Chris Christie: Media can’t define us
Chris Christie: Media can’t define us (via CNN Video)
Gov. Chris Christie speaks to the CPAC crowd about the media and issues facing the Republican party.
Chris Christie: Media can’t define us (via CNN Video)
Toms River Crowd Gives Christie A Standing Ovation
Sharon from Toms River asks the last question at Governor Chris Christie’s Town Hall Meeting in Toms River. March 4, 2014
After Governor Chris Christie gave his customary warning to the last questioner at Town Hall meetings…don’t ask a stupid question or the crowd will turn on you…he called on Sharon from Toms River.
While the announced topic of the Town Hall was Sandy Recovery, Christie told the crowd of over 550 jammed in to the club house of a senior citizens’ community that they were welcome to ask him about anything.
Sharon brought up ObamaCare and the crowd started to boo. “What can we do?” Sharon asked after expressing her healthcare concerns to the governor over the boos.
“Elect a new president,” Christie said a matter-a-factually. The crowd erupted spontaneously. 550 senior citizens jumped out for their seats as if they had bed bugs and cheered Christie’s answer for a good minute, maybe two.
Christie said his answer was not a matter of partisanship, him being Republican and President Obama being a Democrat, but a matter of what works and what doesn’t work. The governor noted that Obama keeps delaying the implementation of parts of ObamaCare, “because they are not working.”
Posted: March 4th, 2014 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: Chris Christie, Christie Town Hall, Sandy recovery, Toms River | 1 Comment »Port Authority officials: Battle over toll hikes was all for show
Port Authority officials: Battle over toll hikes was all for show (via NJ.com)
On Aug. 5, 2011, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a jaw-dropping proposal to immediately raise bridge and tunnel tolls by $4 for E-ZPass subscribers and $7 for cash customers, followed by another increase in 2014. The proposed hikes…
Watson Coleman steps down from bridgegate investigation committee after calling for Gov. Chris Christie to resign
Watson Coleman steps down from bridgegate investigation committee after calling for Gov. Chris Christie to resign (via NJ.com)
Democratic Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman today withdrew from the panel investigating the lane diversions at the George Washington Bridge, a day after she called on the governor to resign from his office. Her comments, made during an appearance…
Chris Christie promises to take ‘extreme measures’ on pension if Democrats don’t play ball
Chris Christie promises to take ‘extreme measures’ on pension if Democrats don’t play ball (via NJ.com)
LONG HILL — The day after his budget address, an upbeat Gov. Chris Christie returned to a message that has worked for him in the past: State finances are in trouble and only he can help. The Republican governor urged Democrats in the state Legislature…
An attitude of status quo
Governor Chris Christie came charging into Trenton pledging to turn it upside down in 2010. He made a left turn onto the Boulevard of Compromise in 2011, cruised the boulevard through 2012 and rode the waves of Sandy through 2013. Now he’s hit a dead end on the bridgegate to nowhere.
The message of the FY 2015 Budget Address is ‘No Change.” Christie warned of the looming crisis we sent him to Trenton to fix and offered no solutions. No reductions in government. An increase in spending. Christie lamented that he couldn’t spend more because of commitments made to people who are no longer working and to repay money that has already been spent.
Christie meekly suggested that more pension and benefit reforms are necessary in order to grow the state government. State Senate President Steve Sweeney said, “We’re not doing it.”
Posted: February 26th, 2014 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, New Jersey State Budget | Tags: 2015 New Jersey Budget Address, Chris Christie | 5 Comments »Governor Chris Christie’s FY 2015 Budget Address As Prepared For Delivery
Lt. Governor Guadagno, Speaker Prieto, President Sweeney, members of the Legislature, fellow New Jerseyans:
I am pleased to present to you my Budget for Fiscal Year 2015.
This is the fifth time I have come before this Legislature to deliver a budget message.
It is one of the most important obligations of any governor.
Today, I present to you a budget that is balanced, and, for the fifth year in a row, requires no new taxes on the people of New Jersey.
Total spending in this budget for the next fiscal year is $34.5 billion, with a responsible surplus of over $300 million.
Here is more important news.
This budget, when you take out pension and health care costs and debt service, is $2.2 billion smaller than Fiscal Year 2008.
Over the last five years we have cut discretionary spending by $2.2 billion.
Posted: February 25th, 2014 | Author: admin | Filed under: Chris Christie, New Jersey State Budget | Tags: 2015 Budget Address, 2015 New Jersey Budget Address, Chris Christie, Governor Chris Christie, NJ State Budget | Comments Off on Governor Chris Christie’s FY 2015 Budget Address As Prepared For DeliveryA New Christie For A New Normal
If Governor Chris Christie’s presidential prospects have been damaged by the Bridgegate scandal and associated investigations, you wouldn’t know it by the amount of television cameras at the Town Hall Meeting in Port Monmouth this morning. Middletown officials estimate the crowd was about 500 people. There was easily 50 members of the media including reporters, photographers and videographers.
There was no swagger from the Governor today. No fist pumps, no snazzy introductory video, no in your face insults to hostile questioners. Christie dodged the only hostile question he heard. The Youtube moment came not from an idiot or thin skinned reporter, but from a three year old girl who said her house is still broken.
Bridgegate, the controversy over the September lane closures at the George Washington Bridge that has spurred investigations by the U.S. Attorney and a Special Legislative Committee never came up. The people who came to today’s meeting would gladly trade places with the Bergen County residents who were inconvenienced by traffic jams for four days. They been without their homes for 16 months.
Posted: February 20th, 2014 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2016 Presidential Politics, Chris Christie, RREM, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: 2016 Presidential politics, Chris Christie, Christie Town Hall Meeting, Media, Middletown, Port Monmouth, Reconstruction Rehabilitation Elevation and Mitigation, RREM, Sea Bright, Tom Largey | Comments Off on A New Christie For A New NormalChristie Needs To Throw Down In Middletown
By Matt Rooney, Save Jersey.com
When Speaker of the House John Boehner’s caucus didn’t immediately sign off on a massive, bloated Superstorm Sandy relief package in early 2013, Save Jerseyans, Chris Christie’s outrage could be heard at all ends of the earth.
“We respond as Americans,” Christie bellowed following a congressional adjournment which occurred without a vote, “at least we did until last night… it was disgusting to watch.”
A majority of conservatives were of a decidedly different opinion, ranging from disinterest to feelings of betrayal. Their disgust was reserved for an event that occurred approximately two months earlier, before the Mitt Train officially derailed, when the rockstar GOP Governor embraced President Obama on Garden State soil, a move which public exit polling suggested could’ve helped move the needle in the incumbent’s direction in key 2012 battleground states like Virginia and Ohio. Base political calculation at its worst? Or simply emotions getting the best of an emotional guy?
My take at the time was as balanced as anyone could expect from a conservative blogger: it was foolish to fault Christie for refusing to leave his storm-ravaged state for a political rally, or even for hosting the Commander-in-Chief upon the White House’s request, but I also argued that the Republican Governor’s overly-effusive praise of an as-of-yet-untested federal response was premature at best and would likely prove to be the real mistake with the passage of time.
Posted: February 20th, 2014 | Author: admin | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Obama, Obama Administration, RREM, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: Chris Christie, Chris Christie Town Hall, Jersey Shore, Matt Rooney, Middletown, Monmouth County, President Barack Obama, RREM, Save Jersey, Superstorm Sandy, Town Hall | Comments Off on Christie Needs To Throw Down In MiddletownFeds Turn Christie Administration Down On Waiver Of Sandy Relief Rules
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has turned down a request from the Christie Administration that the rule requiring that reconstruction work on homes damaged by SuperStorm Sandy stop upon the homeowner applying for Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation(RREM) aid, according to an Associated Press report posted on NJ.com and other outlets.
HUD rules require that the plans for all work on properties receiving RREM grants be evaluated and approved by the government. Work done without the RREM approval is not eligible for reimbursement under the program, even if the work complies with all requirements. This process has created a major logjam is funds being awarded and homes being rebuilt.
In an undated letter obtained late Tuesday by The Associated Press, HUD rejected the state’s request.
HUD says the rules, which have been the source of many complaints from homeowners struggling to rebuild after the October 2012 storm, are intended to make sure historically significant properties aren’t damaged or demolished, and that aid is not duplicated among the numerous Sandy reconstruction programs offered by federal and state governments.
Yolanda Chávez, HUD’s deputy assistant secretary for grant programs, wrote to New Jersey Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable listing other reasons why the rule can’t be dropped as well.
“If the construction does not meet elevation requirements and must be undone, resources will be spent with no benefit to the recovery,” she wrote.
If you’re going to Governor Christie’s Town Hall Meeting in Middletown tomorrow, expect to hear about this rule and others as the source of the delay in RREM funding, and as an explanation for why the multi-family projects outside of Sandy impacted areas, notably the Belleville and New Brunswick projects that have been in the news, have been approved while Jersey Shore residents are still waiting and not living at home.
Posted: February 19th, 2014 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, RREM, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Christie Town Hall Meeting, Reconstruction Rehabilitation Elevation and Mitigation, RREM, RREM grants, Superstorm Sandy | 7 Comments »