BlueWaveNJ held a rally Tuesday morning to demand immediate action by the U.S. Senate to fund upgrades in voting security across the country. Representatives from the offices of New Jersey’s Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker, Essex County Freeholder President Brendan Gill, and dozens of activists joined BlueWaveNJ's call for voting security funds.

We are living through unprecedented times.  From this summers record melt of the polar ice caps, to the horrific devastation wrought by Dorian, the climate crisis is here and now and increasingly harder to ignore.  But as last weeks historic climate town hall demonstrated, we also find ourselves on rapidly transforming political terrain.  Could anyone predict that the entire field of Democratic presidential candidates would spend hours detailing their climate policy plans for a national television audience, many of which would have been viewed as impossibly radical less than a year ago?

Small “d” democracy

By Mark Lurinsky

Special counsel Robert Muller worried aloud during his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that the Trump campaign’s openness to accepting Russian assistance during our 2016 elections would become “the new normal”.  Then a few moments later, he exclaimed to chairman Adam Schiff that the Russians are continuing to interfere in our elections “as we sit here.”

All 50 state election systems probably targeted

By John Reichman

This is an urgent moment with regard to our climate crisis. We need your help next week to ensure that New Jersey has a real plan to combat our climate emergency and to address the needs of our most vulnerable communities. There is an important opportunity for each of you to be heard a week from Thursday, August 8th, in Newark.

By Donna Ward

Last week on Facebook, a friend posted a remembrance of the second anniversary of the death of her 32-year-old niece due to a fentanyl overdose. Similarly, one of our neighbors in Montclair lost their 27-year-old son this year to heroin laced with fentanyl.  The opioid epidemic is still wreaking havoc in New Jersey. While the rate of opioid prescriptions in New Jersey declined from 2016 to 2017, (the latest data available) and is below the national average, deaths from drug overdoses skyrocketed +29% to 2,685. The state’s rate of drug overdose deaths of 30.0 per thousand in 2017 is still well above the U.S. average of 21.7. Nationally, deaths have increased six- fold over the past 18 years, and have contributed to a lowering of overall US life expectancy.

Small “d” democracy

By Mark Lurinsky

Sometime after Robert Mueller’s late May press conference cast doubt on his willingness to become a witness at public hearings, I decided that I would recommit to the challenge of reading the full Mueller Report, which I had bought and put aside.  (Democracy isn’t a spectator sport, I told myself.)  I’m glad now that I pressed on.  With Mueller’s testimony to Congress now imminent, reading the report makes even more sense for us.

Small “d” democracy

By Mark Lurinsky

Editions

I bought the Washington Post edition of the report, which is now available for under $10.  There are at least three versions in print.[1]  I’m not sure that it matters which one you read.  My own preference however is not to begin by reading any publisher’s introductions or additional materials, at least until you have gone through the report itself, since the whole point in something like this which is the subject of so much controversy is to get your own understanding without being influenced by anyone else’s spin.

Small “d” democracy

By Mark Lurinsky

On May 9, President Trump’s national security advisor John R. Bolton ordered a military contingency plan to send up to 120,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East, although Trump, a few days later, insisted he doesn’t want a war with Iran.  How great is the war danger?  Where is it coming from?  What can be done to prevent war?

This week BlueWaveNJ joined progressive organizations across the country in hosting a rally for the National Day of Action to #StopTheBans and protect women's rights. We rallied in Montclair with over 150 attendees, to stand up to the draconian and cruel anti-abortion bills being proposed in states across the country.

We had local leaders, activists, and elected officials speak to the importance of legal abortion.

A5287 Establishes "New Jersey Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act."

This bill is a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize the right for women to make choices about their own bodies. The below is a list of the representatives who have supported this bill and their opponents in this year’s upcoming elections.

Read the full text of this anti-choice and anti-women bill here.