These people are boldface liars. How many unlawful maps have been kept in place because of legal pretenses the Court drops suddenly? Alito and the five horsemen of our time are a national embarrassment to the legal profession.

In December SCOTUS claimed it was too close to election to block Texas gerrymander but now allowing Southern states to straight up cancel elections to resurrect Jim Crow

A detail I didn’t know: “The Herald entered the Epstein series for a Pulitzer Prize that year, but it was not a finalist. Alan Dershowitz … who helped broker Epstein’s original deal, wrote a letter to the Pulitzer committee that year, urging them not to honor Brown’s work.” share.inquirer.com/THMiUZ

New Jersey lawmakers can and should do more so the public can have a meaningful say in the budget process. “As long as key decisions get made behind closed doors, special interests will keep winning and residents will keep paying for it," said NJPP's @ptrchn1.bsky.social. www.nj.com/politics/202...

Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment (owner of the NJ Devils and the Sixers) spent $230k in lobbying expenses. In exchange, they ended up with $300 MILLION in public dollars to renovate the Prudential Center. Why wouldn't special interests play this game every time?

New: A Dem party that prioritizes symbolic legislation and hearings about costs over investigations and impeachment is going to be horribly maladapted for a post-wave GOP that, by composition, will be the party's most fascistic incarnation yet. www.offmessage.net/p/trump-fasc...

"billionaire buys constitution" a bit on the nose

Federal and state courts had deemed Republican gerrymanders illegal in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Ohio months before the 2022 elections. The Supreme Court and DeSantis appointees on FL’s top court cleared the way for Republicans to use those maps anyway, and it handed them the House

How the Supreme Court’s Republicans have long applied the Purcell “principle”: It is not too close to an election for Republicans to re-gerrymander their maps or implement new voting restrictions. But it is too late for courts to block them—that must wait until the next election (rinse and repeat)

Every splashy New York Times profile of a right wing influencer.

Happy May Day! Last year top CEO pay increased 20x faster than worker pay. Since 2019 adjusted for inflation, global worker pay fell, while real CEO pay increased 54 percent. The only solution to this is fair taxation. The wealth generated by the many should not rest in the hands of the few.

That’s quite a chart www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Hmmm has there been another period in American history where state legislatures rapidly changed voting rules to disenfranchise Black voters?

An “era of extreme gerrymandering” just began out of nowhere.

American Black women now have fewer voting rights and reproductive rights than their mothers did at the same age. Progress isn’t a straight line, indeed.

Never been clearer that this is just the Jim Crow party

We are here today with New Jersey Policy Perspective to celebrate Mikie Sherrill new 'Budget Report Card' website that brings transparency to the budget process. We look forward to seeing it include info on corporate tax breaks, and public inclusion on legislative changes before votes.

🚨 NEW 🚨 TANF benefits have lost more than a third of their value since 1998 and the program now reaches half as many families in poverty as the national average. Read more from @tonanziht.bsky.social: www.njpp.org/publications...

Indexing capital gains for inflation would send yet another massive tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. The richest 1% of households would receive 77% of the tax cut savings. The bottom 60% of households would get virtually nothing. itep.org/tax-cuts-for...

“To say that President Trump is corrupt is to somehow understate the size, scope and magnitude of his corruption. It is as if you were to describe a modern thermonuclear device as a ‘bomb.’ That is true enough, but it is not quite the truth. It does not capture the nature of the thing in full.”

We’re expecting to see text of a budget resolution tomorrow. That would be the first of many steps in enacting a reconciliation bill, which can be passed even with all Democrats opposed. We’re expecting it to be a slush fund for ICE and CBP, but we’ll have a few more details tomorrow. Follow along.

starting to think mega-projects for big business subsidized by public dollars are not actually a path to sustainable economic development

The looting of the country continues

Everyone should read this description of how the Roberts Court abused the Supreme Courts own rules and traditions to turn the previously rarely used "shadow docket" into a tool for legislating a right wing agenda from the bench. These "interim rulings" aren't interim; they are policy. Gift article.

Of many reasons this is dumb, one is that "justice involved population" has a definition broader than people in incarceration after conviction (i.e. "inmates"). People who are "justice involved" include: - people pending trial - people on probation or parole - people arrested but not charged

It’s so funny that they pubbed this the day before “john roberts invented the trump era shadow docket to make sure fossil fuel companies could keep killing you and make money doing it” bsky.app/profile/cris...

When the expanded CTC expired in 2022, each $1,000 in lost benefits reduced consumer sentiment by 1.7 points—with effects lasting nearly two years—long after the checks stopped, from @jacobbastian.bsky.social and Melody Harvey www.nber.org/papers/w35059

Couple pieces of news out of last night’s debut Ask Governor Sherrill call-in show First: Sherrill says FIFA needs to help pay for World Cup transit. Otherwise she’ll approve fare hikes — possibly as high as $100 for trips between Manhattan and MetLife on game days gothamist.com/news/nj-gov-...

Second: Slim chances for a second wind. Sherrill is pursuing a wide range of energy development but the sector that had been fast tracked for years — offshore wind — remains on hold in NJ due to federal policies gothamist.com/news/nj-went...

Note to NJ policymakers: increasing tax workforce generates revenue for the state!

starting to think the world cup will not be creating magical economic growth and pay for itself

Once again, the Times uses a “Trump says with great force” formula for the hed and highlights the supposed intensity of how he says it in the subhed—using their tried-and-true Trumpian catchphrase, ”lashed out,” which, I noted the other day, they’ve used more than 60 times in headlines.

Hoping "the pope is weak on crime" demonstrates the absurdity of the "soft on crime" attack line. Politicians still run in fear of "soft on crime" and journalists still credulously report on it, even though it's an empty term

Happy Appomattox Day to all that celebrate

🚨 New Report 🚨 AI data centers were the main driver of the 20% electric bill increase New Jerseyans saw last June. By 2030, these facilities will use 10% of our state's entire electricity supply. Read the full report: www.njpp.org/publications...

Recent protections for New Jersey's immigrant communities are a good first step, but don't go far enough to defend the state's residents. "There’s more to do to protect the people of New Jersey,” said @marleinau.bsky.social. njurbannews.com/2026/03/30/w...

🚨 New Analysis 🚨 A fee tied to individual employees’ health coverage will encourage employers to find loopholes and harm workers. Revenue raisers should focus on ensuring that the ultra-wealthy and corporations pay for health care, while protecting Medicaid enrollees. www.njpp.org/publications...

A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history. www.wired.com/story/border...

Not April Fools

Maine’s budget committee added a tax on millionaires to its plan, which could prompt a notable departure for Gov. Janet Mills, who has long opposed calls to increase income taxes. via @mainemorningstar.com

This case is only happening because a racist president created an ultraconservative Supreme Court, and a handful of extremely thirsty law professors are trying to get the racist president’s attention for an appeals court judgeship. It’s all very stupid and embarrassing, and also *really might work*.

A single vote for Trump in the birthright citizenship case would be as bad as anything the Court has done since Bush v. Gore. This issue has been settled for more than a century. It is the jurisprudential equivalent of asking what 2+2 is. Any answer other than 4, something is deeply, deeply wrong.

CA’s $20 fast food minimum wage raised fast food prices by only 3%. The reason minimum wage increases keep not reducing employment and barely increasing prices is monopsony power. www.nber.org/papers/w34990

Advocates, community leaders, and residents from across New Jersey gathered on Monday, March 30, at New Jersey Institute of Technology ahead of the final Senate Budget Committee public hearing to demand a state budget that prioritizes working families over corporate profits.

Hot take: the hash brown, rather than any of the breakfast meats, is the best addition to an egg and cheese

Taxes are good actually

Today is the one year anniversary of Skadden's capitulation. Leading up to it, I'll be honest, I was wondering how to be OK today. So I can't tell you my dose of delight and relief when I found out today is also #NoKingsDay Filled with gratitude for the many fellow travelers & #SeeYouInTheStreets.

In fairness it’s not like the consequences of having a mad king unilaterally take the country to war on a whim were so incredibly obvious that you could see it coming from the 18th and 19th centuries www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...