Noticias

New Jersey Republicans today blasted a major news organization for not telling its readers that an owner and top executive, Ben Newhouse, is a large donor to Democratic candidates.

Newhouse, a 43-year-old Jersey City resident, has contributed the maximum amount permitted under state election law to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill.   With matching funds, Newhouse’s $5,800 contribution in the primary election meant Sherrill had access to $17,400 to win her primary.

“Today’s revelation that the owner of NJ Advance Media is a major donor to Mike Sherrill’s campaign, a fact never disclosed to readers, is outrageous,” said Kate Gibbs, the executive director of the Republican State Committee.  “For years, we’ve said much of NJ.com’s coverage reads like campaign propaganda, and now we can confirm why– just follow the money. This isn’t journalism. New Jerseyans deserve better.”

Newhouse, whose family owns the $24 billion publishing empire that includes NJ.com, the Star-Ledger, Conde Nast and others, has contributed over $400,000 to Democratic candidates.

Dave D’Alessandro, who was the Star-Ledger’s deputy editorial page editor until the newspaper shuttered its opinion page earlier this year, made modest personal contributions to the Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama presidential campaigns, along with nearly twenty Democratic Senate and House candidates outside New Jersey.   The Star-Ledger endorsement of Harris did not include a disclaimer that D’Alessandro – or Newhouse – had donated to the Democratic nominee.

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I don’t need you to worry for me ‘cause I’m alright
I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home
I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life
Go ahead with your own life and leave me alone
     —- Billy Joel – My Life -1978

I recently watched a new HBO series featuring the great musician, William Martin Joel, more famously known as Billy Joel. It inspired me to look back to the roots of this now timeless entertainer – how he worked up the rungs of stardom, survived and endured despite an incredible amount of personal and professional troubles, and rose to become one of the most influential musicians of our time. If this troubled kid from Long Island can go from total obscurity to one of the most popular entertainers of an era, only to battle crippling financial and personal problems, to then again rise from the ashes like the mighty Phoenix and succeed, there is hope for the rest of us.

Billy Joel is one of the most accomplished and most prolific musicians of all time.

Billy has sold over 160 million records, and he is regarded as the fourth most successful solo singer of all time. Upon reflection, it is clearer to me now that in the early years, Billy Joel was a messiah to many teenagers as we grappled with the confines and teachings of the catholic church and the reality of growing up with difficulties in the 1970s. In those years, Billy provided a voice and an attitude that many adopted when we couldn’t find our own.

It is only now that we can marvel at Billy Joel’s stunning longevity. Many of us have experienced walking into a neighborhood restaurant or mall, hearing a familiar Billy Joel song and feeling transported magically to that time and place where parental defiance was the order of the day.  Many of us growing up in the 70s played Billy’s vinyl records in our homes, using some of the tunes as our anthem to rebel and get out from under the grip of suffocating homelife.

When you look back at his entire body of work, it is amazing that he turned out hit record after hit record, even when his personal and professional life were less than calm and supportive. His lyrics allowed for the listener to exhale, breathe and look around at the larger things in life. Songs like Piano Man, She Is Always a Woman, Uptown Girl, Allentown, We Didn’t Start the Fire, Moving Out, It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me, My Life, You May Be Right, Just the Way You Are, and my favorite, Good Night Saigon. These songs lifted our souls and allowed us to look inward to find a peaceful place where you felt accepted and to achieve some personal equilibrium.

Interestingly, once you get past Billy’s awards and record-breaking performance, you find a conflicted and complicated individual. You see a gifted person who dealt with abandonment since childhood—a childhood where he constantly sought out a connection to his absentee father.

Despite his commercial success, Billy had many challenges. He lived through three failed marriages, including his highly publicized marriage to supermodel Christie Brinkley. While this relationship was ill-fated, it produced the true love of his life, his daughter Alexa.  He also has two other daughters, Della and Remy, with his current wife, Alexis. His manager and friend, and former brother-in-law, allegedly stole or misappropriated $90 million. What is it about trusting family members that inevitably leads to jealousy and greed consuming their heart?

At the height of his career, Billy found himself on the verge of financial collapse. He only learned this fact when he was trying to reconstruct his home and had problems with financing. Some wake up call for a person who was presumed to have tens of millions of dollars in the bank.

At that point, Billy made many difficult decisions, and he had to fire (and sue) his manager. He also had to change out his long term producer and drummer.

It wasn’t just mistrusting the wrong people and personality issues that plagued Billy’s life, Billy’s alcohol addiction was a significant contributing cause to his mid-career failures. After years of denying that he had an issue, he finally admitted himself to the Betty Ford Center to treat his addiction.

For us early fans, we never would have guessed that he was as troubled and pained as he was. But I guess there is tragedy and tumult in all corners of our society, regardless of your zip code or tax bracket.

Billy’s story now gets wild.

In 2011, he penned a very personal goodbye to his band. In his letter, Billy explained that he was done touring and was essentially retiring.

After delivering this letter, Billy retreated to his safe space to find his center again—the waters of Long Island. He spent much of his time there on his boat where he attempted regain his spirit and reflect on his journey.

He righted his ship and reengineered himself, and also found his fourth wife. He found love, joy, and happiness. His second act. Or maybe his third.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated the region, including his beloved Long Island. Billy banded together with other musical giants and played a benefit concert to raise funds for the hurricane victims. Yet another way that Billy embodied the idea that tragedy can create opportunity and rebirth.

The unexpected reemergence of Billy Joel during this benefit concert sparked a massive interest from the public and began a titanic revival for this retired musician. Buoyed by this newfound adoration, Billy embarked on a 100-show ten-year tour beginning at Madison Square Garden. His renaissance continued. He sold over 109 million tickets and grossed over $260 million—incredible by any measure. He continued the American love affair until his recently announced medical issue.

Billy Joel, while once hovering around bankruptcy, is now worth $250 million and is loved by another generation. How do we explain this new fame?

As one of Billy’s friends described, you feel his vulnerability, honesty, and authenticity. He is one of us. His songs are timeless. I really do believe that one of the keys to success, in anything, is authenticity and vulnerability.

I guess the point of this column is that we should really understand that the people we idolize and think have it all, are really just like us and have the same problems that the rest of us have. We should provide a safe haven of empathy for our idols as they grow forward and experience difficult times that many of us can identify with.  And like Billy, if push through and confront challenges, we too can witness an unanticipated revival.

The post The O’Toole Chronicles: The Life of Billy Joel appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

New Jersey once again led a multi-state coalition into court against the Trump administration on Monday, this time fighting new restrictions on grants dedicated to supporting victims of crime.

Attorney General Matt Platkin said the Trump administration is unlawfully conditioning the release of those grants on states’ cooperation with immigration officials and is one of 21 attorneys general suing over the move. States use the funds to provide compensation for more than 200,000 victims’ claims each year, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

“[The Trump administration’s] brazen attempt to manipulate critical funding for crime victims to strong-arm States into supporting the Administration’s immigration policies runs headlong into two basic principles of American governance: separation of powers and federalism,” the lawsuit states.

President Ronald Reagan signed the Victims of Crime Act in 1984. The legislation helps victims of crime recoup the costs of victimhood, including counseling services and medical bill coverage. Congress has appropriated funding to support the act’s provisions since it was passed.

In a Monday afternoon press conference with several other attorneys general, Platkin said the states received no warning before the Trump administration’s decision.

“One of the things we’re challenging in this suit is the fact that they didn’t even bother to ask us, or ask any state, or any victim, or any service agency, how these cuts would impact them,” Platkin said. “Again, this is the first time in the history of these grants that anyone has threatened to withhold them on any basis, let alone an unlawful one.”

In the press conference, the attorneys general said they’re seeking a declaratory judgment against the Trump administration in the case. The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to withhold federal funds from states that do not cooperate with the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. 

“They’re putting public safety and survivors of crime at risk, and they’re holding over $1 billion of federal funding hostage to strong-arm states into joining their inhumane and frenzied immigration agenda,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “We won’t be bullied or manipulated by the Trump administration. The Victims of Crime Act has absolutely nothing to do with immigration enforcement, nor should it.”

The lawsuit is New Jersey’s 33rd against the Trump administration since his January inauguration, Platkin said.

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Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), under indictment for allegedly assaulting federal officers during a May 9 visit to an immigrant detention facility, filed a flurry of motions challenging the legitimacy of the government’s case against her late last week, including one that highlights the contrast between her treatment and that of the January 6 rioters pardoned by President Donald Trump.

The first-term congresswoman filed two separate motions to dismiss the charges she faces: one that argues she’s facing selective prosecution on political grounds – differing sharply, it contends, from the current administration’s lenient treatment of those charged with January 6 crimes – and another that argues the charges relate to protected legislative acts she performed as a member of Congress. Allowing the case to continue, McIver’s attorneys wrote, would “deter other Members from conducting legitimate oversight and imperil the separation of powers.”

A third motion argues that critical statements the government has made outside the courtroom unlawfully assume McIver’s guilt and impede her right to a fair trial; she asked the court to order federal officials to stop discussing her case in such ways. And a final, fourth motion accuses prosecutors of failing to hand over all relevant evidence in the case, and asks the judge to order prosecutors to provide further video and documents.

“I have full confidence in the arguments we’re making – the briefs speak for themselves,” McIver said in a brief statement on the filings.

Friday was the deadline for pre-trial motions, according to a schedule established earlier this summer. Prosecutors have until next Monday to respond to McIver’s motions. Oral arguments on the motions are expected on September 9.

The motions were written by two former heavyweights in the U.S. Attorney’s office who are now representing McIver: former U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, who served during the Obama administration, and former Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes. The case is being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Jamel Semper, an appointee of President Joe Biden.

Notably, unmentioned in any of the filings is the ongoing uncertainty over whether acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba has the authority to prosecute McIver or any other defendant in the District of New Jersey. A Pennsylvania judge is likely to issue an opinion this week on whether Habba’s complicated appointment process violated federal law, but McIver’s filings ignore that debate, only mentioning Habba in the context of controversial statements Habba has made about how she’d conduct her duties as U.S. Attorney.

‘Vindictive prosecution’

The charges McIver is defending herself against revolve around a chaotic few minutes on May 9, when McIver, two of her Democratic congressional colleagues, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrived at the newly reopened Delaney Hall immigrant detention facility in Newark to conduct an oversight visit, something members of Congress are explicitly allowed to do under federal law.

Baraka, who as a local official does not possess the same oversight authorities, was asked to leave the facility, and he did – but a few minutes later, federal officers came outside the facility’s gates and arrested him anyway for allegedly trespassing. The arrest ignited a scuffle in which McIver and a number of protesters who gathered at the gates shoved federal officers and were shoved in return; no injuries on either side were ever reported.

Ten days later, Habba announced that Baraka’s trespassing charges would be dropped, but that McIver would be charged with assaulting law enforcement officers, a felony. A grand jury returned an indictment on June 10, and a trial date has been set for November 10.

In one of their motions to dismiss filed last Friday, Fishman and Cortes argue that everything about the circumstances of the case – from the chaos caused by Baraka’s arrest, to the timing of the charges against McIver in conjunction with the dismissal of charges against Baraka, to the prejudicial public statements top Trump administration officials have made about McIver in the months since – point towards a prosecution that is more about selectively punishing an opposition-party lawmaker than about securing justice.

“Clearly, the Executive Branch does not like scrutiny of its immigration policies and practices,” they wrote. “But due process does not permit prosecutions as a form of retaliation when such scrutiny lawfully occurs.”

By contrast, they note, the Trump administration has pursued an explicit policy of abandoning prosecutions of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Some of those pardoned by Trump at the beginning of this year had been convicted of assaulting and seriously injuring federal law enforcement officers – conduct far more severe than anything McIver is alleged to have done.

If the Trump administration is intent on prosecuting a congresswoman of the opposite party for less severe conduct than that of protesters aligned with the president’s party, Fishman and Cortes argue, that constitutes evidence of selective and vindictive prosecution.

“To be clear, Congresswoman McIver is not guilty of the charges that the Justice Department has filed,” the motion states. “But even if its leaders think otherwise, they cannot pursue charges against her because she is a Democrat who conducts oversight of Executive Branch immigration policy, while dismissing charges brought under the same statute against those whose views they share and who engaged in conduct far more egregious.”

“The Executive Branch has been clear that it views oversight of its immigration policies as a nuisance to be abated,” it continues. “And it has openly stated that it views this prosecution as part of its project to chill that oversight.”

‘Protected legislative acts’

Beyond the specific irregularities of the government’s case against her, McIver’s attorneys also argue that the charges against her run into another Constitutional roadblock: the protections of official legislative acts enshrined in the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.

The clause essentially asserts that members of Congress cannot be charged with most crimes for conduct related to performing their official congressional duties. And McIver’s visit to Delaney Hall clearly falls into that bucket, Friday’s filing argues; she and Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) and Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), both of whom do not face any charges, were there for an oversight visit that they are explicitly given the power to conduct as members of Congress.

Moreover, McIver has a history of legislative conduct related to immigration enforcement that long predates her Delaney Hall visit. The congresswoman sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigrant detention facilities like Delaney Hall; she had written a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem regarding conditions at such facilities; and she, along with Watson Coleman and Menendez, had paid a visit in February to New Jersey’s other detention center, the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility.

In that context, McIver’s attorneys argue, the charges against her relate unavoidably and exclusively around her official legislative duties, and cannot be allowed to move forward.

“The implications are obvious: putting Congresswoman McIver on trial for exercising her constitutionally and statutorily vested duties in this case would deter other Members from conducting legitimate oversight and imperil the separation of powers,” they wrote. “That sort of intimidation of independent legislative prerogatives is exactly the evil that legislative immunity was designed to prevent.”

Speech and debate clause arguments were also made by the last New Jersey member of Congress to come under federal indictment: former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, who was ultimately convicted last year in a wide-ranging bribery scheme. Menendez’s attorneys attempted to argue that many of the senator’s actions related to the scheme, which included influencing U.S. Attorney appointments and introducing pro-Qatar Senate resolutions, were protected legislative acts and could not be the subject of prosecution.

Menendez’s case, however, revolved around whether the senator had used his official powers for personal gain for himself and a handful of allied businessmen; the judge ultimately rejected his arguments and allowed the case to go to trial.

‘Extrajudicial statements’

In addition to their two efforts to dismiss the case entirely, McIver’s attorneys also filed a motion seeking to prevent the government from continuing to make “extrajudicial statements” about McIver and the charges against her.

The congresswoman’s attorneys wrote that defendants are legally protected from certain government statements. They argue that court rules bar the government from commenting on the character of defendants or witnesses, the nature of evidence in the case, or public opinions on the guilt or innocence of a defendant, and that the presumption of innocence must be included when indictments are discussed.

A footnote in the filing states that McIver may seek to dismiss the charges if the federal government continues to make such “prejudicial statements” or fails to remove prior statements.

“Individually and collectively, those statements are extraordinarily prejudicial: they unequivocally declare Congresswoman McIver’s guilt; they assail the defenses DHS expects her to assert; they demean her as a ‘gutter politician’ responsible for purportedly escalating rates of assault on ICE agents; and they attempt to associate her with ‘Murderers, Rapists, Suspected Terrorists, and Gang Members’ supposedly housed in the detention facility that the Congresswoman inspected on May 9, 2025, as part of her congressionally authorized oversight responsibility,” the motion states.

McIver’s attorneys point to a series of five statements and social media posts by the federal government, particularly by the DHS, in the months following her indictment. In mid-July, for example, the DHS issued a press release claiming that ICE officers are facing an 830% increase in assaults since President Donald Trump’s January inauguration. McIver’s filing called the skyrocketing numbers “phantom statistics” and took issue with the release’s characterization of the Delaney Hall visit; the statement said she had “trespassed on and stormed the Delaney Hall detention facility, where she proceeded to physically assault an ICE officer.” 

The congresswoman’s filing states that by this time, Habba’s office had provided the defense with video that proves she did not trespass or storm the facility; the release, it argues, omits McIver’s oversight authority, fails to mention her presumed innocence, and includes an “imaginary claim” that McIver is responsible for an increase in assaults on ICE agents.

“[This] arm of the prosecution team has wielded its unique position of authority to publicly render its own verdict on Congresswoman McIver’s guilt; assail and defame her character and the character of other potential witnesses; advance a manufactured narrative around the evidence upon which the prosecution will rely at trial; and make huge efforts – without any factual basis – to tie the Congresswoman to DHS’s ‘Most Egregious’ detainees, to a purported rise in assaults against ICE agents, and to a series of alleged incidents involving ICE around the country with which the Congresswoman has no connection at all,” McIver’s attorneys wrote.

‘To compel discovery’

In a fourth motion, McIver’s attorneys say prosecutors haven’t handed over a collection of evidence and documents they’re obligated to disclose. 

Her team says the government has provided footage from two cameras on the exterior of Delaney Hall and footage from eleven body-worn cameras on ICE or Homeland Security Investigations officials. They say the disclosure was “deficient” and that no other material was provided from the May 9th visit.

The congresswoman’s attorneys also say prosecutors have declined to provide other categories of materials, and have asked Judge Semper to order the disclosure of materials like surveillance video of the entire period of her visit to Delaney Hall, internal communications about the incident, and internal policies at play.

According to the motion, prosecutors have already agreed to hand over footage of McIver’s tour of the facility, the identities of officers present at the scuffle, the identities of officers with body-worn cameras, car dashboard footage, and maps and diagrams of Delaney Hall. 

McIver’s attorneys say body-camera footage from two officers central to the case – one of whom was an alleged victim of McIver’s assault, and another who allegedly shoved McIver – has not been released to the defense. If body-camera policy was violated, they argue, the government must explain why and how; they also suggest that some of the evidence is in the hands of GEO Group, the private-prison company that operates Delaney Hall. 

“Even if GEO Group is not a member of the prosecution team (as the government’s response suggests), it is difficult to believe that the government does not have access to or cannot demand the production of material that is in the custody of the private company that ICE has hired to incarcerate federal detainees,” the motion states. “Surely the government has access to all the surveillance video from Delaney Hall on demand.”

“Finally, because the videos show that the entire episode surrounding Mayor Baraka’s arrest was concocted to interfere with Congresswoman McIver’s right and ability to inspect Delaney Hall, she is entitled to the communications between and among law enforcement personnel regarding the preparations for that spectacularly ill-conceived and badly executed operation,” it continues. “Indeed, it is indicative of the bad faith of ICE and HSI leadership.”

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