Case of Missing Republican Representative Gets More Ridiculous |
Case of Missing Republican Representative Gets More Ridiculous
Representative Tom Kean Jr.’s own neighbors don’t know where he is.
Nobody seems to know where Representative Tom Kean Jr. is.
The New Jersey Republican has been missing in action since March 5, has so far missed 88 House votes, and hasn’t been seen in Washington for more than 75 days. But residents in Kean’s affluent suburban hometown of Westfield claim that the lawmaker isn’t home, either.
Three neighbors who spoke to NOTUS’s Jose Pagliery said that the lawmaker’s two-story Tudor-style house has been dark for weeks. Further still, Kean’s wife is nowhere to be found: Local residents said they couldn’t recall the last time they saw Mrs. Kean walking the family dog, or the last time her car was parked in the driveway.
Pagliery reported that a lone black Ford F-150 sat outside of Kean’s home, coated in yellow pollen. No one answered the two Reolink digital doorbells when Pagliery rang.
The silence that consumed Kean’s home was only heightened in contrast to the rest of the bustling neighborhood, where people walked their children to school, rabbits and squirrels skittered across the road, and landscapers worked away at manicuring individual properties.
But Kean has not abandoned the property. The couple actually paid their sewer bill ahead of time on March 31, and paid their property tax bill five days late on May 6, according to municipal records obtained by NOTUS.
Kean offered a meager explanation late last month for his sudden disappearance, confessing to House Speaker Mike Johnson (after a small pressure campaign fronted by journalists and tristate lawmakers effectively forced him to pipe up) that he had been dealing with an unspecified “personal health matter.”
At the time, Kean promised that he would return to work shortly. It has been nearly four weeks since then.
On Wednesday, Johnson remarked to reporters that he’d spoken to Kean “a few weeks ago now” and reiterated that Kean assured him he would return to the lower chamber “soon.”
But the clock is ticking: Johnson is in the midst of advancing a partisan budget reconciliation that faces total opposition from the Democratic Party. The speaker can spare just two Republican votes on the measure, if all Democrats are present and oppose it.
Kean was elected to represent New Jersey’s 7th congressional district in 2022, and is months away from being thrust into a contentious midterm reelection cycle. He is currently unchallenged in the Garden State’s Republican primary, scheduled for June 2, but is likely to face tremendous opposition from Democrats come November. Over the last several months, his district has shifted from a “lean Republican” advantage to a total toss-up, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report.
Kean’s absence in the race has apparently inspired his competition: The topic practically consumed his potential competition during a Democratic debate on May 12, according to the Bergen Record.
“Stupid on Stilts”: Republican Senator Rips Trump’s Slush Fund
Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund has found yet another Republican critic.
Thom Tillis, who has represented North Carolina in the Senate for more than a decade, is retiring at the end of the year, and in recent months the Republican has become more outspoken about the leader of his own party.
In an interview with Spectrum News Wednesday, Tillis was asked what he thought of Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which was established last week as a result of a settlement between Trump and the IRS.
“I think it’s stupid on stilts,” Tillis said. “It will invariably put us in a position where your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got pardoned, and now we’re going to pay them for that? That’s absurd. The American people are going to reject this out of hand.… When you take money from me to give to a purpose that I vehemently disagree with, that’s tyranny.”
"Stupid on stilts." Sen. Tillis rips into the new DOJ 'anti-weaponization' fund and calls it "tyranny."Full Interview: https://t.co/DQo2kNNqjK #ncpol pic.twitter.com/ll3lOvwb58— Reuben Jones (@ReubenJones1) May 21, 2026
"Stupid on stilts." Sen. Tillis rips into the new DOJ 'anti-weaponization' fund and calls it "tyranny."Full Interview: https://t.co/DQo2kNNqjK #ncpol pic.twitter.com/ll3lOvwb58
It’s a solid explanation of what’s wrong with the fund, which is expected to be doled out to Trump allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by past administrations. These allies include January 6 rioters and members of Trump-backed super PACs.
Donald K. Sherman, the president of the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the fund “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history” in a New York Times interview. Various applicants—including the leader of the Proud Boys, the Trump-obsessed founder of MyPillow, and a former Trump campaign official—are already trying to stick their hands in the honey pot.
House and Senate Democrats are looking to introduce legislation that would block the fund, or at the very least force votes on it. Similar to the issue of taxpayer money going to Trump’s ballroom or the Iran war, MAGA Republicans seem to realize the fund is unpopular, and don’t want to go on the record about whether they support it.
Tillis is a rare Republican unafraid to take a stand against Trump once in a while.
In June 2025, he voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act after expressing concerns over proposed cuts to Medicaid in his home state. Trump, unsurprisingly, threw a fit and threatened to endorse Tillis’s future primary challengers.
Since Tillis then decided to retire, Trump sort of got his wish. Trump has endorsed Republican Michael Whatley in the upcoming North Carolina Senate race. But Democrat Roy Cooper is a worthy opponent who is leading in recent polling.
DNC’s 2024 Autopsy Is Out—and It Completely Misses the Point
The Democratic National Committee has finally released its report on what went wrong in the 2024 election. It ignores everything that mattered.
The Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of the 2024 presidential election has finally reached the public—and it leaves a lot to be desired.
CNN published........