State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-21) blasted Fox News and host Tucker Carlson following the first broadcast by Carlson about the events that transpired at the U.S. Capitol after Donald Trump’s Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, 2021. “Fox reports that DENY Jan 6 was a violent riot are absurd,” wrote Bramnick on his Facebook page. “We, as Republicans, will either stand together against this nonsense or the crazy extremists who ignore facts will define or party.” Bramnick, the former Assembly Minority Leader, is the most prominent New Jersey Republican to speak out against Carlson’s attempt to recast the actions of the violent mob of Trump supporters two years ago. North-JerseyNews.com
The New Jersey family of fallen Capitol Police Office Brian Sicknick said recent Fox News stories aimed at downplaying the Capitol insurrection are an “ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of Fox News.” In a statement from the family, they said “Every time the pain of that day seems to have ebbed a bit, organizations like Fox rip our wounds wide,” adding that the cable network has shown “time and time again that they are little more than the propaganda arm of the Republican party…Leave us the hell alone and instead of spreading more lies from Supreme Leader Trump, why don’t you focus on real news.” NJ1015.com
Tucker Carlson’s effort to appease angry Fox viewers underscore the central quandary faced both by the network and the Republican Party in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat as revealed in texts and emails released as part of a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. In the months after the Jan. 6 attacks, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” doubled down on a pro-Trump narrative that both Carlson and his bosses knew was rooted in a lie as in 2021 nearly half of Carlson’s shows—more than 100 episodes—featured segments downplaying the Capitol riot, casting the insurrectionists as innocent citizens seeking legitimate redress for election fraud, and suggesting the riot itself was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by federal law enforcement to entrap Trump supporters. The New York Times
A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. reintroduced legislation expanding retirement benefits for police officers. The Law Enforcement Officers’ Equity Act would standardized salary requirements along with retirement benefits for all federal police officers. “Because of an unfair distinction in our laws, tens of thousands of men and women in uniform do not have full access to federal retirement benefits,” said Pascrell. “They risk their lives the same as their brothers and sisters and any less remuneration for their service is unacceptable. Our bipartisan legislation would finally fix this loophole.” North-JerseyNews.com
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to block a new District of Columbia criminal code that reduces mandatory minimum sentences for some violent offenses. The city’s criminal-code revisions would eliminate almost all mandatory minimum sentences and reduce the maximum punishments for certain crimes, such as carjackings and unauthorized possession of firearms. But Sen. Cory Booker noted that the new criminal code would significantly increase sentences for offenses such as attempted murder, sexual assault and gun crime and called the intervention in District affairs “patronizing and paternalistic” meant to score political points. “This body now, in a rush of politics, is going to prevent a city from protecting itself,” Booker said. The New York Times
Police stopping motorists to investigate crimes cannot search their cars without a warrant unless the circumstances that sparked their suspicion were “unforeseeable and spontaneous,” the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled March 8. Justice Douglas Fasciale cited New Jersey’s constitution, which provides greater protection against unreasonable searches and seizures than the Fourth Amendment, as a reason for affirming lower court rulings that suppressed evidence found in a warrantless car search in 2021 in Ocean County. He also cited precedential case law that allows police to forego a warrant only in “unforeseeable and spontaneous” circumstances. New Jersey Monitor
Suspended Boonton Police Capt. Stephen Jones has been charged by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office with stealing computer towers from his department and tampering with public records. Jones, who last year filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the town, was found on surveillance video removing at least five computer towers from the Boonton Police Department and removing his own personnel files, Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement March 8. He hid the hardware in his home in Toms River and in his in-laws’ home in Edison. The Daily Record
President Joe Biden will outline a plan to reduce federal budget deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade and raise taxes on wealthy people and large corporations. President Biden is expected to ask for more in defense spending than he requested last year and propose drug-policy changes and efforts to cut fraud and waste that the White House said would save hundreds of billions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal
The Chinese government’s refusal to cooperate on investigations into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has hindered the U.S.’s ability to determine whether the virus emerged naturally or was the result of a lab leak, a senior U.S. intelligence official said March 8. “China has not fully cooperated, and that is a key critical gap that would help us understand what, exactly, happened,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said during a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Wall Street Journal
The White House endorsed the RESTRICT Act, which would let the Secretary of Commerce regulate technology produced by six countries that have strained relationships with the U.S. The Biden Administration called it “a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans.” The bill doesn’t explicitly mention TikTok but a bipartisan group of senators who introduced the bill voiced fears that the app owned by the Chinese company Bytedance would give the Chinese government an endless flow of information about its American users. NJ.com
The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism identified more than 6,750 separate occasions last year on which White Supremacist organizations distributed racist, antisemitic or otherwise hateful fliers, stickers, banners, images, posters or graffiti. That is a nearly 40% rise in similar incidents compared with 2021 and a more than fivefold increase since 2018, according to the report. The New York Times
The state attorney general has issued violation notices to 28 New Jersey municipalities whose marriage license forms don’t let nonbinary people apply unless they misgender themselves, as either male or female, in violation of New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law. Among the North Jersey municipalities receiving the violation notices included Morristown, Morris Plains and Sussex Borough. New Jersey Herald
Gov. Phil Murphy plans to nominate 11 new Superior Court judges as part of a diverse group aimed at enhancing the diversity of the state’s judiciary and reducing the vast number of vacancies that have created considerable backlogs within the court system. Of the 11 new judicial candidates selected by Murphy, six are women, and six are people of color. Four of the group are from Essex County, where there are currently eight vacancies, and five are from Gloucester, where the court has six vacancies. New Jersey Globe
As politicians celebrated National Women’s Day March 8, a recent poll showed the obstacles that females still have to overcome in the Garden State. A recent Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) Poll found sexism and perceived threats to male dominance were costing Democratic women around six points in favorability statewide—a number that could be a substantial deficit in tight races. “Women candidates are stuck: seeming too feminine can make people think they’re not leadership material. Being too masculine can be seen as off-putting,” said FDU’s Dan Cassino. “This is exacerbated for women who are seen as feminists, making them threatening to men who are invested in the current system.” North-JerseyNews.com
Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. has joined the House’s Problem Solvers Caucus, the bipartisan group playing an increasingly important role in the last Congress to find common ground between both parties on significant legislation. “I joined the Problem Solvers Caucus to help find solutions for families and businesses in New Jersey,” said Kean. “Every day of gridlock in Washington is another day that issues impacting my constituents at home go unaddressed.” Kean is the third consecutive congressman from New Jersey’s 7th district to join the caucus, following Republican Leonard Lance and Democrat Tom Malinowski. New Jersey Globe
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin told the federal judge overseeing the challenge to the state’s new gun law that he will not appeal a pair of federal orders she issued that temporarily block parts of the law from being enforced. Platkin’s March 8 notice to Judge Renée Marie Bumb came five days after he told her that delays in the next phase of the legal challenge made an appeal of the orders “necessary.” But after Bumb scheduled a hearing in the case for next week, New Jersey decided to drop its appeal effort, according to Platkin. New Jersey Monitor
And finally…The bronze bust of Woodrow Wilson will not be reinstalled in the Statehouse when the 230-year-old building reopens next month after a five-year renovation. The Record
