A $40 million flameout in New Jersey’s
race for governor puts scrutiny on teachers union
Posted By: sunset, 6/29/2025 10:29:20 PM
New Jersey’s most politically influential union funneled more than $40 million into this year’s race for governor — only to land with a fifth-place finish. Now, its political instincts are in question. The New Jersey Education Association made its largest investment in a campaign to support its president, Sean Spiller, in his longshot bid for the governor’s mansion. No other special interest group has ever spent as much in state history to promote a single candidate, a sign of an increase of big money in state races
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Seven people were unaccounted for Wednesday after a Northern California warehouse storing fireworks exploded in a huge fireball Tuesday and sent pyrotechnics bursting above the scene, officials said.
Firefighters responded to the warehouse in the Esparto area, northwest of Sacramento, around 5:50 p.m. Tuesday and found explosions and numerous buildings on fire, Esparto Fire Protection District Chief Curtis Lawrence said.
The warehouse then detonated. Helicopter video showed white smoke pouring from the roof before the warehouse erupted in a fireball.
After weeks of negotiations, the Senate has passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—a ten-year fiscal package which would serve as the vehicle for fulfilling President Donald Trump’s campaign promises on tax cuts and border security. Despite intra-party debates on overall deficit levels, healthcare reform and how to undo President Joe Biden’s environmental policies, Republicans were ultimately able to find a consensus under the leadership of newly-minted Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. The bill, which has passed by a margin of 51-50 in the Senate with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, will now go to the House of Representatives,
The Department of Justice has charged 324 individuals, including 100 medical professionals, due to their alleged involvement in a $16.4 billion healthcare fraud scheme, marking the largest healthcare fraud takedown in DoJ history. The $14.6 billion scheme spanned across all 50 states – resulting in law enforcement seizing over $245 million in cash, cryptocurrency and luxury vehicles, among other assets. Just in Arizona, a United Arab Emirates-based billing company had allegedly defrauded Medicaid of $650 million, and the company targeted Native American and homeless patients for “addiction treatment scams,” according to the Washington Examiner.
Supreme Court to Hear JD Vance Case
0 replies
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Republican-led challenge to a federal campaign finance law provision that limits how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates. The case, which centers on free speech claims, involves Vice President JD Vance, who was a U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio when the lawsuit was initiated.
The justices took up an appeal from Vance and two Republican committees, contesting a lower court's decision that upheld the spending limits. The challengers argue the restrictions violate constitutional protections by capping party spending influenced by input from supported candidates.
Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the highly anticipated murder trial accused of killing four Idaho college students, accepted a plea deal.
A victim’s family member told the Idaho Statesman that they received a letter, and provided the letter to the Statesman, confirming the plea deal. The plea deal was first reported by NewsNation.
Kohberger was accused of fatally stabbing the University of Idaho students in November 2022 in their off-campus Moscow home. He faced four first-degree murder charges and, if convicted, could have been sentenced to death in a trial that was slated to start with opening statements on Aug. 18.
Nebraska Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon appears poised to leave Congress in early 2027. One House Republican strategist who works on campaigns across the country said Bacon was not running for reelection and that he had already telegraphed what he was going to do. He spoke to the Examiner Friday on the condition that he not be named publicly, because he was not authorized to share the decision. “Don’t get me wrong,” the consultant said. “This seat is tougher without Bacon, but he’s not special. It can be done.”
Five other local Republican sources familiar with Bacon’s choice confirmed that he had decided to skip the 2026 race.
New Jersey’s most politically influential union funneled more than $40 million into this year’s race for governor — only to land with a fifth-place finish. Now, its political instincts are in question. The New Jersey Education Association made its largest investment in a campaign to support its president, Sean Spiller, in his longshot bid for the governor’s mansion. No other special interest group has ever spent as much in state history to promote a single candidate, a sign of an increase of big money in state races. Spiller struggled to raise his own funds — so much so that he didn’t qualify for debates in the Democratic primary.
El Salvador’s president said he would send inmates of the country’s notorious mega-prison to France in the wake of a Paris Fashion Week show critiquing the government’s treatment of the prisoners.
Nayib Bukele criticised a collection debuted by Willy Chavarria, a Mexican-American designer, featuring models wearing outfits resembling inmate uniforms at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot). Responding to a message online saying Mr Chavarria’s show was a tribute to Cecot prisoners, the El Salvador president wrote: “We’re ready to ship them all to Paris whenever we get the green light from the French government.”
The US and China finalized a trade understanding reached last month in Geneva, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, adding that the White House has imminent plans to reach agreements with a set of 10 major trading partners.
The China deal, which Lutnick said had been signed two days ago, codifies the terms laid out in trade talks between Beijing and Washington, including a commitment from China to deliver rare earths used in everything from wind turbines to jet planes.
“They’re going to deliver rare earths to us” and once they do that, “we’ll take down our countermeasures,” Lutnick told Bloomberg News in an interview.
One of the biggest political races in recent Kentucky history has a new entrant.
Nate Morris, a Republican tech entrepreneur from Lexington, announced Thursday evening that he would run to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is not seeking reelection in 2026. The announcement came during an appearance on a podcast hosted by President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
Morris and allies have been hinting for months that this announcement could come. He has made headlines leading up to the announcement with his disparaging comments toward McConnell, going so far as to call him “scum” on a right wing podcast.
Supreme Court rules for Trump, limits
district judges’ power to block his
orders nationwide 8 replies
district judges’ power to block his
orders nationwide 8 replies
The Supreme Court has limited the power of federal district judges to hand down orders that apply nationwide.
By 6-3 vote, the justices said Friday that judges may not issue orders that apply to people beyond those who sued.
“Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett. And while judges can give full relief to plaintiffs, including groups of people, their injunctions should not be “broader than necessary” to shield those people.
The court’s three liberals dissented.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Trump administration is trying to defend a blatantly unconstitutional order repealing birthright citizenship.
The Trump administration is preparing to test a 1974 budget law by refusing to spend congressionally mandated funds, senior federal officials say — an escalation that could change the balance of power between Congress and the White House.
In both internal communications and interviews, more than two dozen current and former employees across multiple agencies said the administration appears to be readying to push the boundaries of the law meant to prevent the president from unilaterally overturning spending decisions made by Congress.
Key White House aides have long argued that the law is an unconstitutional limit on presidential power and suggested that they will seek court rulings to overturn it
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The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from participating in its women's sports programs, resolving a federal civil rights investigation centered on swimmer Lia Thomas. The U.S. Department of Education announced the agreement Tuesday, saying the university violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete in women's events.
The case marks a significant moment in the Trump administration's broader push to restrict transgender athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports. As part of the resolution, Penn will reinstate Division I swimming records and titles to female athletes displaced by Thomas's victories and issue personalized apology letters to each of them.
Pity poor Jaguar. The British-based luxury and performance carmaker has had a rough go of it this century, but nothing could prepare anyone for the most bone-headed move in corporate history — and I don't mean Jaguar's woke "Reimagine" ad from late last year.
Let me bring you up to speed.
As recently as 2018, Jaguar sold 180,833 cars annually. Last year, they sold fewer than 33,000. In April — the most current sales figures available — Jag sold just 49 cars in the massive UK/Europe market. U.S. sales figures aren't available yet, but they aren't any better.
Jaguar went from selling 1,961 cars a month to 49 in just six years.
“Millions will die” [Updated]
30 replies
From the U.K. Daily Mail,
More than 14 million people could die as a result of Donald Trump’s foreign aid cuts, a new study has found.
The US President’s administration announced it had slashed 83 per cent of programmes run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) shortly after he returned to the White House for a second term.
And now research published in the leading medical journal, Lancet, has predicted that 14 million people – 4.5 million of whom are children under the age of five – could die by 2030 as a result.
There are something like 195 independent nations on the planet, and not a single one, other than America,
New Yorkers faced the choice of a miscreant former governor and a radical Democrat socialist for the position of mayor in the Democrat primary. Prior to Zohran Mamdani’s election in the primary, his absurd and speculative plans to provide all kinds of freebies to the citizenry were the talk of the town:
Mamdani’s platform focused on a number of issues that have animated socialists in the Democratic Party, including raising the minimum wage, hiking taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans, cracking down on delivery apps, as well as investing in affordable housing and creating city-owned grocery stores.
His campaign proposes a new minimum wage law that would raise the wage floor for
On July 4th, the movie “Sinners” will become the first show to be interpreted into “Black American Sign Language (BASL),” per a press release from Warner Bros.
The entertainment company described it as “a major step forward in accessibility, representation, and visibility in streaming.”
“BASL is a distinct dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) with its own dynamic history and unique grammar, signing space, rhythm, facial expressions, and cultural nuances,” the release stated. “For the first time, the Black Deaf community will have streaming access to a more
Mystery surrounds the Jeffrey Epstein
files after Bondi claims ‘tens of thousands’
of videos 24 replies
files after Bondi claims ‘tens of thousands’
of videos 24 replies
It was a surprising statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi as the Trump administration promises to release more files from its sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein: The FBI, she said, was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of the wealthy financier “with children or child porn.”
The comment, made to reporters at the White House days after a similar remark to a stranger with a hidden camera, raised the stakes for President Donald Trump’s administration to prove it has in its possession previously unseen compelling evidence.
When he's not assisting with taking out Iran's nuclear capabilities, revoking visas from those who support terrorism, or helping the president broker peace in Africa, he's looking after your tax dollars.
"The era of government-sanctioned inefficiency is OVER. From now on, our foreign assistance programs will be accountable to the American taxpayer," Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X today. The post was accompanied by a lengthy Substack essay called "Make Foreign Aid Great Again."
It appears that USAID is officially dead.
The Democrats are now implacably self-destructive. They resemble nothing so much as a slowly capsizing ship, but show by their frenzied skullduggery that America is not in decline -- the opposition is rotten and hopeless but it still fights savagely. I hope readers will pardon a recitation of the party's gradual floundering. They pushed the nation into Vietnam, mismanaged the war, and deserted their own president (Lyndon Johnson), and when President Nixon saved their war, they crucified him on what can now be seen as the utterly absurd Watergate nonsense.
I appreciate even more now what Trump meant when he said that Elon is wearing thin. After a brief truce, the pluto-crat who wants to go to Mars is at it again. He is threatening to primary members of Congress who vote for the BBB.
He’s also teasing a new America Party as an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty. Some may consider that a good idea — in theory. In practice, under the influence of mercurial Musk, it could create more problems than it solves, for, while Trump is a stable genius, Musk is an unstable one.
Unlike the forgiving, magnanimous, and sagacious Trump (who’ll meet with
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s policy banning illegals who cross the border from seeking asylum.
US District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee, said President Trump does not have the authority to bypass immigration law that Congress has enacted.
Earlier this year, the anti-American ACLU and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center sued the Trump Administration over its asylum policy.
Judge Moss stayed his order for 14 days so the Trump Administration can file an appeal.
Agonizing': How Alaska’s pivotal Republican
senator decided to vote for Donald Trump’s bill 15 replies
senator decided to vote for Donald Trump’s bill 15 replies
Just after midnight, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was pacing in a Senate hallway, alone and looking concerned.
It had suddenly become clear to all her Republican colleagues that her vote would be their best chance of passing President Donald Trump’s sweeping bill of tax and spending cuts. Had she decided whether she would support the bill? “No,” Murkowski said, shaking her head and putting her hand up to signal that she didn’t want to answer any questions.
Around 12 hours later, after she had convinced Senate leaders to change the bill to benefit her state and voted for the legislation, ensuring its passage,
Zohran Mamdani was officially certified as the winner of the June 24 New York City Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday. He defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on his way to a victory that is still sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party establishment and beyond. Now, the debate rages over who Mamdani really is. Is he antisemitic or just pro-Palestinian? Is he anti-ICE or just pro-immigrant? However, one thing seems to be increasingly clear. Mamdani is a serious Marxist and that should concern anyone in New York City.
Comments:
Union president sponged mandatory union dues to fund a longshot run for governor. That, in and of itself, is enough reason for union members to reject the clown and to decertify the union.