Author Archives: atomtabloid

By James J. Devine When Trump decreed from his gilded tower’s height,“Let Epic Fury burn through Persian night,”The jets took wing, the carriers churned the foam—A forty-day campaign to break Iran’s home.He swore on cable news, with jutting jaw,“We’ve crippled them, the greatest ever, flaw-less victory!” His thumbs blew digital smoke.But truth, that patient grave,Continue reading “The Ballad of Epic Fury Lost”

The phone rang in a regional office of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. On the other end was a mother whose daughter had been sexually assaulted by a classmate. The school had done nothing. The girl was afraid to return to class. The mother had filed a complaint months earlier. She was callingContinue reading “Trump gutted the office that protected America’s most vulnerable students”

The technical research ship USS Liberty was cruising in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967, when the jet fighters appeared. They made six strafing runs, raking the deck with cannon fire. Then came the torpedo boats. One torpedo tore a 39-foot hole in the starboard side. Thirty-four American sailors were killed.Continue reading “Fifty-nine years ago, on June 8, 1967, Israel killed 34 American sailors”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to police predatory lending, has been fundamentally reshaped under the second Trump administration. Its enforcement powers are gone. Its staff has been cut by more than two-thirds. The acting director has ordered employees to halt nearly all supervisory activities. But theContinue reading “Trump strips consumer watchdog’s teeth, but agency’s data lifeline remains”

President Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, removing his microphone and storming off the set after moderator Kristen Welker repeatedly declined to accept his false claims about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, a proposed compensation fund for political targets, and election fraud. Federal prosecutors and the FBI announcedContinue reading “Trump storms off with Meet the Press after the moderator challenged his lies”

The award-winning Atlantic Brass Band joins forces with acclaimed Broadway vocalist Ciarán Sheehan for a powerful evening of live music on June 12 at 7 PM at the Montgomery High School Performing Arts Center in Skillman, NJ. Performing in the traditional British-style brass band format, the Atlantic Brass Band stands among North America’s premier ensembles. A three-time North American Brass Band Champion, the group continuesContinue reading ” Award-winning Atlantic Brass Band promises an unforgettable night of music”

The promise was rock solid, lawmakers insisted. No cancer patient would lose coverage. The medically frail would be protected. The work requirements applied only to able-bodied adults who choose not to work. The promise was a lie. The Trump administration released its 400-page rule for Medicaid work requirements Monday, and the fine print reads likeContinue reading “Trump’s new Medicaid work rules erect barriers that sick Americans can’t climb”

New Jerseyans like to boast about their 130 miles of shoreline, 40 beachfront towns and a tangle of federal, state, and local oceanfront parks. But here is the raw arithmetic of escape in the Garden State, which once boasted 53 amusement parks, but now has only 18 that are still in operation. That is moreContinue reading “New Jersey has at least 130 miles of shoreline & 18 operating amusement parks”

The gray men in Brussels and Berlin do not say it aloud. Diplomacy forbids the satisfaction of an open wish for another nation’s electoral reckoning. But one does not need to listen very closely between the careful clauses of their communiques to hear the quiet, desperate hope that Israeli voters will do what European leadersContinue reading “Europe hopes Israeli voters will turn the page on Benjamin Netanyahu”

Juniper Blessing’s story began in Princeton, New Jersey, in the same town that gave the world a university, a battlefield, and the idea that some places might be smarter and more tolerant than others. She was born on Sept. 22, 2007, in Princeton, N.J. She attended Little Brook Elementary and Princeton Middle School, and moved toContinue reading “Juniper Blessing’s story began New Jersey, and met a tragic end in Seattle, Washington”

Today marks the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, the historic Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, which began the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. The last living World War II veterans made the journey to France to commemorate the Normandy landings, which mark the beginning of theContinue reading “Defense Secretary marks D-Day with neo-Nazi screed at cemetery in France”

The bullet passed through the father’s hand first. Then it kept going. It found the back seat. It found the mother. And it found the baby. Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was seven months old. He had barely learned to sit up on his own. On Friday evening, he was riding in the family car withContinue reading “Israeli forces kill a seven-month-old Palestinian baby, injure his civilian parents”

Authorities announced that a teenager from Rahway has been arrested and charged in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred on May 30 in Elizabeth. Bryan Calderon, 19, is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, and second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun in connection with the death ofContinue reading “Rahway teen suspected in Elizabeth slaying was arrested in Garden City, Georgia”

By Jane Stewart and David Sterle In western Colorado, home to the treasured Palisade peach, cytospora canker is one of the most economically consequential fungal diseases faced by growers. A recent survey conducted by Colorado State University in Orchard Mesa found that 100% of the orchards have trees infected with cytospora canker. In some orchards,Continue reading “A fungal disease & climate change threaten Colorado’s prized peaches”

Washington was rocked by a whistleblower who laid out Trump administration scheme that is not merely shocking but, to use the kindest word available, a disgrace. According to a former senior executive at the Social Security Administration, a man by the name of Jeremiah Schofield who served that agency for twenty-five years, the Trump administrationContinue reading “The plain, unvarnished truth about a scheme so low it would raise the dead”

The Department of Defense has reduced its official list of recognized religious faiths from over 200 to just 31, erasing nearly 180 belief systems—including Atheism, Wicca, Druidry, Unitarian Universalism, and Asatru—in a sweeping administrative overhaul that critics are calling a brazen act of Christian nationalist favoritism. The May 20 memo, signed by Under Secretary AnthonyContinue reading “Pentagon is playing God with 180 cut faiths, leaving behind pagans, deists, atheists and Unitarians”

By Thomas Piketty In traditional trifunctional societies, the ardor of warriors was tempered by the wise counsel of Brahmins. This alliance between the two ruling classes — warriors and intellectuals — was intended to balance strength with wisdom and ensure the harmonious development of society under the leadership of its natural elites. Together, the so-calledContinue reading “Trump, a Warrior without a Brahmin”

The World Health Organization’s decision to declare the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern is more than a bureaucratic designation. It is an alarm bell ringing across a world that has repeatedly promised to learn from past epidemics and repeatedly discovered that memory is oneContinue reading “World Health Organization: Ebola outbreak is an international emergency of concern”

For much of the 20th century, Americans understood that unrestrained capitalism was dangerous to both democracy and human dignity, despite a poisoning of the language that originated with the Red Scare tactics employed by politicians to exploit moral panic and hysteria in the U.S. over the perceived threat of left-wing subversion. The hard lessons ofContinue reading “Americans must shed paranoia to move toward a democratic commonwealth”