United over Dolly

Good morning!

The United States of America, often riven by partisan divides on everything from girls soccer to White House renovations, was momentarily united again on Tuesday.

Alas, the harmony was only because country music legend Dolly Parton died at 80, a death that revealed Dolly may have been the last celebrity loved by nearly everyone. Both President Trump and the Democratic Socialists of America issued statements mourning her passing. A true uniter she was.

In honor of Dolly, go listen to some of her music, watch “9 to 5,” and buy a book for a child. RIP.

ICE: New Jersey is pushing for a federal judge to reject the Trump administration’s lawsuit targeting the state’s new mask ban for law enforcement officers. In a new legal filing, New Jersey includes sworn declarations from more than a dozen Garden State residents who describe the havoc wreaked by masked agents who have descended on the state as the White House seeks to enact its mass deportation effort. “We shouldn’t live in fear because a rogue agency holds themselves above the law,” Charles Neiss, a 67-year-old Watchung resident, said in his declaration accompanying the filing.

Bellmawr: The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey says cops in Bellmawr may be issuing citations to protesters in violation of the First Amendment. The group sent a letter to the town Tuesday asking it to investigate claims that members of progressive group Cooper River Indivisible, who gather for antifascism rallies in Sundays in the Camden County town, are ticketed for activities protected by the Constitution. “If Bellmawr officers are targeting participants and supporters of lawful protests with citations, Bellmawr is interfering with their constitutionally protected activities and violating their civil rights,” the letter says.

Booker: Kyle Tharp did a deep dive on federal lawmakers who use TikTok and found our own Sen. Cory Booker (D) uses it like no other, posting on average 135 times per month. He doesn’t post like a typical political account, either: He frequently downloads others’ videos and reuploads them as his own, with added commentary. “He often shares content that is incredibly corny or, some would say, cringe: heartwarming clips and inspirational videos that would feel more native on Boomer-saturated Facebook than on the viral video app popular with younger audiences,” Tharp writes.

It may be working. Booker has racked up more than 329M views, versus 18M for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Weehawken: A New Jersey woman who uses a wheelchair is getting a lot of attention after a Weehawken restaurant where she gathered with family and friends to celebrate her birthday wrote "Happy Wheel Chair Birthday” on the plate with her dessert. The snafu apparently occurred because a restaurant worker wrote the word “wheelchair” on the order to indicate who was getting the dessert, and because everyone is stupid now, the person in charge of plating wrote it on the damn plate. The birthday girl, Antonia Sinibaldi, said the restaurant workers tried to apologize by offering her table more drinks.