suffolk county – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

‘South Country Unites’ says Thank You

David Posnett — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 18:33:53 +0000

South Country Unites Celebrates Inauguration Day

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021, members of South Country Unites, SCU, displayed yard signs in front of their homes to commemorate this very special day. They wanted to thank those committed, honest, hard working citizens, across 50 states and the District of Columbia, who made democracy happen. The members of SCU dedicated their display…

• “To all people who spoke up for justice and integrity

• To candidates for offices big and small, who believed that they can make a difference

• To campaign staffs, who in the time of COVID-19, planned and instituted a new, safer way of campaigning

• To petition carriers, door-knockers, phone and text bankers, letter writers – those who felt strongly that the best candidate must win

• To Boards of Elections in thousands of counties across our country who justly implemented voting laws, set up polling places, distributed ballots, hired and trained workers, and who counted and re-counted millions of votes under pressure

• To poll workers, who believed enough in free and fair elections to work 8 or 12 or 16 hour days with face masks and gloves, risking serious illness, to assure that each eligible citizen voted

• To the poll watchers who volunteered to assure that voters were treated fairly and laws were upheld

• To judges and public officials who sought to assure fair and free elections

• And to the voters, 161 million of us who made a voting plan and implemented it to assure that our voices were heard”

“The Members of SCU, THANK YOU! We honor your commitment and your hard work. May we all continue to work to support our fragile, 233 year old experiment in democracy. May we support President Biden and Vice President Harris as they and we, the people of the United States, address the difficult problems that lie before us.”

Photos courtesy of South Country Unites

Trump’s chearleader: Lee Zeldin

David Posnett — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:46:29 +0000

Don’t let him fool you: LZ will take away your healthcare, your reproductive rights and destroy the environment. Another 4 years of DT and another 2 years of LZ spells disaster. VOTE GOROFF for Congress, Biden/Harris for the top of the ticket.

Per Axios, @RepLeeZeldin is Trump’s #3 cheerleader in the House this year. Do not let his false claims of bipartisa… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
Perry Gershon (@perrygershon) October 13, 2020

A message from Nancy Goroff: End Citizens United just named Lee Zeldin, one of Trump’s most complicit and self-serving friends in the House, to their Big Money 20 list of top targets who are rigging the system to benefit themselves, their wealthy donors, and the corrupt establishment. As Zeldin becomes more complicit in supporting Trump’s denial of science and putting corporate interests ahead of Long Island families, his chances of winning this race are slipping. But this race isn’t ours just yet. This race is a statistical tie. If we can sustain our communication and field strategies with meaningful voter targeting, we will win. With 19 days left, help us close that gap now: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/nancygoroffcongress

Trump’s Economic Fallout

David Posnett — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 15:50:37 +0000

Guestwords in the East Hampton Star: Trump’s Economic Fallout for Suffolk County and Long Island

By John Tepper Marlin and Steven Newman October 1, 2020

President Trump’s three main economic initiatives have been radical 2017 cuts in taxes (at the expense of states and localities), unprecedented high tariffs on Chinese goods, and “deregulation” of federal agencies (entailing rejection of science-based programs). These initiatives have turned Washington, D.C., and the country upside down. How has this worked out? Following are some outcomes.

Mr. Trump’s denial of Covid-19 gives him ownership of its economic impact: The virus is not just an act of God. Mr. Trump’s knowing denial of its threat and refusal to recommend wearing masks immediately was a betrayal of his country. The pandemic is a national challenge just as much as the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center towers. An early science-based national response would have greatly reduced the huge negative economic impact.

The corporate tax cuts did not deliver on business investment: The main idea behind the 2017 Tax Act was to reduce the top federal tax rate on corporations from 35 percent to 25 percent. At the last minute, the law, which skipped customary hearings and staff analysis, took the tax rate down to 21 percent, even lower than its major advocates had asked for. Mr. Trump claimed the law would close tax loopholes, about which his newly uncovered tax returns show him to be informed. But few loopholes were closed by the 2017 law. He said businesses would invest the money and thereby create jobs. But after a few months, corporations switched to using the money to buy back their stock, which made a negligible contribution to job creation.

The impact of a fiscal change on the economy is measured by the “fiscal multiplier” — the change in gross domestic product for each dollar of change in tax cuts or spending. A 2015 Congressional Budget Office analysis concludes that fiscal multipliers are more successful for spending programs than tax cuts, for lower-income than for higher-income taxpayers, and for periods of recession than for booms. A widely cited fiscal multiplier for corporate tax cuts is only 0.32, compared with multipliers of 1.71 for an increase in food stamps, 1.55 for extending unemployment benefits, and 1.44 for infrastructure investment.

Tax cuts for individuals: The Tax Act substantially reduced tax rates for the top personal income brackets. When new money gets into the hands of average people, they spend it, because they have real needs that are not being met. This is not true for the very rich. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump argued that tax breaks should go to highest-income taxpayers. Policies that increase unemployment benefits, child credits, and food stamps are not only more equitable, they also generate more jobs.

The Tax Act’s cap on the SALT deduction hit New York State hard: The lowering of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent in 2017 was paid for in part by a radical cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT) at $10,000 per taxpaying unit, whether single or married and filing jointly. This cap was deliberately targeted at higher-tax blue states. New York State has suffered the most, as indicated by the July jobs data, the latest we have. Jobs were down from a year earlier in every one of the nation’s 49 metro areas with a 2010 census population of 1 million or more. They are below the level of five years ago in more than half of these metro areas.

The five worst-hit metro areas in the country over five years include all three of the large New York State metros — Rochester, Buffalo, and New York City (which takes in a wide swath including Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties, northern New Jersey, and a piece of Pennsylvania). The SALT cap was a shock to state and local officials, who are scrambling to address lost tax revenues, and one of the hardest-hit cities is New York, which, unlike the federal government, must raise new taxes, cut spending, or borrow. That’s a choice between higher taxes, fewer employees, or postponed fiscal stress. Cutting the quality of services, from sanitation and health care to schools, will affect real estate values just as much as high taxes. Coupled with new interest in less-dense living to avoid exposure to Covid-19, this is making the East End of Long Island a beneficiary. But Suffolk can’t afford to let the engine of its prosperity falter.

The cap on the SALT deduction encourages moves by higher-income residents: The cap on the SALT deduction has made it more attractive and urgent for higher-income individuals to move to lower-tax states and communities. Blue-state residents have been moving to red states and will presumably seek to raise standards of education and other government services in their new locations. One silver lining is that it doesn’t take very many people moving from a populous blue state to increase electoral support for quality education in a small red state. Residents of New Jersey and New York are moving to Florida, while Californians are moving to Idaho and Nevada. Residents of New York City are moving to less-dense communities like East Hampton. Activism for better-quality services may generate some surprises in future elections.

Stressed states and localities need cash and are not getting it: This fiscal year has caught nearly every government by surprise. The CARES Act gave the Federal Reserve the right to lend to states and localities, but the Fed is acting as if the facility is intended as a last resort, for municipalities that can’t obtain private financing. But the municipal bond industry and many state laws favor long-term investment, not financing an operating deficit. Forcing municipalities to cut spending while the coronavirus crisis is still at our door is reverse Keynesian of the kind that exacerbated the worst years of the Great Depression.

Fortunately for the Town of East Hampton, the supervisor, Peter Van Scoyoc, and the town board have been able to keep the town functioning on a steady basis, but concentrating federal aid on businesses rather than local government means less fortunate communities face bleak options.

Tariffs on Chinese goods: Mr. Trump’s radical high-tariff moves are being paid not by Chinese producers but by American retailers and consumers, especially the fashion industry, which is suffering a knockout blow. China’s response to the U.S. tariffs has been to divert key supplies to Europe and has created shortages in this country — for example, in personal protective equipment and many medicines. China has meanwhile retaliated with tariffs on U.S. farm products. The relief program seems to have been concentrated on large agribusinesses, leaving small farmers without aid.

Deregulation has created new risks: The president’s science-denying efforts to roll back environmental, pharmaceutical, and other safety regulations have increased risks in each of these areas and have hampered a national response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over all, the economy has fared poorly. Yet the stock market has had an astonishingly good run. The main reason is that some corporations have been buying back their stock and the Federal Reserve has been flooding the financial markets with liquidity to help banks make loans and stave off business bankruptcies. Historically, the total return on stocks in the S&P 500 since 1947 has been higher under Democratic presidents, 10.8 percent per year, versus a rate under Republicans of 5.6 percent per year. The top performance was under Presidents Clinton and Obama, while the most negative was under Nixon and George W. Bush.

It’s a case of an open spigot for big business and a parched earth for states and local governments and nonprofits. This has left New York City in a financial crisis, but East Hampton has been relatively unscathed.

John Tepper Marlin has lived in Springs since 1981. He was for 20 years a federal government economist and the chief economist to three New York City comptrollers. Steven Newman, a resident of Queens, was chief of staff and first deputy to two New York City comptrollers.

Voting in the Pandemic Era: Safety First.

David Posnett — Tue, 12 May 2020 01:36:06 +0000

Safety First (in the Southampton Press)

As the officers of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee, we wanted to share some thoughts about the controversial decision to cancel the New York State Presidential Primary. We understand that there are Democrats who wished the primary to go forward so that their chosen delegates would have more of a say in the development of the Party Platform. However, there are many circumstances that argue in favor of the decision to cancel the primary.

New York State is constitutionally prohibited from automatically mailing absentee ballots directly to voters. That translates into an onerous process requiring many hands to send out applications, check the applications when returned for validity and then mail out the actual ballots. So, this is a two-step process. Approximately 600,000 applications will be mailed in Suffolk County alone and then, depending on how many completed applications are received back at the Board of Elections, hundreds of thousands of ballots will have to be processed and mailed.

Once ballots are returned, they would be clocked-in, sorted and finally opened after election day, June 23^rd. Furthermore, since Suffolk County does not have scanners to do this work, hundreds of thousands of ballots in Suffolk County will have to be read and tabulated by hand at a time when the Board of Elections does not have a full complement of employees and social distancing rules are in effect.

We do not want any voters to feel disenfranchised, but the reality is that there is no contest for the Democratic candidate for President. This is not the same as canceling the Presidential election on November 3^rd. While the party platform is a worthy aspirational statement of our ideals, it has no teeth unless we elect more Democrats to every branch of government who will then have the power to implement those values. Similarly, the United States Constitution is just a piece of paper, unless there is the political will in this country to enforce it. We have already seen tremendous erosion of the rule of law in the past four years. Instead, let us focus on getting our candidates elected.

This is not politics as usual. This is politics in the midst of a life-threatening pandemic. It makes ultimate sense for us to put safety, health and the well-being of our voters and election workers first.

Gordon Herr, Chair, Southampton Town Democratic Committee

Robin Long, 1st Vice-Chair

Andrea Klausner, 2nd Vice-Chair

Where Were You Lee Zeldin?

David Posnett — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 19:20:54 +0000

In the March 19 issue of the Western Edition of The Southampton Press, the A section is devoted to articles about the coronavirus pandemic and the impact on Suffolk County and Southampton Town. There are quotes and statements from Governor Andrew Cuomo, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, mayors, school superintendents and hospital administrators. Conspicuously missing is any statement from Congressman Lee Zeldin.

On the congressman’s Facebook page and in his appearances on Fox News, from January through early March of this year, his comments included supporting President Trump against impeachment, criticizing New York for bail reform, insinuating that Democrats want to enable voting by undocumented residents, and the highlighting the danger of MS-13. But not one word about the growing epidemic.

Now that the pandemic has been declared a national emergency, his website has information for the public about the virus and his office has issued a series of press releases. But we know that Congress was informed by our intelligence services in January that the novel coronavirus that began in China at the end of 2019 had the potential to be a global pandemic. China released the genetic code for the virus at the beginning of January to help scientists in other countries prepare test kits and institute procedures to contain the virus. We did neither.

Instead, President Trump called it a Democratic hoax, Fox News repeated this misinformation campaign, and Zeldin focused on spreading lies about bail reform. Countries like Australia and South Korea that immediately implemented policies to test and contain the virus are in far better shape today.

No resident of the district should be surprised. Zeldin has not stood with protecting the public health of his constituents at any time in his tenure in Congress. He voted repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act, voted for the GOP deficient replacement bill in 2017, and lied about that vote in the 2018 midterm election, pretending he supported protections for pre-existing conditions.

The constituents of the 1st District are now facing a grave danger to both the public health and economic health of our district. Our hospitals in Suffolk County are facing overwhelming numbers of emergencies. And our shuttered businesses and their employees are facing ruin.

We, the taxpayers of this district have the right to know why we are on a COVID-19 case accrual curve closer to Italy than to South Korea. Where was Congressman Zeldin when this threat was building? Why was he busy spouting right-wing talking points and propping up a president who was calling this a hoax rather than raising the alarm about the threat to our district and getting us the necessary resources?

We need answers.

By Barbara Weber-Floyd

Westhampton Beach

The Economic Impact of the Virus

David Posnett — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 21:46:17 +0000

In the East Hampton Star: GUESTWORDS

By John Tepper Marlin

March 19, 2020

A monument near the office where I worked in Washington, D.C., until Sunday bears this quote by the Argentinean Jose Narosky: “In war there are no unwounded soldiers.”

We can say the same thing about the warlike shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of us have suffered already. We will all suffer in some way. If we learn from the record, however, we can take steps to minimize the impact.

My basic message is that there is a trade-off. Slowing the spread of the virus will extend the period in which the virus is present and may not reduce the number of people who are infected. What isolation will do, however, is reduce the death rate by lessening the overwhelming of Suffolk County hospitals and clinics. Britain is a week or more ahead of the United States, and the hospitals are pulling in final-year medical and nursing students; they are also bringing back recently retired doctors, including my own sister, who are at higher risk because of their age.

We want to avoid getting to Italy’s desperate situation, where crowded hospitals are making hard triage decisions, not accepting patients over 80, who are left to be cared for, and often die, at home. Staying at an understaffed hospital with too many diseased, highly contagious patients could be a death sentence anyway. They may be better off at home.

When I was chief economist for three New York City comptrollers, under Mayors Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg, I prepared the official estimates of the economic impact on New York City of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 (nearly $1 billion) and Sept. 11, 2001 (approximately $90 billion). The 9/11 attacks resulted in a $20 billion package for New York City, and large investments and annual expenses in public security, including security stops at airports.

When a major shock happens, governments need to act as soon as possible. Yet officials need time to process the challenge so that they prepare in the right way. Beds in New York City hospitals, for example, were emptied out and fully staffed to care for injuries after the 9/11 attacks, but the wounded never came. This time, the COVID-19 trauma will indeed require hospitals and personnel. Their preparedness will determine the number of deaths.

The lesson from the crash of 2008 is that the emphasis should be on putting money in the hands of consumers so they can keep the wheels of commerce turning. Senator Mitt Romney has suggested giving every American $1,000 to address the coming recession. He has the right idea.

For more than a year, I have been senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress, including when Representative Carolyn Maloney was vice chairwoman. I prepared a report on Trump’s China tariffs, the impact on the U.S. retail supply chain, and the plight of that sector. This made me an early student of the economic impact of the coronavirus.

In early March, the World Bank was still projecting 2.5-percent global growth in 2020, above the “post-crisis” low in 2019. The International Monetary Fund also forecast growth, but at a slower rate. Morgan Stanley predicted that even with a pandemic, growth would exceed 2 percent; the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development projected that a pandemic would cut the growth rate in half. The verdict of the stock and bond markets since then has been profoundly negative. In round numbers, the Dow peaked at 29,400 on Valentine’s Day. By the morning of St. Patrick’s Day the Dow was struggling to stay above 20,000. One-third of the value of this market was lost in a month. Three years of growth in the Dow disappeared.

On Monday, Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics said, “We’re calling the recession.” A Financial Times survey of economists was headlined “Global Recession Already Here.” The Federal Reserve’s two rate cuts, down 1.5 percentage points, just seem to have added to the financial panic.

The United States is fortunate that Asia and European countries faced the virus first. Italy’s experience is shocking because the death rate is much higher than China’s. China was able to build a new hospital in Wuhan in just 10 days. Italy was slower to act and has a considerably older population.

A model popularized by Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times shows why early action is crucial. It assumes 100 million U.S. infections by the coronavirus. With early intervention, the number of U.S. deaths is kept to 324,000, a death rate of 0.3 percent. If action is delayed, however, the number of deaths triples to one million, a death rate of 1 percent of infections. This is a conservative estimate based on what happened in Italy, where as of Monday the number of reported cases was 27,980 and the deaths 2,158, a frighteningly high death rate of 7.7 percent. Italy’s slow action was especially dangerous for its elderly population; it has the second-highest percentage of elderly people in the world. Japan has the highest.

France (2 percent) and Spain (3 percent) have lower death rates in part because they learned from Italy and have taken extreme measures and because their population is younger. Death rates are well below 1 percent in two countries that acted decisively to slow the spread of the disease — Germany (0.2 percent) and South Korea (0.9 percent). These may be the models to follow.

By Monday, more than 183,400 people had been reported infected with the coronavirus worldwide and 7,200 had died from it. In the United States more than 3,800 cases have been reported nationwide and 60 deaths, of which one-third were residents and staff in one nursing home near Seattle. The numbers for New York State were 1,374 reported cases as of Tuesday and 12 deaths.

The numbers could not be clearer. Active intervention saves lives. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio are doing the right thing by closing schools, restaurants, and bars. Intervention is already too little, too late, especially the lack of testing kits. What is needed now is effective mitigation — decisive action to slow down the spread of the virus.

Economically, Suffolk County is vulnerable because jobs here have not been growing in the past year, despite the fact that New York State is performing above the national average. The coronavirus and the stock market crash that it (and the return of excessive risk-taking by financial institutions) caused have not been helping. Even if the Fed’s cuts in interest rates to .25 to 0 percent help the market over time, public attitudes toward the market and the economy have shifted negatively.

East Hampton will benefit economically in the short term from the fact that many New Yorkers want to get away from the city ASAP, so rentals should be strong for the spring. When they get here, however, they will probably want to self-isolate. Year-round residents may be just as grateful if well-traveled out-of-towners stay in their homes. It will be many weeks before our retail stores, restaurants, and bars return to 2019 levels of activity.

How badly the East End and Suffolk County will be affected will depend on how well this area slows down the spread of the disease and increases the capacity of its hospitals and other health-related facilities. Imagine a scenario in which three times more patient beds and equipment such as ventilators are required than East End hospitals and clinics can at present provide. What kinds of planning and actions must we do now to provide for new isolation centers? How does one feed and care for the overflow while protecting those who are caring for this population? What facilities exist now that in April and May could be used as auxiliary care facilities?

If a patient decides to stay home, what kinds of help are needed? Do we need to have more people trained on an emergency basis to look after homebound patients? What equipment will they need? What substitutes can be prepared if ideal equipment is not available? Stay tuned to The East Hampton Star, which will doubtless get answers to these questions from local medical staff.

In a war on a disease, we must all be soldiers.

John Tepper Marlin, Ph.D., has been a Springs resident since 1981.

East Hampton Holocaust Survivor At School Fighting Anti-Semitism

David Posnett — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 15:08:17 +0000

Photos courtesy of the Mattituck-Cutchogue School District.

MATTITUCK, NY — A school district that has pledged to take a strong stand in the fight against anti-Semitism welcomed a Holocaust survivor to speak to students.

As part of the district’s ongoing efforts to expand students’ awareness of cultural diversity and the importance of acceptance and inclusion, students from Mattituck Jr./Sr. High School participated in the Springs School Cultural Diversity Institute.

Students had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of cultural diversity and to engage in a meaningful dialogue on the negative impact of bias, prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping with a diverse group of community members, the district said.

Holocaust survivor Judy Sleed, who lives in East Hampton, shared the “moving and memorable” story of her past and encouraged the students to be accepting of all cultures in schools, the community and the world. Sleed lived under German occupation in Budapest, Hungary, in March, 1944, with the worst of her ordeal taking place on Oct. 20 to 24, 1944, she has said.

The Springs Union Free School District’s Diversity Institute was formed for sixth graders and their families with an eye toward focusing on tolerance and inclusion, something the Mattituck-Cutchogue Union Free School District administrators have pledged to put an increased focus upon.

Mattituck Junior-Senior High School Principal Shawn Petretti sent a letter home to parents in January discussing concerns over “several incidents that have occurred this year in regards to individual students joking about their support and admiration of Nazism and Adolf Hitler.”

There have also been incidents involving “language and acts” associated with anti-Semitism, he said, which have taken place primarily in the 7th to 10th grade population.

“We take all of these situations very seriously and have handled them as acts of bias, resulting in a combination of discipline and counseling,” he said.

With an eye toward proactive solutions, the Mattituck-Cutchogue Union Free School District has also invited the Holocaust Memorial and Education Center of Glen Cove to come to Mattituck High School later in the month to speak to students, Petretti said.

He added that he would begin immediately to have grade-level discussions with students to discuss the “impact and severity of any acts of bias” and said that any such future acts would be dealt with swiftly and in compliance with school code.

“As educators, when we see trends in negative behaviors and habits, we look to find the cause as a means of addressing the issue,” Petretti said. “One of the things we have discovered is that the recent increase in incidents of anti-Semitism is not isolated to Mattituck but is happening in junior and senior high schools across New York. Another thing we have discovered is that an app, very popular with adolescents, called TikTok, is littered with videos containing messages of pro-Nazism as well as anti-Semitism. Much of the content is targeted to children and teens and is delivered through comedic videos clearly sending the wrong message to our children,” Petretti said.

Petretti asked parents to speak to their children and explain the “harmful impact and severity of words,” so that they and the district can work together to put an end to the behavior and ensure the Mattituck Junior-Senior High School is a respectful and safe environment.

Parent Lauren Gilbert said she was happy that parents had been notified. “I think that this generation is highly unaware of the severity of these things. Whether they are learning it at home or from some social media app, I don’t believe for a second that in 2019 our middle and high school students are making foul remarks about the Holocaust and supporting Hitler while also knowing all the facts, as well as being aware of what their words and actions have the power of doing,” she said. “It’s extremely unfortunate to see some students take such a large step back in time. I hope that the disciplinary actions as well as counseling and educational actions the school is taking will have a lasting impact on the ones who need to hear it most.”

Sonia Spar, co-chair of the Southold Town Anti-Bias Task Force, said she feel it is troubling to see that disseminating hate has increasingly become mainstream and school children are using hateful and bigoted language.

“It is very important that school officials are clearly stepping up to denounce the hateful message, are bringing this situation to the attention to the entire school community and are sending the clear message that this kind of rhetoric and behavior is totally unacceptable,” Spar said. “Education and leadership are our best hope for eliminating hate. The rise in hate and anti-Semitism across New York State and in the country is of great concern. We — as a community — must do all we can to prevent that this kind of hateful language becomes normalized.”

Spar added that the ABTF, together with Greenport, Southold and Mattituck schools are coordinating a cross district peer to peer leadership anti-bias in-depth training for students in grades 7 to 11. “We believe this is a very important effort,” she said.

It’s not the first time schools on the East End have had to face anti-Semitism in recent months: In April, anti-Semitic graffiti was spray painted at Westhampton Beach High School.

A company spokesman for TikTok responded: “Hate speech is not permitted on TikTok. We make this very clear in our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines, and we remove inappropriate content and terminate accounts that violate our policies. We are committed to promoting a safe and positive app environment for our global community and there is absolutely no place for discrimination, including hate speech, on this platform. For more, please visit our Safety Center.”

(Reprinted in it’s entirety). David P

Jobs? Where are they?

David Posnett — Wed, 02 May 2018 18:08:43 +0000

From: John Tepper Marlin, Ph.D., President, Boissevain Books LLC, Principal, CityEconomist
WHERE ARE THOSE GREAT NEW JOBS FOR LONG ISLAND THAT TRUMP AND ZELDIN PROMISED

These figures were released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They are for Nassau and Suffolk Counties. March 2018 compared with March 2017 (the numbers are not seasonally adjusted, so you have to use year-over-year monthly comparisons).

Unemployment	4.2%	4.6%	Up .4 of a percentage point
Payroll Jobs	1,482,557	1,464,134	Down 18,423

YOU CAN BE SURE IF THE NUMBERS WERE GOOD, ZELDIN WOULD BE TRUMPETING THEM. BUT THEY ARE NOT GOOD.

NEWSDAY:

Long Island’s unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent in February, from 4.8 percent in February 2017, state data released Tuesday show. It was the fifth consecutive year-over-year increase since October.

The rate rose in 10 months of 2017 and has been steadily moving away from what is considered full employment, which is 4 percent or below.

The number of employed residents fell by 9,500 last month, compared with a year earlier, to 1.39 million, the lowest for the month since 2015. The number of unemployed Long Islanders rose by 3,300 to 74,300, the Labor Department said. That was the highest for the month since 2015.

Southampton has the worst jobless rates for the entire island!

Trickle down economics = voodoo economics = fool me once, fool me twice…

Liability for local law enforcement choosing to work with ICE

David Posnett — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 21:56:56 +0000

Police Chief Suspended for Exposing Illegal Aliens Employed at Local Plants

A brand new report points to the legal liabilities for local government that choose to enforce Federal Immigration Laws.

What is remarkable is that the 13-page report is authored by representatives of 5 organizations: 1) American Immigration Council; 2) American Immigration Lawyers Association; 3) National Immigrant Justice Center; 4) National Immigration Law Center; and 5) Southern Poverty Law Center.

The 13 page report makes 4 major points:

ICE detainer requests (Form I-247A) constitute a “new arrest” under the 4th Amendment of the Constitution: an additional custody of 48 h after the subject would normally be released. An ICE detainer does not provide local law enforcement with the authority they need to undertake an arrest. This is supported by a ruling in Feb. 2018 by the US District Court in California (Roy vs. County of Los Angeles), and a ruling of Massachusetts’ highest court (Lunn vs. Commonwealth).
Immigration and Nationality Act. ICE routinely cajoles local law enforcement to undertake detainer arrests, under the guise that such detainers were envisioned by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act. This claim, however, contradicts the historic detainer practice, which Congress codified in 1986—namely that “de-tainers” were solely intended as a tool to notify of anticipated release, not an authorization or request to continue detention.
Each of ICE’s historical detainer options is illegal.
– “Secure Communities” initiated under Bush in 2008: information sharing between databases where every fingerprint submission to the FBI is automatically shared with ICE; ICE then conducts a cursory investigation of every individual with a reported foreign place of birth and determines whether to issue a detainer! The program led to racial profiling and resulted in countless cases of unlawful detention of American citizens. Lawsuits were filed across the country. Program discontinued November 2014.

– Priority Enforcement Program (PEP): While fewer detainers were issued, the forms continued to request that local law enforcement engage in unlawful civil arrests.

– Reinstatement of “Secure Communities”; March 2017 detainer policy,

requiring that ICE accompany the issuance of a detainer with an “administrative warrant” signed by an ICE officer (either Form I-200 or Form I-205) and affirming probable cause of removability. Does nothing to cure local law enforcement’s lack of legal authority to make an immigration arrest. These warrants are not reviewed by a neutral magistrate to determine if they are based on probable cause as required by the Fourth Amendment, nor do they provide any evidence of suspicion of commission of a new criminal offense.

– In June 2017, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, Florida, wrote to the presidents of the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Major County Sheriffs of America. He proposed that local law enforcement (1) enter into a cooperative agreement with ICE known as a 287(g) agreement; or (2) contract with ICE for the detention of non-citizens by entering into an Inter-Governmental Service Agreement (IGSA). However, local officers who wrongfully issue and enforce detainers under the 287(g) program remain liable for the constitutional and legal violations those practices entail. IGSAs are contracts between local entities and the federal government for local entities to receive payments to provide bed space, but do not give authority to local law enforcement to take people into custody.

– Basic Ordering Agreements & the Form I-203. (January 25, 2018) 17 county sheriffs in Florida announced a new mechanism put forward by ICE: each jurisdiction agrees to hold individuals pursuant to ICE detainers for up to 48 hours and receive a $50 reimbursement from ICE. ICE will accompany a detainer with Form I-203, an administrative form used by ICE to track those in its custody. A BOA is not a contract, and neither the BOA nor the Form I-203 obligates the jail to honor any particular detainer. ICE claims these new agreements give localities “liability protection from potential litigation”. Nothing about the BOA mitigates the constitutional problems and lack of arrest authority that accompany detainer compliance. Despite ICE claims that use of a BOA will protect localities from liability, there is no actual statute protecting the local jails from litigation and ICE has not offered to indemnify local officials.
Entanglement with ICE carries risks outside the legal realm. This is arguably the most important and threatens everyone’s security. When states and localities are, or are perceived to be, participating with ICE, immigrants and the rest of us grow increasingly afraid of local police. We all know this is happening.

Taking Action for Suffolk County: TASC

David Posnett — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 09:48:48 +0000

From Bryan Erwin
Founder, Taking Action for Suffolk County

I started Taking Action for Suffolk County to rebuild what we once had, the ability to elect progressives up and down the ballot in Suffolk County.

In truth, given the outcome of the 2016 national election, I would have founded TASC even if we had calm, common sense elected representatives who were in the community engaging us.

We have no such luck.

Instead, we have two Congressmen who, in my opinion, have embraced the worst of the Trump agenda and rhetoric. Not only with a voting record in lockstep with President Trump, but with reprehensible words and actions that are further dividing us. But with your support we can make a change!

For Peter King:

Voted for the Republican healthcare repeal bill when it was in the House, and then railed against it in the Senate. The bill he voted for would have cut $14 million from 3 hospitals in his district, and left 2.7 million NY residents without healthcare.
Urged President Trump to put Muslims and community and student groups with Muslim members under strict surveillance based on a failed NYPD program. The NYPD dismantled that practice due to its encroachment on civil liberties, potential unconstitutionality and its utter ineffectiveness.
In Peter King’s district, the opioid crisis has impacted families and communities of all backgrounds. Peter King has done nothing to help solve this crisis, and has ignored it. He has done nothing to lobby Trump to do more to address this. Indeed, Trump’s recent declaration of an “emergency” did nothing to provide support for communities facing this epidemic.

For Lee Zeldin:

Said Trump was right to call out liberals for being as violent as those on the “alt right” protesting in Charlotesville and in 2016 called President Obama “racist”.
Took $10,000 of NRA money. His only response or legislative action to the tragedy in Las Vegas was a tweet mourning the “senseless loss;” and voted to allow the severely mentally ill to purchase firearms.
Appears with President Trump to claim leadership in the fight on MS-13, yet voted against funding for our police to buy cameras to collect license plate data, a proven tool to fight terrorists and gangs.
Has consistently voted for draconian GOP budgets that cut federally subsidized student loans, a necessary component to afford college from high cost Long Island.
Not only voted for, but co-sponsored the so-called First Amendment Defense Act which allows for businesses to discriminate based on perceived sexual orientation.

Forget sharing our progressive values, the above actions, votes and statements demonstrate that Representatives Zeldin and King are not even mainstream Republicans, but are part and parcel of the ethno-nationalist radicalization of the Republican party.

The truth is they only vote and act this way, because they can. They are counting on your being too busy to notice and to fed up to do anything about it. Zeldin and King are serving their extremist masters in the White House and the right-wing donor base.

But TASC knows. And TASC is keeping score. And we are motivating our neighbors to register to vote, to engage our neighbors on issues they care about now and not waiting until election season. But we need your help to keep it up!

They have gone too far. Fight back now with TASC.

Bryan