New Jersey

Friday, Apr 15, 2011 6:07 PM UTC

Christie: “Take the bat out on” female legislator

New Jersey governor in hot water after rhetorical attack on 76-year-old state senator

By Justin Elliott

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses a question about the new 'Gateway Tunnel' project that was announced in Newark by U.S. Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Monday, Feb. 7, 2011, in Trenton, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)(Credit: Julio Cortez)

It looks like Chris Christie’s persistent bully act may finally have gotten him in some real trouble.

In a news conference about pension policy Thursday, the New Jersey governor demanded the press go after one of his Democratic critics, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg. Or, as Christie put it: “Can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?”

In a statement, Weinberg, 76, expressed her displeasure:

Considering I’ve devoted my entire legislative career to fighting for the rights of women, including battered women, I think his words continue to show the level of insensitivity and poor judgment that the governor has demonstrated on women’s issues since getting elected.

Christie’s office says Weinberg is guilty of “contextual distortion” of the governor’s remarks. Here is the video, with the remark coming around 1:30:

Justin Elliott is a reporter for ProPublica. You can follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott.

Tuesday, Jan 4, 2011 9:45 PM UTC

Chris Christie back in Jersey, back to firing people

The New Jersey governor declines to take responsibility for the state's poor blizzard response, blames some mayors

By Alex Pareene

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Chris Christie back in Jersey, back to firing people

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, third from left, walks past piles of snow with staff and security as he leaves an event Friday, Dec. 31, 2010, in Freehold, N.J., where he talked about last weekend's snow storm. Christie left for Florida and a family vacation at Disney World last Sunday. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)(Credit: Mel Evans)

While hundreds of New Jersey residents were snowed in for days because various municipal governments were forced to divert resources to plowing state roads because the state government didn’t plow them, for some reason, Chris Christie was at Disney World, in Florida. He left the day the storm hit — mere hours before most flights out of the Northeast were grounded, when the scope of the storm was becoming clear to the airlines, at least — and then said he couldn’t have come back to the state anyway, because the massive blizzard delayed air traffic. But he doesn’t regret anything. Because of his children.

“I wouldn’t change the decision even if I could do it right now,” Christie said. “I had a great five days with my children. I promised that.”

And, yesterday: “My first responsibility in life is as a husband and father.” (This would be a better argument if, like, his children had desperately needed a lifesaving operation in Florida, instead of a ride on the teacups. But I am not a father, so I don’t know how traumatizing it would’ve been to temporarily delay a family vacation in order to take care of a work emergency.)

I’m sure New Jersey residents are thrilled that the governor loves his children so much that he is willing to lie about the attention he paid to his job responsibilities while on vacation, though. While Christie was out of town — and the state’s lieutenant governor was with her dying father — he says he was in regular contact with the acting governor, Senate president Steve Sweeney. Except that’s news to Sweeney:

“I never spoke to him the entire time,” Sweeney told me. “He and I never spoke until he got back.”

Who’s telling the truth? It sure looks like Sweeney. He made similar statements to News12 New Jersey on Wednesday, even before the governor got back.

Christie also attacked the (mostly Republican) mayors who plowed state streets, for some reason. (“I know who these mayors are and they should buck up and take responsibility for the fact that they didn’t do their job.”)

But don’t worry, New Jersey. Your hard-charging Republican governor is back in state and back to work. In addition to yelling at people, he is back to firing people. Gov. Christie quietly fired seven county school superintendents, without replacing them. The superintendents received an e-mail last week that read, “Your last work day is today.” (Their three-year terms expired yesterday.) Christie is fighting for the right to appoint random rich people with no education experience to these jobs, just like Mayor Bloomberg recently decided to do in New York.

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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010 5:38 PM UTC

N.J. Transit gets $271 million bill for scrapped tunnel

$8.7 billion rail project was 15 years in the making when Chris Christie pulled the plug due to cost

By Associated Press

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NJ Transit owes the federal government $271 million for the Hudson River rail tunnel that Gov. Chris Christie scrapped last month.

The Federal Transit Administration on Monday sent the railroad the bill, saying interest and penalty charges will be added.

The Record newspaper reported the FTA also said it would launch a “complete audit” of the Access to the Region’s Core project to determine how much federal funds still have not been spent.

The $8.7 billion project to construct a rail tunnel between New Jersey and New York was 15 years in the making when Christie pulled the plug, citing cost overruns.

Officials aren’t saying where NJ Transit will get the money to pay the bill.

——

Information from: The Record, http://www.northjersey.com

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Thursday, Oct 21, 2010 5:01 PM UTC

NBC’s glowing, hilarious ode to Chris Christie

A "Today" reporter's worshipful portrait of the New Jersey governor (and her story on Scott Brown's dreaminess)

By Alex Pareene

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NBC's glowing, hilarious ode to Chris Christie

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gets fawning press coverage because his blunt, no-nonsense style screams “authenticity” on TV (and because in a year where the press narrative is “Republicans resurgent,” he is one of the very few prominent Republicans who is actually popular and not particularly embarrassing). But even by the standards of softball coverage of popular first-year pols, yesterday’s Today Show profile of the governor is completely ridiculous:

His lovely wife sings his praises. His kids? Adorable. There are awed recitations of his many miracles since assuming office. Will he run for president? He’s far too humble to get the nation’s hopes up. And it’s all set to the inspirational-but-blue collar sounds of Bruce Springsteen. (Not mentioned: Springsteen’s refusal to play Christie’s inaugural, shortly before the Boss came out in favor of same-sex marriage — which Christie opposes.)

Christie is saving his embattled state by the means traditionally, enthusiastically endorsed by the “non-partisan” press: “Slashing spending” and “battling unions.” (These positions, you may note, match the platform of your average Republican.)

Yes, whether he’s shuttering Planned Parenthood clinics, ousting “liberal” judges in order to scare the rest of them, or abandoning necessary and useful infrastructure projects (a headline referencing his decision to kill the tunnel is briefly featured in the piece as an example of Christie’s greatness), Chris Christie is a new kind of politician. And “his approval ratings,” we’re told, “keep going up.” Wow! They keep going up? He must be at like 80% or something, right? Well, Christie’s ratings did rise from March through October. Because in March he was at 43%, and he’s currently at 51%. (Universally despised failed President Barack Obama, for what it’s worth, is at 46%.)

But there is proof that Christie’s message appeals to voters on both sides of the aisle. Specifically, that proof is… a Christie campaign ad.

Real Clear Politics, the political news aggregator that basically worships moderate Republicans like Christie, prominently featured this profile in their videos section yesterday. The nearly six-minute ode to Christie’s perfection (FLASH: “TOUGH-TALKING N.J. GOVERNOR IS GOP RISING STAR”) was also replayed in its entirety on (oh so liberal) MSNBC.

The Republican Governors Association made a flashy 23-minute documentary about Christie that might actually be less flattering than the Today Show feature.

Despite the fact that it sounds like Today Show reporter Jamie Gangel has never spoken to a politician — let alone asked one about his presidential ambitions — before, she is actually an award-winning 25+-year veteran of NBC News. And this is not even her first friendly feature on an elected official this year!

Here she is in April going on a date with Scott Brown! Yes, that Scott Brown: The authenticity-oozing “moderate” Republican from the northeast whose election — and no-nonsense style — shocked the political establishment.

(And here’s Gangel last year having a heart-to-heart with the deeply misunderstood Rush Limbaugh.)

Jamie Gangel is your source for hard-hitting stories on how newly elected Republicans are totally awesome dudes who you’d totally enjoy hanging out with.

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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Tuesday, Oct 12, 2010 1:15 PM UTC

Google to invest in offshore wind power project

Planned transmission lines will connect future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic from New Jersey to Virginia

By Chris Kahn, Associated Press

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A consortium of technology and investment companies including Google has devoted $1.8 billion to building a network of transmission lines to connect future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic from New Jersey to Virginia.

Google Inc. has teamed up with investment firm Good Energies, Japanese industrial conglomerate Marubeni and Maryland transmission company Trans-Elect to develop transmission lines that could deliver 2,000 megawatts of wind energy along the East Coast.

Trans-Elect CEO Robert L. Mitchell says the first phase will run 150 miles in federal waters from New Jersey to Delaware and be complete by early 2016. The entire project could cost up to $5 billion over the next 10 years, Mitchell said.

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Tuesday, Sep 28, 2010 9:03 PM UTC

N.J. Governor wants changes in how public school teachers are paid

Chris Christie says compensation should be based on student performance, not just seniority or degrees

By Associated Press

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he wants to use new methods to evaluate and pay the state’s public school teachers.

Christie announced his education reform agenda Tuesday. It brings back many ideas he’s laid out previously.

He says teacher pay scales based solely on seniority and graduate degrees should be changed. Instead, he says, teachers should be paid partly based on how well their students do on standardized tests.

He also wants to create “master teacher” and “master principal” designations to give more responsibilities — and more pay — to effective teachers and administrators.

Christie’s announcement comes after he and Newark Mayor Cory Booker accepted a $100 million donation last week from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to boost the city’s schools.

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