New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, nominally a Republican, delivered an extraordinary press conference this afternoon. The governor was angered that the U.S. House of Representatives declined to vote on the Senate’s hurricane relief bill after members had just gone through the agony of passing the Senate’s fiscal cliff bill last night. New Jersey and New York have been waiting 66 days and counting for federal relief from the damage left by Hurricane Sandy.
The $60 billion relief bill originated in the Democrat-controlled Senate, which packed it with more pork than actual relief. Republicans objected and sought to amend the bill to remove the unnecessary spending, finally dropping that late Tuesday night to take relief up in the new Congress. But Christie trained all of his fire — all of it — on House Speaker John Boehner and the GOP House caucus.
“There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner,” Gov. Christie said. “This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. National disasters happen in red states and blue states and states with Democratic governors and Republican governors.” Christie claimed that he called Boehner’s office four times after last night’s fiscal cliff vote, but his calls were not answered. If he called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, to query him about why the bill includes so much unrelated spending, he did not mention it. In fact, he defended the bill despite the fact that about 60% of it provides no hurricane relief and would not even be spent in 2013. Christie accused the Republican leadership of “playing games” with the relief, despite the fact that the Democrats in the Senate packed it with such irrelevant spending as $150 million for fisheries in Alaska and billions to the Army Corps of Engineers, with no blueprint for how it should spend the money.
Later in the press conference, Christie even declined to state whether he would battle against Boehner in a GOP primary: When a reporter asked Christie if he would do that, he replied: “We’ll see, primaries are an ugly thing.”
So is political gamesmanship, and Christie’s press conference was as ugly as it gets. It’s fashionable after the November elections and the fiscal cliff dive to bash the Republican-controlled House. Intriguingly, Christie hailed Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor while he ranted against Boehner for being “irresponsible,” opening up the possibility that Christie is gunning for Cantor to challenge Boehner for the speaker’s gavel when the next Congress is sworn in Thursday. Whatever his intentions were, Republican Chris Christie probably did more damage to the GOP in an hour than most Democrats manage to do in a lifetime.
Update: The House will split up the porky bill and vote on $9 billion Friday, the rest on January 15th. King will support Boehner for speaker, despite calling on NY and NJ residents not to even donate to the GOP. Christie is staying off the reservation, though, circulating video from his tantrum.
While I feel for the people affected by Sandy I had to laugh when this blubbering fool came on the news blasting Congress and Boehner over the failure to bring the relief package to a vote. Does anyone besides me think that if he does run for prez that those warm and cuddly moments with Obummer won’t be played to the hilt?
NO MORE RINO’s!
PERIOD.
Lets see – GHW Bush (Rino) one term then fail
Bob Dole (Rino) fail
GW Bush (Rino) 2 terms – big spender – fail
Mit Romney (Rino) fail
Don’t you get it GOP? You’re batting .250
Here’s a very funny take on Romney and Christie – very much in line with what you just said.
They are all an unmitigated disaster, all of Christie’s blubbering aside. Trusting Christie is a fool’s errand too. He is way too cozy with stealth jihadists in NJ and elsewhere, and that makes him dangerously deluded or a panderer for Muslim votes.
He has the same mindset as McCain, as he hideously supported Huma Abedin against a real Conservative’s assertions, Rep Bachmann. Christie, McCain and their ilk are foxes in the hen house too, allowing the Muslim Brotherhood Mafia to infiltrate and penetrate via their assistance.
Those who do not believe the above is of major import ought to rethink their calculus – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/20/senator-john-mccain-digs-himself-into-a-hole-via-his-indefensibleinexplicable-support-of-huma-abedin-hillary-clintons-deeply-connected-muslim-brotherhood-sister-commentary-by-adina-kutnick-132-2/
The danger is extreme.
Christie reminds me of the greedy, conniving Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon. Peter Lorre’s take down is classic: “…You bloated idiot….” (at about the 2:00 mark) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut_FOt8ydJE
Now, anyone who still wonders why the those of us from other parts of the country consider NE republicans very little different than the democrats can re-read this article and ponder it for a while. Here is a “responsible” republican pitching a hissy fit that we the people aren’t willing to dole out 30 or 40 million in pure pork in order to get 20 or so million to storm victims.
And still, like the ones who pushed Romney off on us, there are those who want this clown to run for POTUS. . . the mind fairly boggles.
Opps, I meant $billions, of course. Maybe we should just adopt a new shorthand and call $1B an “Obama buck”.
Yup.
It hurts us New England conservatives even more. Just when we think we get a quasi-conservative *cough* Scott Brown; it turns out to be just another bureaucratic wolf in Republican clothing. Nothing Christie is doing surprises me. You don’t get to be governor of New Jersy as a staunch conservative. I was familiar with his record before he was a big star in the eyes of the Tear Party sympathizers. He is for gun control, for illegal aliens, and soft on Islam. Don’t trust him, he is not the conservative you are looking for.
Another liberal Democrat criticizing the GOP for not giving them enough goodies. Why is this considered “news”?
Last I checked, Chris Christie is a GOVERNOR. Why didn’t he see to it that New Jersey had some sort of insurance coverage on its own infrastructure to allow recovery from storm damage and other natural disasters? In addition, why didn’t they accumulate some funds in the state treasury to “save for a rainy day” – literally, in this case? Large corporations with major physical assets often self-insure for moderate losses and then get reinsurance policies to cover anything above that. Why should the federal government have anything to do with insuring physical assets that don’t belong to the federal government?
You’d also think that he could spare some time to bitch at the guy in charge of FEMA given the Katrina-like response that agency produced yet again, but I guess he’s too in love with Barky now to gripe about the Fed’s pathetic response. As you say, Christie should also look in the mirror if he wants to see where a lot of the blame should go, but I doubt he can find a mirror big enough for that.
What money? When Corzine left office, taxes were already ridiculously high, the rich people were leaving the state, and the way the union contracts and welfare subsidies were written, the state would be running a deficit even if they got rid of every single employee. The state remains solvent only by skipping payments to the pension fund.
Christie is running for reelection and is perfectly willing to use the national GOP as a foil. The fact that he has been so willing to personalize and demonize those within his own party for his own political gain, should give pause to any who would promote a national candidacy by him. Think McCain, but an order of magnitude more given his rhetorical skill.
He has sold his soul, and I am not buying anything from this blow hard.
Ah, so the position of PJMedia is that there will be no more disaster relief.
… savor your memories of 2010, you people will never be trusted with power ever again. You’re through.
strawman argument. Go somewhere else loser.
“you people”… Ah, yes. Ever the ensign of the tolerant and open minded.
The GOP might not be, but don’t count your welfare checks before they are cashed troll
I was actually not referring to the GOP but to the STUPID wing of the TPGOP that this comment section represents. The GOP may survive if they get rid of you quickly enough.
No, the position of PJMedia is that disaster relief should actually go toward recovery for the affected area, not wasteful spending on pet projects that were not effected by the disaster and have no bearing on helping the victims of that disaster.
takdemon;
Don’t stop “Scholar”(?) from wallowing in his ignorance. We can only hope he gets bored enough to go back to Huffpost, NYT, and Politico.
Josh the Scholar, go back to your Media Matters gang and get some new material. It is time to go back to your class now. This tripe is getting old, comrade.
Get rid of them? How and why, pray tell? Is there no room for those that argue that spending be henceforth targeted and germane? Why are you so quick to come to the defense of a bill that has more pork than aid?
Maybe we expect leadership from the governor over his own state. Not a simpering boot-lick prostrating himself before the would-be incumbent president begging for money and attempting to bully anyone who might point out that the money is being spent unwisely on graft.
O.K. JS,
The “fiscal cliff” bill was introduced just minutes before the Senate voted on it. 157 pages; not even read. 79 billion dollars of the bill is pure unadulterated pork. This bill was introduced in exactly the same way that the Obamacare bill was introduced. Same exact tactics. THe pork could easily have been used for Sandy victims – 79 Billion dollars of it.
Hurricane relief? Same thing … someone should read it first. I would bet that there are “pet project” and “crony payoffs” in that too. Christie is merely being a useful idiot; why is Obama not held accountable for spending 7 million just to get back to Hawaii? Never once did he mentioning Sandy, so maybe it wasn’t important to him. What was important was shaming and demagoging Republicans, especially via Christie.
Let’s throw them both under the bus.
Here here!
I swear before God. If that fat POS christe ever runs for Pres on the Repub ticket..
Christie– the Democrats’ favorite Republican governor and the next Charlie Crist.
Well, Jumbo Chris, you shoulda called your buddy, Obama. Your hug helped him get elected. If you expected something in return, ask Susan Rice how that turned out.
The relief bill should have passed weeks ago and the Gov should have been calling the leadership of both parties. Otherwise it looks like he is also paying politics.
The more I see, the more I feel that this is the beginning of the the end for America as we know it! We’ve been infected by the left and south-American way of government,if we don’t watch out will turn into a BIG BANANA REPUBLIC with revolutions every other day- because our memories and hopes are still with us but our will and guts are something else again.WE better stop that ME>ME and go with WE,WE the people of the United States of America.
Close, but no cigar, for the simple reason that not all of South America is governed as badly as we are. You might try visiting Chile. Good place to start a business. And yes, they do have natural disasters there too – and they have the skills to recover from them.
More like Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. They no longer even have their own currency.
ha…thats right. Keeping demonizing Republican Moderates and Independants (who admire Chris Christie). You will be rewarded with a Hillary Clinton presidency. Still butt-hurt from Obama? Well… she’s going to use a strap-on!
Such ability to see the future, you must be quite wealthy.
Yeah, that’s the party line.
It’s worked out really well for us, hasn’t it?
One RINO after another goes down to defeat, and the RINOs in Congress have zero backbone.
When “moderates” occasionally win elections, the result is pretty much the same as if a Democrat had won.
Tell me how this is a good thing, please?
News flash for you: REAL conservatives win elections, time and time again. And when they do, they have backbone.
What true conservatives were those? The only true conservative to run for President in the last 100 years was Barry Goldwater and he got slaughtered. It would be nice to see a true conservative get elected, but you wouldn’t know what one looks like anyway. Get some new material Mark v.
I liked Christie right up until he dropped to his knees & planted a juicy one on O’s backside for calling him back right after Sandy. Since then he has consistently shown his true colors in the name of looking out for NJ.
Democrats promised to save him some Twinkies.
Why do you insist that political infatuation and representative worship are necessary components to political victory?
Oh, look everybody! Joshie pooh is trying the alinsky! If he were really a scholar, he would be able to read and comprehend what he read. This article covers not the disaster relief itself, but the politicking used to promote unrelated spending, using the disaster as cover to spend our tax dollars for their favorite special interests. Then they wrap themselves in moral superiority, demanding that anybody who doesn’t support this “disaster relief” bill is a mean person. And Josh either fell for it, non-scholar that he is, or he’s intentionally alinskying as a little lap dog for big government/big daddy/we’re all stupid and only government can get it done.
You know, I have a weight problem, but I have never been an as undisciplined lard-ass as Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Thus, I can see why he does not find pork objectionable.
Christie isn’t just undisciplined, he’s unprincipled.
Scott Brown: It’s ‘awfully tempting’ to run in Massachusetts special election By Alexandra Jaffe – 01/02/13
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/275215-scott-brown-awfully-tempting-to-run-in-special-election
The RINO’S stampeding to nowhere how funny can these days get?
They may as well elect a democrat – at least you know where they stand – right next to Feckless Won.
On another note I’m wondering when Christy will announce his switch to the democrat party. He could run second to Broom-Hillary. I think they’d make a wonderful pairing.
That would be scary. That combination could win easily.
I live in NJ and don’t understand what Christie is squealing about. The people and businesses who live on the shore should be the ones assuming the risk cost of living near the ocean.
Hoping to kiss-up his way into the Crony Benefits Program.
The Leftists must be giggling themselves to sleep. Christie and Rep, Peter King just gave them more sound bites to run in ads against the GOP in 2014, nothing like handing over the House on a silver platter, oh well, Boehner already did that…
Christie is a disgrace, I miss Breitbart…
I miss Breitbart too.
I still visit Breitbart.com regularly, and the site continues to be highly valuable, but nobody can take the place of Andrew facing down the bad guys up close and personal.
I will always be a little suspicious regarding the circumstances of his death.
I will always be much more than a little suspicious regarding the circumstances of Mr. Breitbart’s death.
Peter King is saying the same sorts of things. A RINO, a turncoat. What a pity, who else can we find to bash Muslims now?
Though I do believe King has jumped the proverbial shark, how is raising legitimate concerns tantamount to Muslim “bashing”?
I just read a freightening opinion. Quote:
Cantor might let you TPGOP freaks have enough rope to end yourselves, but you may end America as a power and the world economy in the process.
God, how did we get to the point where morons were this close to power?
And lets be clear the debt limit is not a license to spend it’s a license to pay back what you already borrowed.
If the US loses its credit rating, then interests rates go up and our economy is utterly ruined forever.
And we can look forward to a future of being a 3rd world country looking up to China.
So, just when is this paying back going to begin and from what pocket?
The primary objection of the Tea Parties (plural, not a monolithic organiztion) to raising the debt limit is the long history that already exists. The debt limit is raise, spending increases still more.
That is the way it has happened over and over and over. We aren’t going to believe that the next increase won’t result in the same exact spending increase.
We owe too much money to too many not nice people. We dread the day the bill comes due but borrowing more won’t help us avoid that day. Only digging our way out of debt by reducing spending will.
Meh, my People will survive and even thrive. It is the obama parasites who will .. ah , not fair so well.
Problem is, they are going down the sewer so fast you can hear a sonic boom, and they have already carried a tremendous number of innocent people, along with America’s Judaeo-Christian heritage, along with them.
“And lets be clear…it’s a license to pay back what you already borrowed.”
So what you’re trying to tell us is that the Debt Ceiling was put in place so that Congress can only borrow enough money to pay back what it has already borrowed?
My God, that ranks right up there with the most ignorant statements I’ve heard – even from moonbat liberals. That was so blindingly stupid that I actually feel dumber having read it. Pure, grade AA+ cow flop. Our Deceiver-in-Chief couldn’t have coughed up a bigger piece of oratory excrement.
Oh, wait. Didn’t he just say that before jetting off to Hawaii again? Two round trips on the taxpayer’s dime…the man oozes fiscal responsibility.
But I do love that “and let’s be clear” part. Priceless. You ever think of running for office?
The debt ceiling doesn’t affect what the government borrows, it effects what the government pays.
It’s not my fault that the government doesn’t make sense.
However it is your fault that you are completely ignorant and self righteously totally, completely wrong.
Go away, Troll. You constantly embarrass yourself.
Given that debt service is the third largest expenditure of the United States, it most certainly affects how much we must borrow.
You failed to spell frightening correctly in a comment that included a copy paste of the correct spelling of frightening. I will go ahead and let anyone who thinks you make intelligent comments think about that one for a minute.
Scholar(?) is FREIGHTENING; Heavy, bro!
Don’t dis ‘im.
… and Frightening
And, by the sound of him, frightened of what kind of opposition is shaping up to run against him in his next election.
Say, Mr. Scholar, kudos to you for inventing a brand new word; freightening. Apparently you were trying to make a point about the terrific excesses involved in shipping freight cross country.
Shame on you for straying off subject.
But then, scholars can’t be chastised for their liberal rants, as that is what they do best; bay at the moon.
“Cantor might let you TPGOP freaks have enough rope to end yourselves, but you may end America as a power and the world economy in the process.” No, BHO is managing to do that quite nicely as is.
I’m sorry you guys chose to protect this man. But then, why argue with you. He’s got power and influence, you have it, I got nothing, not ever going to have anything but nothing. But for the record, we do not have the luxury of playing by the old rules
Hey, Chubby! The $60 billion “estimate” you and Cuomo submitted is now the amount that you both demand of the Congress. Does that figure includes bribes, payoffs, kickbacks and skim to all the appropriate NY/NJ politicians, relatives, paisanos, business partners, party organizations, friends, mafiosi, and unions or are they included in subsequent requests?
Um, that happened when Pelosi and Obama were elected the first time.
What’s moronic is to believe we can be the Biggest Deadbeat on the World Block without consequences.
And the morons will continue to win the day as long as Republicans are unwilling or unable to make the point that they can take 100% of what we earn, all our money, and it won’t be enough. It is the spending….you know.
Yup.
Mitt Romney made that point in the first debate and all we got to hear about was how he disrespected our Communist President on national TV. Don’t blame Republicans because their message doesn’t get out. That is on the media who, by and large, can’t understand anything the Republicans are saying anyway. The public is already brainwashed to think Republicans are “bigoted haters”, whatever those are, and even an economic disaster won’t reach them anyway.
To hell with Christie and every stinking NJ voter that put Obumbles back into power
Sounds like Charlie Christ, on steroids. His career as a Republican is history!
Christie is toast. A Republican morphologic Michael Moore.
Raising the debt limit would be like opening a new credit card. It means we are going further into debt, not paying off the debt we have already accrued.
Exactly.
And we sure can go ahead and pay off current debt without raising the debt ceiling. Matter of fact, we had better start doing that before our rating drops lower and the interest rates we have to pay start going up past our ability to pay.
THIS is how the scenario plays out in real life. It means Americans lose all their savings and economic activity grinds to a halt.
No we can’t, that’s the opposite of what the debt ceiling means you ignorant fool.
The debt ceiling is “how much we can pay back” not “how much we borrowed”
I know it’s useless and backwards, but that’s what it is.
If we cap the debt ceiling then we default on money we’ve already borrowed. You’re working at the wrong end of the problem.
And your ignorance threatens the US and the world. If we default and interest rates go up on the money we’ve borrowed then we WILL NEVER DIG OUR WAY OUT OF THE HOLE AND REALLY REALLY REALLY BE SCREWED FOREVER.
Just because you are too stupid to understand a straight forward concept does not give you the right to be unpleasant. The debt ceiling is the amount we are allowed to go into debt, which is why I tried to get it through the layers of idiocy that are protecting your belief system by using the credit card analogy. I am sorry that your ability to process basic information is lacking, but go on trying to claim to be a scholar, as you seem to get schooled each time you make a comment around here.
How does being really really screwed differ from being really screwed? Sheesh, go back to school, boy.
This guy was toast when Coulter latched on to him.
BTW, isn’t the amount for disaster relief greater than the tax increase on a yearly basis?
Don’t get me started on Ann Coulter!
Making Boehner feel guilty is S.O.P. It’s worth it to scream for the money, even though he knows he got screwed by Obama who PROMISED IT. After all this time, why is this relief not already dispersed?
If Christie galvanizes his citizens and uses them to recover from their disaster, LIKE REAL PIONEERS WOULD DO, he could shove the recovery in their faces, and show that they really can survive at their chosen level of lifestyle.
If Christie really needs Washington, he’s the parasite they cultivate for their elite.
“How did we get to the point where morons are this close to power?”
Joshua Scholar, they ARE in power.
And it’s scary.
I won’t vote for Christie. He’s shown his true colors – RINO gray.
JAPOFABBS. Think about it.
– One True God Obama for help, you fat pig.
The naysayers were right about Christie.
Hey Mr. Preston, I’ve got news for ya. Boehner’s “nominally” a republican too. He and Christie are two sides of the same RINO coin. They deserve eachother. Let them destroy one another. It’s good TV.
It is the DEBT limit.
Legal terms are arbitrary, named by the people who made the laws and not generally honest.
No, the fact that it’s called the “debt limit” doesn’t mean that its actually meaning is related to the common sense meaning of the phrase “debt limit”.
It means what it actually means. Sorry. As I explained above, it doesn’t constrain borrowing, it merely constrains whether the government can pay the bills it already has. The alternative is default and disaster.
And if we default then then interest rates on our debt may go up and eat up all of our money forever, destroying the US and upending the world economy.
What does that matter to you? Obviously you are an Obama-zobmie and while both parties are guilty of destroying the US economy nobody heretofore has done as much wreckage in such a short time to our economy as the WON. And in the past, the numbnuts in DC did it along party lines; the WON has done it to destroy America.
So while you swoop in here with your rehearsed lines, you have shown us to be a rather stultifying by caging your remarks as criticism of the GOP but at the same time offering no criticism of the WON or what can be done to stop America’s decline into Third World status.
I do not have “rehearsed” lines.
I actually have worked out what I say, these are actual opinions by an actual person.
Jesus.
But you do strike me as a bunch of zombies. You believe things that are not true but you reinforce each other’s incorrect beliefs.
… Actually, I don’t care what state you go away in.
As long as you go away.
Proved my point. But you are fun to play with as you give us an insight into the twisted minds of the left.
Tool.
Careful about throwing around terms like “the left”
You’re all so blind in your bubble.
Ronald Reagan would be a “leftist” compared with the stupid tea party
as would Richard Nixon.
I may be a Democrat but I voted for George Bush. You don’t have a clue. And I just pray that the Republican party can return to something resembling sanity one day, after it rejects the horrible ideas of the the sort of people who sit on this website.
It is amazing how different (and better, actually) PJMedia is now than it was 2 or 3 years ago. What happened to all the hysterical Birchers who were posting lies and racist crap every other comment anyway?
If the trend continues, you’ll be gone in another couple years and maybe the party can return to sanity.
I can’t believe that any GOP was or could be hoping that Christie would have made a Presidential run a year ago. I never saw anything that made him a hopeful. A pitiful piece of lard in my view. I can only hope that maybe we can get a few Fed. dollars up in the north midwest to help us get rid of all the friggen’ snow that gets on our roads and streets every winter. How bout’ some fed money for us, please.
Lipid Liberal.
One french fry short of a load.
RINO Chrispy appointed a moslem “judge” which is EXACTLY like appointing a Mafiosi.
‘Nuff Said!
Yep! Ole Christie doing what every other tea party person would do if in equal position of power in a state having just experienced a natural or man made disaster — go running to the federal government demanding billions now, another few billions in a couple week downstream and more billions later on. Thats what every state and states municipalities do on a daily basis with NO natural or manmade disaster — regardless of political party affiliation.
I never could stand Christie. Big government boy all the way.
As for the crybabies back east. Why don’t you try fixing what’s broken yourself, and paying for it yourself, instead of depending on this government or that government to do it for you?
And, when you try to repair something that the government owns, and they won’t let you (like a county road or something) and it stays broke until they decide they feel like fixing it, just remember, you put yourself in that position when you started depending on the government to do everything for you.