John Van Vliet

“Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Passaic County, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.”

“In this country,” Voltaire wrote in the late 1750s referring to Great Britain, “it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.” Voltaire was writing in reference to British Admiral John Byng, who was, by all accounts, unfairly executed in 1757 on the deck of his ship. His crime, the Admiralty judged, was his failure to capture the Spanish island of Minorca during the Seven Years War the year prior. In Byng's judgment, after assessing the situation, he deemed the mission was impossible and he abandoned the operation rather than risk certain destruction of British ships and lives. Called a coward, one who shirked his duty, the court martial had his own marines gunned him down.

At each level of New Jersey’s ongoing political narrative, from the presidential election, to the US Senate race, to the allegedly crooked backroom deals by an elite powerbroker, it appears that there is one consistently present element: the courts. The judiciary has always played a key role in shaping the political narrative, by enabling or[...]

This island of deep wooded valleys and cold rushing streams in a sea of Midwestern farmland boasts one of the highest concentrations of spring creeks in the world.

Senator Bob Menendez, 70, now found guilty of all 16 charges against him Tuesday, is, as of this writing, still a candidate.

Apart from actual tectonic activity in the Garden State, namely a series of tremors stemming from a 4.8 quake that shook New Jerseyans, to a meteor which tore across the sky over New York City and New Jersey Tuesday, there have been more than a few shake-ups in the political realm as well this year.[...]

The nation's Second Gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, 59, is the first to hold the title, as husband to Vice President Kamala Harris. At a private event hosted by Mandy and James Cooper in Old Tappan Saturday afternoon, the first Second Gentleman spoke with supporters, friends, and family, among them Congressman Josh Gottheimer. Later in the day, Emhoff was scheduled to travel to Red Bank as part of his ongoing campaigning on behalf of his wife, seeking the country's top office against former President Donald Trump.

This is the debut of the New Jersey History and Heritage Spotlight, a new Insider NJ publication dedicated to New Jerseyans of all political affiliations and backgrounds. At a time when our country, but also our state, is intensely polarized, it is the opinion of this writer that one can easily become dismayed, wondering at the strength of the fabric of our society. With a 24-hour news cycle, and a media apparatus which is compelled to hold the attention of viewers and readers in order to be profitable, sometimes things can just seem bleak. And some things well and truly are bleak, and we forget about the countless non-newsworthy acts of kindness and constructive endeavors that hold the aforementioned fabric of our society together despite it all. The proliferation of social media has led to the general democratization of media content, and as a result, the saturation of “information” (and, unfortunately, both malicious and unintended misinformation) is all but inescapable. With the reality an increasingly anxious, smartphone-addicted population finds itself in, it becomes more and more incumbent on individuals to be able to discern fact from fiction, truth from myth—or its snickering cousin: propaganda. Responsible and ethical journalists are and ought to be the stewards of the truth—“just the facts”—but with countless, often conflicting voices bombarding people through their screens, credibility often comes into question with doubts eroding what was once unquestionably understood as legitimate and reliable.

Early voting is relatively new to New Jersey, but it seems like it has taken hold among Garden State residents. Whatever happened to the good old tradition of showing up on a Tuesday Election Day, casting a ballot, and leaving the polling place having done one’s civic duty? Absentee voting had been and remains more[...]

Senate-hopeful U.S. Rep. Andy Kim joined with CD-9 Democrats in Paterson Friday evening to drum up some more Get Out The Vote enthusiasm. As far as the House is concerned, CD-9 sees a race where the late Congressman Bill Pascrell’s successor, State Senator Nellie Pou, is facing Republican challenger Billy Prempeh, who had faced Pascrell[...]