Tag Archives: Chris Christie

NJ Gov. Christie’s Conservative Light is Dimming

Thursday, 22 May 2014 09:14

Chris Christie

Chris Christie (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

Less than six months into his second term New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is having an increasingly difficult time pushing the New Jersey “comeback” theme that gained him reelection in January. This is in addition to the Bridge Gate scandal that has already seen five of his top lieutenants resign or be fired, with three investigations continuing into the matter.

First of all there’s the $807 million budget shortfall in his $33 billion budget that must be filled by the end of June. Then there’s the state’s credit rating which has been downgraded three times so far this year (it’s only May!) and

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NJ’s Governor Christie Spent the Weekend Denying He’s Running for President

Tuesday, 12 November 2013 15:00

This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, November 11th, 2013:

Fresh from his resounding reelection victory for a second term as New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie spent the weekend being interviewed on four different TV shows denying that he has any interest in running for president in 2016. He probably would have done another one but he ran out of time.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Christie said:

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NJ Governor Christie Denies Running for President

Sunday, 10 November 2013 20:04

Newly reelected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was busy over the weekend explaining that his focus is back on running New Jersey and not worrying about running for president in 2016. For instance, in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” Christie said:

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Mixed Results from Tuesday’s Elections

Thursday, 07 November 2013 06:10

On the surface, the reelection of Chris Christie as New Jersey’s governor was remarkable, winning with a resounding 60% of the vote in a dark blue (liberal Democrat) state.

A closer look reveals that Christie was running as a Republican in name only, against a weak opponent who was earlier slated to lose by a much higher margin. Christie won for his ability to

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Unhappy with Rubio

Tuesday, 06 August 2013 05:58

This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, August 5th, 2013:

When the Public Policy Polling results for 2016 were announced on July 25^th, suffering the biggest drop was Marco Rubio, falling from a commanding lead of 21 and 22 in January and March all the way to a dismal

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New Jersey Pols Reveal Plans to Confiscate Guns, Contempt for Owners

Monday, 13 May 2013 13:52

The microphone remained live following a committee meeting in Trenton, New Jersey last Thursday and captured comments from three anti-gun Democrats boldly proclaiming their purposes and prejudices:

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Chris Christie, Just Another Fascist

Monday, 05 November 2012 15:55

Governor of New Jersey at a town hall in Hills...

Governor of New Jersey at a town hall in Hillsborough, NJ 3/2/11 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chris Christie is a great example of someone who, on the hustings, sounds wonderful: less government, tough on unions, balance the budget and all that sort of thing. For a brief moment, Ann Coulter fell for him as well.

But let reality intrude and all the falsehoods and chimera and gloss disappear. Here’s the guv on gouging:

Having visited some of the hardest-hit areas of our state, and having seen firsthand the suffering people are experiencing, I assure New Jersey’s residents and retailers that we are taking a zero-tolerance approach to price gouging. Fuel, electricity, food, and a place to sleep are not luxuries, certainly not for individuals who have been displaced from their homes and in many cases have limited resources at their disposal. We are not asking businesses to function as charities. We require that they obey New Jersey’s laws – or pay significant penalties.

He is a statist after all. In fact, to be completely accurate, he thinks government’s role is to override the market and intrude and reward and punish according to some tissue-paper standard of “right” and “good.” The proper word – get ready! – is

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Looking Forward to Wednesday

Saturday, 03 November 2012 16:31

Erick Erickson

Erick Erickson (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

I’m looking forward to Wednesday for lots of reasons, most of which you can surmise: the noise, the chatter, the incessant drumbeat of political ads interrupting every TV program, the constant ringing of pollsters on my phone, the yard signs, the answering the inevitable question: who do you think is going to win?

For Erick Erickson, of RedState, the race is already over:

We are less than a week from the election.

At this point, I just want it over. I want my life back. I’m worn out. I am struggling to still care now that I have cast my absentee ballot.

I think most Americans feel that way. The people of Ohio and Florida are begging for a return to TV ads for male enhancement drugs and self-lubricating catheters.

I could refer you to Real Clear Politics which reviews and summarizes the various polls. Or you could go to Rasmussen. Or Intrade. But Erickson can’t resist making

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Hurricane Sandy Gives Obama an Excuse to Exercise Presidential Prowess

Monday, 29 October 2012 13:07

The latest from the Washington Times spells out just how large Sandy is:

Sandy was headed north from the Caribbean, where it killed more than five dozen people, and was expected to hook west toward the mid-Atlantic coast and come ashore late Monday or early Tuesday, most likely in New Jersey, colliding with a storm moving in from the west and cold air streaming down from the Arctic. The series of events has created a potentially devastating mix that could affect the lives of 50 million people from the East Coast to the Great Lakes, forecasters said.

It was Rahm Emanuel who, early in the Obama administration, uttered these chilling words: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” And thus was unleashed the storm of totalitarianism that has flooded the halls of Congress and the main streets of America ever since.

Now that Hurricane Sandy has shut down the stock market and a large part of the economy along the East Coast, Obama is wasting no time:

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Wisconsin Governor Walker to Win in a Walk, Polls Show

Monday, 04 June 2012 10:11

On Wednesday the Marquette Law School poll showed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker with a comfortable lead over his rival, former Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, in next week’s recall election, 52 percent to 45 percent. This was an improvement from their poll taken two weeks earlier when Walker held a six-point lead over Barrett. It was also confirmed by a poll taken on May 23 by We Ask America that showed Governor Walker leading Barrett 54 percent to 42 percent. More telling perhaps was the Intrade site which measures voter sentiment and showed Walker on Thursday with a 94.5 percent chance of winning the recall election.

The recall election process began in November last year when United Wisconsin, a coalition of unions and the state’s Democratic Party, decided to go after Walker because of his success in passing Act 10. That law limited unions’ collective bargaining powers and required that union members pay a little more for their health insurance and retirement benefits. Specifically, Act 10 required members to contribute 12.6 percent of their health care premiums (with the taxpayers picking up the balance of 87.4 percent) and 5.8 percent of their pension costs (with taxpayers picking up the remaining 94.2 percent).

Even after these increases, a study by the American Enterprise Institute showed that state government employees in Wisconsin are still enjoying a significant

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“Continuing Revolution” Tea Party Rally Raises Questions

Friday, 01 April 2011 11:15

Tea Party Protest, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washin...

Image via Wikipedia

Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, is the organizer behind Thursday’s “Continuing Revolution” rally at the Capitol, and said that:

We expect to see a bunch of frustrated, angry patriots who want to see serious cuts to government spending. I think it’s a huge gut check. This is a way for us to judge [our congressmen] and see how serious they are and to prepare for the 2012 elections.

Tea Party-supported candidates promised during last fall’s campaign to cut the federal budget by at least $100 billion. So far, negotiations between the Republican-controlled House (with at least 50 new representatives who were propelled there by the energy of the Tea Party) and the still-Democrat-controlled Senate has

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Governor LePage Takes a Page from Governor Christie’s Playbook

Sunday, 20 March 2011 00:14

An official photograph from the Paul LePage fo...

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Newly elected Governor of Maine Paul LePage appears to be a clone of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, adopting his blunt, in-your-face style of communication.

During his campaign for Governor, LePage was taking questions from some fishermen at a Republican gathering, and some of them complained that their businesses were suffering under excessive regulation by the federal government. As shown in a video of that meeting, LePage responded,

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GOP Uses Flyswatter to Defend Against Incoming Debt Missile

Tuesday, 22 February 2011 13:17

WASHINGTON - MAY 21: House Minority Leader Jo...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Even with only modest cuts in the continuing resolution bill offered by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, it is highly unlikely to see the light of day when the Senate returns from recess, just before the March 4th deadline. Despite strong rhetoric from House Speaker John Boehner who said “When we say we’re going to cut spending, read my lips. We are going to cut spending, ” this reminded one of the identical words (“read my lips”) uttered by Republican Presidential candidate George H. W. Bush in 1988, which cost him his chance for re-election in 1992 when he voted for higher taxes the year before. Boehner’s words also generated a protest of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who accused Boehner of

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Unfunded Municipal Pensions: Conveyor Belt to Oblivion

Tuesday, 04 January 2011 11:09

Official seal of Prichard, Alabama

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For years the small town of Prichard, Alabama knew they were in trouble. Back in 2004, the city hired an actuary to analyze and summarize their employees’ pension plan. He told the city the plan would run out of money by the summer of 2009: “The plan is projected to exhaust [all of its] assets around [the middle of] 2009.” In September of that year, the city stopped mailing pension checks to its 150 beneficiaries because there was no more money in the account. Nettie Brooks, who had retired from her position as Prichard’s police and fire dispatcher, was unable to keep up with her bills, and filed for bankruptcy. Alfred Arnold, a retired fire captain, took a position as a security guard at a local shopping mall. Eddie Ragland, a retired police captain, hired on as a police officer at the regional airport. And the retired fire marshall ended his life: “When they found him,” said David Anders, himself a retired district fire chief, “he had no electricity and no running water in his house. He was a proud enough man that he wouldn’t accept help.”

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Reality Checks from New Jersey, Illinois

Saturday, 01 January 2011 07:56

Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie

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Steve Kroft called it “The Day of Reckoning” on his “60 Minutes” segment on Sunday, but many weren’t buying it. Despite persuasive statistics showing that states have overpromised and overspent, Kroft’s conclusion about time having run out on the states was met with denial, even anger. He interviewed Meredith Whitney (who accurately predicted the decline in bank stocks as far back as 2007), who reiterated her conclusion that states’ debts are the next big bubble to burst. Her biggest concern is complacency:

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“NFL” Means No Free Lunch for Taxpayers

Sunday, 12 September 2010 09:26

View from an aircraft on approach to Newark-Li...

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When the 82,566 fans of the New York Giants cheer their team at the home opener of the season this Sunday at the New Meadowlands Stadium, they will likely enjoy the game more than the taxpayers of New Jersey who still owe $266 million on the old Giants Stadium which was demolished to make way for the new one. Those taxpayers may also be dismayed to learn that the revenue stream from the old stadium has now all but disappeared, putting them on the hook for $35 million in principal and interest payments each year to service the bonds that built the old stadium as part of the Meadowlands Sports Complex back in 1976.

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SEC Charges NJ With Cooking the Books

Friday, 03 September 2010 09:00

Jon Corzine, Governor and former Senator from ...

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Notable in the statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week that it was charging the State of New Jersey with securities fraud was the lack of fines, punishment, or names of the guilty. The fraud began in 2001 and wasn’t uncovered until the New York Times exposed it in April of 2007.

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