Christie: Supporting Public Media Is Communism, But A $400 Million Bailout Of A Huge Corporate Mall Is A ‘Great Idea’

By Zaid Jilani

Over the weekend, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) was interviewed by New York City-based radio station WNYC. In the interview, the governor touched on a number of topics, including his support for a pension deal that would ask teachers and other public servants to pay more thanmillionaires were asked to pay (after Christievetoed a millionaire’s tax last year).

At one point in the interview, Christie was asked about the state Assembly rejecting his effort to sell off the state’s public broadcaster NJN (ironically to another public media outlet based in New York). The governor said he believes “state-owned operation of media ended with the Soviet union” and that New Jersey shouldn’t support public television:

INTERVIEWER: You had a big win yesterday [Thursday]. But you did have one setback. The Assembly rejected your proposal to have WNET Channel 13 takeover the state’s public broadcaster NJN. Critics of the deal say they are concerned WNET won’t deliver the quality news product Michael Aron with NJN has been putting out. What’s at stake with this deal?

CHRISTIE: What’s at stake is, I really believed that the state-owned operation of media ended with the Soviet Union, and I don’t think we should be in the television business. I think its an inherent conflict of interest for us to be in the television business and for reporters to be state employees and I also think that the expense at this time is not justified into the budget.

Yet at a different point in the interview, Christie defended the state’s $400 million bailout of a giant corporate mall boondoggle, saying the state has to be a partner and that it’s a “great idea”:

INTERVIEWER: As Governor your tool box for fixing the macro economy that’s so tied into national and global trends is limited. But who have put a lot of chips on the table with your plan to provide $200 million in economic aid to the Triple 5 Company that runs the Mall of America to re-brand the stalled Xanadu project in the Meadowlands. That’s up for a vote Monday. What is that $200 million…I don’t want to say government giveaway but how would describe it for voters?

CHRISTIE: Listen, what we’re trying to do is provide incentives for places like the American Dream at the Meadowlands to be built, and in these difficult economic times, the state is going to become a partner, a small partner in the project, but a partner none-the less, and we’re going to get our money back once the project is successful. So I think this is a great idea for New Jersey.

The interview says a lot about Christie’s priorities. He appears to be fine with cutting back oneducation and social spending out of supposed concerns for cost and is willing to deride public media as a relic of the Soviet Union, but does not seem to have the same qualms about subsidizing a giant corporate mall.

Chris Christie: No To Same-Sex Marriage

Christie Worked For Firm That Represented For-Profit Schools, Now Pushing For School Privatization

By Zaid Jilani

One of the major initiatives of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has been pushing for is the expansion of for-profit and privately managed schools in K-12 education. As part of this push, Christie has been championing a school voucher expansion that would cost the state $825 million to funnel tax dollars to private schools, while at the same time slashing spending for public education, cutting $820 million last year alone.

Last week, Christie announced a new “public-private school pilot program” which would allow “local school boards [to] hand control of some so-called ‘transformation schools’ to education management organizations, possibly including for-profit firms.” Christie designed the new program with Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, the “former president of the world’s largest for-profit operator of public schools, Edison Schools Inc.”

The New Jersey Star-Ledger notes that Christie actually has a very strong financial tie to Cerf’s for-profit company. The private law firm at which Christie worked as a lobbyist between 1999 and 2001 actually lobbied New Jersey’s government on behalf of Edison Schools:

From 1999 to 2001, Christie was a registered lobbyist at a law firm that lobbied New Jersey government on behalf of Edison Schools, according to filings with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission. While the firm was representing the multinational education company, Chris Cerf was its general counsel.

The firm, Dughi, Hewit and Palatucci, also represented Mosaica Education, a for-profit charter school operator, and the University of Phoenix, a for-profit online university. At the time, the firm listed two lobbyists, Christie and William Palatucci, a longtime political ally of the governor who is a named partner in the firm.

“Many people support their public schools and they are reacting with anger to the idea they should be privatized,” said state Sen. Dick Codey (D), in response to Christie’s proposed education policies

Gov. Christie Thinks A Family Making $6,000 A Year Is Too Rich To Qualify For Medicaid

By Marie Diamond

Despite recent polls that show Americans are just as protective of Medicaid as they are of Medicare, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is trying to gut the popular program in his state and prevent 23,000people from receiving benefits. Christie has proposedcutting Medicaid eligibility to absurdly low levels: from the current maximum income of $24,645 to $5,317 a year for a family of three. Apparently, the governor believes a family of three making $6,000 a year is simply too rich to receive Medicaid.

The New Jersey press has reported that the main effect of his proposal would be to slash help for the working poor, tearing a huge hole in the state’s social safety net:

Adults in a family of three that makes as little as $103 a week would earn too much to qualify for health care provided by Medicaid under a sharply curtailed program Gov. Chris Christie wants the federal government to approve this year, according to state officials and advocates briefed on the proposal.[...]

The Christie administration is expected to propose cutting the maximum income level of Medicaid from $24,645 to $5,317 a year for a family of three [...]

“That is about a third of the poverty level,” Castro said. “That means that an uninsured parent working full time at a minimum-wage job wouldn’t be eligible. … A parent who works half-time for minimum wage wouldn’t even qualify.

“Unfortunately, the only way these parents can become eligible for health coverage in the future is if the parent applies for and is eligible for welfare,” Castro added. “That sends the wrong message.”

Democratic lawmakers are furious that Christie is insisting on making $300 million in cuts on the backs of poor and disabled residents. They point out that apart from the morally bankrupt idea of denying care to the neediest population, having more people uninsured will ultimately be more costly for New Jersey.

“Those 23,000 people are going to get sick this year,” said Louis Greenwald (D), a committee chairman. “Where are you suggesting they’re going to go?”

State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D), who sponsored the legislation creating FamilyCare in 1998,explained, “This completely dismantles the progress made over the last 12 years, and then some…I can’t imagine how it could be any worse.”

Since Medicaid — which provides health care services to at-risk populations including the indigent, blind and disabled — is jointly funded by the federal government, states must apply for a waiver before making major changes. That means Obama administration officials can still block Christie’s radical attempts to curtail enrollment.

Gov. Chris Christie Considers Defying Court Order

By Ian Millhiser

Last month, a New Jersey state judge struck down Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) $820 million cuts in education because they disproportionately affected low-income students in violation of the state constitution. That case is now pending before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

In an interview with radio host Eric Scott today, Christie suggested that if the state’s highest court hands down a decision that he does not like, he may simply defy the court order:

HOST: In all seriousness, governor, what if the ruling comes down, and [the state supreme courts says] you’ve gotta spend $1.7 billion, and you just say “no”?

CHRISTIE: Well, that’s an option too.

HOST: You’ve considered that? You’ve considered actually saying we’re not going to do it? . . .

CHRISTIE: Well, listen, I’m not going to sit here and speculate. Um, have I thought about that? Of course I have. You asked me if I was coming up with a contingency plan. Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of options in the contingency plan and we’ll see what happens.

Watch it:

Sadly, Christie’s apparent belief that the law only applies to him when he feels like it is shared by many of his fellow conservatives. Indeed, the New Jersey governor is only the latest conservative leader to claim that the courts can be ignored — or even punished — when they hand down decisions that the right doesn’t like:

• Court Packing: After the Florida Supreme Court tossed out a wildly unconstitutional ballot initiative attempting to nullify part of the Affordable Care Act, Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon (R) devised a plan that would neutralize three of the Florida Supreme Court’s democratic appointees and giveright-wing Gov. Rick Scott (R) the ability to appoint several new justices.




• Court Stripping: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) recently told a gathering of social conservatives in Iowa that Congress should strip the federal courts of their ability to hear marriage equality cases in order to prevent gay Americans from being afforded their constitutional right to “equal protection of the laws.”




• Abolishing Courts: Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed punishing the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals for upholding the constitutional separation of church and state by eliminating that court entirely.




• Justice for Sale: A corporate lobbying group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to reelect incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser after Prosser allowed them to write the court’s “justice for sale” ethics rules.




• Buying Hate: Anti-gay hate groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year to depose three of the seven justices who joined a unanimous marriage equality opinion in Iowa.




• Tea Party Revenge: Florida Tea Partiers tried to depose two state supreme court justices to punish them for keeping an unconstitutional nullification initiative off the state’s ballot.

At the end of the day, conservatives don’t want to live under the rule of law — they want a veto power over any attempt to make them follow the parts of the law they don’t like.

New Jersey Gov. says he wants to ‘take the bat’ to a 76-year-old widow

By David Edwards

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) begged reporters Wednesday to "take the bat" to a 76-year-old lawmaker for collecting a pension and a paycheck.

Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a widow, said she was forced to begin collecting her pension after her financial advisor invested all her savings in Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme.

"After a major financial setback resulting from my so-called 'Financial Advisor' investing all my money (including my IRA) with a man I never heard of (read: Bernie Madoff) a colleague suggested that I would most likely qualify for my pension,"Weinberg wrote in a blog post.

"Though I never went in to public service to make money, I am grateful for this income at this time of my life, because of the situation Bernie Madoff created for me," she said.

Christie became livid at Weinberg when she was quoted by The Star-Ledger as saying he was guilty of double standards. At the time, Christie had not yet spoken out against Essex County Executive Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. for receiving a pension from the same job where he was also receiving a paycheck.

"That's just gamesmanship," Christie said at a press conference. "As you can see from folks like Loretta Weinberg, who by the way, if you guys don't give Loretta Weinberg the hypocrisy award..."

"I mean can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?" he asked reporters. "The hypocrisy meter has got to tilt on her."

Christie, who is known for his trademark rants, also recently told a teacher to quit after she criticized his attacks on the teachers union.

The video below is from The Star-Ledger, uploaded April 13, 2011.