Facts Show Tough Week For Governor Christie

For Immediate Release: 
Friday, May 18th, 2012
 

Christie Clearly Cares More About YouTube Hits Than the Negative Numbers Plaguing New Jersey

(NEW JERSEY) – Several clear-cut facts and statistics released this week prove that the reality in New Jersey fails to match Governor Chris Christie's rosy rhetoric. At best, Christie's "Jersey Comeback" is delusional… at worst, it is an outright fib.

Governor Christie runs a remarkable public relations machine and does a tremendous job bending the narrative in his favor, while covering up bad news. So it's no wonder the only numbers that Christie and his press secretary keep talking about this week are the number of YouTube hits for his adorable, humorous video clip co-starring Mayor Cory Booker. Christie should spend less time troll-tweeting Jimmy Fallon, Conan O'Brien, Jerry Seinfeld and Tim Tebow links to his video in a bid for attention and more time getting to the bottom of why New Jersey is limping backwards under his watch.

Numbers don't lie. And here are several numbers that came to light this week alone:

• 230 - On Tuesday, a Department of Treasury report warned that tax collections are falling $230 million short of original budget projections in New Jersey.
• 121 - Yesterday, the Office of Legislative Services warned the state is facing an additional $121 million revenue shortfall in terms of energy tax receipts.
• 351 - When the numbers are crunched, New Jersey is looking at a combined $351 million miss of revenue projections for the year… yet Christie stubbornly continues to push an income tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the super-wealthy, rather than more equitable property tax cuts that help middle-class families.
• 9.1 - Yesterday, the state Labor Department released April numbers showing that New Jersey's unemployment rose to 9.1% - a full percentage point higher than the national rate of 8.1%.
• 8.4 - Yesterday, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that New Jersey now has the 2nd highest percentage of mortgage loans in foreclosure in the nation. This number continues to spike as rates nationally have fallen to the lowest levels since 2008.
• 54 – Yesterday, the Star Ledger reported that - over the past 8 months alone - Christie has taken 54 out-of-state trips (not even including trips to New York, Philadelphia or the Super Bowl). Ranging from last month's Wisconsin fundraising jaunt in support of union-busting Governor Scott Walker, to this month's Washington D.C. banquet with the right-wing Cato Institute, to last year's secret confab in Colorado with the Koch Brothers, Governor Christie has been more focused on burnishing his right-wing credentials and auditioning for Mitt Romney than he is on New Jersey. (This weekend, Christie will take his 55th trip when he heads to Lexington to headline a fundraising dinner for the Republican Party of Kentucky).

This week's numbers show unemployment and foreclosures going up and tax revenues going down. With depressing trends like this, the biggest question is now wondering which Christie staffer will be tasked to sheepishly take down the gigantic "Jersey Comeback" banner from Christie's taxpayer-funded political rallies.

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One New Jersey is shining a light on politicians who act against the best interests of New Jersey’s residents and who seek to divide our state for their own political gain. It is giving voice to the important issues that affect our daily lives. One New Jersey will closely monitor policy positions and actions of elected officials and expose their records on the issues that matter. You can follow https://twitter.com/#!/OneNJ or search for “One New Jersey” on Facebook.

One New Jersey: GOVERNORS ONE PERCENT UNITE IN WISCONSIN

For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
 

Christie Rushes To Help Embattled Walker in Shared War Against Middle-Class Families

 
(NEW JERSEY) – Today, America’s two most anti-middle-class governors are joining forces, as One Percent Governor Chris Christie heads to Wisconsin to headline two fundraisers for fellow One Percent Governor Scott Walker. By rushing to Walker's aid during this historic recall, it is clear which side Christie stands on in the struggle between middle-class families and corporate interests.


Walker and Christie are cut from the same Koch Brothers cloth. They both do the bidding of deep-pocketed backers at the expense of the middle-class and share the same political D.N.A when it comes to harming the working families who make up the backbone of their states. Just like Walker, Christie demonizes public unions and puts collective bargaining in the crosshairs as the centerpiece of so-called “reform”.

While raking in the right-wing money for Walker, Christie will undoubtedly tout his self-serving and factually-challenged “Jersey Comeback” - while conveniently neglecting to mention that New Jersey consistently lags the rest of the nation when it comes to unemployment. Considering how he shares the same warped worldview as Walker and the donors who support them both, Christie should have little trouble finding red meat to offer fawning audiences in Milwaukee and Green Bay. For once, Christie can rely on the truth – that he and Walker are kindred spirits in promoting the interests of the powerful and politically-connected ahead of the well-being of seniors, children and middle-class families. Tonight, Christie can easily clasp Walker’s hands as, together, they wave the banner of corporate interests while demonizing cops, firefighters, teachers and other public workers.

In New Jersey, Christie has championed rolling back environmental protections, union contracts and health benefits. He’s claimed fiscal discipline in cutting services, while giving handouts, bailouts and tax breaks to casino moguls, mall developers and the wealthiest One Percent. Christie refuses to even contemplate a millionaire's tax, while his much-ballyhooed income tax plan won’t help middle-class families in any meaningful manner. If Christie had his way, a family earning $50,000 would save a piddling $80.50 and a family earning $100,000 would get back just $275. Of course, millionaires will benefit most - by getting back a whopping $7,265.

In taking his swagger to Wisconsin, Christie is clearly embracing both Walker’s regressive policies and his politics of divisiveness. This is no surprise to anyone who has followed Christie’s record in New Jersey – where he has showered the super-wealthy with benefits and freebies, while hammering middle-class families. With a Walker-like reputation of his own, it will only be a matter of time before the people of the Garden State come to the same obvious conclusion against Christie as Wisconsin voters have against the out-of touch governor in the Badger State.

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One New Jersey is shining a light on politicians who act against the best interests of New Jersey’s residents and who seek to divide our state for their own political gain. It is giving voice to the important issues that affect our daily lives. One New Jersey will closely monitor policy positions and actions of elected officials and expose their records on the issues that matter. You can follow One New Jersey on Twitter or search for “One New Jersey” on Facebook.

All hail Christie: Governor’s bigger-than-life persona has national media starry-eyed — and missing some facts

It seems that the tarnish is finally starting to show on Chris Christie's armour. As the national news media is swooning over Christie and very often refuse to fact check much of which he says, others are beginning to wake up and look at the facts as they are. Often times the facts tell a far different story than the one being told by Christie and his cronies.

This third editorial written by the Star-Ledger's Kevin Manahan, talks about this very subject and alls out 60 Minutes, Face The Nation, MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough and others for asking softball questions without tough follow-up question of the Governor and falling for his tough guy, honest answer, Youtube persona. Which many New Jerseyians know is an act that is wearing thin based on polling numbers that have him less popular at home than he is away from it:

As the segment on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" opens, co-host Joe Scarborough applauds his in-studio guest, Gov. Chris Christie, while stumbling over the words of a song playing in the background — "My Hero" by Foo Fighters:

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero ...

A day after introducing his $29.4 billion budget, Christie is performing on the Cheerios circuit, and it's clear from the start this is going to be another 10-minute neck rub for the Republican superstar who, Scarborough believes, is carrying the weight of national reform on his broad (but reportedly slimming), blue-suited shoulders.

For more than a year, most of the national media have tripped over themselves to tell the governor how great he is, or have allowed him to tell the nation himself. It's fitting that radio and TV host Glenn Beck lovingly calls Christie "the conservative porn star," because dozens of media outlets — magazines (national and niche), newspapers (New Jersey and beyond), radio (AM and FM), TV (network and cable) — want to climb into bed with Christie and kiss him all over.

In addition, interviewers often don't have a good grip on what's happening in New Jersey, outside of what they see in YouTube clips posted by the Christie P.R. machine. Many simply don't do their homework ("What's the tool kit?" Scarborough once asked a Star-Ledger reporter). They rarely have a challenging follow-up question and they leave fact-checking to someone else (one inflated Christie's approval rating to 70 percent). Their shallow questions are tailor-made for Christie riffs on what a great job he's doing.

You'd expect the batted eyelashes and cuddling from conservative personalities like Neil Cavuto (Christie's Mendham neighbor) or Imus or Rush Limbaugh, and from conservative talking head Ann Coulter, who refuses to take Christie's presidential "no" for an answer. But even the usually even-handed "60 Minutes" let Christie go unchallenged in an interview about state finances, and some faithful readers (and online commenters) believe the New York Times — staunch defender of liberalism — has inched perilously close to the Christie hero-worship line, too.

A headline on a Washington Post blog asked, "What is it about Chris Christie?"

The blog lauded Christie for making "even the toughest position sound like nothing more than common sense" — even though the toughest" positions enumerated were typical Republican stances.

Why do the media love him? Because Christie is a novelty — engaging and entertaining — a plain-tawkin' slugger at a time when the Republican bench is weak. He is seen as Everyman: a guy who has a problem with his weight and his "L's," but he is also a savvy politician who, while protecting the tax returns of the rich, can make some middle-class taxpayers believe he is fighting for them.

A large part of Christie's allure to the media is that he might be president or vice president someday soon.

Why does Christie love them? Well, because he has carefully chosen the interviewers — part of a media strategy to build a national profile. And they don't ask tough questions.

"Christie understands that he can get a bounce in New Jersey from a gushing national media," Rutgers political science professor Ross Baker says. "Voters figure if they're making a fuss about him, he must be all right."

Is it working? Yes, outside New Jersey, anyway. Recent polls show the governor is more popular outside the Garden State than in it.

And, of course, here, within the borders, the questions tend to be more challenging.

Before this February morning is done, Ann Curry of "Today" will schmooze over Christie's weight loss: "You look good," she says, and she spends more time (five questions and comments) prying into the number of pounds he has lost than finding out about the state's proposed budget or how Christie feels about the union-busting attempt by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker....

Read More >>> Here

DGA Video: Will GOP Governors ‘Stand with Scott’ Walker’s Power Grab?

A new ad by the Democratic Governor's Association features Republican Governors distancing themselves from Scott Walker and asks if they back Walker’s latest efforts to ram through anti-worker agenda. Featured prominently in this video is non other than our Governor, Chris Christie.

Washington, D.C.—Today, the Democratic Governors Association released a video calling on Republican governors to say whether or not they stand with Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting power grab in Wisconsin.

“Many Republican governors understand that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose Governor Scott Walker’s brazen power grab and they have abandoned him in droves,” DGA Communications Director Lis Smith said. “Now that Governor Walker has resorted to underhanded tactics to subvert the will of the people in Wisconsin and strip workers of their rights, voters in Republican-governed states need to know whether their governor will stand with them or with Scott Walker and his destructive, ideological agenda that will do nothing to create jobs or improve opportunity.”

Daily Show Video: Daily Show: Crisis in Dairyland - Apocalypse Cow

The video below is from last night's Daily Show with Jon Steward, it talks about how the Republican's in Wisconsin used a loophole to vote without Democrats in the budget standoff with Governor Scott Walker over the right for public employees to collective bargain.

The segment then quickly segways into who the real villains are in Wisconsin and across the country, they are the " Teacher, the greedy, chalk dusted succubi, who so cavalierly drain Wisconsin and the rest of the country dry and continue to laugh in our faces..." .

A report by Sam Bee show us what it is really like to live the teacher's dream.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Crisis in Dairyland - Apocalypse Cow
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