Free Republic

Gov. Murphy on Monday condemned a weekend shooting at an arts festival in Trenton that injured 22 people and left one of the suspected gunmen dead and he vowed to bring those responsible for “the lawlessness” to justice. Murphy praised law enforcement officers for their response when gunfire erupted early Sunday morning at the Art All Night event at the Roebling Wire Works warehouse. Authorities said Monday that several officers fired their weapons during the encounter with at least three suspects. It was unclear whether the wounded were struck by police or the gunmen. Authorities say the shooting began amid...

. Debra Opuda likes her life in Stafford, where she's satisfied with her municipal services, especially the responsive and caring police department, and she's happy with a population that's more ethnically mixed than when she moved in 18 years ago from Bergen County. But it was Opuda's concerns about illegal immigration that prompted her to vote for a slate of candidates in last week's Republican primary running under the "Make American Great Again" slogan in support of President Donald Trump's positions. The MAGA slate swept the GOP races for mayor and all six township council seats, ousting the entire more...

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy responded to Sunday's deadly shooting at a Trenton arts festival by calling for new controls on guns. But a suspect’s gang membership -- and early release from prison after Murphy took office -- may have been bigger factors in an incident that left one person dead and 22 wounded. Meanwhile, Murphy -- a first-term Democrat in his first elected office -- supports shorter sentences for offenders and cuts in prisoner rehabilitation programs. The suspect, identified as Tahaji Wells, 33, opened fire before 3 a.m. at the Art All Night festival in New Jersey's capital city,...

The gun control bills that New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed this week won’t save lives. If anything, it will lead to more crime and death. The laws aim to keep firearms out of the wrong hands, expand background checks, and reduce magazine size. But at best, the new laws will harass otherwise law-abiding New Jerseyans and make it difficult for the poor to defend themselves.

Full title.................Democrats gain entry to NJ immigration detention center after arguing with cops, 'literally banging on the door'.................Seven Democratic lawmakers gained entry to an immigration detention center in New Jersey on Sunday after "arguing" with the police and "literally banging on the door," one of the congressmen posted on Twitter. The Father's Day episode was the latest in a series of similar trips by Democratic lawmakers to immigration detention centers, which are part of a broader effort to draw attention to the family members who have been separated by federal authorities while illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the...

While Republican candidates across the country are proclaiming their fealty to President Donald Trump, New Jersey's Bob Hugin is going against the grain. Hugin, who is taking on Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, is proclaiming himself "a different kind of Republican," in a new television ad, where he identifies himself as supporting abortion rights, same-sex marriage and equal pay for equal work. He also backs federal funding for the Gateway Tunnel project and calls for changes to the Republican tax law that singled out New Jersey by capping the federal deduction for state and local taxes, taking positions at odds...

On Wednesday, the governor is expected to sign a package of bills approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature — a few of which received wide support from Republicans. The following bills are sitting on Murphy’s desk: * A1217, which will create restraining orders in the state allowing family members and others to ask a judge to have a person’s guns seized and ban them from buying weapons for up to a year. * A1181, which will mandate law enforcement in the state to seize a person’s guns if a mental health professional determines they pose a threat to themselves. * A2758, which will strictly define that state residents need...

Six new gun-control laws were enacted Wednesday, including smaller ammunition magazine limits and new "red flag" laws designed to take guns from people deemed dangerous. Though New Jersey has among the nation’s most restrictive gun-control systems, most Democrats have been pushing for years to enact more, particularly in response to school shootings. Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, recalled a Statehouse meeting he had in April 2013 with Connecticut parents whose children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The cut in the maximum ammunition magazine, from 15 to 10 rounds, is one proposal that those parents emphasized. “We made...

Disney is selling the longtime headquarters of ABC News, which occupies a prestigious piece of New York City real estate. ... The sale is raising new questions about the future of Disney’s troubled news operation. Once-vaunted ABC News has struggled for identity in recent years, as the TV news spotlight has shifted to cable and the internet. And ABC News' notable shift away from hard news coverage, perhaps in search of viewers, has reduced its relevance in the news ecosystem ... as Disney executives voice increasing frustration with the high costs and low returns of the news operation. ... ABC...

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal sent letters to a number of gun parts manufacturers threatening legal action unless they halt future sales in New Jersey. Grewal’s action targets unnamed “ghost gun makers” who he argues advertises build and kits to New Jersey residents with possible civil action under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, with as much as a $10,000 penalty for initial offenses. He holds that fraud is committed because the makers do not disclose that possessing a firearm classified under state law as an unregistered “assault weapon” in New Jersey is a crime. “As the chief law enforcement officer...

Senate Democrats have written a letter to President Donald Trump with a list of requirements that any deal with North Korea must meet if they are to support it. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led six other leading Democratic senators in declaring “that a deal with North Korea must”:

Seth Grossman’s surprise victory in the Republican primary in New Jersey’s Second Congressional District has brought immediate national scrutiny of the Trump purist from Democrats who see a November victory by Democrat Jeff Van Drew as essential to their plans to seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives. ---SNIP--- In the two-minute video clip, Grossman calls diversity “an excuse by Democrats, communists, and socialists, basically, to say that we’re not all created equal; that some people, if somebody is lesser qualified, they will get a job anyway or they’ll get into college anyway because of the tribe that they’re...

. The Hudson County Democratic chair fight has landed in court, with allies of Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and state Sen. Brian Stack suing the county Democratic organization to get a set of rules in place for next week's chair election. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Hudson County Superior Court, alleges that the Hudson County Democratic Organization is inviting "chaos, disorganization and mischief" by not giving committee members an agenda for Tuesday's meeting and not providing them with standard meeting rules. Jersey City school board member Amy DeGise and Union City Mayor and state Sen. Brian Stack are vying...

The majority of the 99 seats in the House of Representatives identified by the Cook Political Report as “competitive” in 2018 are in eight states: California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan. Of the 435 seats in the lower chamber of Congress, 336 are not competitive–180 held by Democrats, 156 held by Republicans, according to the Cook Political Report’s ratings. Only 15 of the 99 competitive seats are currently held by Democrats, while 84 are held by Republicans. The simple math–24 more non competitive seats are held by Democrats than are held by Republicans–and the Republicans...

I was driving over to Trenton the other day when I noticed a white sports car coming up on my left. At first I thought it was a Corvette. But as it sped past I realized it was something far more exotic: an Acura NSX. At $200,000, the NSX costs about $130,000 more than a Corvette. But it was so beautiful I decided I needed to buy one anyway. Unfortunately, I have a revenue problem. The Star-Ledger doesn't pay me that kind of dough. So I'm stuck with my current sports car, which was built in the prior millennium. That's...

The 2018 version of Donald Trump should listen to the 2004 version when it comes to Mideast policy. That guy was one heck of a hard-headed realist. Here's what he said about the Iraq War in an Esquire magazine interview that occurred about a year after George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" appearance on an aircraft carrier: "Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the county? C'mon....

Lisa McCormick's surprisingly strong showing against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in Tuesday's Democratic primary begs the question: What about Bob? McCormick, a virtual unknown who did not report spending any money on the race, received the support of almost 4 in 10 Democratic voters. While Menendez, D-N.J., was never seriously threatened with losing his party's nomination for another Senate term, his performance wasn't a good sign coming on the heels of his Senate Ethics Committee admonishment and a criminal corruption trial that ended in a hung jury before the charges were dropped.

. After months of verbal sparring and aggressive campaigning, the ballot-heavy 11th Congressional District primary season has finally come to an end for the five Democrats and five Democrats vying for the two-year seat held by longtime Republican incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen, who announced in January that he will not seek re-election. With 99 percent of the precincts counted, Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot backed by Joe Biden, swept the Democratic nomination receiving 77.3 percent of the total over challengers Tamara Harris who got 14.5 percent of the vote and Mark Washburne, Alison Heslin and Mitchell Cobert, who each...

In a stunning upset, Seth Grossman won the Republican nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd district on Tuesday night, emerging from a crowded primary race to replace retiring Rep. Frank LoBiondo. Grossman, a former Atlantic County freeholder and Atlantic City councilman, received 40 percent of the vote as of 10:30 p.m., according to The New York Times. Hirsh Singh, a South Jersey engineer who was the perceived frontrunner of the race, had nearly 31 percent. Former Assemblyman Sam Fiocchi followed with 22 percent of the vote, while former FBI agent Robert Turkavage had 7 percent.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who overcame federal corruption charges, won his Democratic primary Tuesday but faced a surprisingly strong challenge from an opponent who reported spending no money. The Democrat will face former Celgene Corp. executive Bob Hugin, who easily won the Republican primary over construction company owner Brian Goldberg. Menendez, D-N.J., was never in danger of losing. But his opponent, community newspaper publisher Lisa McCormick, had nearly 40 percent of the vote with 99 percent counted. McCormick, who began and ended the race as a virtually unknown candidate, fared much better than expected.