Category Archives: News you should know

The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a potentially fatal blow to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ruling 6-3 that a Louisiana congressional map with a second majority-Black district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The decision in Louisiana v. Callais imposes a sweeping new standard that legal experts say will makeContinue reading “The Supreme Court revives Jim Crow with the latest Voting Rights Act ruling”

You have to hand it to Congressman Frank Pallone. The man knows how to read a room. Or at least, he knows how to read a headline. Back in 2021, when investigative journalists had the temerity to point out that the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee personally held stock in Chevron, DominionContinue reading “Pallone still pockets polluter profits, but hides it better”

On a morning that should have belonged entirely to the memory of a retiring Baptist minister and the peaceful passage of one generation’s faith to another, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sat alone in a metal folding chair inside a high school band room, hands clasped in front of him, listening to theContinue reading “During 1966 visit, Montclair’s white residents told civil rights leader to get out of town”

The math is simple enough for a child to understand, and ugly enough to make that same child weep for the country she’s inheriting. A person working 40 hours a week at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 earns $290 before taxes. That is $15,080 a year. That is less than the cost of aContinue reading “Congress moves math to outlaw virtual slavery and legalized poverty”

Drive down Oak Tree Road in Edison on a Saturday afternoon, and the scent of fresh tandoori chicken and cardamom chai drifts through strip mall parking lots packed with cars bearing New York and Pennsylvania plates. This is not a scene from Karachi or Lahore. This is New Jersey, 2026, and it has quietly becomeContinue reading “Pakistani Americans are finding their political & medical pulse in the Garden State”

by Jacob Fischler, New Jersey Monitor The alleged shooter at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., wrote a “manifesto” ahead of his planned attack, President Donald Trump said in a Sunday morning interview on Fox News and later in the day on the CBS show “60 Minutes.” Meanwhile, Trump and MAGA alliesContinue reading “Trump: Suspect in Washington press dinner shooting created a ‘manifesto’ for attack”

There is an old saying about biting the hand that feeds you, but longtime Republican Sue Altman has decided to gnaw it off at the elbow and serve it for dinner. The former state director for Senator Andy Kim stood on a debate stage Sunday night and did what few political aides dare do whileContinue reading “Sue Altman turns on Senator Andy Kim to boost her bid for Congress”

The American people have been fed a diet of excuses and redactions long enough, and now a journalist has decided to haul the Department of Justice into court, demanding to see what the government is so desperate to hide in the Jeffrey Epstein files. The lawsuit, filed by attorney Brendan Ballou on behalf of NBCContinue reading “Journalist accuses DOJ of Epstein files cover up to protect Trump & others”

One hundred former members of the United States Congress have registered as foreign agents since 2000. Their clients include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China. Eighty-five percent of these lawmakers now work for governments that Freedom House rates as “not free” or “partially free.” The top ten foreign patrons include just two democracies:Continue reading “100 US lawmakers became foreign lobbyists, as revolving door opens America to enemies”

There’s a different kind of energy brewing in the Garden State this Friday, and it’s a long way from the Jersey Shore. The first of May is shaping up to be a day of organized disruption across New Jersey, with a call to action from an activist hub promising to blanket the state. According toContinue reading “New Jersey’s beleaguered workers demand democracy on May Day”

By James J Devine Let us pause for a single, sober fact: as of this morning, we have roughly one thousand days left. That is not a promise of relief. That is a countdown on a bomb that is already ticking somewhere inside the walls, and nobody in charge seems particularly interested in finding it.Continue reading “Only 1,000 more days of Trump’s dangerous and barbaric bullshit”

President Donald Trump dismissed claims that he’s under any pressure to end the war with Iran, insisting he wants “to get a great deal,” while announcing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire despite ongoing rockets and airstrikes amid a furious 24-hour news cycle with frequently changing narratives. On January 3, 2020, Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani was assassinatedContinue reading “A 1953 Iran coup, US blunders & campaign sabotage shaped decades of hostility”

Twelve New Jersey hospitals — institutions that have cared for the dying, delivered newborns, and kept the state’s most vulnerable communities alive— are now themselves on a death watch, their futures gutted by a single federal law. A report released last month by Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, has identified 12 New JerseyContinue reading “A dozen New Jersey hospitals are at risk of closing or layoffs due to Trump cuts”

The director of the Pentagon’s new “Economic Defense Unit” was a board member of Tier 1 Group, which trained four of the Saudi operatives involved in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Websites dating back to 2009 list George Kollitides in leadership roles at the private security company, indicating he was at Tier 1 Group when it trained the Saudi nationals later linked with Khashoggi’s killing. UnderContinue reading “New Pentagon leader is connected to a firm that trained Jamal Khashoggi’s killers”

by Lilo H. Stainton, New Jersey Monitor State health officials announced New Jersey’s first measles case for 2026 on Wednesday, hours after a legislative hearing that touched on Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s plan to increase state funding for immunization programs by nearly $4 million.   A Hudson County resident was diagnosed with measles following a tripContinue reading “New Jersey reports first measles case of 2026 involving Hudson County resident”

In the most closely watched House race in the country, a contest defined by suburban anxiety and national stakes, the leading Democratic contender to unseat Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr. carries a résumé that does not fit neatly into the moment. Rebecca Bennett is a pharmaceutical executive, a Wharton MBA, and a former U.S. NavyContinue reading “Oil money, nuclear dreams, and the Texas Republican in a Democratic primary”

There is a story unfolding in America right now, hiding in plain sight behind the gilded language of fiscal responsibility and free market virtue, that ought to make every working person in New Jersey put down their coffee and pay attention. It is the story of how the government you elected and the government youContinue reading “The Sell-Off: How Wall Street is picking the bones of American health care”

From two springs of poison, American ignorance, naivety, and arrogance allow many to overlook how their hands helped shape the hatred they now fear, rooted in the bloody history of the Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. invasion, subsequent occupation, and the shattering of Iraqi society. In the spring of 1948, Jewish men with guns and grenadesContinue reading “When it comes to Middle Eastern affairs, Americans have often been April Fools”

The warring tribes of Hudson County Democrats, having spent years and fortunes hacking each other to pieces, have suddenly discovered they are all one big, happy family. They call it a “unity slate.” To the voters who once believed a progressive wave might wash the old machinery out to sea, it looks more like aContinue reading “Hudson County Democrats have suddenly become all one big, happy family”

The woman who says she wants to represent New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in Washington appears to be running a campaign so desperate and so divorced from reality that it has left even some of her fellow Democrats shaking their heads. Her name is Sue Altman, and she has a problem. The problem is namedContinue reading “Carpetbagging candidate Sue Altman is banking on AIPAC & character assassination”