The two men conservative Republicans love to hate will meet up on Thursday to discuss what they’ve been working on since taking office – wealth inequality and poverty.
It is also expected that President Obama will formally invite The Pope to visit the U.S. next year.
Breathtaking!
So far, the political discussion revolving around Chris Christie’s diminishing prospects for 2016 have centered on the George Washington Bridge scandal, (and the laughable investigation by his own attorney), and the not-yet-vetted story about Sandy aid being withheld from less-than-enthusiastic supporters of the governor. These are certainly key issues that tell us a great deal about Christie’s style and demeanor, but even without them, he simply doesn’t have a record that would support a national run.
There’s no New Jersey Miracle, no New Jersey Rebound, and no New Jersey Bounce (OK, there’s one of those, but it’s unrelated to economics and politics). The governor hasn’t led New Jersey into a new ideological paradigm, nor has he provided a new framework by which the state operates. Democrats still outnumber Republicans. His 2013 coattails were, shall we say, a bit short when it came to counting legislative seats. His Supreme Court nominees have been rebuffed.
And this guy wants to be president?
About all he can run on is a state worker’s pension and benefits bill that is providing little relief to anyone. Middle class public workers are being whacked because more money is coming out of their checks for pensions and health insurance (which should have been negotiated, not imposed), and property taxes remain stubbornly high (remember that these taxes were supposed to go down as a result of the pensions bill). The result is that the governor took spendable money out of the economy at a time when he should have been putting more money into the economy to create jobs. What we have in New Jersey now is slow growth, a deteriorating middle class and a governor who wants to have public workers pay even more into their pensions. What about millionaires, you ask? He won’t touch their taxes.
Funny side note: Christie is seen as a moderate Republican. You can stop laughing now.
Christie’s latest economic gambit is to renege on his mandated duty to make full payments to the public worker pension system. That would put it in serious jeopardy and would negate a promise that the courts have ruled to be essentially non-negotiable. He’ll lose this argument and more credibility because the Democrats in the legislature will not cave in to him as they did in 2011 and the crossover vote that earned him his victory in November is abandoning him. Conservative Republicans in NJ still back him, but that’s not nearly a majority of the voters.
My sense is that the governor will survive the scandals. The larger question is whether New Jersey can survive him.
Register your comments at www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
This is your fiscal conservatives doing what they do best – wasting taxpayer’s money.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that its work to comply with the six congressional investigations into the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, has cost the military millions of dollars and thousands of man hours.
The Pentagon said in a letter to Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed services Committee, that Defense Department officials have participated in 50 congressional hearings, briefings and interviews about the attack.
“We continue to work fervently to address outstanding items which include a document request from the chairman of the Armed Services Committee (HASC) and six additional interviews of military personnel by HASC and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff,” wrote Elizabeth King, assistant secretary for legislative affairs.
Smith requested the estimate from the Pentagon in December. In response, he blasted the Armed Services Committee for continuing to investigate the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Smith wrote to House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), calling on him to drop the committee’s investigation.
“We must stop wasting this committee’s and our military’s scarce resources chasing a scandal that does not exist,” Smith wrote in a letter obtained by The Hill.
“More than any other committee in Congress, this committee should understand the financial strain on the Department of Defense, which is being made worse by these ongoing and ridiculous investigations,” Smith said.
It does not appear that McKeon intends to abandon the investigation, however.
My name is Ezra Grant and I like Candy Crush. But apparently I’m not the only addict in this candy store.
Candy Crush went on the stock market today as a publicly traded company with shares valued at $22.50 a share, making the candy game a $7.1 billion company.
The public offering of King marks the largest of its kind for the mobile gaming industry, beating out Zynga, which was valued at $7 billion, but lost half of its value after its 2011 IPO.
Mitt Romney seems to have all the answers, except how to win an election or how to accept the reality that he lost and bow out gracefully.
The two-time loser jumped at the opportunity to attack President Obama on his handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He actually called the president naive.
Said Romney on a Sunday talk show;
“There’s no question but that the president’s naivete with regards to Russia, and his faulty judgment about Russia’s intentions and objectives, has led to a number of foreign policy challenges that we face.
“And unfortunately, not having anticipated Russia’s intentions, the president wasn’t able to shape the kinds of events that may have been able to prevent the kinds of circumstances that you’re seeing in the Ukraine, as well as the things that you’re seeing in Syria.”
Back in 2012 while he was running his failed campaign for president, Romney called Russia “our number one geopolitical foe.” For that statement, Romney took some well deserved criticisms from the president and he appeared weak on foreign policy like someone with no knowledge of what they speak, almost reminiscent of Sarah Palin.
This was Romney’s chance vindicate himself, to tell everyone that he was correct in calling Russia our number one foe. But again, he got slammed by the President.
“With respect to Romney’s assertion that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe, the truth of the matter is that America has a whole lot of challenges. Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.”
Time to have a seat Romney, this match was over almost two years ago.
The Republicans – like a squeaky, noisy wheel begging for attention – continues their ill-fated push for repealing Obamacare and replacing it with nothing. It’s all they have. The repeal call keeps their base salivating for blood, preferably from that guy in the White House.
But that’s their base. The rest of the country is seeing the importance of everyone having healthcare, and the positive effect healthcare has on the rest of the economy. The rest of the country is beginning to appreciate Obamacare.
Today’s new Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll finds that unfavorable views of the ACA are shrinking.
The new poll finds that in March, 38 percent viewed the law favorably, versus 46 percent who saw it unfavorably. That’s a substantial narrowing from the 34-50 spread during the dark days of January, and a return almost to where opinion was in September (39-43), before the rollout disaster began.
– Support for repeal continues to shrink. Only 18 percent want to repeal the law and not replace it, while all of 11 percent want to repeal and replace it with a GOP alternative — a grand total of 29 percent. Meanwhile, 49 percent want to keep the law and improve it, and another 10 percent want to keep it as is — a total of 59 percent.
Among indys, that keep/improve versus repeal/replace spread is 52-31. Republicans are all alone here, with their spread at 31-58.
That overall keep-versus-repeal spread has improved for the law since February (when it was 56-31), and even more so since December and October, suggesting a clear trend
With less than a week left for people to sign up for health insurance, the Obama administration said Tuesday that it would allow more time for those who had tried to apply but were blocked by technical problems with the federal exchange.
Several states running their own exchanges, including Maryland, Minnesota and Nevada, have taken similar steps in the last two weeks.
Open enrollment was scheduled to end on Monday for all Americans. The White House had previously insisted that the deadline was firm and would not be extended.
Under the move planned by the administration, some people will be given a special enrollment period, beyond the deadline, if they can show they were not able to enroll because of an error by the federal exchange or by the Department of Health and Human Services. Federal officials allowed a special enrollment period, on a case-by-case basis, for some people who were unable to meet the Dec. 24, 2013, enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1 of this year.
Back in January, Flava was hit with a speeding ticket in Long Island as he tried to be on time for his mother’s funeral. But plane tickets are expensive and with the Flavor living in LA, flying back and forth for this case is apparently putting a dent in his wallet.
Police say the rapper and reality star was speeding and driving without a license, a felony, on Jan. 9 on the Meadowbrook Parkway on Long Island. His attorney, Indji Bessim, says the case has been postponed to May 16, reports the AP.
Flav, whose real name is William Drayton, told reporters as he entered a Nassau County courtroom Tuesday that he hoped to resolve the case.
The rapper, who lives in Las Vegas, complained that flights from there to New York were becoming expensive.
At least he will save some money with his felony assault case, which takes place in Vegas. Flav faces that charge and others after allegedly threatening his longtime girlfriend’s teenage son.
Thanks Sarah Palin! Because if you, Americans, even some in Alaska, have had enough;! I blame you!
A White House petition is gathering thousands of signatures urging the return of Alaska to Russia. The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million.
The “Alaska Back to Russia” petition was created by an unnamed Anchorage resident (S.V.) last week and it has already gotten more than 18,000 signatures. The petition needs 100,000 signers by April 20 to warrant a response from the Obama administration.
The petition reads:
“Groups Siberian russians crossed the Isthmus (now the Bering Strait) 16-10 thousand years ago. Russian began to settle on the Arctic coast, Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Archipelago. First visited Alaska August 21, 1732, members of the team boat St. Gabriel »under the surveyor Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fedorov during the expedition Shestakov and DI Pavlutski 1729-1735 years…Vote for secession of Alaska from the United States and joining Russia.”
“Scandal” actor Columbus Short and his wife, Tanee McCall-Short are making headlines again, but this time it’s not for their withdrawn divorce petition.
According to TMZ, the 31-year-old actor was involved in a bar fight that left his opponent hospitalized with a broken nose. The way the story is being told, Short and his alleged victim were at an engagement party at Gabe’s Bar and Grill in Los Angeles when he found himself in a confrontation with another partygoer.
“You might be richer than me but I get my girls to buy me everything I want including your wife,” the other guy reportedly told Short.
An eyewitness claims the comment set Short off and prompted him to sucker punch the man. The witness adds that the blow was so impactful that it rendered the man unconscious for several minutes and left him with a broken nose. Following the alleged assault, Short reportedly left the bar. An ambulance later came and transported the 37-year-old alleged victim to a nearby hospital.
According to reports, the “Cadillac Records” actor is now being investigated for criminal battery. This wouldn’t be the first time Short’s temper has landed him on the wrong side of the law. He was also involved in a March 2010 scuffle at a Los Angeles gym that left his victim with a bloody mouth and missing teeth. Apparently March isn’t great time of year for him.
We’ll continue to keep you posted as this story develops.
– See more at: http://madamenoire.com/413538/nasty-comment-columbus-shorts-wife-reportedly-triggers-ugly-bar-fight/#sthash.qOhm6RVR.dpuf
Where did you get the idea that his name was Diddy, or P Diddy for that matter? It certainly wasn’t from the man whose real name is Sean Combs.
According to the man who runs the Sean John clothing line, he never, ever changed his name. It was always Puffy.
Mr Puffy made that bit of news while promoting his latest single “Big Homie.”
In a tweet on Monday, he said “For the record, I did not change my name. I always have been and always will be PUFF DADDY! 🙂 Be cool Man lol #MMM #BigHomie RT!!!!”
