Charles Stile

3 weeks ago | northjersey.com | Charles Stile

After listening to the three Republican candidates for governor squabble again in last week’s “conversation," I was struck by how far the rhetoric drifted away from President Ronald Reagan’s farewell remarks on immigration.

1 month ago | northjersey.com | Charles Stile

Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka came to the brink of calling Rep. Mikie Sherrill a racist last week after she suggested that improving literacy among third graders was the key to closing the alarming disparities between Black and White residents in New Jersey. “Our congresswoman … says the wealth gap can be fixed by making sure third graders know how to read," Baraka said outside a branch of the Montclair Public Library.

1 month ago | northjersey.com | Charles Stile

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, angling to be the New Jersey Democratic Party’s torchbearer for the governor’s race this fall, torched two of his rivals — and state party leaders, for good measure. Blocks from the home of Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic congresswoman who represents the 11th Congressional District, Baraka stood Tuesday on the steps of a Montclair library to attack the putative front-runner.

1 month ago | northjersey.com | Charles Stile

Restoring the annual cost-of-living increases for New Jersey's public-sector retirees has been the subject of bold promises by some of the candidates for governor. It makes sense on a political level: The mere mention of reviving the cost-of-living-adjustment benefit — or COLA — is bound to seize the attention of thousands of retirees who haven’t had an increase in their pension checks since 2011, the year that Gov. Chris Christie signed into law a draconian set of benefit cuts.

1 month ago | northjersey.com | Charles Stile

“Affordability” is the rallying cry of both major political parties this year. For New Jersey Republicans, affordability — the amorphous promise to make life cheaper and more manageable by lowering taxes and general expenses, all while sounding empathetic — was to be the key that would unlock them from nearly two decades of time served in the prison of Trenton irrelevance.