TRENTON — A pugnacious and boastful Gov. Chris Christie proposed a no-growth budget for New Jersey on Tuesday, saying he had inspired a legion of copycat governors from Albany to Sacramento and was not about to let up in his efforts to shift money from public workers to property-tax payers and businesses that create jobs. (more)
Though he’s repeatedly said he has no interest in a 2012 presidential run, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hasn’t ruled out 2016, The Hill reports. (more)
If there ever was a sign that we’ve had more than enough snow this winter, here it is. (more)
1.) Joe Biden refuses to criticize totalitarian Egyptian president, admits liking The Onion — Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak has not truly “won” an election in the 30 years that he has been president of Egypt. Instead, he’s used secret police and state-controlled media to intimidate and incarcerate his critics and political opponents, including the runner-up in the first presidential election where someone other than Mubarak was allowed on the ballot. On January 25, Egyptians rose up against Mubarak, and the Egyptian president responded by shutting down the country’s Internet and sending armed thugs into the streets to do violence against his own people. By definition, Mubarak is a dictator. Unless, of course, your dictionary was penned by Vice Pres. Joe Biden, in which case geopolitical interests supersede honesty and/or human rights. “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things,” Biden told PBS’ Jim Lehrer last night. “I would not refer to him as a dictator.” In other Biden news, the vice president likes the Onion’s made-up coverage of him. “I think it’s hilarious, the stuff they do on me,” Biden told Yahoo! News Thursday. “I saw the one of me washing a Trans-Am automobile in the driveway shirtless with tattoos all over myself and out there,” he added. “By the way, I have a Corvette– a ’67 Corvette– not a Trans-Am.” (more)
1.) Obama’s jobs team gets green-washed — “President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,” reports Bloomberg News. “Immelt has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama ‘are committed’ to making the U.S. ‘the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.’” According to Bloomberg, “Immelt is among a group of executives — Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney; Motorola Solutions Inc. CEO Greg Brown, and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote — who have voiced support for Obama policies. The four serve on several of the president’s outside advisory boards”–and all four have made a killing on green jobs subsidies (more)
1.) Obama writes editorial against regulatory excess, can name only one excessive regulation — Overly schoolmarmish regulations have to go, Pres. Obama writes in an op-ed in the morning’s Wall Street Journal. In it, Obama pays lip service to America’s semi-free market system as the source of “dazzling ideas and path-breaking products” and “the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known.” The op-ed is a curtain-raiser for this afternoon, when Obama will sign an executive order that “requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth,” as well as “a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.” But do not get your hopes too high: Apparently, the only regulatory excessiveness that Obama could think of was artificial sweetener: “The FDA has long considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste. The EPA wisely eliminated this rule last month.” Meanwhile, a spox for Rep. Eric Cantor wishes Obama had released this executive order in 2009, when House Republicans proposed it first. (more)
Saturday’s shooting in Tucson won’t stop Republican N.J. Gov. Chris Christie from holding public events and meeting with constituents, Christie said at his first townhall meeting of 2011. (more)
N.J. Republican Gov. Chris Christie had positive words for President Barack Obama on Thursday’s episode of “Good Morning America.” Christie said Obama’s Tucson memorial service speech and trip to southern Arizona were “excellent” and in line with how presidents should handle a difficult time. (more)
Alright, with only seven days gone by in 2011, it does seem a bit early for a “Year in Review” column. But, so much has happened in the last week, it seems a shame to wait 51 more weeks before reflecting on all these stories. After all, only one of those will be the foundation of next December’s review columns. (more)
1.) Has the Great Walking Back of Promises (TM) begun? — House Speaker John Boehner has been in possession of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s bejeweled gavel for less than 24 hours and already his party is modifying its promise to cut $100 billion in spending before the fiscal year is over. “A few House Republican aides admitted to TheDC that the party had slipped up in failing to correct the $100 billion figure – first thrown out in the ‘Pledge to America’ document released in late September – before this week,” writes Jon Ward. The more important goal, say Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan, is to reduce spending to a level last seen in 2008, an apparent golden age of fiscal restraint. Also, says Ryan, the fiscal year began three months ago, which means “[w]e are halfway through the fiscal year right now,” and cutting $100 billion from the budget would be almost as difficult as figuring out how many months are in a year. Why did Republicans not walk back this promise on, say, September 23, 2010, the day after the Pledge was announced? Because Congress critters are terrified that the Tea Partiers will drizzle their coagulated blood on the Tree of Liberty. And metaphorically speaking, you know they will do it, too. (more)
Family comes first to N.J. Governor Chris Christie, at least during the holidays. Both Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno were out of state during “Snowpocalypse 2010,” the winter storm that blasted the East Coast in the days after Christmas. (more)
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — The New York Jets are paying for their sideline shenanigans. (more)
ABC’s Amy Walter reports: And you thought coordinating your holiday vacation with co-workers was tough. (more)
ICE STATION ZEBRA — On Sunday, in the warmth of the NBC Studios, I found it absurd the NFL called the Eagles-Vikings game because of snow and wind in Philadelphia. You play football in snow and wind. I’ve seen fabled, unforgettable games (The Tuck Rule Game, Michael Vick beating Brett Favre at Lambeau) in snow and wind. Part of NFL lore. And I agreed with Cris Collinsworth, who said last night on NBC that postponing the Minnesota-Philadelphia game until Tuesday night is a dangerous precedent, because, as he said, it opens the door to more weather-related postponements for whatever reason. This can’t have been the first time a municipality declared a weather emergency on the day of an NFL game. (more)
1.) Christ Christie commutes sentence of man convicted for being manly — While Florida Gov. Charlie Crist continues to toss and turn over the thought of pardoning the hell out of Jim Morrison, NJ Gov. Christ Christie has been worried about somebody more low key: Brian Aitken. Aitken was sentenced to seven years in prison this past August because he had two unloaded firearms in the trunk of his car. “Police found unloaded guns that had been purchased legally in Colorado. New Jersey law requires residents who want to transport firearms legally to request a permit from a local law enforcement office and produce a letter stating why it is necessary for them to carry a gun.” Aitken was switching residences and had yet to get the paperwork, ergo he deserved to lose seven years of his life. According to The Daily Caller’s Amanda Carey, Christie “commuted the sentence of Brian Aitken Monday, reducing his sentence from seven years in prison to time already served. According to Christie’s order, he will be released as soon as it’s ‘administratively possible.’” (more)
As highlight clips go, Michael Vick’s performance for Woodbury Nissan can’t match his spree Sunday at the Meadowlands. (more)
1.) It’s official: Everybody hates Genachowski’s plan to regulate the Internet — And yes, we do mean everybody: The lefty nutters at Free Press, former comic Al Franken, Republican FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, and now, a group of Senate Republicans. The beef from the left–Franken, Free Press, and the supposed two million Americans who accidentally signed petitions thinking they were entering a contest for free Krispy Kreme–is that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed framework does not do enough to control the Internet. For instance, liberals are unhappy that cable companies would still have incentives under Genachowski’s policy to invest in creating faster, stronger, and better services, access to which could be priced at a higher rate than existing Internet services. Meanwhile, Republicans and McDowell are concerned about what the regulations would do–namely, establish “an unjustified and unnecessary expansion of government control over private enterprise.” In the middle of it all is Genachowski, a bureaucrat with the heart of a Marxist and the vertebral integrity of a plane-crash survivor. The FCC votes on Dec. 21. Don’t miss it. (more)
The New York Jets, disheartened to hear about an 8-year-old Jets fan in Cleveland reportedly tackled by a drunken Browns fan after Sunday’s game, reached out to the boy’s family Wednesday and offered VIP treatment at a Jets home game. (more)
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Nearly 81,000 people sat in total darkness for a few seconds at the New Meadowlands Stadium during a power outage that brought Sunday’s game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants to a halt. (more)
Michael Jackson’s executors say it’s him singing on new song Breaking News, and they really, really, really want to you believe them. A lawyer for the estate has issued a four-page essay in support of Breaking News and the rest of the controversial “Cascio tracks” on Jackson’s upcoming posthumous album. This is the voice of the King of Pop, they promise, vouched for by Jackson’s former producers, engineers, and two “of the best-known forensic musicologists in the nation”. (more)
