#new jersey

[viennajoell]

He had a little brother moment

[batboyblog]

2025 Battleground Virginia and New Jersey!

Okay children! there's no time to mope and feel sorry for ourselves there's elections to fight! Yes the first state wide elections since Trump returned are fast coming up. These will be the first test, can we fight back at the ballot box? is the nation turning on the gross fucker in the White House? In November we can find out but Democracy is not a spectator sport! so you better! get involved!

Virginia

The biggest test will be Virginia, right now Virginia's Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General are all Republicans. They're marching in lock step with Trump and the Washington Republicans even as Musk's DOGE cuts fired thousands of Virginia workers from their federal government jobs. Well the primaries are over and there are officially Democratic candidates for all 3 jobs and they are

Governor:

Former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger: We've known for awhile that Spanberger would be the nominee but now it's official. Spanberger flipped a Republican seat in 2018 and held onto it till retiring to run for Governor in 2024. In Congress she was common sense and hard working focusing on real world problems like bring down the number of drug overdoses and increasing Medicare spending. She's up against the current Republican Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears. Earle-Sears is a radical Republican, who loves guns, hates DEI, critical race theory, and abortion, loves Trump's tariffs, and Musk's DOGE cuts even as they send Virginians to the unemployment lines. Virginia in November can pick a Governor who will stand up for Virginia's federal workers, its economy, its LGBT citizens, a woman's right to choose, and push back on Trump, or someone who will work in lock step with Trump. If you're any where in Virginia or live nearby please sign up to volunteer, where ever you live in America you can call or text or send postcards in this election!

Volunteer Donate Shop

Attorney General

Across the nation Democratic state AGs are suing the Trump administration and winning emergency orders putting a hold on Trump's horrible plans. But those holds only apply to states that sue, so states with Republican AGs get no protection, like Virginia. If Virginians want a voice in court against Trump's abuses they need to elect the Democratic candidate Jay Jones. Jones was the assistant attorney general the last time a Democrat held that role, he's also been a state Rep (2018-2021). During the Republican governorship of Youngkin Jones has represented the NAACP in court fighting against voter suppression laws. The incumbent Republican, Jason Miyares, is running for re-election. Unlike the AGs of Maryland and Washington DC Miyares hasn't sued the Trump administration over its unlawful firing of thousands of federal workers, many of whom live in Virginia so when Democrats won in court it offered no relief to Virginia workers. Miyares will keep not standing up for Virginians as Trump assaults their basic liberties. If you want someone to fight for Virginians in court and one more powerful voice fighting Trump you got to get out and vote and get others out to vote for Jones.

Volunteer Donate

Lieutenant Governor

Like the Vice-President the Virginia Lt. Governor's powers are limited. That said it's a statewide office and is one heartbeat away from the governorship so you can't drop the ball. And the Dems have a great candidate, State Senator Ghazala Hashmi. Hashmi is the first Indian-American and the first Muslim elected to the Virginia's state Senate, if elected she would be the first Muslim woman to win statewide office in America. She's also an immigrant having been born in India. With a Ph.D in English she was a college professor before turning to politics and has focused her time in the Senate on expanding education in the state. If elected she would be a powerful voice for education and against intolerance. Past Democratic Governors, Douglas Wilder, Tim Kaine, and Ralph Northam all served as Lt. Governor before being elected Governor and with Virginia's one 4 year term limit electing Hashmi would be elevating a powerful voice to reach even higher heights.

Volunteer Donate

House of Delegates

All 100 seats in the Virginia state house are up for election. Democrats are fielding a candidate in EVERY single one, while Republicans are fielding only about 70 candidates. So if you live in Virginia no matter how Red Republican your town is there is a Democrat fighting to be your state Rep who needs your help to get across the finish line. In 2017 Virginia Democrats fought and won across the state flipping seats that had been Republican for a generation, places no one believed a Democrat could win. This was the first big national sign of a push back against Trump 1.0, now here we are in Trump 2.0. A strong Democratic majority plus a Democratic Governor could make Virginia a powerful force for progress and basic human decency, but failure will see a state government that is a happy partner to Trump and the Washington Republicans.

Volunteer

finally you don't live in Virginia, or you're not able to physically do door knocking, please please PLEASE sign up to send postcards. Where ever you live you can get postcards sent to you with addresses and personalize them, there is NO! reason, let me repeat that NO reason that every single Virginia voter can't be contacted between now and November and had the stakes of the election explained to them, had where they need to go to vote, what they need to vote explained to them and turned out, we can do this.

New Jersey

Governor

The other state with a Governor's election this year is New Jersey. Because New Jersey has a Democratic Governor, the two term and term limited Phil Murphy and is generally seen as Blue State people might think this is no big deal. But Murphy is the first Democratic Governor to be re-elected in New Jersey since the 1970s and no Democrat has taken over from a two term Democrat since the election of 1961. In the 1980s and 90s Republicans dominated the Governor's office and as late as 2018 Trump's sometimes friend sometimes victim Chris Christie was the Republican governor of the state. Democrats last week nominated Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill. Sherrill flipped a tough Republican district in 2019 to enter Congress and has defended her spot every time since then. Sherrill has made fighting back against Trump's plans to cut key programs like Social Security and Medicare the center of her campaign. Meanwhile the Trump endorsed candidate, Jack Ciattarelli, won the Republican primary. Ciattarelli tries to play moderate but he's headlined a "Stop the Steal" rally, and called teaching about LGBT topics in school "teaching sodomy" in schools. If New Jersey backslides and elects a Trump Republican the consequences would be serious for every New Jerseyan. If you're in the State or close to it, please for the love of god! get out and volunteer, fight for your state! fight for your neighbors.

Volunteer Donate

General Assembly

like in Virginia all the seats in New Jersey's lower house are up for election this year, 80 of them. Democrats have a majority in the House but it can always be expanded on. A strengthened majority will send a powerful message, and also shape how progressive New Jersey will be in the years to come and as we look toward 2026 this will serve as a good dry run for flipping key Congressional seats in New Jersey. Again if you're in New Jersey gear up, get out, fight work build the muscle memory you'll need to beat the Republicans in 2026, and 2028.

Volunteer

This is your wake up call, where ever you are, if you're an American, if you want to have a Democracy in the future, get involved and fight for it, last call guys, get on or deal with dictatorship for the rest of all our lives.

[saywhat-politics]

At the very same time Fox is criticizing Gavin Newsom for attending a fundraiser for cancer research, Donald Trump is at his country club in NJ hosting a high-dollar fundraiser for himself with fat-cat mega donors while we are on the brink of war..

[aisling-saoirse]

Wyanokie High Point, Norvin Green, NJ - June 12th 2025

[setsukochihara]

ニュージャージー by 碳酸 [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[unplaces]

Dr Charles Brimm Blvd, Camden, New Jersey.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

At first glance, the United States Supreme Court’s decision to hear First Choice Women’s Resource Center v. Platkin doesn’t seem so bad. The question presented to the nation’s highest court is a narrow, technical one regarding whether an individual who receives a subpoena in a state investigation and alleges that the demand chills their free speech rights can challenge that subpoena in federal court.  Okay—so far, so boring, so what? Well, what if the case is actually about so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which are really just fake clinics designed to deceive people seeking abortion care? And what if the clinic is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, the notorious conservative Christian law firm dedicated to eradicating reproductive rights, which also just happens to get the Court to take its cases again and again? And what if you know that Erin Hawley, wife of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and terrible person in her own right, will be arguing the case? And what if you know that the Supreme Court has shown a remarkable tenderness toward protecting the free speech rights of these fake clinics, including letting them spew medical disinformation? Suddenly, the case doesn’t look so harmless. 

Let’s jump back to what kicked off this case. In 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin began an investigation into First Choice, which runs five fake clinics in the state. Platkin’s concern is that First Choice may have “misled donors and potential clients” that they were “providing certain reproductive health care services.” As part of that investigation, Platkin subpoenaed First Choice, asking for advertisements and donor solicitations, the identification of medical personnel providing services at the clinics, and donor lists.  It’s no surprise that First Choice just refused to answer the subpoena, instead launching a years-long scheme to get the case to federal court. President Donald Trump isn’t able to appoint anti-choice hard-liners to state courts, but he stuffed the federal system full of them during his first term and is busy doing more of the same during his second term. And of course, almost any federal case involving abortion seems to inevitably land in front of the resolutely anti-choice conservatives on the Supreme Court. 

Much of First Choice’s argument in the lawsuit is over New Jersey ostensibly targeting these fake clinics out of hostility, and how they can’t possibly reveal their donor names because of all the violence perpetuated against fake clinics. That’s nicely vague—and it has to be, because there is only one side of the abortion fight perpetually engaging in violence against abortion providers and supporters. From 1977 to 2022, there have been 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, and 375 burglaries, all carried out by anti-choice zealots. Following the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, violence against reproductive health clinics where abortion remained legal spiked sharply.  [...] First Choice is also unhappy that anyone would say that their free speech is a bunch of lies, but there’s no question that fake clinics like these deceive clients. It’s their entire business model. They lead people to believe that they are medical clinics and their personnel have medical training. They disguise their intentions by offering “pregnancy help,” a vague term that definitely does not include abortion. They also refuse to refer people to abortion resources and lie about the dangers of sexual activity generally and abortion specifically. They target lower-income pregnant people and people of color who think they are at a real clinic that would provide abortion care. They tell people they are farther along in pregnancy than they really are, so they will believe it is too late to get an abortion. They spread long-debunked medical misinformation, such as saying it is possible to “reverse” a medication abortion. 

It would seem self-evident that a state attorney general has every right and duty to look into organizations that routinely scam and lie to people, particularly given that the consequences of those lies prevent people from obtaining a perfectly legal medical procedure. But the conservatives on the Supreme Court have shielded fake clinics, ruling in 2018 that it violates their First Amendment rights even to have to post a notice that abortion is available elsewhere in the state. That, declared Justice Clarence Thomas, is government-controlled speech and therefore unconstitutional. 

Watch the 6-3 MAGA Majority on SCOTUS rule in favor of anti-abortion misinformation-peddling fake clinics in the First Choice Women’s Resource Center v. Platkin case, just like what happened in NIFLA v. Becerra in 2018.

[dishwaterblonde15]

part two of sopranos characters and what i think their hogwarts houses are because i am a loser

meadow: ravenclaw

aj: hufflepuff

ralph: squib

richie aprile: squib

rosalie aprile: gryffindor

phil: slytherin

johnny sack: slytherin

ginny sack: gryffindor

artie: hufflepuff

charmaine: ravenclaw

adrianna: gryffindor

tony b: ravenclaw

rlly am no better than an elder millennial bc why am i watching this tv show about the mob in new jersey n wondering which hogwarts house each character belongs in

[literallymechanical]

Accidentally called dumplings "Peking ravioli" in front of my New Jersey coworkers and I had to frantically explain that this wasn't some insane new form of esoteric Sino-Italic racism, that's just what they're called in Boston. Had to take a picture of a menu to prove it.

[viennajoell]

Jack Hughes mood board

[destiel-news-network]

(Source)

This breaks the record of Strom Thurmond, segregationist asshole senator from South Carolina, who spoke for over 24 hours in a futile attempt to kill the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

[spidermartini]

NJ Democrat senator Cory Booker takes the floor in protest of Trump/Musk, "saying that he will keep going “'as long as I am physically able'.”

“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said at the outset of his remarks. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.”

“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.” -source

I am posting this at 2:30am EST. He has been speaking since 7PM EST. This link (at this moment) is to a live stream.

FUCK YEAH, JERSEY!

So very proud of my state at the moment.

[henk-heijmans]

Barn cats wash themselves on a fence, New Jersey, 1982 - by Walter Chandoha (1920 - 2019), American

[mcmansionhell]

new jersey "19th century" "eclecticism"

It's always funny to me when new wealth tries to imitate old wealth, but in a very specific way: by trying to reproduce old ways of building that are no longer viable via mass produced building materials and contractors who are better than average but still not quite in the legion of the bespoke. It's rarely the case that houses are fully "custom" these days -- the amalgamation of all the different parts in a new formation is the "customization" at work. As we can see in this example, this is a truth that is often covered up by excessive decorating.

This 5 bedroom, 6.5 bathroom house, built in 1997 (shocker) will run you an extremely reasonable $3.5 million big ones, but I say extremely reasonable because it wants to be a $10 million house but doesn't quite get there - after all, it's made with drywall. The architectural style is not really anything in particular -- though the front entrance would like to recall the Tudors. Really it is trying to emulate an existing pastiche style, namely the eclecticism of the 19th century. It also doesn't do this well.

No stately manor is complete without dueling staircases. Also, I don't know how to explain it, but every room in this house longs to be a bathroom. Or a powder room. A really big one. It's probably the floor, and the wallpaper. This is just the appetizer for the main attraction:

Jules Verne larping is so rare in McMansion Hell that you have to commend them for trying. I'm kind of obsessed.

This room is so important to me. It's like if an Olin Mills (dating myself here) set was an entire room. A sense of watching someone in one's own house, performing "dinner." Also I would slay as the swan knight, I have to say, so I get it.

What happened to baskets hanging from the ceiling and powder blue walls and porcelain lined up on the picture rail?

I have seen columns terminating into soffits that would make Scamozzi cry.

In Big America bathing and lavishing is a spectator sport.

Ok, again, the palette of this house is basically The Polar Express mixed with a very bizarre hotel lobby.

The chimney hole is sending me because that does appear to be a working chimney. Like, can you see the smoke come out? Who knows!

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I'm especially thankful to the folks who sponsor me on Patreon! If you want to see more scenes from this house, that's the place to do it!

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

[aisling-saoirse]

Grassy Understory, Norvin Green, New Jersey - June 12th 2025