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Chris Christie: Brave, Bully, Or Bigot?

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Without genuine bravery, all of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s brashness amounts to nothing more than the predictable disrespect and petulant tantrum throwing of a standard issue bully.

Chris Christie has a reputation for being a tough guy. It’s kind of his shtick. The image he has spent cultivating throughout his career is one of unwavering fortitude, based on the notion that he is his own man, that he doesn’t take crap from anybody, and that while some politicians will kiss your ass and tell you how pretty you are, Chris Christie will keep things real, hurt feelings or not.

Keep in mind, this is no more reflective of reality than any other politician’s contrived image management. It reminds me of John McCain’s fictional “Straight Talk” persona, or Newt Gingrich’s professorial “scholar of the party” nonsense, or the cartoonishly absurd rootin’ tootin’ cowboy act George W. Bush cultivated over 8 years. In reality, John McCain proved himself every bit the flip flopper people used to accuse John Kerry of being, these brilliant “ideas” Newt cooks up tend to be of the “we should live on the moon” variety, and as you will note, the minute George W. Bush stopped being president he abandoned that ridiculous prop of a ranch in favor of a proper Dallas, Texas mansion. Perhaps it was the crippling brush problem at Prairie Chapel Ranch, which could somehow only be cleared in the presence of photographers.

Chris Christie has chosen to take the lemons of his generally unpleasant demeanor and turn them into tasty, “I’m a freewheeling tough guy” lemonade. Be sure not to mistake any of this tough guy posturing for reality. He is every bit the craven, wobbly politician everyone else is. He just phrases his conservative boilerplate in the form of an insult. For example, this statement he made regarding his abortion stance:

I am pro-life, I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. That’s my position, take it or leave it.

That is a completely non-controversial standard issue Conservative statement, but by tacking that “take it or leave it” thing on the end he comes across as an independent thinker who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. It’s like saying, “I don’t care what people say, sweatpants are comfortable.” Yeah. Not really breaking any new ground there.

How then, did this plain spoken bad ass respond to the New Jersey Legislature sending to his desk a bill that would legalize gay marriage in the state? With hard edged “I don’t take no crap from nobody nohow” gravitas? Hardly.

Back in 2009, when Governor-Elect Christie was asked about the issue, he made it clear that he wasn’t just inclined to veto a marriage equality bill, he was enthusiastic about the prospect.

“If a same-sex marriage bill comes to the desk of Governor Christie, it will be returned to the legislature with a big red veto across it. Because, one, I believe that and I made it very clear to people during the entire campaign that that was my position and so there will be no surprise for the 1.2 million people who voted for me that that was and that is my position.”

How brave of Christie, to take such a clear and controversial stance during a time when absolutely no one was actually asking him to do anything. It’s easy to look tough when no one is trying to fight you. I can say “If current UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silvia came in here right now and tried to start a fight with me, I would totally whip his ass.” This in no way prevents me from urinating on myself and crawling in to the fetal position should such a scenario actually occur. Regardless, Christie had taken a clear pro-hate stance on marriage equality and wasn’t afraid to be kind of a jerk about it.

Fast Forward three years, and with polls showing far more public support for marriage equality, Christie seems to be willing to consider his options. In early January 2012 he said this regarding a potential vote in the legislature:

“They have a right to set their agenda, I’ll set mine, we’ll see who gets there first,” he said today in Camden . “When forced to make a decision, if forced to make a decision on it, I’ll make a decision.”

No mention of the big red veto. In fact, he avoids making any definitive statement. When it became evident that Democrats weren’t going to back down, he tried to dodge it again, this time by attempting to talk New Jersey lawmakers out of passing the measure in favor of putting the question to a referendum.

“I think this is not an issue that should rest solely in my hands, or the hands of the Senate President or the Speaker or the other 118 members of the Legislature,” he said. “Let’s let the people of New Jersey decide what is right for the state.”

Aside from the fact that the people of New Jersey elected those 118 members of the Legislature to make exactly those sorts of decisions, as that is sort of the entire point of representative democracy, this was an attempt on the part of Christie to escape the corner he had painted himself into. This is the same corner the entire Republican Party currently resides in. On one hand, his base, those Christie warriors who love telling the Governor all about how tough he is, have made it clear that they are taking anti-gay bigotry to the grave. They will never be letting up about it, ever ever ever, and will expect nothing less than 100% compliance on the matter if their support is to continue. When he had made his comment about the big red veto, marriage equality enjoyed only lukewarm support. Three years later those same polls showed substantial public support for equality. Suddenly, cheerfully vetoing equality legislation ran the risk of alienating independent voters. Displaying some of that patented Christie Toughness, the Governer did everything he could to slink out of the fight. It almost sounds like he is about to cry in this quote.

If the majority of the people want [same-sex marriage] prove it. Put it on the ballot, let it be voted on….I’ve told every Republican in the state legislature to vote to put it on the ballot. They need three-fifths to put it on the ballot. The Republicans have two-fifths in the legislature. So that means the Democrats only need to come up with one-fifth of the legislature…this is the bargain of your life. I’m giving you two-fifths! And the polls they show me say that if it goes on the ballot, it will lose. How much more magnanimous can I be? What else do you want me to do? Go campaign for it too? Look, I’m doing the best I can here!

By which he means, “I am too cowardly to sign this bill. I am going to go cry now.”

In the end, real bravery and genuine toughness could only be found in the legislature, who despite knowing that the bill would face a sniveling, pandering veto from the office of Governor Christie, passed the measure anyway; both because it was the right thing to do, and because it was going to be hilarious to watch Mr. Tough Guy bitch and moan about having to veto it.

As promised, Christie promptly applied his veto, cementing his legacy as one of a thousand politicians too morally insolvent to buck their party’s short sighted and bigoted views and side with equality. Christie chose to be small minded and unremarkable. Rather than do what is right, Christie has successfully avoided the wrath of his base by choosing to do what is wrong. The true measure and depth of his cowardice can be shown in the statement put out by his office in the wake of the veto. Calling his move a “conditional veto” he said this:

Today, I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill (S-1) was first introduced – an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide,” Christie said. “I continue to encourage the Legislature to trust the people of New Jersey and seek their input by allowing our citizens to vote on a question that represents a profoundly significant societal change. This is the only path to amend our State Constitution and the best way to resolve the issue of same-sex marriage in our state.

I have been just as adamant that same-sex couples in a civil union deserve the very same rights and benefits enjoyed by married couples – as well as the strict enforcement of those rights and benefits,” the governor added. “Discrimination should not be tolerated and any complaint alleging a violation of a citizen’s right should be investigated and, if appropriate, remedied. To that end, I include in my conditional veto the creation of a strong Ombudsman for Civil Unions to carry on New Jersey’s strong tradition of tolerance and fairness.

Screw you, Governor Christie. You don’t get to have it both ways. You can’t intentionally deny civil rights to the LGBT citizens in your state, and still get lecture everyone about how important equality is to you. Actually doing these things at the exact same time is positively appalling. Trying to pander to everyone simultaneously is the work of Mitt Romney, not someone who is supposed to be the down to earth, straight talking hero of the Republican Party.

Christie has sided with bigotry, and no amount of pathetic equivocation is going to change that. Equality has no middle ground, and the quest to find one is a temptation only the weakest and most pigeonhearted among us fall prey to. Without genuine bravery, all of Christie’s brashness amounts to nothing more than the predictable disrespect and petulant tantrum throwing of a standard issue bully. At some point New Jersey will see equality, and it will be due to real strength and authentic moral fortitude. Then we will know what real backbone looks like.

Related: Law, Unwrapped: Gay Marriage – Why Chris Christie Is Wrong On All Counts

 

Image, top, by boris.rasin
Benjamin Phillips is a Humor Writer, Web Developer, Civics Nerd, and all around crank that spends entirely too much time shouting with deep exasperation at the television, especially whenever cable news is on. He lives in St. Louis, MO and spends most of his time staring at various LCD screens, occasionally taking walks in the park whenever his boyfriend becomes sufficiently convinced that Benjamin is becoming a reclusive hermit person. He is available for children’s parties, provided that those children are entertained by hearing a complete windbag talk for two hours about the importance of science education, or worse yet, poorly researched anecdotes PROVING that James Buchanan was totally gay. If civilization were to collapse due to zombie hoards or nuclear holocaust, Benjamin would be among the first to die as he has no useful skills of any kind. The post-apocalyptic hellscape has no real need for homosexual computer programmers who can name all the presidents in order, as well as the actors who have played all eleven incarnations of Doctor Who.

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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