Chris Christie Blows Into Tampa
As a strengthening Hurricane Isaac takes aim on The Big Easy, seven years to the day of Katrina's catastrophic devastation, an even bigger bag of wind is set to be unleashed tonight in Tampa as NJ Governor Chris Christie takes the podium as the GOP's Presidential Convention keynote speaker.
For the past week Chris Christie has been the topic du jour of all the news shows. Morning Joe, Good Morning America, News 12 New Jersey and the front pages of the local press have paraded and fawned over the GOP's ascending star as if he were the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.
Journalists ask Christie if he intends to unleash his "fire and brimstone" Jersey hubris during his keynote speech. His tough talking, take no prisoners' attitude seems to be all the rage in Republican Party circles these days. When GMA host George Stephanopoulos asked Christie if he represented the GOP mainstream Christie answered, "I've been to over thirty states since my election as Governor and everyone has welcomed me with open arms. With me you know who you're buying." Indeed Christie's value as a political celebrity is rising. In his brief tenure as Governor he spends a lot of time jetting about the country, politicking for himself and the GOP. He's been out raising funds for his reelection campaign and his coffers are overflowing with out of state money from his well heeled big time 1% contributors. Mr. Christie's discerning buyers know what they are purchasing. His hubris is a nice word for his arrogance and opacity that are the hallmark of the political deals he's cutting for his out of state friends when he arrives back home in the Garden State.
Christie's supporters love his tough talking style but his tough talk is nothing more than the arrogance of power, the political and economic elites employ to cover their back room deals. Christie's tough talk is nothing more than a front to deflect. When a reporter asked Christie about failing water delivery infrastructure and its impact on public health, the tough talking Governor answered "Did I say on topic? Are you stupid? On topic, on topic. Next question," Christie said to the reporter. "Thank you all very much and I'm sorry for the idiot over there." Christie also scored big with anti-union and privatization of education supporters by calling public school teachers, "drug mules". Its a denigration unworthy of a governor and a damaging characterization of professionals working within a systemically challenged public school system.
Yeah Christie's a real bad ass tough guy. When a Navy veteran asked for more details from Christie about the proposed merger between Rutgers Camden and Rowan University, he called the gentleman an idiot and used the power of his pulpit to brow beat and insult the man; who had every right as a citizen and taxpayer to receive a respectful reply to his question. This week Christie is crowing that he finally closed the Rutgers/Rowan deal with the bipartisan help of his lap dog democrat friends; as details concerning the financing and costs of the project remain obscure. It will be left to vigilant citizens to follow the money and see where and how state funds will flow into which private hands.
Yes Christie and his GOP supporters may love his tough talking but I suspect they pay a premium for the Christie brand because he knows when to keep his fat mouth shut. Sure their thankful when Christie refuses to shed any light on his business dealings and political moves. Christie's less then transparent appointments of commissioners to the NJ Highland Commission allowed the governor to pack the oversight board with pro-development interests. The NJ Highlands is a sensitive watershed region for millions of state citizens. In a densely populated state like New Jersey, protection of water resources and environmental conservation should be priorities but out of state El Paso Corp has eminent domain to dramatically expand its pipeline through the ecologically sensitive area to deliver natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale deposit. Is this the fruit of Mr. Christie's cross country road show to interested buyers? Christie's short term profit is New Jersey's long term problem.
In another strange case of the bloviating governor going mute is his refusal to provide insights into his interests and practices in a privately run prison halfway house business that regularly receives state funded taxpayer money. Governor Christie, "the entrepreneur" catches a bad case of laryngitis when asked to provide insights into his cashing in on the privatization of the prison system and the rent seeking practice of his company using government funds to provide substandard service.
Yeah they'll be a big wind blowing through Tampa tonight that will rival anything Isaac can throw at New Orleans. Christie will crow about the New Jersey miracle since his governorship began but statistics show that the state is lagging its Mid-Atlantic rivals. Facts and politicians seem to be two mutually exclusive matters so it shouldn't present an obstacle for Christie to say or claim anything the tough talking Jersey Dough-boy claims as truth.
This is particularly true of a fact based, reality challenged Republican Party that believes there is no science to support climate change, the idea that public schools are a liberal conceit, the notion that women rape victims can't get pregnant, progressives are enemies of the state and to preserve the constitution we must withhold the rights of some citizens. If you think that this is an unfair shot at the GOP mindset, did you see the GOP California poster of Chris Christie riding a surfboard? Talk about a problem with the concept of reality.
Music Selection: Beach Boys, Surfin Safari
Risk: truth, transparency, civil discourse, consensus
August 28, 2012 Posted by riskrapper | democrats, elections, labor, labor unions, republicans	| Beach Boys, Camden, Chris Christie, drug mules, El Paso Corp, George Stephanopoulos, GMA, GOP, Mitt Romney, Morning Joe, New Jersey, New Jersey Highlands, Prison Industry, privatization, public schools, Republican Party, Rowan University, Rutgers University | Leave a comment
The ones shouting loudest with greatest vehemency for liberty are ironically the proponents of its gravest threat. Rep. Peter King, the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee has scheduled hearings on the radicalization of the US Muslim community and its threat to the homeland. Mr. King said the hearings are the result of a growing concern by law enforcement officials that the US Muslim community has not been cooperative in rooting out the home grown terrorists multiplying within their midst. In service to liberty's highest ideals, the ever vigilant Mr. King looks to initiate an assault on the civil liberties of our brother and sister Muslim citizens.
A group calling themselves The Liberty Alliance are in full support of Mr. King's ethnic profiling and the grave threat it poses to the civil liberties of all citizens. Mr. King's committee hearings will be a resplendent grand standing platform for him to play to the basest prejudices of his constituency and stoke up the fear of American angst already overloaded with a symphony of terrors. Muslims, like the LGBT community and illegal aliens, labor unions and teachers make convenient scapegoats for the myriad problems confronting the nation. Mr. King and The Liberty Alliance would like us to believe that labor unions have plundered the wealth of the nation. Teachers have destroyed the schools. The poor have bankrupted our federal treasury while the LGBT and foreigners continue to undermine the true American Judeo-Christian culture by defiling the purity of its heritage.
Its a grand irony to witness self styled libertarians mobilized into action to attack civil liberties and right to privacy of their fellow citizens. They clamor for disclosure and transparency with the diabolical refrain, "if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to be afraid of." Such seditious thinking undermines the spirit of liberty. It is a direct assault on a society governed by laws and its citizens shielded by due process and protected by a Bill of Rights. These democratic virtues once distinguished America as the shinning city on a hill. Now The Liberty Alliance denigrates it with an Orwellian platitude believing civil rights, privacy and due process are covers for terrorist cells that must be dispensed with at all costs.
It is not difficult to divine that Peter King's committee will encourage a number of informants to come forward to meet a specified quota for stool pigeonry. A legion of rats and informants are the armies of despots not agents of democracies. But these are the same Real American Freedom Fighters who led the charge against American Muslim's right to build a mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero. Ask them about religious tolerance and the freedom to worship as guaranteed in the US Constitution and they'll concede the point with the promise to serve Halal meals and build a mosque with extra capacity at Gitmo.
The ones shouting the loudest for liberty do indeed pose the greatest threat to it. The libertarians who opened the door to 527 llcs have turned Lady Liberty into a common prostitute hiring her out to the highest bidder. The zealots waving the Constitution with the fervor of a Red Book sprouting Maoist, forms a reactionary vanguard eager to deny the very same sacred civil liberties and rights to fellow citizens in their deranged constitutional republic of unfree and unequal citizens.
Despots and non-democratic societies do not offer or practice universal rights, freedoms and liberties for all its citizens. Pitting one group against another, scape goating, delineating special classes of people or dual classes of citizenship are hallmarks of repressive societies. Mr. King's committee hearing of racial and ethnic profiling divides citizens and denies the constitutional rights and liberties for Muslims. This is apartheid. Gov. Walker's and Chris Christie's attack on labor unions and teachers as the source of our economic debasement obfuscates systemic inequities and masks the identities of the perpetrators who plundered the wealth of this nation. The economic elites are trying to beat the rap by forcing their public elected shills to make the working people of America pay the price for their own victimization.
Peter King's sons of liberty are complicit agents of enslavement to the power and privilege of corporate oligarchs; hiding behind the billowing smoke of America's civic strife and brewing internecine struggle. They are gravely mistaken in believing that they are safely ensconced behind the golden walls of their enclaves the piles of cash allowed them to build to protect themselves from the seething masses. Mubarak nor Gaddafi's moat protected strongholds could protect them from the volatile tide of history.
Peter King opening up hearings on radical Islam and its role in creating home grown terrorism is of course just in time for the 2012 election. It will provide some red meat for rabid Teabaggers screaming for blood. Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin and other righteous Falangist Crusaders can use the grist of Peter King's xenophobic fear mill to paint our Mau Mau loving President and any progressive opponent a Fifth Columnist for the new Caliphate they are working to establish in the last stand of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
You Tube Video: James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy
Risk: tolerance, politics, civil liberties, Bill of Rights
March 7, 2011 Posted by riskrapper | Christianity, Civil Rights, class, conservatism, culture, democracy, economics, ethnic, faith, gay rights, government, labor unions, LGBT, Muslim, Palin, psychology, race, republicans, social justice, Tea Party, teaching, unions	| 527 llc, Bill of Rights, Caliphate, Chris Christie, Civil Rights, Falangist, Gaddafi, Gitmo, Gov. Walker, Ground Zero Mosque, House Homeland Security Committee, illegal aliens, labor unions, Lady Liberty, LGBT, Maoist, Mau Mau, Mike Huckabee, Mubarak, Muslim, Orwellian, Peter King, public schools, Red Book, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Liberty Alliance, US Constitution | Leave a comment
Puddenhead Wilson and the Jersey Doughboy
When Joe Wilson belched his infamous catcall "lair" during President Obama's address to a joint session of the legislature, he revealed himself to be a poor example of a mature adult. Puddenhead Wilson's emotional outburst may have played well with die hard Obama haters, indeed the next day his campaign war chest swelled by a million dollars; but it also sent a terrible message to America's youth that its acceptable to disrespect your teachers, coaches, police officers or parents if you disagree with what they are saying. The fact that his campaign coffers swelled with contributions as a result of his offense compounded the power of the negative message it sent to youths and to the perpetrator himself. Awarding Puddenhead Wilson for his bad conduct only encourages him to repeat his offensive disrespectful behavior. It also sends a very poor message to America's youth that bad behavior is OK and childish emotional outbursts may in fact find reward from enabling adults.
New Jersey Governor and emerging GOP superstar Chris Cristie, recently revealed himself to be a poor role model for the youth of America when he told a gathering of students that teachers greed was to blame for the lack of supplies and educational resources available for public schools. The Governors injection of politics into his presentation to Trenton students is a bit ironic. In his crusade against the teachers union, Christie has charged educators with using school children as "drug mules" to carry the message about the danger of funding reductions for public education. It would seem that the good Governor Christie needs to deliver a couple of kilos of his own to his adoring fans in the Tea Party and his financial backers in the GOP.
Putting partisan politics aside Christie's message to public school students is extremely damaging. The public schools are under incredible pressure. All social institutions are engulfed in severe challenges and are fully engaged in crisis management mode. America's public schools are not exempted from these pressures. The complex confluence of political, cultural and economic factors plaguing society are acutely manifested and constantly working to undermine the public school system. Governor Christie's political rant to students throws gasoline on a combustible pile of institutional challenges confronting teachers and administrators. Like Puddenhead Wilson, the Jersey Doughboy gives tacit approval and encouragement for students to question the authority and motives of their teachers. Christie has just provided under-performing students a ready made excuse for failure and disruptive malcontents a lit match to throw onto a gasoline soaked pile of kindling encircling our public schools.
Christie's partisanship places the context of his egregious mismanagement of the Race to the Top DOE grant in a new light. Perhaps Christie's $400 million blunder was an intentional action to reduce resources to the public schools to undermine greedy teachers and their gluttonous union. Why would Christie enable the funding of whip cracking greed driven drug mule drivers? And like his killing of the DOT funded ARC tunnel project, Christie enhances his conservative street cred by punching the construction unions in the nose and telling the socialist government in Washington to spend its money elsewhere.
Like Puddenhead Wilson, Christie is cashing in on his actions and is building a nice portfolio of economic and political capital for himself. His remarks about the greedy teachers provide a convenient cover and solemn absolution for the grand practitioners of greed and avarice that have led this country to the brink of fiscal insolvency, cultural destitution and political bankruptcy. Christie's narrative of blaming the needy plays well with large contributors who will be moved to put good 527 Corporation resources at his disposal to underwrite his political rise.
Christie's midterm election barnstorming tour in service to the GOP booked him on a coast to coast tour that even his hero Bruce Springsteen would envy. Though Christie's mojo clearly failed in helping Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina win election, the Jersey Doughboy's political stock has risen so quickly that he felt compelled to send out a few tweets to deny he would run on a ticket with Sarah Palin for president in 2012.
So New Jersey is stuck with the doughy mess of big money winner take all partisan politics of Christie's ideologically driven governorship for at least the next two years. Enjoying popular support for now, Christie's considerable body mass currently displaces enough water to ride the wave of Tea Party conservatism. But if the fickle citizens of New Jersey make a slight left turn off Exit 16E on Thunder Road, Christie's fortunes will drop faster then a lead sinker placed into the rancid brew seeping to perfection in a gaudy Royal Dalton Tea Pot.
You Tube Music Video: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (Live Acoustic Version)
Risk: political, labor unions, public education, consensus
November 15, 2010 Posted by riskrapper | conservatism, culture, democracy, economics, elections, government, institutional, labor unions, Obama, philosophy, politics, republicans, Tea Party, unions	| 2012 Election, 527 Corporation, ARC Tunnel Project, Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Fiorina, congressman, DOE, DOT, GOP, Governor Chris Christie, Joe Wilson Congressman, Meg Whitman, midterm election, New Jersey, President Obama, public schools, Puddenhead Wilson, Race to the Top, Royal Dalton, Sarah Palin, South Carolina, Tea Party | Leave a comment