Newsy.

The New York Post Never Learns

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:21:08 -0400

Published the week of April 15, 2013 in the TriCityNews.

It is difficult to cover a story when you are looking for a particular outcome. This was underscored by the New York Post when on Monday, less than 90 minutes after the Boston Marathon Bombing, they reported that the police had a suspect - the fifth and sixth words used in their article described him as “Saudi Arabian.” The suspect, they said, was 20 years old and had “suffered severe burns.” The Post cited unnamed “law enforcement sources.”

A named law enforcement source - Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis - responded to the Post-derived rumor at a press conference some four hours after the paper’s initial report, stating “I want to stress one thing: there is no suspect at Bringham and Women’s hospital.”

“History repeats itself,” the famed lawyer Clarence Darrow once said. “That’s one of the things wrong with history.”

Today, even the wildest conspiracy theorists offer only variations on the idea that the tried and executed perpetrator Timothy McVeigh had some kind of help - maybe from the US government - in blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Yet, this would have been the last thing you would have predicted from watching the news in the days after the explosion eighteen years ago this month.

In the direct aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing, wild media speculation that Middle Eastern terrorists were to blame eclipsed the possibility of other scenarios involving domestic terrorists. Experts on Middle Eastern terrorism were trotted out on most news broadcasts almost immediately after the attack. Comparisons were drawn to the 1993 World Trade Center explosion. The New York Post’s opening paragraph of its story quoted Israeli terrorism experts saying the explosion “mimicked three recent attacks on targets abroad.” In the first sentence of its report, The Wall Street Journal referred to the event as a “Beirut-style car bombing.”

CNN went as far as to identify four innocent Arab Americans in connection with the attack - something then-executive vice president of the network, Ed Turner, saw nothing wrong with. Broadcasting the names of the suspects, he contended, was “part of the story.”

A June, 1995 American Journalism Review assessment of the media’s handling of the Oklahoma City Bombing notes that the result of what would prove to be the profoundly incorrect assumptions of the press was backlash against the American Muslim community. in the days following the attack, there were dozens of reports of harassment towards Americans of Middle Eastern descent. Arab American shopkeepers in Brooklyn were subject to death threats; A sack of cans was thrown at a Muslim day care teacher and her students by a man who shouted, “Here’s a bomb for you lady”; Mosques nationwide had their windows broken.

It is American post traumatic stress disorder to criticize and politicize in the wake of senseless violence. On Twitter, documentarian Michael Moore noted without additional comment that April 15th was both Tax Day and Patriots Day. This led to an attack by conservative pundit SE Cupp who lashed out, “Dude, just say it, why tip toe around your speculative implication?” On both sides of the aisle, any and all comments which could be interpreted as “speculative implications” regarding what might be the bombers political affiliation if he were revealed to be an American were met with knee-jerk reactions like Cupp’s.

We need someone - anyone - to blame. And out of all the ugly possibilities, the most attractive is that the person(s) responsible for our national pain is an outsider. Mine is a generation raised in a post-9/11 world, and we heard George W. Bush loud and clear when he cautioned us that “they hate us for our freedom.” That notion is perhaps an easier pill to swallow than the idea that this country that we love could have produced an individual who would seek to do us harm. Outsiders hate us because they do not understand our values, but a domestic terrorist does understand them - and they vehemently reject at least some part of them. That is a reality that begs us, as a society, to reflect. Something which does not come as naturally as rallying around the flag.

It is possible that The New York Post’s for-now-unproven claims of “12 dead” and a “Saudi Arabian suspect” could turn out to be true, but unconfirmed information stated matter-of-factly is not reporting, it is speculating. And speculating it what leads to mistakes like identifying four Arab Americans in connection to an attack that they had no part of. Unfortunately for us, The New York Post repeated their own history and did what came naturally rather than what would have benefited the country.

By Olivia Nuzzi

THE MENENDEZ SEX SCANDAL: A DEMOCRATIC PLOT TO DISCREDIT THE DAILY CALLER?

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:25:45 -0500

On the surface, it looks like a perfectly-crafted Right-Wing conspiracy. Six days before the election, in the last hour of a Democratic Senator’s campaign for reelection, a potentially devastating report emerges on a widely-respected conservative website known for its journalistic integrity. The Senator has allegedly engaged with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. He reportedly neglected to pay them what they were initially promised for their services. What’s more, one of the Senator’s top donors has purportedly allowed him to stay at his private villa and utilize his private jet for his trips. In the following days, more details come to light. One of the prostitutes with whom the Senator allegedly had relations was just sixteen years old.

The combination of cringeworthy details - the Senator preferred “the newest and youngest girls”; the Senator’s “prostitution spree” went on as he crusaded against prostitution in Cuba - seemed designed to knock him down as Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer had been knocked down before. He would be just one more in a long line of liberals who sacrificed his power for the sake of his sexual desires.

Yet, the allegations made by The Daily Caller against Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) this past November were at first met with almost universal indifference. The evidence provided by The Daily Caller was not convincing enough to outweigh the fact that the timing - with the state which Menendez represents struggling to recover in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the presidential election visible on the horizon - was just not right for a sex scandal to stick.

Senator Menendez beat his opponent, New Jersey State Senator Joe Kyrillos, handily and became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

Menendez’s victory did not stop The Daily Caller from persisting. Since the initial November 1, 2012 posting, the website followed up no less than 45 times with various updates to the story. Though, the hardest evidence provided remained the footage of two Dominican prostitutes, their faces blurred, identifying Senator Menendez in a photograph as the man they serviced. The website’s efforts to discredit and disempower Menendez seemed at best futile and at worst embarrassing.

And then on Monday night, The Washington Post published a report that one of Senator Menendez’s alleged Dominican escorts had confessed to police that she and her colleague were paid by an unnamed attorney to read a prepared script containing the charges that they had provided sexual favors for the Senator in return for payment. The escort, according to The Washington Post, now asserts that she has never even met Bob Menendez.

After four long months of “did he or didn’t he?” and “does anyone even care?” it would appear that Senator Menendez was telling the truth all along. As he told the post “there are obviously some people, some interests using right-wing blogs that have been perpetuating smears about me and I hope that all the truth comes out, because they are nothing but that — smears,” continuing, “I’ve always said that these are all false. They’re smears, so I look forward to seeing whatever the Dominican courts have to prove what I’ve said all along.”

But America should not now be asking “who framed Robert Menendez?” It would be too obvious for this to be what it looks like. What America should be asking is “who framed The Daily Caller?”

Why would The Daily Caller, which is so widely renowned for its consistent reliability, have persisted with such a ridiculous story - besides the fact that because of the bottomless pockets of their bankroller, rejected Batman TV show villain Foster Friess, they could?

Who sticks to a story that is getting them laughed at, and shushed by their own side, and potentially sued by the subject, when its so profoundly and utterly wrong? Is it like the sportscaster who insisted the coach was changing teams because his source was the coach but the coach had changed his mind and didn’t bother to tell him? Was The Daily Caller so bullheaded because they had an unimpeachable source - who might have been lying to them? In short, did somebody set them up?

This is Obama’s America…and The Democratic Machine he owns has clearly been hard at work with a complex plot to discredit The Daily Caller and, in a larger sense, the Right-Wing media.

That would explain the seemingly inexplicable: why the MSM (mainstream media) refused to circle Menendez and pick at his flailing body like he was slowly-dying roadkill and it was a hawk.

And of course, only those at the top of The Democratic Food Chain would have the insider-knowledge necessary to make the details of the story so perfect: A US Senator and his dirty campaign money charter a private jet to a villa called Casa de Campo where he gets a 16 year old hooker and between trips, he campaigns against prostitution! It’s the type of storyline that Aaron Sorkin would kill (or more realistically, steal) to turn into his next dramedy.

We cannot allow The Democratic Machine to wipe out its most gullible, credulous and easily-manipulated opponents. To save democracy, we must make it safe for stupidity; we must save The Daily Caller.

The Boy Scout Fence

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:10:00 -0500

LET’S USE BOY SCOUTS TO SECURE THE US-MEXICAN BORDER

Published in this week’s Tri City News

There’s been a great deal of talk about the Boy Scouts lately, due to a leak late last month which uncovered plans for the organization to review its “no gays allowed” policy. I’m still not clear as to what the Boy Scouts do exactly. I know it has something to do with “character building” and tree forts and selling Christmas wreaths…but none of that seems particularly useful to me. What are the Boy Scouts doing for America?

On Super Bowl Sunday, President Obama called on the Scouts to lift their ban on gay members. Still, they have decided to delay their final decision until May. Because April showers bring gay flowers or whatever.

“Not so fast, Obama” have said Right-Wingers. More than 40 conservative organizations ran an ad in USA Today pressuring the Boy Scouts to “stay true to their timeless values and not surrender to financial or political pressures by corporate elites on the issue of homosexuality.”

“That’s some pretty heavy stuff,” sighed 9 year old Tommy who said he was “really just in it to learn how to build a pinewood derby car.”

So what are the Boy Scouts doing for America? Assuming the answer to that is nothing, It must be asked: If the Boy Scouts don’t actually do anything, why don’t we use them to secure the border? I mean physically use their bodies as a human fence… “The Boy Scout Fence,” if you will.

I know, I know, that’s crazy! But is it really? Think about it.

The Boy Scouts of America love America. The word “America” is right in there in their official name. As of February 8th, the Boy Scouts of America have been loving America for 103 years. According to conservative logic, to love America is to loathe illegal immigrants who march into town looking to steal the jobs nobody else wants to do. So why not really stick it to Obama by not only supporting the Boy Scouts in their doubling down on “timeless values,” but by doing what he won’t do by securing the border with “The Boy Scout Fence”?

I say we line them up and let them get the job done, armed with their Swiss Army knives and can-do spirit. There are 2.7 million members and over 1 million adult volunteers in the Boy Scouts. And with the US-Mexican border at an estimated 1,933 miles long, that means we could have 1,914 Boy Scouts per mile, with each Boy Scout (or adult volunteer!) protecting his own 2.75 foot space.

After serving as part of “The Boy Scout Fence,” vets can go to college for free or get into theme parks or whatever kids are into. Free Netflix subscriptions for life! A date with Kate Upton! America will be better than ever after taking care of Issue No. 1: illegals, so life will be sweet for the Boy Scouts who scarified their lives to make it happen.

Many great Americans have been Boy Scouts. Maple syrup enthusiast, Texas Governor Rick Perry; Convicted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld; Painter and convicted war criminal George W. Bush; Kim Kardashian’s stepdad Bruce Jenner.

And many not-so-great Americans have been Boy Scouts. The Kenyan President, Barack Obama; George Takei (this must have been a mistake); Celebrity President John F Kennedy; Hairy Lizard King Jim Morrison.

The fact is, for good (Bush) or evil (Takei), The Boy Scouts of America are as American as America gets.

As if anybody needs further convincing that this is a terrific idea, let me point out that it’s much easier to get a feel for how normal The Boy Scout Fence will seem to us once implemented if we consider the headlines likely to emerge about our wholesome border patrol:

“Half of the Boy Scout Fence collapsed today when news of the arrival of Girl Scout cookies sent troops running.”

“After 157 years, Congress allows Girl Scouts to serve and secure the border in the historically all-male Boy Scout Fence.”

“Rush Limbaugh arrested late Monday evening after hurling his body at The Boy Scout Fence in Arizona.”

“Members of a Mexican drug cartel blow off little Timmy’s head and run over Bobby and Mikey’s bodies while charging through The Boy Scout Fence.”

There’s nothing sensical about a group dedicated to “character building” being comprised of a bunch of homophobes, but there is something very sensical about employing an already organized army of 2.7 million bored kids (and over 1 million adult volunteers!) to protect the United States of America from scary illegals.

END WHITEHOUSE.GOV'S 'WE THE PEOPLE'

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:54:00 -0500

While the flu epidemic has been declared a public health emergency, the stupidity epidemic which seemingly reached its height last week with a petition for the government to build something called a “Death Star,” a petition to deport something called a Piers Morgan and a petition to mint something called a trillion dollar coin, has gone largely ignored.
Americans have always been childish and simple. Yet, never have those qualities been so validated by a presidential administration as they have been by the Obama Administration since a petition-creating-mechanism, “We the People,” was created and made available to the idiotic masses FOR FREE on whitehouse.gov.
If you have miraculously escaped this dispiriting headache, the idea appears to be that The White House just didn’t think the democracy was “cool” and “hip” enough. So, in the spirit of the internet, they decided to finally “get with it” and make policy experts easily accessible to everybody! Because, you know, emails are just so last century and a Twitter account for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack just isn’t enough.
Any whitehouse.gov petition that garners 25,000 signatures within 30 days will receive an official White House response.
Now, you could say that in a world where violent demonstrations kill hundreds monthly, petitions are harmless forms of protest which should be encouraged, and you would be right. The damage caused by the downgrading of America’s intelligence rating isn’t comparable to that, but it’s still pretty fucking disheartening.
For example, Press Secretary Jay Carney would like us to remember to “not let arguments over the Constitution’s Second Amendment violate the spirit of its First.” No, even though it sounds like it, that wasn’t what Mr. Carney told a kindergarten class during a photo-op. That was his response to the petition to “Deport British Citizen Piers Morgan for Attacking 2nd Amendment.”
Morgan, the host of Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, engaged in what some might call “a debate” with a gun-nut named Alex Jones. Other gun-nuts, unhappy with Piers Morgan’s ineloquent damnation of the 2nd Amendment, took to whitehouse.gov.
“Deport British Citizen Piers Morgan for Attacking 2nd Amendment” has, as of this writing, 109,334 signatures - over four times the necessary amount for an Official White House Response. Mr. Carney’s response was, of course, reported internationally. And good thing! I was worried that the world might have mistakenly begun to believe that US Citizens have a basic understanding of the fundamental elements of our Constitution! Glad Carney cleared that up for everybody.
While not a whitehouse.gov petition, many have been lobbying hard for a $1 trillion coin as a means of avoiding the debt-ceiling crisis. Sure, we could blame Congress for acting so unreasonably that US citizens believe a “solution” which sounds like something Dr. Evil proposed seems more feasible than bipartisan compromise. And we could blame Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department who released an official response to the requests for the magical platinum coin. But mostly, we should blame the White House for making governmental officials think that they have to give credence to insane ideas just because the advocates have screamed loudly.
Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget would “like to reduce the deficit, not expand it.” That is, in part, why the White House cannot commission the construction of a $850,000,000,000,000,000 Death Star, which is a FICTIONAL, moon-sized “super weapon” from Star Wars. Also, “The Administration does not support blowing up planets.” This decision was particularly disappointing to me, as I was just about to petition the government to pay homage to Muammar Gaddafi by replacing our military men and women with the “Fembots” from Austin Powers.
There have been a number of petitions that aren’t ludicrous. I would most certainly like to employ my digital John Hancock to help get The Westboro Baptist Church classified as a hate group. And by all means, let Tea Party members continue to prove they have no idea what patriotism is by petitioning to secede from the union. But there’s no reason for the White House to waste time which could be spent addressing pressing issues on practical jokes and doltishness. Without whitehouse.gov’s “We the People,” legitimate causes will still gain traction and silliness like what we’ve seen in the past week will go to wherever realm of reality Glenn Beck has ended up existing within.
This is a country that has produced and made famous Honey Boo Boo, Rick Santorum and Courtney Stodden. And because of this we must ask ourselves: Do we really need our government to facilitate more ways to confirm for the world that we’re a bit of a joke?

CHRIS CHRISTIE: THE GREAT DIVIDER

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:22:00 -0500

Don’t let Christie’s embrace of Obama fool you into thinking he’s a unifier.

It was a startling image. Governor Chris Christie, the darling of the Republican party heralded by everyone from Ann Coulter to the Koch Brothers, entwined with President Obama. In a political climate so polarized that accusations of socialism and racism pepper even the most relaxed of criticisms, the gesture was both a comfort and an inspiration.

Yet the forbidden, bipartisan embrace was much more than just the Brokeback Mountain moment of the 2012 presidential election. It was the greatest endorsement Obama could’ve hoped for in the last hour of a bitter campaign. It was an endorsement so moving and persuasive that many conservatives have deemed Christie a traitor and the picture of him, arms locked with their Public Enemy In Chief, responsible for Romney’s failure.

With his pragmatic demeanor, Christie had seemingly constructed a bridge between reasonable Republicans who see demographics changing and feel the Romney lesson viscerally and the extremists who funded Santorum and Gingrich in a bid to protect themselves from the threat of Sharia Law. And with his pragmatic response to the damage Sandy caused to the Garden State, Christie tore that bridge down.

For his acknowledgement of Obama’s job-well-done, Bill O’Reilly blasted Christie for having “wiped the governor’s campaign off the map for five days.” The American Spectator placed him on the “list of fools who have brought this disaster upon us” and referred to him as a “gelatinous clown.” Brett Decker of the Washington Times called on the GOP to “excommunicate Christie.” Laura Ingraham stated that she “would not be surprised” if he became a Democrat.

Christie is no stranger to divisiveness.

While his violent budget cuts have garnered him praise as a no-nonsense fiscal conservative, they have divorced voter from voter and legislator from legislator. Christie has pitted people against each other while keeping the spotlight on himself.

In Chris Christie’s New Jersey, there is less to go around. This is because at $282 billion, the state’s debt is the fourth-highest in the nation and we suffered a 15% drop in state revenue from the prior fiscal year, which in NJ ends on June 30. And for Christie, ensuring that there is room for the abuse and misuse of taxpayer money takes precedence over caring for the people of the state. He has spent public funds carelessly: $260 million on a casino in Atlantic City which has reported $35 million in losses during its first three months of operation; $300,000 on radio advertisements in Illinois with the objective of luring businesses to the Garden State, and not a single business relocated. This is in addition to the grants and initiatives he has doled out to the private sector.

Fighting over what’s left are those in the middle class and ever-expanding lower class. It is a fight in which there can be no real winner. When signing his $31.7B budget this past June, the governor halted the Democrats’ efforts to restore funds to social services. Christie cut $7.5 million in women’s health funding and $21 million in medical services for the elderly. Also cut were higher education funding and aid for low-income students.

Christie’s divisiveness acts as a distraction which prevents the thorough scrutiny of his record. With his state in crisis, we argue - and so, too, do many of his constituents - over things of little consequence: Is he a bully or is he a straight-talker? Is he refreshing or is he an embarrassment? He has made the central, if not the only, debate over Governor Chris Christie one about personality rather than policy. In a matter of speaking, he has even divided reality by separating his own reputation from his actual governing tactics and leadership failures in a way that has been uncommonly efficient.

At his taxpayer funded town halls, Christie blasted the “Corzine Democrats” in Trenton for their “tax and spend” ways. Yet, It would be difficult to find anyone who knows more about taxing and spending than the governor.

Since February, he has advocated for a 10 percent across the board income tax cut which would save the average middle class family $80.50 while saving millionaires $7,265.75. The tax cut would cost the state, which according to Christie cannot afford $5 million in aid to struggling cities, a staggering $1.1 billion.

Christie’s 2012 budget, according to the National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers, included a 6.8 percent increase in spending from the previous years - among the biggest spending increases of any state in the country. Governor Christie is a reckless spender, and his spending has resulted in inadvertent tax hikes which hit the middle class the hardest.

Property taxes, which were already among the highest in the country, have spiked during Christie’s governorship. Fare hikes for public transportation have gone up by 25 percent. The governor refers to cost surges such as this as “user fees,” a tax by a different name.

Work is hard to find in New Jersey. In September, unemployment hit a 35 year high of 9.9% after steadily increasingly over the summer. The same summer Governor Christie spent campaigning on the notion that the Garden State was seeing a “Jersey Comeback” - though a better slogan might have been “You Gonna Believe Me Or Your Own Lying Eyes?”

One out of every twelve mortgages in New Jersey is in the foreclosure stage, the second highest percentage of mortgage loans in foreclosure in the country. Over half of our highways are in poor or mediocre condition and over a quarter of our bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Governor Christie is confident enough in his command of fiction to sell his balancing of New Jersey’s budget as some sort of legislative achievement, when as a matter of fact, the state constitution mandates that a balanced budget be passed each year.

The governor has long advertised that his legislative accomplishments in Trenton are due to his ability to get bipartisan support. Indeed now, with a single embrace of President Obama, the portrait of Chris Christie as an independent leader able to work across party lines has been solidified for many. But his bipartisanship in Trenton comes down to somewhat murkier political bargaining, namely his ability to get Democratic bosses who control votes to yield to him.

When Christie passed pension reform thorough the legislature last year, all of the Democratic votes - with the exception of Senator Brian Stack, who is also a Mayor and thus needs the governor’s support - came from legislators loyal to either George Norcross, South Jersey’s Democratic boss or Joe D, Essex County’s Democratic boss.

Christie’s brand of transactional politics is bipartisan, and is in no way unique to New Jersey, but the fact remains that dealing, as Christie does, is a different art than leading.

It was a startling image. Governor Chris Christie, tired and worn from the chaos Sandy wrought, accepting the aid of President Obama. In a state that had suffered unseen damage before the storm hit, the gesture was a reminder of Christie’s refusal to unite neighbor with neighbor and rhetoric with reality.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Why We Still Need The Mainstream Media

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:22:04 -0500

Originally published in the Tricity News the week of November 5th, 2012.

Superstorm Sandy has awakened many to the reality that the East Coast’s infrastructure is inadequate; Sandy even convinced some that climate change is all too real; and Sandy has made it clear that a one-man “news” operation is basically just gossip.

When it comes to rumors about things that don’t actually matter, Americans know to exercise caution. As one nation under god, we never trust Perez Hilton. We pledge to not buy into the Jennifer Aniston pregnancy rumors. And we brush off Twitter-reports about the deaths of Lindsay Lohan, Kanye West, The Pope, Justin Bieber and Morgan Freeman. We don’t believe everything we hear…except when its about topics foreign to us.

This is likely due to the fact that social media only makes headlines in the actual media when it gets things very right or when it gets things very wrong. The “very right” stories tend to involve important reports about national and international events that have been broken and shared online. The “very wrong” ones often involve misinforming the public about something largely inconsequential and entertainment-related.

There was loud applauding of Twitter during events like Occupy Wall Street and occurrences outside of the United States, particularly in countries without powerful media outlets of their own.

During the Arab Spring, Twitter was a vital news source. Activist and record producer Barb Morrison told me that by following the protesters from Tahrir Square, Bahrain and Syria, she’s seen “YouTube videos uploaded directly from the front lines, and a lot of the time these videos are only up for minutes and then somehow, mysteriously, ‘this content has been deleted’ shows up [on the screen]’ - the point is I’m seeing what the people see, not what commercially funded news shows want me to see.”

5,621 miles away in Cairo, Egypt, protests were streamed live by Al Jazeera. Watching the revolution in real-time humanized the demonstrators, making their fight fathomable for Americans who are accustomed to freedom.

Though it was a huge failure and an embarrassment to the Left-Wing, Occupy Wall Street was a roaring success for the advancement of social media as a legitimate information source and organizing tool. Through searching the #OWS hashtag, you could learn where and when protests were taking place. And because of the ease with which video is shared, footage of police brutalizing protestors went viral, making OWS an international story.

Because of the mainstream media’s sluggishness during these events, social media has been heralded as the real purveyor of justice. Devoid of gatekeepers, it is an all-inclusive institution made up of the people and working for the people.

However, social media’s all-inclusiveness can be a danger, particularly during a health emergency.

Throughout Sandy and its aftermath, false reporting has cost time and resources.

In Bayonne, city officials were forced to send out robo calls and texts to dispel rumors that the water was getting shut off and the sewer systems weren’t working - the rumor originated on Facebook. Outrage ensued throughout New Jersey when reports of out-of-state utility crews being turned away spread on Twitter. The reports turned out to be untrue.

False reports regarding voting also spread rampantly throughout the Internet.

The poor man’s Tony Robbins, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, mislead his over 1 million followers by sharing bad information given to him by Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno’s office. Booker responded to the news that voting would be conducted via email and fax with the Tweet “no no it’s not true.”

Self-described “journalist” Michael Tracey, contributor to Vice and The Nation, shamefully made baseless claims about voting and polling in New Jersey. He Tweeted, “there’s no way voting will be able to happen Tuesday,” to his 3,600 followers.

If that’s journalism, where is my Pulitzer?

Although the efforts made to ensure New Jersey voters could cast their ballots on Election Day appeared to have paid off, to the credit of Governor Christie, it doesn’t change the fact that those efforts were undermined by people with the false impression that they had the authority to report without the facts to back those reports up.

The Internet has made us all equal by giving everyone the same platform, and in many ways that’s good. But having a blog and a Twitter account does not a reporter make. A charlatan who makes a declarative statement based on his opinion is not a “journalist.”

We need platforms that are less accessible and we need high standards for who can and cannot define what is “news.” We need the media.

New York Post columnist and author of “The New Jersey Sting,” Joshua Margolin, told me “even the mainstream media makes big mistakes. There’s always a fog of war associated with information in big breaking stories. The only way to stop that is for vetting to happen, which happens with newspapers and big networks.”

Problems arise when the only media available is that of the social variety, as was true for many without power during Sandy. In that event, guesses are unintentionally presented as reports. And an increasingly-legitimate internet means people are not thinking critically enough to tell the difference or to question it sufficiently.

The public has been conditioned to immediately accept serious information funneled through the Internet as fact while meeting the unserious stuff with skepticism.

We need access to information quickly - but mostly we just need access. Social media provides balance to the mainstream media, but Sandy made it pretty clear that individuals are not yet educated or responsible enough to handle informing their fellow citizens of the facts without oversight.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Uncomplicated Chris Christie

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:50:00 -0400

Originally published in the TriCityNews the week of October 8th, 2012

In reference to the nomination of Warren G. Harding in 1920, legendary columnist H.L Mencken stated, “on some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Too bad Mencken wasn’t around for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

While not a moron, Christie is an undeniable failure. New Jersey’s unemployment now stands at a disastrous 9.9%, and with U.S. unemployment at a 44-month low of 7.8%, it’s over a quarter above above the national average.

Beyond our sky-high unemployment, there’s our $282 billion debt - the fourth-highest in the nation. One out of every twelve mortgages in New Jersey are in the foreclosure stage, the second highest percentage of mortgage loans in foreclosure in the country.

Meanwhile, we had a 15% drop in state revenue from the prior fiscal year, which runs from June 30 to June 30. If Christie wants to cover his $254 million June revenue shortfall, fiscal year 2013 would have to see an impossible 8.2% growth in revenue.

All of this has happened while Christie, like many an American would, has focused solely on appearance.

In an effort to look like a hard-assed fiscal conservative, the governor used inflated cost estimates to justify canceling plans for the ARC rail tunnel to Manhattan, which would have created tens of thousands of construction jobs. With the same objective, he has cut women’s health funding, state aid to schools, legal services for the poor and higher education scholarships for low-income students.

But when the spending is for Christie or his wealthy donors, fiscal conservatism goes out the window.

The Governor spent the summer advocating a 10% income tax cut, which would cost an estimated $10 billion and save the average NJ family just $80.50 while saving millionaires at least $7,265. Christie spent $300,000 of taxpayer dollars on radio advertisements in Illinois which aimed to lure businesses to the Garden State. Not a single businesses relocated. The Governor also spent $260 million in state money on the Revel casino, all to create a mere 4,000 jobs.

Governor Christie’s performance has indeed been consistently poor (though not as poor as 15% of New Jersey’s children below the poverty line!). So it’s perplexing as to why the hell anybody likes him, and how the hell anybody could take him seriously… Until you consider that he is one of the people Mencken prophesied.

We have settled on Chris Christie not because he is best, but because he is easiest for us to understand. Mencken certainly couldn’t have seen Honey Boo Boo coming. He thought we were heading to just the George W. Bush types. Yet Bush carried a veneer of dynastic legitimacy which made him too governmental to have real authenticity.

Tabloids frequently set out to convince us that celebrities are “JUST LIKE US!” The idea that those whom so many idolize are flawed, as we are - or, even better, worse than we are - is comforting. It acts to not only make us feel better about ourselves, but to convince us that we are that close to a noteworthy life, too.

The humanizing and knocking-down of public figures is equivalent to the ego-reinforcement you see all over social media. You and Ashton Kutcher can have the same kind of Twitter account. Your 140 character thoughts are just as important as his are.

Americans won’t rest until there is someone just like them presiding over them. Which more than explains the allure of someone like Sarah Palin.

Palin didn’t remember third grade-level American history, making her just slightly dumber than your average US citizen. This idea of “If someone dumber than me is one melanoma away from the presidency, think of how important I could be” is an addicting one. It seems our self-esteem gets higher when the IQ’s of our public figures get lower.

And again, that’s not to say that Chris Christie’s an idiot, because there’s no indication that he is. He’s just inadequate. And really, aren’t most Americans? It would be nice, for once, to see somebody who has got absolutely no business being anywhere near the Oval Office - no great war record, no great family legacy, no great governing history, no great philosophical mind - get a shot.

We’ve already allowed this theory to take hold of Hollywood, with shows like American Idol and The X Factor, where your average drooling hick gets a chance to be the next Justin Timberlake or whatever. So it’s only a matter of time before it has been completely extended to the Other Great Pillar of American Power - Washington.

Governor Christie is quick to sacrifice the state to save face, and that has led him to ruin New Jersey’s economy exactly like any slightly amoral, self-obsessed American would. In doing so, he has proven that he is the sort of leader the United States has been working towards for decades, just like Mencken warned.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Chris Christie: The Other Empty Chair

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:42:28 -0400

Originally published in the TriCityNews the week of September 10th, 2012

With both conventions now belonging to the ages - or at least mercifully in the rearview mirror - whose speeches proved to have any shelf-life at all?

Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, a fan of Dirty Harry or a booster of Bubba, your list is likely to be pretty short and likely to include all or some of only these names: Clint Eastwood, Clint Eastwood’s Invisible Friend, Clint Eastwood’s Chair, Bill Clinton, Ann Romney, Julian Castro, and maybe, maybe, the two candidates.

Not two weeks since the Republicans belatedly banged the gavel in Tampa, most of the other speakers at both events have already vanished without trace into the vast void of convention history. They and their verbiage float in some timeless gulag of political purgatory along with the Democrats’ keynote speakers in 1996 and 2000 (any idea who they were? We’ll get back to them later).

And while Condoleezza Rice and Representative Kelly Ayotte and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka may be just coming to the realization that their remarks amounted to little more than a fist punched into a pail of water, none of them were expected to vault on to the stage, command a convention arena with their presence, win a permanent place in the political dialogue of a country, and then do double somersaults on the way out.

Chris Christie was.

The damage isn’t necessarily permanent: Bill Clinton was essentially booed off the stage at the 1988 convention by many of the same Democrats who orgasmically embraced him just four years later, and who last week dreamed of repealing the 22nd amendment and nominating him again in 2016. But for a big, resounding, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot missed opportunity, it’s hard to compare anybody’s failure to the one achieved by New Jersey’s bombastic governor.

Republicans who were willing to enthusiastically buy Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin in the same convention in 2008 just didn’t seem to be able to make anything out of Christie’s Keynote in 2012. It’s not that they disliked him. They weren’t like the Democrats of 24 years ago pointing at their watches as Clinton droned on and on. They were just inert in his presence.

It may have been that Christie’s by-now familiar Phineas T. Bluster routine just doesn’t work on a stage that is either figuratively or literally larger than a press conference (or the now just-as-familiar deranged outbursts at passersby). For all of the transformation of politics by television and the internet, there is still a lot to the theory that it shares way too much with the stage.

The same stuff that kills them in New Haven may lay an egg on Broadway, and you can easily substitute “Trenton” for that city and “The Convention” for that street. The national audience - even one made up of Republicans - may just not be willing to buy bromides about “politicians who care more about doing something and less about being something,” and “the people of New Jersey stepped up: they shared in the sacrifice,” from a governor whose job growth rate is only 45th best, and whose unemployment rate is not only at 9.8%, but is the farthest his state has been above the national average in 30 years.

Republicans like their nonsense. But even they have a hard time accepting it from a guy telling them “we believe that if we tell the people the truth, they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in Washington, DC,” while his own petty behavior - like referring to one colleague as “numbnuts” and suggesting the press “take a bat out” on another - is designed to hide the truth about New Jersey’s dismal economic performance. At a political convention, you don’t have to tell anybody the truth about anything. But you can’t reek of lies while you speak of honesty.

Again, it’s possible that coming out of the Republican Convention ranking on the speakers’ list well behind an empty chair and the guy showing significant symptoms of hallucinations may not be fatal to Governor Christie’s obvious ambitions for 2016 and beyond. As noted above, Bill Clinton survived the psychological equivalent of being showered with thrown alarm clocks. But it was an opportunity not just missed, but completely missed, and it was the biggest one Christie has yet been offered.

And though Clinton (and others) have returned, swinging and missing on these biggest of stages can indeed destroy not merely national hopes, but entire careers. The aforementioned Democratic Keynoters in 1996 and 2000 should provide sobering warnings to Christie that he may already be descending the mountain. The first was a rising star named Evan Bayh, who would shunt himself off on to a dull and seldom-traveled track and serve a dozen listless years in the Senate. The second was Harold Ford, who was supposed to be Barack Obama before anybody knew who Barack Obama was. He not only faded out of politics, but he slept-walked through three university teaching positions, and two television commentating contracts, and wound up at Merrill Lynch.

So, our Governor should consider Sen. Bayh and Rep. Ford and beware. This might’ve been his big break. And instead of taking his own advice by being a politician who cares “more about doing something and less about being something,” he did everything in his power to be safe and likable… and he was upstaged by an empty chair.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Is Anna Little A Witch?

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 08:35:00 -0400

(Image via MoreMonmouthMusings.net)

Originally published in the TriCityNews the week of August 13th, 2012

If you see something unusual in the skies above Monmouth County on August 14th, don’t worry it’s just failed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell flying by. In one of the strangest events of the year, the witchcraft-dabbler (retired) is here to give her dubious support to Congressional candidate Anna Little. For just $250 for the “Patriot Ticket” or $2,500 to “Co-Host,” you can witness the magic first-hand.

So far, there has been no indication that Little’s camp has an earthly clue what they are doing. From failing to register with the FEC on time, to keeping www.AnnaLittleForSenate.com up and running long after she decided to run for the House instead, to still advertising that Little’s opponent, Congressman Frank Pallone, has been in office for 22 years when it’s really 24 years, they don’t even appear to know when they’ve made a mistake. Now they don’t know they’ve made a new one.

O’Donnell is a recidivist failure. In the span of five years, she attempted to gain office three times. First in 2006, where she ran in the Republican primary for Senate and finished third, and then ran in the general election as a write-in, seizing a whole 4 percent of the vote. Then in 2008, where as the Republican nominee, she lost by a 65% to 35% margin to incumbent and BFD Joe Biden. Then in 2010, where she again ran for Senate as the Republican nominee, this time losing to Democrat Chris Coons by a margin of 57% to 40%.

O’Donnell also succeeded in becoming a national punchline. Thanks to footage supplied by Bill Maher, we learned that she “dabbled in witchcraft,” even dating believers, “one of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar,” but she “never joined a coven”… Right, because that would’ve been crazy.

Christine attempted to calm the storm by releasing a campaign ad wherein she declared “I’m not a witch; I’m nothing you’ve heard. I’m you.” Apparently “you” consists of 40% of the voters in Delaware.

And lest we forget, Ms. O’Donnell is also an advocate of abstinence who is vehemently anti-masturbation. Because if there’s one thing that’s sure to make kids keep their hands to themselves, it’s forbidding them to put their hands on themselves.

All of this considered, Anna Little has sought to attach herself to Christine O’Donnell. Of course she has.

Little’s campaign is so haphazardly run that one can only come to two conclusions: Ms. Little just doesn’t give a damn, or Ms. Little’s intentions are not what she claims.

Now more than ever, the Republican party is about forging celebrity. The fact that Donald Trump was taken seriously as a presidential candidate does not alone confirm this, but Mitt Romney standing with him to publicly accept his endorsement in Las Vegas sure as hell does.

So when Anna Little says she’s a “Chris Christie Conservative” we can only assume that she means she’s more interested in her own brand than she is with the well-being of her party or the people she hopes to govern.

Governor Christie has advertised himself as New Jersey’s leading man, strutting in to save the day with his “Jersey Comeback.” This narrative is, duh, completely devoid of facts.

In the Garden State, taxes are up and everything else is down. Our unemployment is now 9.6%, 1.4% above the national average. We place 47th out of 50th in job growth. Our business climate ranks 41st in the nation. 55% of our highways are in poor or mediocre condition and 35% of our bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. With Governor Christie leading the way, New Jersey is falling apart in every way imaginable.

But Christie is a star! Just look at all those hits he has on Youtube that he talks about all the time! He’s on TMZ and everything! Reality doesn’t matter. His approval rating is still 55%.

Just as Christie’s been a bogus Governor, Little was an increasingly bogus mayor. Under her watch, taxes in Highlands went up through increased fees and fines. This is likely because Little was “constantly focused on how people should treat her and spent the majority of the time scolding people, rather than working with them,” says a GOP source. Not to mention, when Mayor Little first ran against Rep. Pallone in 2010, she “just stopped showing up to meetings.”

Really though, who needs small town meetings when you have “Anna’s Army”? “Anna’s Army” is Ms. Little’s group of supporters - her “Little Monsters,” if you will. Comprised of Tea Partiers and, I’m guessing, a few fillers from Central Casting.

The party that loathes “Hollywood liberals” - yet has the distinction of being the only party to elect a movie star as president - measures success not by electoral performance, but by public face time.

That’s why, four years after she cost John McCain the presidency, Sarah Palin is still trotted out by the GOP to campaign for candidates around the country. What matters is Palin’s still a star, even if the light she emits waxes and wanes.

Anna Little is sticking to Christine O’Donnell for the same reason she stuck to Sharron “Doesn’t-Know-The-Difference-Between-Hispanic-And-Asian” Angle. O’Donnell, just like Palin and Christie and Trump (oh my!), is not just about the proverbial sizzle instead of the stake; she and they deliberately throw out the stake because it detracts from the sizzle: they’re all characters on SNL. Each one of them has a book deal. Trump even has his own line of ties and Palin is the subject of an entire sub genre of porn.

The possibility that people will begin to question whether or not Little is a witch isn’t enough to stop Little from wanting to become Mini-O’Donnell. And if the “Anna Little is against masturbation” claims gain any traction, the next thing you’ll hear from her Congressional race is “I’m Frank Pallone and I approve this massage.”

By Olivia Nuzzi

The Star-Ledger Editorial Board Needs to Be Put to Sleep... Or Maybe It Already Has Been

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:07:00 -0400

Yesterday, the Star-Ledger Editorial Page published a piece entitled “Christie’s Tax Cut Talk Falls Flat With NJ Voters” which defies all known definitions of “editorial” by neglecting to include a discernible opinion. The Star-Ledger underscored its remarkable dichotomy.

Without the Ledger’s reporting, following New Jersey politics would be near impossible. Jenna Portnoy’s stick-to-his-heels-like-gum coverage of Governor Christie is alone worth the cost of the paper.

However, the Star-Ledger’s unsigned political editorials are so poorly written that it is impossible to not wonder if they are a deliberate effort to sabotage the publication. An overlooked reason for why print is dying is that people no longer appear to know how to construct a coherent string of sentences.

Mr. The Star-Ledger begins ”Christie’s Tax Cut Talk Falls Flat With NJ Voters” by pointing out that people overwhelming approve of Governor Christie even though they think he’s mean:

“So what if he lost his cool on the boardwalk? New Jersey is still smitten with Gov. Chris Christie, giving him a 54 percent approval rating despite saying the best two words to describe him are ‘bully’ and ‘arrogant.’ Go figure.”

Indeed, the public’s ability to overlook their unfavorable views of Christie’s personality is a testament to his power as a politician, albeit a perplexing one. However, on an informational or news level, this opinion is about as fresh a take as would be an editorial tomorrow about Christie being inaugurated, wherein the author notes that the Governor likes to yell at people.

Mr. The Star-Ledger moves on:

“But voters are not buying his line on tax cuts, despite the ‘endless summer’ of town hall meetings that are turning out to be endless blather about New Jersey’s fictitious ’comeback.’”

True, in a recent poll, 49 percent of voters say that they think we should wait for revenues to improve before we enact tax cuts. So technically the author is right that voters are not siding with Christie on this issue (at least according to the one poll.) However, as the author stated so ineloquently in his opening paragraph, the public overwhelmingly approves of Governor Christie, meaning they have wholly bought into his delusional “Jersey Comeback” narrative. The only points of the “Jersey Comeback” tent show are to hide the fact that New Jersey is in a state of near-economic ruin, and to sell the tax cuts as anything but what they are - bribes from a Governor desperate for national recognition.

Mr. The Star-Ledger continues:

“New Jersey can’t afford a tax cut now, and it’s not even close. One reason is that the state budget is rigged to explode over the next few years because both parties conspired to put off paying for pension and transportation costs that can’t be avoided. Another reason is that the state’s economy is still spinning its wheels in the mud, unable to get traction, even as some neighboring states start to move.

Democrats want to wait six months and see if the economy picks up before locking in the tax cut. The governor wants to make the leap today, in time for the Republican National Convention.”

BREAKING NEWS: Christie does not actually care about the state of the state. In fact, if he was presented with the opportunity to become president tomorrow under the condition that he dig New Jersey out of the Earth and shoot it into space, he would find a way to make it legal and figure out the logistics (and blame the Democrats.) Everybody knows this. Yawn.

Mr. The Star-Ledger closes:

“Either way, the cuts won’t take effect until next year. So when the governor pretends he’ll give you tax cuts sooner than Democrats will, that is just more politics. The good news is that most people in New Jersey realize that.”

No. No they do not realize that. I believe the opening paragraph of this editorial made this non-realization totally clear. One poll shows that only 43 percent of voters agree with Christie that we need tax cuts immediately while 49 percent think we should wait… So what? Over half of New Jersey residents also believe that the state is going in the right direction. Most people in New Jersey realize nothing, something they have in common with the anonymous editorial writer in question.

Just to recap: according to Mr. The Star-Ledger, New Jersey is “still smitten” with Governor Christie because his favorability is at 54 percent. Also according to Mr. The Star-Ledger, New Jersey realizes that Governor Christie is just playing politics.

What was the point of this editorial? The thing is hardly four paragraphs long. How the hell is it possible to lose your train of thought within the span of four paragraphs? Did the writer have a stroke somewhere between paragraph one and paragraph three?

To regurgitate facts and figures with no added insight requires no skill. To regurgitate facts and figures while misinterpreting their implications suggests that the guy who wrote the last paragraph was not the same guy who wrote the first paragraph. It is a shame that the prime Jersey-centric internet real estate that is the Star-Ledger Editorial page has been wasted on some hack who has nothing interesting or useful to say.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Vote Anna Little For... Whatever

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:12:30 -0400

Vote for me for… Whatever. Anna Little has finally officially registered to run for the House of Representatives. You can find this out by visiting her websites AnnaLittleForCongress.com and AnnaLittleForSenate.com. Senate?

From this, one might get the idea that her oft repeated idea of “Constitutionally Limited Government” is to merge the two Chambers of Congress. If not, it seems to indicate a sort of inexactitude that Republicans are mastering in 2012.

Last November, GOP Presidential candidate and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann announced that as president, she would close the US Embassy in Iran… ya know, the one that hasn’t existed since 1980.

Noted maple syrup enthusiast and Texas Governor Rick Perry declared that he wanted to get rid of three federal agencies but could only remember two of them.

In January, previous Republican presidential candidate John McCain mistakenly endorsed President Obama’s ability to turn America’s economy around - while standing next to Mitt Romney.

As to Romney himself, his campaign had a spasm of misspellings, including one which suggested that he wanted to be president of someplace called “Amercia.”

Fittingly for a candidate who is running for the House and Senate at the same time, Ms. Little’s campaign statement includes two mutually exclusive positions on the Constitution. In one breath, “Anna supports and would vote for the Enumerated Powers Act, a proposed law that would require all bills introduced in the US Congress to include a statement setting forth the specific Constitutional authority under which the law is being enacted,” and in the next breath she quotes James Madison as saying “do not separate text from historical background,” by which he means you can’t just quote the Constitution literally, you must view it in context. So Ms. Little is a strict Constitutional literalist… Except when she thinks you shouldn’t take the Constitution literally.

Even better, when the official interpreters of the Constitution - the Supreme Court - ruled on the validity of the Affordable Care Act, Ms. Little turned to a new, final authority. “Poll after poll shows that the American people do not want the federal government to be running our healthcare.” If Ms. Little is really suggesting we should allow pollsters to decide Constitutional issues, President Madison may swoop down from the heavens to repudiate his title as “Father of the Constitution.”

Little’s campaign statement also includes the proclamation that she will do for the country what Governor Chris Christie has done for New Jersey. What exactly does that mean? The United States will be ranked 47th in the world in job growth just like New Jersey ranks 47th in job growth in the country? Is she going to start yelling at reporters from other nations? Is she going to become a TMZ star by brandishing ice cream cones at passersby on some boardwalk near the Potomac?

Ms. Little’s adherence to Governor Christie invalidates her claim of “fiscal conservatism.” According to the National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers, Christie’s budget included a 6.8 percent increase in spending from the previous year. That is among the biggest spending increases of any state in the country. And let’s not forget… New Jersey isn’t just any state, New Jersey is a state whose unemployment is above the national average and foreclosures are increasing while tax revenues are going down. Calling yourself “a Chris Christie Republican” and a “fiscal conservative” is like saying you’re a Springsteen fan and a fan of Hank Williams III’s cover of “Atlantic City” - you know, the song that includes the suddenly relevant lyric “down on the boardwalk they’re getting ready for a fight.”

Among Ms. Little’s supporters is Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini who believes that she will help to “bring back affordability to New Jersey for our working families,” because if anybody knows about helping working families it would be a lawyer and a career politician like Ms. Little who is also pretending to not be a career politician.

On her website as of this writing, Little continues to emphasize that her opponent, Congressman Frank Pallone, is a 22 year veteran of the House. It’s bad enough that on the internet she’s still confused as to what office she’s running for, but she also can’t count. Pallone has been a Congressman since 1988. That’s 24 years, even if you’re in the Tea Party. More importantly, the constant refrain implies Little thinks she is a political outsider. That’s Ms. Little - former Freeholder Little, former Mayor Little, former Councilwoman Little and former maybe-Senate candidate Little.

None of this adds up - literally - and calls into question the legitimacy of her run for the House. Or is it the Senate? Whatever.

By Olivia Nuzzi

I think Justice Roberts is going to get an angry voicemail from Ginni Thomas in about 15 years.

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 12:56:51 -0400

Bloomberg's soda ban makes liberals look stupid

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 19:29:17 -0400

Originally posted on Saywhatnj.com

As if President “the private sector is fine” Obama wasn’t doing enough to help the Left-Wing self-destruct. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has extended himself to the cause by making liberals look like overbearing know-it-alls.

This month, it was announced that Bloomberg (I) plans to ban sugary soft drinks larger than 16 ounces. Many say the decision screams “Nanny State” while others contend that this is just another example of the billionaire-mayor-with-a-Napoleon complex tossing his power around.

Bloomberg is not a liberal, though he does tend to stand on the left side of the aisle regarding social issues. However, healthful eating has, perplexingly, become a liberal cause. Liberals are quick to point out that our government subsidizes the wrong things: meat, dairy, soy, corn and sugar. Those ingredients make up the basis of the processed American diet, and that diet makes us fat, which makes us sick, which costs taxpayers money in almost every way imaginable, from healthcare to public transportation.

It would seem contradictory for Republicans to be in favor of consuming - or at least having other people consume - products which exist because of or are promoted by the government. The USDA recommends that anyone over the age of 8 consume three cups of dairy products a day. The USDA sells you dairy with “Got Milk?” ads and by awarding substantial funding to milk researches who, coincidently, always tend to arrive at the conclusion that dairy is necessary for your general health. Never mind that humans are the only animal who drinks another animal’s milk and the only animal that drinks milk in adulthood. If there were any consistency in the Tea Party’s “logic”, Anna Little and Nikki Haley would be dumping milk into the Gulf of Mexico and shooting yogurt over the border with American Flag-emblazened cannons.

Instead, when reports claimed that Pennsylvania’s State Board of Education was considering ways to limit sweets in classrooms, Sarah Palin stomped into town, dozens of cookies in hand. “I look at Pennsylvania, and I think of sweets - I think of Hershey. Then I think, how dare they ban sweets from school here,” said Palin. The half-term Alaska Governor went on to make her real point, “who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents?”

Indeed, what you do or do not put in your mouth (hey, I’m talking about nutrition here) is a personal decision that only you have control over. That’s why Republicans sound so much more sane on this issue than those who want to take away your enormous soda. For the GOP, the Soda Ban is the same issue as the incandescent light bulbs ban and Obama requiring citizens to purchase healthcare.

Bloomberg’s decision has made it possible for the Right-Wing to herd people to the polls in November thinking that their vote is the only thing that stands between freedom and having Nancy Pelosi force-feed every American citizen steamed broccoli.

Liberals criticize Republicans for campaigning on small government while advocating policies which would control what we do in our bedrooms and who we let hang out in our uteruses. Liberals attacked former presidential prospect Rick Santorum for wanting to ban pornography. Liberals condemn anyone who is anti-marriage equality. So, if liberals don’t band together to denounce Bloomberg for his Soda Ban, we can add “hypocrites” right next to “can’t figure out how to orchestrate a protest” on the list of reasons why the Left Wing is it’s own worst enemy.

We can start by loudly wondering if Bloomberg is an even more dedicated attention-whore than Governor Chris Christie, seeing as this Soda Ban isn’t actually going to do anything except garner him press. Even with the ban, dedicated New Yorkers are going to consume unhealthy portions of sugary drinks. My dog can problem solve when I ask her to roll over if she wants a treat, so I’m pretty sure people are going to realize that even if you’re not allowed to buy a soda the size of a six month old, you can still buy multiple sodas at a time and consume them if you feel so inclined.

We can then question why, if Bloomberg actually did want this action to do something other than get him trending on Twitter, he didn’t just place a substantial tax on soft drinks and bar the use of food stamps to purchase them. The Institute of Medicine says that sugary drinks are the largest contributor of added calories to the American diet, so they are a huge (har har) contributor to the obesity epidemic. Taxing soda would reduce obesity and all of it’s subsequent costs.

Bloomberg’s Soda Ban is antithetical to his goal. When has banning something ever worked anyway? The last time I checked, Congressmen were still paying for sex and sex workers were still paying for coke (the other kind).

Perhaps someone should let Mr. Bloomberg know that Prohibition wasn’t exactly a roaring success. If he starts drinking heavily, he may stop trying to “help.”

By Olivia Nuzzi

2 Guvs; 1 State?

Mon, 14 May 2012 19:31:00 -0400

Originally published in the TriCityNews, if you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ - pick up a copy! (also published on SayWhatNJ.com)

Senator David Vitter - client of the “D.C. Madam” - would never walk alongside Elliot Spitzer for fear that the conclusion would be drawn that Vitter committed the exact same crime as Spitzer, the only difference being that Vitter never faced any consequences for his behavior. Just like OJ Simpson would never host a Christmas party with Scott Peterson and Britney Spears would never perform a duet with Milli Vanilli.

Yet last Tuesday, Governor Chris Christie took another trip out of state, this time to headline two fundraisers with Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. It seems in joining forces with the much-loathed Wisconsin Governor, Christie is daring us to state the obvious: Walker is just Christie with a nail in his coffin.

It’s impossible to look at the headlines bearing both of their names and not consider just how similar the New Jersey and Wisconsin governors are.

In March of 2011, Governor Walker approved a bill which castrated collective bargaining rights. Specifically, it took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from the state’s employees. Additionally, the measure forced state workers to pay more for their pensions and health care benefits.

In June of 2011, Governor Christie approved a bill which reformed collective bargaining rights. The rollback of benefits for 750,000 government workers and retirees increased what state and local workers must pay for their health insurance and pensions, suspended cost-of-living increases to retirees’ pension checks and raised retirement ages.

In Wisconsin, Walker’s action was met with protests by tens of thousands which lasted for months and drew support from all over the country. The people of Wisconsin’s buyers remorse for Governor Walker means he now faces a recall election on June 5th, which, if successful, will make him only the third Governor to be recalled in US history.

In New Jersey, Governor Christie’s action was initially met with protests by thousands down State Street. Nearly a year later, much is forgotten. Christie’s popularity is at an all-time high, with his approval rating standing at an inexplicable 59%.

With the majority of his constituents seemingly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, I suppose Christie sees no reason to fear any sort of uprising. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Walker was a way for him to dance close to the flame and tout his power.

Governor Christie clearly deems it necessary to distinguish himself from the rest of America’s Right-Wing “leaders” for the GOP establishment who will ultimately decide his fate. He’s proved to the King Makers that his charisma and perceived reasonability allow him to get away with what others face losing their elected positions over. Christie doesn’t merely get away with it, he triumphs.

Helpful as it is to Christie’s own political career, making distinctions between him and the rest of the GOP is more important for those of us who value the middle and working class people of New Jersey. Christie’s especially dangerous because he doesn’t wear his radicalism on his sleeve.

Unlike many of his Republican contemporaries, Governor Christie does not lack intelligence or perceptiveness. When he states the patently untrue, it’s because he has full faith in the unwillingness of the American people to do the minimal intellectual work necessary in order to arrive at the truth. They will sooner latch on to any uncomplicated narrative offered to them, however fantastical it may be.

According to Christie, we are now witnessing a “Jersey Comeback”… Where? Did you see it? Did I miss it? Rats, I must have walked right past it. The last time I checked, New Jersey was ranked 45th in job growth with unemployment still at .6% above the National average.

After proposing that $29.4B, Scott-Walker-influenced-budget of his last year, Christie gave us his uncomplicated narrative: “we’re not trying to break the unions. The unions are trying to break the middle class in New Jersey.”

Of course, the truth is that unions built this state’s middle class. The other truth is that a weak middle class is not only desirable for the GOP and those at the top of the economic ladder, but necessary for them to make their political ideals political reality. And people with enough money to facilitate that, like the Koch Brothers, are making good use out of Governor Christie and Governor Walker.

Christie’s not a principled, disciplined individual. He’s a disciplined conservative who knows how to fall in line. Put another way, our governor is an opportunist with no philosophy of his own. He’s a mere vessel for those with clearly defined philosophies like his millionaire donors the Koch Brothers, and as the rollback on New Jersey’s environmental protections with Christie’s DEP Waiver Rule indicates, he’s a damn good vessel at that.

Of Governor Walker, New Jersey Newsroom’s Salvatore Pizzuro wrote “he was sacrificing the people in an effort to protect the State. However, he failed to recognize that the people are the State.” Unfortunately for Walker, he doesn’t possess any of that Christie-mojo which prevents him from looking like the common, self-interested politician that he is.

The people of New Jersey would be wise to recognize that the State is just Governor Christie’s resume for his National ambitions, and to him, the people are of little consequence.

Obamneycare

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:00:54 -0400

Originally posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 on SayWhatNJ

The truth will set you free - and if your name is Jon Gruber and you’re an MIT economist who advised both then-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Obama on their health care reform laws, it may well get you strapped to the roof of Romney’s car for a long drive up North. “It’s the same fucking bill,” Gruber declared…and I hope he has a warm coat.

Since health care reform was signed into law two years ago by President Obama, the Republican party has perpetuated the notion that “Obamacare,” as it’s derided, and its individual mandate, are an un-Constitutional threat to American freedom.

Mitt Romney, the inevitable GOP nominee, has called the Affordable Care Act “flawed” - going as far as to declare “on day one of my administration, I will grant a waiver from ‘Obamacare’ to all 50 states.”

Six years ago today, Romney signed Massachusetts’ health care reform - individual mandate and all - into law. Romney has been consistent in his defense of “Romneycare,” contending on “Meet the Press” in 2007 that the law would be a blueprint for other states, predicting that “we’ll end up with a nation that’s taken a mandate approach.”

I was reminded that Tim Pawlenty is alive yesterday, when he spoke out to say that it was “premature” to exclude Rick Santorum as a possible VP pick for Romney. Being reminded of Pawlenty’s alive-ness made me recall his greatest contribution to our political debate: the genius phrase “Obamneycare.”

“Obamneycare,” first uttered by Pawlenty while he was campaigning against Romney in June of last year - he’s since dropped out of the race and endorsed ol’ Willard - was then revived by Santorum in February. Romney, according to Santorum, was the “proud defender and author of ‘Obamneycare.”

Indeed, by all accounts - except Mr. Romney’s - “Obamneycare” is a fairly accurate description for the Affordable care Act. White House Records show that in 2009, senior officials in the Obama Administration held a dozen meetings with three health care advisors who helped then-Governor Romney shape Massachusetts’ health care reform in 2006.

One of those advisers, Gruber - who without freedom of speech might be in the swamp - himself attended five meetings with Obama Administration officials at the White House in 2009, including a meeting with the president, further baited Romney when he revealed “the White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts. They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.”

It seems the White House reached their goal, because to see the differences between “Obamacare” and “Romneycare,” you need to squint your eyes and turn your head sideways.

BOTH PLANS: create healthcare exchanges, wherein private insurance companies compete; contain an individual mandate; mandate that employers provide insurance; let children stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26; provide subsidies for citizens who can’t afford to purchase insurance; require insurers to cover so-called “pre-existing conditions.”

The nuanced distinctions between the plans are technical. “Romneycare” charges people who don’t buy insurance $1,200, while “Obamacare” charges them $695. Romney subsidizes anyone earning up to 300 percent of the poverty level, Obama subsidizes anyone earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level. The Massachusetts law mandates that companies with 11 or more employees provide health insurance, while the Affordable Care Act mandates that companies with 50 or more employees offer insurance. Under “Romneycare,” an insurer can limit coverage of specific “pre-existing conditions” to six months, under “Obamacare” there is no such limit.

Romney contends that he took a federalist approach to healthcare, and that difference is what makes his individual mandate good and President Obama’s individual mandate a socialist threat to the very American air that we breathe.

Yet, as recently as 2009, Romney was calling for Washington to look at Massachusetts as a model for healthcare. If slightly reforming the Massachusetts plan so that it could extend to the entire country was notwhat Romney meant when he said “the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington,” what did he mean?

Seeing as “Romneycare” has been a roaring success in Massachusetts, it’s not difficult to understand why Mitt’s reluctant to denounce it. In the six short years since the bill was signed into law, the number of uninsured citizens in the state has almost disappeared. 99% of Massachusetts residents now have health insurance, and only 8% of low income adults don’t receive coverage. The plan has been called “one of the biggest policy achievements” in the last 25 years in the state.

Unfortunately for But-I’m-a-Real-Boy Romney, the fact remains that standing by the Massachusetts plan is standing by its copycat bill, the Affordable Care Act…and Republicans are paid good money to hate the ACA.

Karl Rove has claimed that Americans are finding out “to our horror” how “harmful this measure is,” continuing, “‘Obamacare’ will sink America in a sea of red ink.” Donald Trump, who endorsed Mitt Romney in Las Vegas earlier this year, has labeled “Obamacare” a disaster.” South Carolina Governor - and Romney supporter - Nikki Haley, has indicated that her state will opt-out of the Affordable Care Act, in addition to encouraging her fellow-governors to form a coalition to “fight ‘Obamacare.’” Ann Coulter has called certain provisions in the Affordable Care Act steps “toward Communism.”

Through gritted teeth, the Right Wing is going to have to play nice with Mitt through November, and luckily for him he’s never been accused of being a man of principle. Perhaps establishment Republicans should be saying “the fault, dear Romney, is not in our czars, but in ourselves.”

Bullying The Boss

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:47:00 -0400

Published in this week’s Tri City News. If you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ - Pick up a copy!

“I think Bruce, if he’s true to his lyrics, would love the fact that the state used taxpayer funds to invest in this building to create jobs for working men and women.”

That was Governor Chris Christie last week during his public plea for Bruce Springsteen to play a Labor Day concert at the new Revel casino in Atlantic City. The $2.4 billion resort is now open for business, and it kicks off its entertainment schedule with Beyonce on Memorial Day weekend.

Man, who needs enemies when your self-proclaimed super-fans are willing to publicly question your sincerity in order to back you into a corner in an attempt to get their way? It appears “Shackled and Drawn” is Christie’s favorite cut off the new album.

The Governor continued with his invitation, saying a Bruce show at Revel would be “a show of support for his home state - it would be a great sign of support for the working men and women he writes about in his songs all the time.”

As if Bruce Springsteen needs to do more to show support for his home state. Not only that, but he needs to be told how to do so by Governor Christie, who spends more time out of state than John Edwards spends looking in the mirror.

It is indeed perplexing that such a great opponent of America’s middle and working class has a soft spot so visible for its most sincere defender. Christie idolizing Springsteen makes about as much sense as Lisa Lampanelli canonizing Grace Kelly.

Springsteen elevated the soul of the working class by acknowledging the plight of those who fall within the deep American pit which lies between the glamour of the 1% and the gloom of the government assisted. That’d be the very people whom Governor Christie takes from to give to the ones at the top of the economic ladder.

Playing Revel would be an uncharacteristic sop to corporate interests for Springsteen. As Chuck Darrow of the Philadelphia Daily News pointed out, with only 5,050 seats to fill in Revel’s Ovation Hall, tickets would need to “be priced way more than what populist hero Springsteen would no doubt be comfortable charging if he wanted to get his standard fee.”

Of course, that sort of moral dilemma is likely unfamiliar to Christie.

Due to lack of financing, construction on the 6.5 million square foot project stalled two years ago, picking up again after receiving a $260M grant from the state. Evidently Christie’s conviction - which he stated clearly two years ago when he cancelled the ARC Tunnel - that he “cannot place, upon the citizens of the state of New Jersey, an open-ended letter of credit” only extends to projects that broadly benefit millions of middle class New Jerseyans. If Revel sinks again, Christie will no doubt come back in to protect the investment. As soon as a crony is on the line, Christie is there with taxpayer money.

Christie claims that New Jersey is broke, and he has used this claim to justify destructive budget cuts like $7.4M to women’s healthcare and $55M to higher education scholarships for low-income students. Yet Christie somehow thought it reasonable to spend $260M in state money to create a mere 2,600 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs at a casino.

“It’s time to do big things” is a favorite line of the grandiose governor’s, but it seems he measures a project’s worth only by how much it will advantage the super-wealthy - and, subsequently, his own political ambitions.

The Governor’s love for The Boss must stem from either conscience or confusion. Since the former implies a sort of self-awareness he’s shown no signs of possessing, my money’s on the latter. Joshua Henne, spokesman for the progressive group One New Jersey, put it like this: “Apparently Governor Christie spends more time tapping his toes to Max Weinberg’s beat and Steve Van Zandt’s neat guitar riffs than actually listening to Springsteen’s lyrics.”

A king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything, and Governor Fanboy - like a schizophrenic who thinks the weatherman is sending him messages through the 7-day forecast - is now under the impression that he can rule The Boss himself.

“I’m sure he’s feeling a bit infected by the ‘New Jersey Comeback’ because he knows it’s begun,” Christie said of Springsteen. “…so I think you’ll see more optimistic things from Bruce going forward… A good artist is a mirror of the times.” Gee, I didn’t know Governor Christie could channel the spirit of Madam Marie with such ease.

Christie appears to have reached the point of disconnected wherein the middle and working class people of this country have been stripped of their human qualities and reduced to an idea. Continuing to speak about Springsteen, Christie said of the middle class “as I understand his music, he’s all for those folks - and so am I.”

By Olivia Nuzzi

Right-Wing Rx for Women

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:59:55 -0500

Originally published in this week’s TriCityNews. If you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ - pick up a copy!

As the two year anniversary of health care reform approaches, women shouldn’t ask themselves what made Republicans hate us so much (the answer to that is stayed away in droves.) But we should ask what life would be like if our health was left in their hands.

The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama two years ago next week, has prioritized women’s health despite efforts from Republicans who seem to be working out their mommy issues on every woman in America. Their counterproposals not only suggest that they don’t care about women’s health, but that they believe women should be punished for the fact that their healthcare is inherently sexual.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can no longer discriminate by charging women premiums 150% higher than men of the same age and health status. This reads as either “good news” or a “threat to our freedom” depending on whether you believe in equality or align yourself with the increasingly radical GOP.

The law places a cap on what insurance companies can force women to spend in co-pays and deductibles. Beginning in 2014, women who can’t afford comprehensive insurance will be provided with tax credits. That’s a great relief for over one-half of women in America who delay seeking life-saving care because of costs and the other one-third who must give up basic necessities to receive urgent care. For a first-world country, that’s a third-world reality.

The Affordable Care Act also eliminates lifetime limits on insurance coverage. And it forbids them from dropping women from coverage when they get sick.

Preventing insurance companies from preying on the weakest among us? President Obama might as well have burned the flag on the White House lawn while eating escargot and blasting the Dixie Chicks.

Republicans have spent the better part of the two years since the Affordable Care Act became law fighting for regressive change. Instead of focusing on the job creation they allegedly care so much about, they have favored policing uteruses - introducing over 45 bills on abortion alone.

Recently in Virginia, the State Senate passed a law which forces women to have medically unnecessary ultrasounds before an abortion. Though proving chivalry isn’t completely dead, the provision to require an intrusive - and again, medically unnecessary - vaginal probe was left out.

I suppose it’s not surprising that a policy which benefits women so greatly doesn’t have the support of Governor Christie, who has declared that he is “not a fan” of the Affordable Care Act. Doing his part to be the best Regressive he can be, Christie himself eliminated $7.4M for women’s reproductive health services in 2010.

Beyond legislative assaults on women’s health and reproductive rights, there have been gross verbal attacks.

Rick Santorum, that theocrat in the sweater vest who is somehow taken seriously as a presidential prospect, would like to outlaw birth control entirely. Rick Santorum is also against abortion in all cases including rape and incest. You read that correctly: someone who is vehemently anti-abortion is also vehemently against the one thing which is sure to prevent abortion.

Foster Friess, Rick Santorum’s top donor - yes, Santorum has donors - recently stated “you know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

In an attempt to one-up Friess, this past week Rush Limbaugh took a break from popping Oxycontin and looking for his 5th wife in order to attack Sandra Fluke - a Georgetown University law student and witness at the Nancy Pelosi-convened Democratic Steering and Policy Committee’s unofficial hearing on birth control. The hearing served as a response to the all-male panel hearing held by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Limbaugh stated that Fluke was a “prostitute” and a “slut” before going further to suggest that the “sluts” who expect their contraceptives to be covered under their health insurance should be forced to tape themselves having sex and post the tapes online so that “we can all watch.”

After devoting multiple days of his radio program to personally attacking Sandra Fluke, Limbaugh issued an apology for his “word choices”, adding that the episodes were an “attempt to be humorous.” Limbaugh is probably more likely sorry that nobody told him misogyny doesn’t sell well: he’s lost 5 sponsors and counting.

Considering that nothing makes me want to hold an aspirin between my knees more than seeing or hearing Rush Limbaugh, It’s not impossible that he has decided to selflessly employ himself as a means of contraception. What a guy.

Sure, the Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect. A lot of liberals like myself were disappointed not to see the inclusion of a public option. Still, it’s difficult to feel dissatisfied when cogitating the sort of health care reforms Right-Wingers deem acceptable.

It seems when they say want to “take our country back!” they mean to the 1800s specifically.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Chris Christie: Uncomfortably Numb

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:53:00 -0500

Originally published in this week’s TriCity News. If you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ - pick up a copy!

“Numbnuts” - that’s the phrase Chris Christie chose to attack Assemblyman Reed Gusciora with after he criticized the Governor for his indefensible assertion that activists in the 1950s and 60s “would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets of the South.”

The sensible among us have always known that Governor Christie is just Archie Bunker with line-item veto power. So that statement - which he apologized for after a backlash which included legendary civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) coming to New Jersey to note that Christie “has not read his recent history books” - came as little surprise.

Hanging out with Oprah generally means that you’re looking to make some moves towards personal growth, but Christie would never allow something as silly as that to deny him the attention he receives for being a slow-witted, slow-moving playground bully. Our fearless leader’s employment of “numbnuts,” sadly, shocked no one.

Still, It is difficult to decide what’s more disheartening, that Christie thinks “numbnuts” is a comically sophisticated dig, or that someone who uses the phrase “numbuts” is Governor of New Jersey.

Sure, to the rest of the country, he’s the “funny,” straight-talking “tough guy.” But this is New Jersey! Is it too much to expect all natives to be able to construct a respectable insult? We’ve put in charge a talentless character actor who’s failing miserably to inhabit the role of a wise-guy in a PG-13, straight-to-DVD mob flick. Have we no taste?

Alas, this isn’t really about us. Though it may appear so, Christie didn’t break the cardinal rule of communication - know your audience - because he’s not really performing for the citizens of the Garden State. The rest of the country is who Governor Christie is trying to charm, and let’s face it: the rest of the country is easy.

East Coast humor is of a higher standard than that of the slobbering masses of Middle right-wing America. And considering Christie has been spending increasingly more time out of state, trying to raise his National profile, it makes sense that the level of sophistication in his humor has reached a staggering new low.

You can catch him in Iowa or New Hampshire, dazzling folks with his ability to fully embody every stereotype he condemned while attempting to endear himself to East-Coasters. The Governor hates the sort of image the cast of the Jersey Shore perpetuates…unless he’s the one reaping the rewards. Catch him headlining in Louisiana or Utah, threatening to return “Jersey-style” if voters don’t “do the right thing” and while you’re there, try the veal.

Call the Governor the political equivalent to his fellow Livingston original Chelsea Handler, someone who’s found approval in audiences who think the holy grail of funny is anything crass which involves reproductive organs, alcohol or flatulence. Both Ms. Handler and Mr. Christie have been catapulted to mainstream stardom by virtue of the fact that their “humor,” as it is, is as easily digestible as a slice of processed, plastic-wrapped American cheese. Neither Christie or Handler could so much as shine Congressman Barney Frank’s shoes.

Or call him a land-bound Tinkerbell, a man so desperate for applause that instead of taking the time to improve his schtick for the tough crowd he governs, he’d rather make a beeline for Fly-over Country where the laughs are easily won. Christie needs to garner enough praise to keep that ego-fueled engine of his propelling him towards Washington.

Though, you can’t really blame the guy for parading his side show act around the country, considering the shit continues to hit the fan here at home. It’s tough to be funny when the state you’re in charge of lags the nation 45th in job growth, placing its unemployment rate at .6% above the national average.

But at the end of the day, being Governor means you’ve got to interrupt your publicity tours to face your constituents every now and then, so Christie has decided to take a page from the Karl Rove playbook. As the late, great Molly Ivins said of Rove’s strategy for Dubya when he was Governor of Texas “if you say something often enough, the reality makes no difference.”

“Jersey Comeback” - it’s a narrative that’s likely to ring true for the rest of the country, just like the narrative of Chris Christie did. He’s Jersey’s hilarious ambassador who’s not afraid to tell it like it is…unless he’s talking about his own record. A fact which is likely beyond the comprehension of the pundits who wailed “he balanced the budget!” during the media frenzy over whether or not he’d jump into the presidential race, or the easily-amused simpletons at a Romney rally.

Right-wing America has knit itself into a blanket of support for Governor Christie, and it’s not hard to understand why he doesn’t want to take it off. After all, it’s comfortable to be king - to have followers so loyal that a jibe like “numbnuts” reads as comedy of biblical proportions. It’s only here in New Jersey that it’s clear: the joke is Chris Christie.

By Olivia Nuzzi

Republican Luncheon Meat

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:08:00 -0500

Originally published in this week’s TriCityNews! If you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ…pick up a copy!

During Sunday morning’s Republican debate - yes, there was yet another debate on Sunday - Newt Gingrich made sure to secure his place in the headlines by telling Mitt Romney to drop the “pious baloney.”

Of course, anyone who believes they can claim their “passion for the country” drove them to have sex with someone other than their spouse – and then condemn someone else for “pious baloney” – is either incognizant or stupid.

Newt Gingrich may be both.

Then again, we live for pious baloney - it’s like our fuel. Dating games, beauty pageants, presidential elections - we want to hear the greatest bullshit our citizens can think up.

Without pious baloney, there would be no Republican presidential candidates. The debates would consist of 90 minutes of dead silence. The GOP candidates, including Newt Gingrich, do not just engage in pious baloney - they are the national distributors of it.

In fact, were there no pious baloney, there would be no presidential candidates at all…nor would there be American politics as we have come to know it.

Consider that this crop of GOP presidential candidates consists of a con artist, two Jesus freaks, two Mormons and an elf who wants to go back to the gold standard…none of them sincere and none of them opposed to stating the patently untrue.

If Michele Bachmann could go as far as to perpetuate a woman’s unproven claim that her daughter was rendered mentally retarded by a vaccine on national television, and then continue on the campaign trail for months, why should any candidate believe that they will face consequences for misrepresenting themselves? At least Bachmann knew when to call it quits.

The GOP would-be-nominees are betting on the general stupidity of the public and a media who no longer believes it has a job. And hey, why shouldn’t they?

As noted by Gingrich, Mitt Romney - the one who looks like something you buy in a gift shop - likes to pretend that he has not been attempting - and mostly failing - to hold public office since 1994.

Ron Paul, who I’m pretty sure you could use to crack walnuts, embraces “personal freedom” and identifies as a constitutional conservative…except for when he’s currying favor with evangelicals, at which point he likes to claim that no Founding Father suggested there be a separation of church and state. I guess he views Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Uncle.

Jon Huntsman, who may or may not be a robot sent here to make Karl Rove’s head explode, has run on being the outsider - the one not like those other Republican candidates. He has proven this by changing his positions on global warming and the assault weapons ban to appease Right Wingers.

Rick Santorum, the evangelical darling who I don’t even need to mock, believes America should follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, like this one: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” - yes, I believe I heard that in the New Testament.

Buddy Roemer - it’s okay, you’re not supposed to know he’s running for President - has, thus far, run a single issue campaign. That issue is reforming campaign finance and ending corruption in Washington. Roemer’s day job? Bank executive.

Rick Perry, the Texas governor who prayed for rain during this summer’s drought…the result of which was Texas igniting in flames, has more or less run on the platform that, unlike President Obama, he would be a “real leader.” Indeed, he is such a leader that he can’t even remember which government agencies he hates so much that he wants to abolish.

By stating “drop the pious baloney”, Gingrich has both called to mind Paul Krugman’s assessment of him as a “stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like” and proven, unequivocally, that he does not merely lack self-awareness, he is devoid of any insight into the American spirit.

No single human being altered my thinking as Christopher...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:03:15 -0500

No single human being altered my thinking as Christopher Hitchens did. To a great man, thank you. Christopher Hitchens, 1949 — 2011