result, Pascrell framed his tax proposals as benefiting the middle class.

Representing a manufacturing-heavy district, he was a close ally of labor unions and focused on ensuring that countries trading with the U.S. complied with international labor standards.  One recurring bipartisan cause for Pascrell was research on and treatment of brain injuries. Inspired by the plight of a constituent, he co-founded the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force in 2001. The issue took on added importance after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks because of a spike in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with wounds from improvised explosive devices.  Pascrell was born in Paterson, N.J., where his Italian immigrant grandparents settled. His father worked for the railroad. The first member of his family to go to high school, Pascrell was an all-state third baseman, played semi-professional baseball for a team in Clifton and tried out for the Philadelphia Phillies after finishing his schooling in the early 1960s. 

New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) died today at the age of 87.

[madamspeaker]

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Bill Pascrell (9th May, 2023)

[politijohn]

Source

Source

Source

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), age 87, is running for re-election

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), age 85, is also running for re-election

The gerontocracy continues to run itself into its own grave…

[azspot]

While people do differ in their capabilities as they age, I do think there should be a general rule that someone over 75 or so should not be running for office. That doesn’t mean older people can’t be involved in politics. Absolutely not, there’s a zillion things to do, from serving as senior advisors to doing the day to day work that politics require. But in terms of running for office, what possible reason is there for someone in their 80s to be doing this, outside of some very specific circumstance? I can think of one. Jon Tester is 68 years old. It’s unlikely another Democrat is going to win in Montana for a very long time. So if he wins in November, he should keep running until he loses or dies because that’s a case where there really isn’t any good option. But that’s a very different electoral issue than president or some solidly blue district or state.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

He was one of the good ones, to be sure...

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Good Morning USA Monday, November 4, 2024, Jacksonville, Florida USA The Informed Voter

I heard New Jersey’s Representative Bill Pascrell say on Washington Journal once that in these times politics is more “Celebrity” than politics. Isn't that sad? Isn't it sad that elections are won and lost because of one candidate’s looks and ability to be “entertaining” as opposed to his ability to govern, his knowledge, his world view, his character, and (also, very important) his work ethic–a character trait missing in so many? Yet, isn't that how so very many of us determine for whom we vote? My granddaddy was a Whig, my daddy’s a Whig, and by gum and by golly, I’m a Whig. No one is going to change my mind.

In his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter–Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, the author, Bryan Caplan tell us that “In theory, democracy is a bulwark against socially harmful policies, but in practice it gives them a safe harbor”. He goes on to ask the question, “How can this Paradox of Democracy be solved? One answer is that the people’s ‘representatives’ have turned the tables on them….A second answer, which complements the first, is that voters are deeply ignorant about politics. They do not know who their representatives are, much less what they do. This tempts politicians to pursue personal agendas and sell themselves to donors”.

Think about this. Isn't it true as I said yesterday, “With freedom comes responsibility”? Where do you see responsibility when, in the course of our elections, voter (a citizens’) opinions vary from one day to another in the polls, swinging back and forth (not unlike the sword of Damocles) with the political commercials? How can political propaganda find a place in the mind of a truly informed citizen?

  Monday, November 4, 2024, Jacksonville, Florida USA From: Steven P. Miller, @ParkermillerQ, gatekeeperwatchman.org  TM ‎Founder and Administrator of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups. #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO.

[mariacallous]

as I said in this post

No one is really asking or bringing these questions up with senators like Dick Shelby, or Jim Inhofe, or Pat Leahy, or Bernie Sanders, or Chuck Grassley - all of whom are around the same age as Feinstein (and that’s just in the Senate - there’s Hal Rogers, Steny Hoyer, Bill Pascrell, etc. in the House) and decline or perceived weaknesses and health issues get brought up more easily and quickly and negatively with women in public office than with men, and there’s almost this shock or offense when you try to discuss men being weak or flawed or ill.

The perpetual candidate to which you refer had a fucking heart attack that his supporters and commenters just brush(ed) off and god forbid you ever mention it.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 10, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

“Good Lord, Who Among Us Hasn’t Paid For A Clarence Thomas Vacation?” David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo asked this morning. Kurtz was reacting to a new piece by Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski in ProPublica detailing Justice Thomas’s leisure activities and the benefactors who underwrote them. 

Those activities include “[a]t least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.” The authors add that this “is almost certainly an undercount.”

Thomas did not disclose these gifts, as ethics specialists say he should have done. House Democrats Ted Lieu (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), Gerry Connolly (D-VA), and Hank Johnson (D-GA) have said Thomas must resign. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has led the effort to extricate the Supreme Court from very wealthy interests for years, commented: “I said it would get worse; it will keep getting worse.”

Thomas’s benefactors, Murphy and Mierjeski noted, “share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence.” That ideology made Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who has been in the news for the release of his December 6, 2020, memo outlining how to steal the 2020 presidential election, speculate that Thomas was the Supreme Court justice the plotters could count on to back their coup. “Realistically,” Chesebro wrote to lawyer John Eastman, “our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress, is from Thomas—do you agree, Prof. Eastman?” 

Last Saturday, Republican leaders in Alabama illustrated that their ideology means they reject democracy. After the Supreme Court agreed that the congressional districting map lawmakers put in place after the 2020 census probably violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a lower court ruling that required a new map went into effect. But Alabama Republican lawmakers simply refused. 

Alexander Willis of the Alabama Daily News reported that at a meeting of the Alabama state Republican Party on Saturday, the party’s legal counsel David Bowsher applauded the lawmakers, saying, “House Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy doesn’t have that big a margin, that costs him one seat right there. I can’t tell you we’re going to win in this fight; we’ve got a Supreme Court that surprised the living daylights out of me when they handed down this decision, but I can guarantee you, if the Legislature hadn’t done that, we lose.”

Paul Reynolds, the national committeeman of the party, went on: “Let me scare you a little bit more; Texas has between five and ten congressmen that are Republicans that could shift the other way,” he continued. “How could we win the House back ever again if we’re talking about losing two in Louisiana, and losing five to ten in Texas? The answer’s simple: It’s never.”

Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall added: “Let’s make it clear, we elect a Legislature to reflect the values of the people that they represent, and I don’t think anybody in this room wanted this Legislature to adopt two districts that were going to guarantee that two Democrats would be elected…. What we believe fully is that we just live in a red state with conservative people, and that’s who the candidates of Alabama want to be able to elect going forward.”

The determination of Republican officials to hold onto power even though they appear to know they are in a minority is part of what drove even Republican voters in Ohio to reject their proposal to require 60% of voters, rather than a simple majority, to approve changes in the state constitution. 

Meanwhile, today’s July consumer price index report showed that annual inflation has fallen by about two thirds since last summer, a better-than-expected number suggesting that measures to cool the economy are working without hurting the economy. Real wages have outpaced inflation for the last five months, and unemployment is at a low the U.S. hasn’t seen since 1969. 

At the same time, the country is ending one of the last pieces of the social safety net put in place during Covid: the rule that people on Medicaid could remain covered without renewing their coverage each year. That rule ended in April, and states are purging their Medicaid rolls of those who they say no longer qualify. In the last three months, 4 million people have lost their Medicaid coverage, mostly because of paperwork problems. (Texas dropped an eye-popping 52% of beneficiaries due for renewal in May.) 

Biden officials have tried to pressure states quietly to fix the errors—including long waits to get phone calls answered and slow processing of applications, as well as paperwork errors—but yesterday released letters it had sent to individual states to warn them they might be violating federal law. Thirty-six states did not meet federal requirements.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[inexable]

Nellie Pou's Unexpected Rise: Democracy in Action or Party Politics?

The swift succession of Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) by State Sen. Nellie Pou has stirred an interesting debate. The process was a whirlwind — spurred by state law — but it saw party bosses essentially coronate Pou as the Democratic nominee for the 9th Congressional District. On one hand, Pou's extensive record and her role in empowering New Jersey's Hispanic communities seem to make her a worthy successor. Yet, critics argue this expedited process sidelined democratic choice in favor of party control. Do you think this selection process reflects the best of political pragmatism, or does it underline the need for more democratic methods in candidate selection? Share your thoughts!

[mediamonarchy]

https://mediamonarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240829_MorningMonarchy.mp3 Download MP3 Badger culls, fatally struck and the protection of children + this day in history w/super snakes and our song of the day by Neal Fox on your #MorningMonarchy for August 29, 2024. Notes/Links: Scientists tied to chemical industry plan to derail PFAS rule on drinking water; Michael Dourson receives funds from chemical makers and plans to develop and publish studies that benefit firms https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/27/scientists-chemical-industry-derail-pfas-regulation-drinking-water Baby’s first junk food: How companies prey on new parents https://archive.is/tMC0G Alain Delon’s family overrule wish to kill dog late French actor wanted to be buried with; The French actor, who died on Sunday aged 88, wanted his 10-year-old Belgian malinois, Loubo, to be buried with him. https://news.sky.com/story/alain-delons-family-overrule-wish-to-kill-dog-late-french-actor-wanted-to-be-buried-with-13200382 🗣️ “As predicted, the BBC’s badger cull documentary contained little more than the opinion of its presenter – Brian May.” https://x.com/FarmersWeekly/status/1828399504363594128 Video: Brian May badger documentary furore – Fieldsports News, 21 August 2024 (Audio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyE_Z_hxzsE Serge Gainsbourg – “Aux Armes Et Cætera” (w/Sly & Robbie // Vinyl // Audio) https://www.discogs.com/release/26978558-Gainsbourg-Best-Of-Gainsbourg-Comme-Un-Boomerang // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aux_armes_et_c%C3%A6tera_(album) // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPJWZILeLzU Footballer dies aged 27 after collapsing on pitch https://news.sky.com/story/juan-izquierdo-uruguayan-footballer-dies-aged-27-after-collapsing-on-pitch-13204583 Retired Marine general died of embolism at California base he once commanded By all accounts Mullen was very fit. Died of ‘natural causes’, a pulmonary embolism, at the age of 59. Also suddenly and unexpectedly. https://archive.ph/l01AK WWE icon Sid ‘Vicious’ Eudy dies aged 63 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxle0vxkyxo Family shares additional information on Sid Eudy’s passing https://www.postwrestling.com/2024/08/27/family-shares-additional-information-on-sid-eudys-passing/ Video: WWE remembers Sid Eudy (Audio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-zWhsifV34 Scott Thorson, Liberace’s Lover and Key Witness in Wonderland Murders Trial, Dies at 65 https://archive.ph/95dhd Roger Cook, ‘This Old House’ Star, Dies at 70 https://people.com/roger-cook-dead-this-old-house-star-age-70-8700450 Sven-Goran Eriksson, first foreign manager to lead England, dies at age of 76 https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/clyw3lze152o Mariah Carey’s mother 87 and sister 63 die on the same day https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2yd454nzvo Totally not corrupt NJ politician Bill Pascrell cacks out in office at 87 https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/21/politics/new-jersey-rep-bill-pascrell-dies/index.html Mum who wrote a book for grieving children goes on trial for husband’s murder; Kouri Richins denies lacing her husband’s cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. https://news.sky.com/story/mum-who-wrote-book-for-grieving-children-after-her-husbands-death-will-stand-trial-for-his-murder-13204528 Phil Lewis: Drag queen who inspired It’s A Sin TV series dies https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg58gege81no Death of woman on 1st day of Burning Man festival under investigation https://apnews.com/article/death-burning-man-festival-nevada-3d9f9883cfef4036c506c38b6cad87a0 Someone is *cleaning*house* this week… Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in US fraud trial ‘fatally struck’ by car while jogging https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/19/mike-lynchs-co-defendant-in-us-trial-fatally-struck-by-car-while-jogging Video: Yacht tragedy: Co-accused in Mike Lynch fraud trial died just days earlier (Audio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWbilSEXAuA The Last Shadow Puppets – “Separate And Ever Deadly” (Vinyl // Audio) https:/...

[mongowheelie]

New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell Dies At Age 87

New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell Dies At Age 87

[wanderervenom]

From CNN: Longtime New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell dies at age 87

Longtime New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell dies at age 87

[bnewschannel]

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell dead at 87

http://dlvr.it/TCBtwx

[posttexasstressdisorder]

As United States Postal Service letter carriers face increasing violence and assaults on the job, the police officers who could protect them have been sidelined by the government, a new Raw Story investigation revealed.

With letter carrier robberies skyrocketing by 543 percent between 2019 and 2022, the issue has spurred a bipartisan group of Congress members to introduce legislation aimed at providing more secure mailbox equipment and better protecting letter carriers.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who introduced the Protect our Letter Carriers Act last week, said Raw Story's investigation should urge Congress to turn the bill into law.

“The concerns highlighted in this story only increase the urgency needed in Congress to pass the bipartisan Protect our Letter Carriers Act," Fitzpatrick said in a statement to Raw Story. "The United States Postal Service must have the resources to update its outdated arrow keys and harden mailboxes. We must also increase the prosecution and lengthen sentences of individuals arrested for assaulting and robbing letter carriers. I will do whatever is necessary to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this crucial piece of legislation.”

A 2020 statute reinterpretation by the Postal Service curtailed uniformed postal police officers' ability to patrol the streets where mail crimes typically occur, restricting them to working on postal property such as post offices and distribution centers. Meanwhile, the number of postal police officers overall has shrunk from a high of more than 2,600 in the 1970s to about 450 officers today.

In a phone interview with Raw Story, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said mail theft is "rampant" in her district and is an issue she's heard about across the country from her colleagues. Postal police officers aren't currently "doing any good being confined to postal property," Norton said.

"The spike in mail crime only reinforces my notion that we need to have postal police go wherever the crime is," Norton said.

If postal police officers began patrolling the streets again, there would be "a better chance of restricting crimes for the Postal Service," said Norton, who is a co-sponsor of the House version of the Postal Police Reform Act alongside Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Ken Calvert (R-CA) and Bill Pascrell (D-NJ).

Calvert himself lost nearly $10,000 in campaign cash last year because of mail theft, Raw Story first reported.

"I think the bill has a good chance of passing not only because of what we're experiencing in the district but because this issue is nationwide," Norton said.

There's a Senate version of the Postal Police Reform Act, as well, introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Susan Collins (R-ME), along with 10 other co-sponsors, including Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD).

“Postal carriers routinely deliver lifelines to Marylanders and others across the country. They should not be left vulnerable to dangerous situations that leave them and mail recipients in potential danger – from theft and the lost items," Cardin told Raw Story in a statement. "This is a growing problem that Congress should address, preferably in partnership with the USPS.”

Read Raw Story's full investigation: Letter carriers face bullets and beatings while postal service sidelines police

[gatekeeper-watchman]

The Informed Voter

I heard New Jersey’s Representative Bill Pascrell say on Washington Journal this morning that in these times politics is more “Celebrity” than politics. Isn't that sad? Isn't it sad that elections are won and lost because of one candidate’s looks and ability to be “entertaining” as opposed to his ability to govern, his knowledge, his world view, his character, and (also, very important) his work ethic–a character trait missing in so many? Yet, isn't that how so very many of us determine for whom we vote? My granddaddy was a Whig, my daddy’s a Whig, and by gum and by golly, I’m a Whig. No one is going to change my mind.

In his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter–Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, the author, Bryan Caplan tell us that “In theory, democracy is a bulwark against socially harmful policies, but in practice it gives them a safe harbor”. He goes on to ask the question, “How can this Paradox of Democracy be solved? One answer is that the people’s ‘representatives’ have turned the tables on them…. A second answer, which complements the first, is that voters are deeply ignorant about politics. They do not know who their representatives are, much less what they do. This tempts politicians to pursue personal agendas and sell themselves to donors”.

Think about this. Isn't it true as I said yesterday, “With freedom comes responsibility”? Where do you see responsibility when, in the course of our elections, voter (a citizens’) opinions vary from one day to another in the polls, swinging back and forth (not unlike the sword of Damocles) with the political commercials? How can political propaganda find a place in the mind of a truly informed citizen?