Is he a Bully, a New Jersey Crime Lord,
A Stupid Koch Minion, or a Traitor to American Family Values?
Presented by: The Religious Freedom Coalition of the SouthEast
Thank You for Whatever you can do.
Question:
"Separation between Church and State." Who coined the Phrase?
Give up? Answer: Thomas Jefferson - one of the founding
fathers of this great Nation and a creator of the U.S. Constitution and the
First Amendment to that same Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson, in 1802, wrote a Letter to the Dansbury Baptist
Convention, referring to the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
In it he said:
"Believing
that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God,
that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that
the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not
opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole
American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and
State."
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses the
Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on
Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott
Applewhite)
TAMPA, Fla. -- Fox News host Chris Wallace had nothing but
nice words for Ann Romney's speech at the GOP convention on Tuesday
night, saying that it was "effective" and that "everyone afterward
was buzzing" about it.
But New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) convention speech?
Not so much.
"I have to say, personally, I thought it was one of the most
off-key keynote speeches I ever heard," Wallace said.
He noted that Christie said the word "I" 37 times, "Romney"
seven times, and "jobs" one time.
"[I]t seemed sometimes as if he was promoting his own
candidacy more than he was Mitt Romney's," Wallace added. "People
liked the speech, but not nearly the kind of intense reaction to it
and intense listening to it that there was for Ann Romney."
Speaking to the New Jersey delegation on Wednesday morning,
Christie actually addressed why he mentioned Romney so infrequently.
"My job last night as I saw it, and I spent a lot of time
talking about the speech before I gave it because, nobody would show
up," Christie joked. "I really felt that my job last night was to
lay out the stakes in this election and the choice in this election.
And as it turned out,
with Mrs. Romney going first it freed me up -- remember she was
supposed to be going Monday night and because of the hurricane it
was canceled -- so instead both of us were on the same night."
Wallace, however, said Christie's explanation is further
evidence of his failure to do his job on Tuesday.
"If you're explaining the day after, that's never a good
sign," Wallace said. "Obviously he's not going to tell stories about
life with Mitt Romney, but it seemed to me he could have done a
better or more effective job. What's the central issue in this
campaign?
Jobs, the economy, getting it started. But he never went
after Barack Obama's economic policies. He talked about a failure of
leadership. I don't know that that's even the right critique of
Barack Obama. It seems to me, for Republicans, it's not that he's
failed to lead, it's that he's led in the wrong direction."
We will leave it up
to the reader to determine whether Chris Christie has made serious errors in
in judgment and is a liar. It is apparent from the data
collected, that the first amendment may be in danger from their past and
future actions.
The Problem with Christie is he is
in Bed with the Koch machine which is anti Union, anti EPA and Environment,
anti Public Schools, and anti anything that supports the Middle Class.
His offices like others we called, stated that their position is that
Moslems, Hindus, Shintoists and Witches are not "Real" religions" and in
fact are evil cults. What is a real religion? What they
have been practicing? Read the following and remember: "By their Works
may they be known." This is a summary of information collected from
several sources about Christie and his Koch support. EVIL!!!
(Remember it is best to
investigate on your own when looking at allegations about anyone.
Don't believe us, think for yourself and investigate for yourself! And
remember, the First Amendment Coalition does not represent any political
party nor do we recommend any political candidate, nor are we involving
ourselves in the political process. )
Excerpt from an article on alternet.org by
Stephen Lacey and
Joe Romm Sourced from
ThinkProgress
on September 8, 2011
NOTE: The audio featured in this post was obtained by
Brad Friedman of
The Brad Blog, whose
reporting on the Koch confab is also featured
at Mother Jones. The
post that appears below was originally published on the
Climate Progress blog
of ThinkProgress.
In late May, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced
he was pulling his state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,
explaining that it was "not working." Now a
stunning tape of a
secret meeting between Christie and Charles Koch sheds light on the
governor's inexplicable decision to abandon a program that was not only
cutting pollution, but was funding clean energy and, as it turns out,
reducing New Jersey's budget gap.
David Koch, introducing Christie: Five months ago we met in my New York
City office and spoke -- just the two of us -- for about two hours on
his objectives and successes in correcting many of the most serious
problems of the New Jersey state government. At the end of our
conversation, I said to myself, "I'm really impressed and inspired by
this man. He is my kind of guy."
Koch
is the biggest funder of climate disinformation in the country, a
billionaire pollutocrat who pulls the string of the Tea Party, which in turn
is driving the country to a ruined economy and an unlivable climate. And
Christie is his kind of guy. You can see why they wanted to keep this behind
closed doors.
Koch
has more to say on his budding bromance:
Another example of Governor Christie's
commitment to the free enterprise system is that only a few weeks ago he
announced that New Jersey would be withdrawing from the [Regional]
Greenhouse Gas Initiative which is a [cheers and applause],
which would have raised energy costs, reduced economic growth and led to
very little, if any, benefit for the environment. [A 'boo' is heard.]
Yes, Christie showed his "commitment to the free enterprise system" by
pulling out of a market-based system invented by Republicans and economists,
championed by President George H. W. Bush, and originally supported at a
regional level by GOP Governors like Pataki of New York.
At the time of Christie's move, people monitoring RGGI
were baffled. The program had raised tens of millions of dollars for clean
energy projects without noticeably raising rates. But after
acknowledging that climate change was real
and then raiding $65 million from the program in order to close a budget
gap, Christie
actually had the gall
to say the program was "gimmicky."
But now the reasons for Christie's awkwardly
hypocritical stance on RGGI are becoming more clear. Perhaps the program
wasn't "working" for the Koch Brothers, the oil billionaires who have spent
of millions of dollars
trying to tear down cap and trade
and any other programs related to clean energy?
Here's the audio tape of Koch
introducingChristie:
The
audio was taken outside the political retreat, where static was reportedly
being played in order to block anyone from recording the event.
This is the first time that Christie's participation
in the Koch-funded retreat has been publicly reported. The trip, which was
paid for by the New Jersey GOP,
was never written in the governor's public schedule.
Here is another nail in the
Republican/Koch/Fox News Coffin. TRENTON, N.J. — The American Civil
Liberties Union of New Jersey on Monday said it will likely drop a
lawsuit filed earlier in the day against Gov. Chris Christie for records
that confirm he met with the head of Fox News last year.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on Monday
on behalf of a reporter for Gawker Entertainment LLC, saying the
governor's office had issued a blanket refusal to release any records
pertaining to the meeting.
After the governor's office
confirmed the September 2010 meeting, the ACLU relented.
"We're happy to see the matter
resolved quickly but remain concerned that the governor's office
initially issued a blanket executive privilege claim in response to
Gawker's request for records," said ACLU-NJ president Frank Corrado, who
is representing Gawker reporter John Cook. "Is the governor's office
actually reviewing records requests from the public, or is it simply
using executive privilege as a carte blanche to deny access to all
correspondence with his office?"
Citing the state's Open Public
Records Law, the lawsuit sought all correspondence between the president
of Fox News and the governor or his staff after a report that the head
of the network tried to persuade the first-term GOP governor to run for
president in 2012.
Fox News President Roger Ailes has
denied urging Christie to run for president, but speculation continues
over whether Christie would jump into the race, even though he has
repeatedly said he will not.
Christie's appearance Monday in
Iowa at an education conference and a political fundraiser for a
congressman did little to quell the presidential talk.
The governor's office initially
refused to confirm any records existed and said that, if they did, they
would be exempt from state's open records law based on "executive
privilege" – intended to protect the governor and other elected
officials from disclosing records that contain advice to them about
their official public duties – as a reason to withhold records from the
public.
But after the lawsuit was filed
Monday, the governor's office provided a redacted calendar entry
confirming that Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, attended a private
dinner on Sept. 11, 2010, in New York but declined to comment beyond the
letter.
"Please be advised that this office
is in possession of no other records responsive to your request,"
Raymond Brandes, an attorney for the governor, said in a letter sent to
the ACLU and Cook on Monday.
Asked about the lawsuit at the Iowa
event, Christie said, "I hear they're dropping it because we have no
documents between Roger Ailes and myself." Christie said the only record
pertaining to the meeting was the calendar entry.
A New York Magazine story in May
reported that Ailes, like many others, tried to persuade Christie to run
against President Barack Obama in 2012. Following that article, Gawker's
Cook filed the public records request.
Ailes, who created Fox, the network
of choice for many Republican viewers, in 1996, is a former media
consultant for Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
"The public has a right to know
whether the head of America's most-watched cable news channel is
advising a sitting governor on state matters," Gawker's Cook said in a
statement.
Emails sent to Fox News seeking
comment were not returned on Monday.
Associated Press reporter Mike
Glover in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.
Christie's Ego knows no bounds. His constituents are of no value to
him.
Lawrence O'Donnell last night ran through Chris Christie's various excuses
for his decisions about using taxpayer resources for his family time, and
wondered about when it is that Christie will deign to discuss his family and
his parenting skills in public. It seems the only people worthy of asking
him such questions are his fellow Republicans.
O'Donnell wound up his Rewrite segment by
slamming Christie for who he thinks it's appropriate to discuss his
parenting skills with, and it's not his constituents. After all, Christie
appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe the day after his appearance on Meet the
Press and answered a similar question from Joe Scarborough on sending his
children to private schools, which O'Donnell showed a portion of. Then he
went after Christie for his double standard on who he thinks is worthy of
his respect.
O'DONNELL: So Joe Scarborough quickly and smartly goes straight to
what Chris Christie had declared a forbidden zone on Meet the Press the
day before and asks Chris Christie why he doesn't send his kids to New
Jersey public schools. Are they not good enough for your kids? And Chris
Christie doesn't dare say to Joe Scarborough, “it's none of your
business.”
He simply answers the question, says he wants his kids to go to
religious schools and be taught religion every day. And he says that, he
gives that answer, to that question, about his parenting decisions the
day after telling David Gregory, “I'm not going to let people question
my parenting decisions in public.”
He had no problem allowing Joe Scarborough to question his
parenting decisions in public and last week on the Today Show, he had no
problem allowing Matt Lauer to ask about that same parenting decision
about where he sends his kids to school.
In Chris Christie, the Republicans' dream candidate for president,
who will never be president, we can now see the inconsistent,
temperamental man, who is capable of showing flashes of anger at his
constituents like Gail, the woman who asked him about his children not
attending New Jersey public schools, but is very well behaved in formal
interview settings.
Now that we know that Christie has no rule about discussing his
parenting decisions in public, let's look at how he treated Gail one
more time.
So now we know what Christie really was thinking. Hey Gail, you
know what? First off, it's none of your business, because you're a
nobody. You're just a constituent. If you want me to actually answer
your question get your own T.V. show. Who do you think you are? Joe
Scarborough?
John Amato: It's OK for
someone other than Gov. Chris Christie's constituents to ask about his
family except when he uses them for cover. Typical coward.
The Bully in Chief appears to really love verbally smacking around NJ
voters too. However, if you're an ex-Republican politician or current TV
host, asking about his family is just fine.
Excerpt from an article by John Cook on
gawker.com Jun 17, 2011
The
office of Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New
Jersey is claiming that Fox News chairman Roger
Ailes is a confidential adviser whose
interactions with the governor should remain
secret under New Jersey's executive privilege.
Last week
we received a rather surprising response: While
declining to confirm the existence of any such
records, Christie's office said they "would be
exempt from disclosure...based upon the
executive privilege and well-settled case law."
In other words, Christie's staff refused to
search for any records—which, given the
undisputed reports of a dinner and phone call,
almost certainly exist—on the basis that Ailes
is a confidential adviser whose comments should
be shielded from public scrutiny.
New
Jersey has a rather robust executive
privilege—former Gov. Jon Corzine successfully
employed it to keep his
email exchanges with his
ex-girlfriend and former union boss Carla Katz
secret in the
face of a public records act request—and there's
nothing particularly unusual about Christie
invoking it. What is unusual is his
attempt to use it to cover conversations with
someone who is, ostensibly at least, a news
executive. It amounts to a rather bald admission
that Ailes provides Christie with political
advice.
It was
obviously never a secret that Ailes, who spent
most of his career as a communications guru to
right-wing politicians, is still a
communications guru to right-wing politicians.
But it's strange to see it spelled out in
writing.
Christie's
office did not respond to questions about the
nature of his communications with Ailes and
whether the privilege should apply. Ailes said
in a statement, "Whatever the Governor wants to
do is his business."
It's clear
what the governor wants to do in this case. But
he wasn't always so interested in secrecy. After
Corzine prevailed in his legal battle to keep
his emails private, Christie—then a
candidate—responded: "In the interest of
transparency, if I were governor I would release
the e-mails."
[Photos
via AP, Getty Images]
EXTREMIST
REPUBLICANS ARE THE ENEMY AND TRAITORS TO AMERICA by R. Blackbird
Extremist Republicans are selfish, power hungry, hateful of the poor,
disloyal to the nation and its people, dishonest, avaricious, scornful of
the nation's history, the dignity of its institutions, its standards of
political morality, and its vision of advancement for all the people. The
Republicans love war as long as they and theirs do not have to put on
helmets and carry guns into the fighting. They use lies to start wars that
kill hundreds of thousands of innocents and thousands of our own military
service people. They love massive war-time profits, unavailable to their
rich masters if war is absent.
Those Extremist Republicans hate the
rest of us, which they must, in order to pass away from themselves and onto
us, the financial burdens and losses their crimes, schemes and thefts cause.
They are prolific, incessant, and destructive liars. They are blasphemers
for they insist that their hateful and destructive deeds are the work of
God. They are apostates for they gleefully attack the poor, the immigrants,
the old and the sick, of whom God has commanded all of us to be mindful.
There is no reasoning with them, for all their logic is built on false
premises. There is no appealing to them for honor's sake for they have lost
all sense of shame and have no honor, there is no appealing to them for the
nation's sake for that it what they hate the most.
Excerpt from an article on
alternet.org by
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Posted June 29, 2011
Rachel Maddow's a super
talented host, but sometimes it's nice to see her out of her
environment -- particularly when she's relaxed enough that it seems
like she's bantering with friends. Which is what happened this
morning on the Today Show, in which Ann Curry and Maddow have a
really chill but smart conversation about the presidential
frontrunners. She was characteristically pragmatic and analytical
about Pawlenty, Bachmann and Palin, but when it got down to extreme
New Jersey governor Chris Christie, she definitely loosened up a
bit. "Chris Christie is auditioning for vice president. Chris
Christie would like to be taken seriously on a national stage,"
Maddow said. "That's why he's embarrassing himself in his own state,
leaving his son's baseball game in a state helicopter so he can go
meet with Iowa Republican donors when he's not running for
president. And his brand is 'I will be rude.'" Watch here, via
Mediaite:
In an interview with radio host
Eric Scott today, Christie suggested that if the state’s highest court
hands down a decision that he does not like, he may simply
defy the court order:
HOST:
In all seriousness, governor, what if the ruling comes down, and
[the state supreme courts says] you’ve gotta spend $1.7 billion, and you just say “no”?
CHRISTIE: Well,
that’s an option too.
HOST: You’ve considered that?
You’ve considered actually saying we’re not going to do
it? . . .
CHRISTIE: Well, listen, I’m not
going to sit here and speculate. Um, have I thought
about that? Of course I have. You asked me if I was
coming up with a contingency plan. Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of
options in the contingency plan and we’ll see what happens.
Watch it:
Sadly, Christie’s apparent belief
that the law only applies to him when he feels like it is shared by many
of his fellow conservatives. Indeed, the New Jersey governor is only the
latest conservative leader to claim that the courts can be ignored — or
even punished — when they hand down decisions that the right doesn’t
like:
Court Stripping:
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) recently told a gathering of social
conservatives in Iowa that Congress should
strip the federal courts of their ability to
hear marriage equality cases
in order to prevent gay Americans from being afforded their
constitutional right to “equal protection of the laws.”
Abolishing Courts:
Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed punishing the Ninth
Circuit court of Appeals for upholding the constitutional separation
of church and state by
eliminating that court entirely.
Justice for Sale:
A corporate lobbying group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to
reelect incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser
after Prosser allowed them to
write the court’s “justice for sale” ethics
rules.
Buying Hate:
Anti-gay hate groups spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars
last year to depose three of the seven justices who joined a
unanimous marriage equality opinion in Iowa.
At the end of the day,
conservatives don’t want to live under the rule of law — they want a
veto power over any attempt to make them follow the parts of the law
they don’t like.
Excerpt from a post on crooksandliars.com
May 20, 2011
By 5:1,
NJ Voters Say Governor Christie Should Not Run for
President in 2012:
New Jersey
Republican Governor Chris Christie, beloved by some and
despised by others for his bluntness, has a Minus 18 job
approval today as speculation continues about whether
Christie should run for President. 38% of NJ adults
approve of the job Christie is doing, 56% disapprove.
You can imagine how bad
Christie's polling numbers are by households that have
teachers and union members in them, but check out the data
coming from Republicans in the state:
Republicans and
Conservatives have mixed feelings about whether Christie
should stay focused on the Garden State or allow himself
to be talked into putting both feet onto the national
stage.
*
Among Republicans, Christie's
job approval is Plus 29. But: by
2:1, Republicans say Christie should not
run for President.
*
Conservatives by 2:1 and
Republicans by 3:2 say Christie is qualified to be President.
*
Conservatives and Republicans
by 3:1 say Christie would make a better President than
Obama.
*
Even among the state's
comparatively few Tea Party members, where Christie's
approval is Plus 49, there is division: 38% say Christie
should run for the White House, 39% say he should not.
*
Among Independents, Obama's
job approval is Plus 7, Christie's is Minus 11.
*
Among Moderates, Obama's job
approval is Plus 28, Christie is Minus 23.
*
Among lower-income voters,
Christie is Minus 32. Among upper income voters Christie
is Minus 5.
Gov. Chris Christie is
the GOP's new Great Hope to overtake the White House and on
FOX News, Chris Wallace was practically begging him to run
for President in 2012.
WALLACE: You have
repeatedly rejected calls to run for president in 2012.
In fact, you said, short of suicide, you don't know what
you could do to convince people that you're not running.
But I want to put
up -- because I'm still not convinced, I want to put up
a poll, a new poll of all the potential GOP candidates.
And the only one who currently beats President Obama is
a fellow named Chris Christie, 43 percent to 40 percent.
Don't you think you're up to being president?
CHRISTIE: Listen,
the president, rather, can rest easy, because the only
guy who is beating him in that poll isn't running.
I have a state to
run. I love New Jersey.
WALLACE: But why
not? You obviously feel strongly about this. You think
you have got a better way to do it and that everybody
else is messing it up. Why not go for it?
CHRISTIE: Listen,
two reasons. One, I have a commitment to my state. I
have been governor for a year. New Jersey's problems are
not fixed. We have a lot of hard work to do.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: You don't
think you could help more in the White House than in the
state house?
CHRISTIE: No, I
don't think I can help New Jersey more in the White
House than I can help it in the state house. And
secondly, you have got to believe in your heart that
you're personally ready to be president, and I'm not
there.
WALLACE: Why not? I
mean, seriously. You say you answer the questions. In
what way are you not ready to be president?
CHRISTIE: Listen, I
think every year you have as a governor in an executive
position in a big state like New Jersey would make you
better prepared to be president. And after one year as
governor, I am not arrogant enough to believe that after
one year as governor of New Jersey and seven years as
the United States attorney that I'm ready to be
president of the United States, so I'm not going to run.
WALLACE: Yes, but
you know, and I heard you say it might make more sense
somewhere down the line, 2016, 2020, whatever. But one
of the things that Obama learned and showed us all in
2007, when it's your moment, you have got to move.
CHRISTIE: Listen,
that is a decision that he made. And he's obviously was
successful in winning the presidency. My view is I want
to, if I ever would have run for the presidency, if I
was ever to do it, I want to make sure in my heart I
feel ready. And I don't think you run just because
political opportunity is there. That's how we wind up
with politicians who aren't ready for their jobs.
WALLACE: Governor Christie, we want to thank you so much
for coming in. And please come back, sir. It's a
pleasure to talk to you.
CHRISTIE: I will.
Thanks, Chris.
Their love affair with
Christie is rooted basically in only two facts I can see at
this time.
A) He's a good
communicator on TV. He's fairly articulate and appears like
a guy you'd want to have a beer and a hot dog with.
Paying teachers
bonuses to improve student test scores may not work
after all, according to a new study researchers say is
the first scientifically rigorous test of merit pay.
Vanderbilt
University researchers studied a program in Nashville
that offered bonuses of $5,000 to $15,000 to middle
school math teachers if their students scored higher
than expected on a statewide exam, according to a report
released today.
After three years,
the program proved to be a bust, the study said. Except
for some temporary gains, students did not progress any
faster in classrooms where teachers were offered
bonuses.
Christie and NJ are in
crisis and he hasn't fixed a thing there yet except making
job cuts and refusing tunnel projects. He's also didn't
distinguish himself with his latest showing of arrogance
when he stayed on a Florida vacation instead of helping NJ
when the snow came.
Rudy Giuliani blasted him for
it.
On Morning
Joe today, Rudy Giuliani looked back at Chris Christie's
much-discussed
absence
from New Jersey during the snow storm.
"Chris
should've come back.
I mean, if he
asked me my advice, I would've said 'They elected
you governor, they've got an emergency, they expect
you to be there.'
You know,
you've got to be there if you're a governor, a
mayor, or even a president, if it's important
enough."
The Zogby poll
which
shows Christie beating Obama 43-40
has FOX and their friends in a dizzy. Funny how they didn't
mention the PPP poll which shows that
Obama whipping Christie in NJ, 55-38.
Expect to see more FOX News love heaped upon Christie. If
they could get away with it, he'd probably be on their
payroll already.
NJ Gov. Chris Christie,
the hero of the anti-tax activists, continues his relentless
attack on labor with the cooperation of the state senate's
president. The state Assembly?
Not so much:
TRENTON — Gov.
Chris Christie and Senate President Stephen Sweeney were
poised to announce an agreement on a plan to overhaul
health and pension benefits for public employees but
were stymied Wednesday after the compromise received a
chilly reception in the Assembly.
"We are not there
yet," said Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex), who found
herself wedged between two of the state’s most powerful
politicians.
Word of the
agreement also drew quick opposition from public labor
unions across the state, who said it represented an
attack on collective bargaining rights by taking away
their ability to negotiate health benefits.
The plan would
require the state’s 500,000 public employees to
contribute more money for their pensions and health
benefits than they currently do, sources said, and
freezing cost-of-living adjustments for retirees until
the pension funds stabilize.
The overhaul, which
lawmakers have agonized over since Christie took office
a year and a half ago, would address two of the most
costly issues facing the state.
New
Jersey has promised $66.7 billion in medical benefits to
current and future retirees — the highest price tag
among the 50 states — but has not set aside a single
penny to pay for it.
A little
background on that. Another Christie, former Republican Gov.
Christine Todd Whitman, decided to fund tax cuts for the
wealthy by deferring the state's mandated pension payments
with
pension-obligation bond issues.
Guess how that turned out when the market tanked?
So most NJ voters
aren't even aware that the Republicans basically borrowed
huge amounts of money to fund tax cuts.
Oh, and remember
Christie's recent helicopter ride?
From Adam at Blue Jersey
-- guess which donor Chris Christie was flying to see the
day of his famous helicopter ride?
As noted recently at Blue
Jersey,
the lead Iowa Republican funder who Governor Christie
met with during “CopterGate” was Koch business partner
Bruce Rastetter. There is a very interesting history
between Rastetter, the Koch brothers, their
business interests and Chris Christie – and
given Christie’s history of rewarding his cronies with
lucrative contracts, this more than bears watching
closely.
"There isn’t anyone
like Chris Christie on the national scene for
Republicans," Rastetter said. "And so we believe that
he, or someone like him, running for president is very
important at this critical time in our country."[snip]
"He clearly
understands smaller government, less government
spending, job creation, and how to create a better
education system — certainly, all the things I and those
accompanying me care about."
Even though
cable news shows and political pundits swoon all over NJ
Gov. Chris Christie,
Dean Baker is exactly right:
Christie displays "follow-ship", not leadership. He is
completely a
creature of the Republican
establishment. Yet he
likes to paint himself as a regular guy and even an
outsider.
"Outsider"? Don't make me laugh.
At yesterday's speech at the American Enterprise
Institute, Christie said he'd never been to Trenton
until he was elected governor. (As the nuns would say,
"That was a bold, brazen lie!")
Married to an
investment banker, he worked as a securities lawyer and
then as a statehouse lobbyist representing the
Securities Industry Association, Wall Street's trade
association.
Appointed as
a U.S. Attorney
with no prosecutorial experience,
his appointment was
approved by Karl Rove
because Christie, his stockbroker brother Todd and their
wives donated a half-million dollars to Bush's campaign.
Todd also spread some cash compost around the Republican
Governor's Association, which used to money to run ads
supporting Christie's gubernatorial race.
Oh yeah.
About Todd: He was one of 20 specialist stock traders
charged with civil fraud for cheating customers. Funny
thing, though: 14 of those traders were also charged
criminally, many for lesser infractions than Todd
Christie. But we can rest easy, since Gov. Christie
assures us his brother got no special treatment -- even
though he awarded a
lucrative, no-bid state contract
to the federal attorney who investigated his brother
after his brother was cleared. Christie insists there
was no connection, and I'm sure he wouldn't lie, right?
In a
Wednesday afternoon speech at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C., New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called for raising
the retirement age on Social Security. His
willingness to tackle politically delicate
entitlement programs follows his approach in New
Jersey of taking on teachers’ unions and other
groups. Can Christie portray himself as a teller
of difficult truths and become a credible White
House candidate in 2012 or 2016? Or will his
YouTube-friendly shtick soon wear thin and
render him largely irrelevant in
Democratic-leaning New Jersey?
The fact
that Gov. Christie is willing to do whatever Wall
Street and the elite media tell him does not suggest
that he has strong leadership qualities. If he had strong leadership
qualities, he might take a moment to look at the
Social Security trustees report himself, or at least
talk to someone who had.
He would
discover that the program can pay 100 percent of all
scheduled benefits through the year 2037 and nearly
80 percent of scheduled benefits after this date for
the indefinite future. After 2037 retirees would
always get a larger benefit than current retirees
even if Congress never does anything.
If Mr.
Christie did the sort of basic research that we
would expect from someone proposing to raise the
retirement age he would discover that nearly half of
older workers work in physically demanding jobs.
It will be difficult for these people to stay in
these positions well into their sixties. The share
of non-college grads in physically demanding jobs is
close to 60 percent.
He would also
discover that that there has been relatively little
increase in life expectancy for workers in the
bottom half of the wage distribution, so further
increases in the retirement age (we just raised it
from 65 to 67) would likely mean a shorter period of
retirement for low and moderate income workers.
Christie
would also discover that most middle income workers
have almost nothing besides Social Security to
support themselves in retirement. This
is due to the fact that they don't have traditional
pensions, never accumulated much money in 401(k)s
and just saw much of their home equity disappear
with the collapse of the housing bubble.
Unfortunately
Mr. Christie shows little interest in learning about
Social Security, the country's most important safety
net program. He just wants to do what
the Washington Post tells him. That probably means
he is electable, but that doesn't suggest he will be
a very good president.
Keith Chaudruc,
of Madison, got the final question of the night.
The Livingston
school district elementary teacher launched into a
list of complaints about drops in municipal aid,
increasing NJ Transit fares and tax cuts for those
making more than $1 million.
His question:
How could Christie sign off on a tax cut for the
most wealthy, ignoring the regressive nature of the
sales tax, while those at the bottom were getting
squeezed with increases like the transit fares?
The two
adversaries went back and forth for a few minutes,
until Chaudruc, a Republican, interrupted the
governor.
"You want to
come up here?" Christie shouted. "You come up here
... Let’s have a conversation.."
Chaudruc, who
stands 5’6" and weighs about 160 pounds, backed away
until the governor insisted "bring him up here," and
a state trooper escorted him to the stage.
Christie, a few
inches taller and several pounds heavier, loomed
over Chaudruc as he launched into a tirade.
"Your wonderful
increase in taxes would have killed jobs in this
state," Christie said pointing his index finger at
Chaudruc. "You and I have different ideas of what
being a Republican is all about because I’m not
going to raise taxes."
Before he could
get another word in, Chaudruc was ushered off the
stage and out of the room by a trooper.
By bullying a
citizen, hogging the microphone and condescendingly
dismissing him, Christie was the rude one. But it’s
nothing new.
Christie has
turned state politics into one never-ending yo’ mama
joke. It doesn’t matter who you are — school
superintendent, teacher, student, U.S. senator,
state Assembly leader, former education commissioner
or just a regular guy trying to have a conversation:
If you disagree with him, Christie will try to
humiliate you publicly.
Some find
Christie entertaining, but his combativeness is
counterproductive and breeds the kind of hate speech
that plaques the nation.
But some people
find this totally delightful, because Chris Christie
is basically an amusing comic television show
character, like Charlie Sheen or Pat Buchanan.
Whether it helps Christie politically depends on
whether New Jersey residents find it funny or get
bored with it. But Christie will continue doing it,
because it's a major part of his "brand."
In lieu of
class solidarity, which is a privilege only afforded
to the wealthy these days, American politics are
mostly about tribal self-identification. Most
Republicans get this, and that's why being a shouty
asshole doesn't hurt Christie. Democrats -- with a
couple of exceptions, like Anthony Weiner -- are not
so good at this, which is why MSNBC's liberal hosts
whine about how Obama needs to "get tough" all the
time without ever explaining how that would help him
achieve policy goals and not just make them feel
like they're backing a winner.
Like Digby, I find
his bullying behavior clearly fascistic -- this is how
real fascists, the kind you get in Hayden Lake and at
Joe Arpaio rallies, behave. I guess Americans are
getting accustomed to that and a lot more approve of it.
And that may be the scariest aspect of Chris Christie.
Excerpt from an article on crooks and
Liars June 27, 2011
New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie revels in his bullying style, as do most
conservatives, but it's really starting to backfire on him.
Verbally beating up on teachers and school administrators
and other public servants makes him huggable with the
psychos who watch John Stossel, but to the general public it
makes him about as huggable as
Lotso.
Isn't he so sweet?
Earlier this week, Christie took more flack for the way he
treated a woman who called in complaining about the way he's
slashing funds to public education while sending his kids to
private school.
On the Today
Show this morning, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R)
defended his
belittling of a constituent
who asked the governor if he sends his kids to private
or public school. Christie has
slashed
public education spending so severely that the state
Supreme Court
overruled him.
However, when
the woman called into a local TV interview Christie was
giving this month to see if he understood first-hand the
devastating effects of his cuts, the governor went off
on the woman, angrily saying, “Hey Gail, you know what,
first of all
it’s none of your business.”
Christie sends his kids to private school. This morning,
Today Show host Matt Lauer brought up the incident,
asking, “Why isn’t it a fair question?” “Her point is
completely ridiculous,” Chrisitie snapped, calling the
woman “nonsensical.”
GREGORY: Now I'm
familiar with the substance of you what said, which is
you're a taxpayer. You pay-- property taxes. You're the
governor of everybody. You're working for the best
public schools for everybody. For religious reasons--
you and your wife decided to send your kids to parochial
schools. My question is more about your temperament.
Is-- should the chief executive speak to people that
way?
GOV. CHRIS
CHRISTIE: Damn right he should. You know why? Because
this is who I am. And the public knows they get it
straight from me. And so what I said to her was, "Don't
question my wife and my-- and my parenting decisions."
That's the most personal thing that you can say to
someone. You're a father. You know this.
These parenting
decisions we make from the heart. There's no one more
precious in my life than my wife and my four children.
And when we make those decisions, that's not appropriate
for public inquiry. I made that decision because I
believe, David, in my heart, that's the right thing.
And so you know
what? I am very blunt, I am very direct and you know
what? So was she. And you look at her tone and her
demeanor in that question, so was she. She's questioning
my ability as a public officer holder to make decisions
about every child in New Jersey and their public
education because my children go to parochial school?
Well, I went to public schools in New Jersey. I'm a
product of the public schools. And so you're-- you know
what? Absolutely. I wish more people in public life
would respond just that way.
DAVID GREGORY: But
authenticity is one thing. But we all can be better in
the public square -- how we interact with people. Are
you too abrasive? Are you too stubborn? Are you too--
tough when it comes to people questioning you?
GOV. CHRIS
CHRISTIE: I'm huggable and loveable, David. I am not
abrasive at all. I-- listen, I'm honest. And I wish we
had more of it in politics. You know what people are
tired of in politics? They're tired of blow dried--
tested answers that are given by political consultants
to politicians and everybody sounds the same. (BABBLING)
And everybody sounds the same.
I realize much of
the D.C. press corps is crushing on Christie. But before
they announce that "people" are responding to the
governor's "plain talk," pundits might want to find out
if that response extends beyond their professional
class.
Everybody
remembers how
Toy Story 3
ends, right? Lotso's new home is on the front grill of a
truck. And the entire audience cheers.
Excerpt from an article on
crooksandliars.com June 04, 2011
You have to
admire the sheer audacity of Chris Christie. He blows up a
deal for a tunnel that would have eased the commuter crush
from New Jersey into New York City, and now we know why:
Because he
isn't commuting by car
like the peons!
PHILADELPHIA -
Flight logs obtained by MyFoxPhilly.com show New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie used state police helicopters 33
times since January 2010, mostly for official functions.
Christie will repay
taxpayers for two recent trips on the helicopters, when
he used the state-owned vehicles to attend his son's
baseball games.The other 31 flight logs show that
Christie used the helicopters to attend official
functions, such as Rep. John Adler's funeral and the
announcement of the Bayonne Bridge improvement project.
But other trips
were to Manhattan to discuss Christie's political agenda
with the national media, and to have dinner with New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On one trip, Christie used
the helicopter to talk with The Wall Street Journal and
New York Times in January 2011. Another flight log, from
April 11, 2011, listed "transport home" as the reason
for the helicopter trip.
In April 2010,
Christie flew to meet with the owners of the New York
Giants and New York Jets. Both teams play in New Jersey.
In all, Christie used state helicopters nine times to
fly to Manhattan for various reasons.
And in August 2010,
Christie flew to Newark to meet with Mayor Cory Booker
and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Christie and
the State Republican Committee are reimbursing New
Jersey for the governor's personal use of a state police
helicopter for the two trips to watch his oldest son's
baseball games, a spokeswoman for Christie said
Thursday.
Excerpts from an article on
crooksandliars.com March 23, 2011
(Check out
the
above video from a post I wrote
last year to get an idea how explosive this situation is and
how angry students are. It's always the poor, the elderly
and the students who get harmed the most by conservative
ideology. Back in April there was a massive student walkout
protest over his sweeping state aid cuts in education.
Gov. Chris
Christie's deep cuts to state school aid last year left
New Jersey's schools unable to provide a "thorough and
efficient" education to the state's nearly 1.4 million
school children, a Superior Court judge found today.
Judge Peter Doyne,
who was appointed as special master in the long-running
Abbott vs. Burke school funding case, today issued an
opinion that also found the reductions "fell more
heavily upon our high risk districts and the children
educated within those districts."
"Despite spending
levels that meet or exceed virtually every state in the
country, and that saw a significant increase in spending
levels from 2000 to 2008, our 'at risk' children are now
moving further from proficiency," he said.
--
“The difficulty in
addressing New Jersey’s fiscal crisis and
its constitutionally mandated obligation to educate our
children requires an exquisite balance not
easily attained,” Doyne wrote. “Something need be done
to equitably address these competing imperatives. That
answer, though, is beyond the purview of this report.
For the limited question posed to the Master, it is clear the State has failed to carry its
burden.“
Ouch. Chris
Christie has spent only enough time to drink a cup of coffee
in New Jersey as its governor so far, but since he's very
good at bullying people,
FOX News
pundits just love him. He has yet to solve any problems
there and when it comes to education, has refused to meet
with protesters after he slashed education funding. Now he
has to deal with this ruling.
As the
article notes, Judge Doyne was appointed as a “special
master” in this case, and so his finding today will go
back to the state Supreme Court,
which can choose
to act on it. This seems likely to happen. “A special
master’s report like this carries great weight with the
higher court,”
said
David Sciarra, the executive director of the Education
Law Center. “The evidence was exhaustive, detailed
thorough and its conclusions are sobering about the
impact of the funding cuts on students across the state,
particularly poor students, regardless of where they
live.”
Christie has
not yet responded to the finding. If he is required by
the state Supreme Court to find more funding to at-risk
districts, perhaps the governor could reconsider some of
his
proposed tax cuts
for corporations and millionaires.
Where to
begin? Is it more egregious that Gov. Chris Christie is
trying to pin NJ budget woes on public workers' unions
(and models his solutions
on Grover Norquist)
-- or that a "60 Minutes" producer allowed his
misinformation to go unanswered?
First of all,
New Jersey's pension problems came to a head in 1997,
during the rein of one Christine Todd Whitman, who
cooked up a
high-risk scheme to finance tax
cuts by refusing to
make the state's mandated pension payments from general
revenue. Instead, she and state treasurer Brian Clymer
floated a $2.75 billion bond issue that would fund the
payments.
In other words, she
and Clymer were gambling that the market would generate
enough money to cover their pension obligations, so they
could borrow that money right away for tax cuts. (The
state paid $23.9 million in bond fees, by the way. Plus
interest.)
This was a
radical idea for the time,
and not everyone was thrilled with the plan. The mayor
of Edison N.J.
filed a lawsuit to stop it.
The State Supreme Court refused a stay, saying the point
was moot -- but agreed with the plaintiff that the bond
authority was merely a legal shell created to get around
the state's debt ceiling without putting it to a public
vote.
MR. GREGORY: And
you're teeing up -- Governor Chris Christie of New
Jersey , talk about austerity . He gave a speech here in
Washington this week that got rave reviews in part
because of his plain language about taking on issues
like Social Security . Here's what he said.
GOV. CHRIS
CHRISTIE (R-NJ): You're going to have to raise the
retirement age for Social Security . Ho , ho! I just
said it, and I'm still standing here. I did not
vaporize into the carpeting, and I said it.
MR. GREGORY: He
didn't vaporize into the carpeting, Rick Santelli . I
mean, this is the kind of plain talk that people are
responding to. And yet, you just heard from Senator
Durbin , you know, they want to take Social Security off
the table right now in terms of dealing with that debt
reduction.
The only people giving
him rave reviews are Conservatives, so why did Gregory frame
it in a way that appears all Americans are digging
Christie's shtick? You would think that in NJ, Christie
would have a 70% approval rating, but the fact is he's only
a tad over fifty. Wow, you may not have known that because
of
all the positive media fanboy
love going around.
For instance,
if you look at the polling, a
small sliver
of potential Republican primary voters are responding to
Christie in that they pick him as their first choice for
a 2012 candidate. But that sliver hardly represents any
sort of national response from the "people" to
Christie's partisan rhetoric. Meanwhile, in his home
state Christie enjoys decent support, with an approval
rating of about 50 percent. Although if you only
listened to the Christie media chatter from inside
Beltway you'd assume his poll numbers were in the
sky-high, 60 or 70 percent range.
Perhaps more
telling though,
is the recent poll
that showed if Christie ran against Obama in 2012, the
governor would lose his home state by nearly 20 points.
That's right, Christie would get trounced by Obama in
N.J.
I realize much of
the D.C. press corps is crushing on Christie. But before
they announce that "people" are responding to the
governor's "plain talk," pundits might want to find out
if that response extends beyond their professional
class.
President Obama
trounces him by twenty points now. Christie
can gab with the best of them,
but why does the Beltway elite class immediately transfer
what the AEI crowd thinks of him over to all Americans? It's
ridiculous. And getting back to reality, it's a complete
fallacy that raising the age of Social Security has to
happen for Social Security to remain solvent forever. It's a
Conservative lie and C&L readers and Dems all over the
country know this except for the Villager class.
I'm never
quite sure if Villagers are just
unable to distinguish
"the GOP operatives and other Villagers we talk to" from
"the people" or if they truly believe (perhaps
correctly) that they are just the only people who
matter.
I think it's
kinda of both, but if I had to make a choice I'd tell Duncan
that they believe that they are
just the only people who matter.
Excerpt from an article on
crooksandliars.com December 21, 2010
Where to begin?
Is it more egregious that Gov. Chris Christie is trying to pin NJ budget woes on
public workers' unions (and models his solutions
on Grover Norquist)
-- or that a "60 Minutes" producer allowed his misinformation to go unanswered?
First of all, New
Jersey's pension problems came to a head in 1997, during the rein of one
Christine Todd Whitman, who cooked up a
high-risk scheme to finance tax cuts
by refusing to make the state's mandated pension payments
from general revenue. Instead, she and state treasurer Brian Clymer floated a
$2.75 billion bond issue that would fund the payments.
In other words, she and
Clymer were gambling that the market would generate enough
money to cover their pension obligations, so they could
borrow that money right away for tax cuts. (The state paid
$23.9 million in bond fees, by the way. Plus interest.)
This was a
radical idea for the time,
and not everyone was thrilled with the plan. The mayor of
Edison N.J.
filed a lawsuit to stop it.
The State Supreme Court refused a stay, saying the point was
moot -- but agreed with the plaintiff that the bond
authority was merely a legal shell created to get around the
state's debt ceiling without putting it to a public vote.
From I've read, the
Whitman bonds made no payments for the first 12 years and
then, during the last 18 years, they were supposed to pay
both the deferred interest and the current interest. Whitman
assumed that the irrational exuberance of the market would
continue to generate high returns -- in other words, the
state of New Jersey was looking at a massive balloon
payment.
Let me point out the
obvious: This is how politicians have passed the buck for
decades, simply because the Reagan years made them so wary
of the political fallout from tax increases. See how well
that worked out?
When a state is in debt
and cuts taxes, the cost of the tax cut is actually a
loan that taxpayers will pay interest on, sooner or later.
Now on to the second
part of the story -- namely, that 60 Minutes didn't bother
to get another side to this story.
Did Chris
Cristie's speechwriters script
this CBS report
on state budget deficits? It certainly reads that way.
In 2,600 words
about state deficits, you won't find the phrase "tax
cuts." Instead, CBS adopts the Republican framing that
deficits are all about spending -- frequently with
loaded phrasing like "gold-plated retirement and health
care packages." And throughout the report, CBS allows
Christie, New Jersey's Republican governor, to launch
attacks on unions and make unsupported claims about
budget problems, all without ever challenging his
assertions and without including substantive
disagreement from Christie critics.CBS quotes Christie
declaring: "We have a benefit problem. … It's not an
income problem from the state. It's a benefit problem.
And so we gotta change those benefits." No contrary view
is included.Then there's this passage:
Then there's
New Jersey. It has the highest taxes in the country,
a $10 billion deficit and a depressed economy when
first-year Governor Chris Christie took office. But
after looking at the books, he decided to walk away
from a long-planned and much-needed project with New
York and the federal government to build a rail
tunnel into Manhattan. It would have helped the
economy and given employment to 6,000 construction
workers. Gov. Christie acknowledged that's a lot of
jobs. "I canceled it. I mean, listen, the bottom
line is I don't have the money. And you know what? I
can't pay people for those jobs if I don't have the
money to pay them. Where am I getting the money? I
don't have it. I literally don't have it."
You'd never
know from CBS's handling of the tunnel that there are
people,
like Nobel Prize-winning economist
Paul Krugman, who argue
that the tunnel would have had a stimulative effect on
the economy, and that killing it was therefore
shortsighted, as a stimulated economy produces more tax
revenue. No, CBS simply presented Christie's opposition
to the tunnel as gospel.And here's how CBS addressed New
Jersey's pension problems:
It's also the
truth that some of the responsibility for New
Jersey's pension woes lie at the doorstep of the
governor's mansion. Christie and his predecessors
have failed to contribute to the state's share of
its pension obligation in 13 of the last 17 years,
one of the reasons the fund is going broke. Christie
says it's ancient history."We spent too much on
everything. We spent too much. We spent money we
didn't have. We borrowed money just crazily. The
credit cards maxed out, and it's over. It's over. We
now have to get to the business of climbin' out of
the hole. We've been diggin' it for a decade or
more. We've gotta climb now, and a climb is harder.
Gotta do it," he said.
You'd never know
from CBS' report that a big part of the reason that
"Christie and his predecessors" failed to make required
contributions to the pension fund is that they decided
to use the money for tax cuts instead. (Like I said, the
CBS report takes the GOP-friendly stance that deficits
are all about spending, not revenue.)
Christine Todd
Whitman became governor in 1994, and to balance out
her deep tax cuts, she reduced the payments to the
state's pension funds. That contributed to the
growth of the unfunded liability.
If Christie didn't
get a producer credit on the 60 Minutes segment, he
should have.
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