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Hurricane Sandy victims make do in trailers as they wait to rebuild

Hurricane Sandy victims make do in trailers as they wait to rebuild (via NJ.com)

Tina Napalo lived in a bungalow-style house on Fourth Street in Union Beach for more than 20 years. “I didn’t have everything,” said the 40-year-old mother of four, but, “it took me a long time to get what I had.” Then Hurricane Sandy hit.…

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Posted: March 16th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Highlands, Hurricane Sandy, Keansburg, Middletown, Monmouth County, Obama Administration, RREM, Sea Bright, Superstorm Sandy, Union Beach | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Menendez Rebuts Christie Over Blame for Stalled Sandy Relief Aid

Menendez Rebuts Christie Over Blame for Stalled Sandy Relief Aid (via NJSpotlight)

Who is to blame for the slow pace of New Jersey’s recovery from superstorm Sandy? Gov. Chris Christie blames federal red tape and regulations for holding up the distribution of aid money to storm victims in New Jersey. But New Jersey’s senior U.S.…

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Posted: March 13th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Bob Menendez, Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Tesla Wants Special Treatment

The problem is, they’ve already gotten special treatment

TeslaTesla Motors, the manufacturer and retailer of electric powered cars, boasts on its website that it is “redefining the way cars are sold.”

They’ve been selling new cars in an unconventional way in New Jersey for one, two or four years, depending on who is telling the truth.  They have a problem now, because the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission suddenly adopted what Tesla is calling a “new rule” that is consistent with decades old law allowing only franchised new car dealerships to sell new cars in New Jersey.

Instead of visiting a new car dealership where you test drive a car, haggle with a salesperson, wait for the salesperson to come back from pretending to talk to his/her manager, make a deal, get passed off to the business manager who bumps your interest rate, tries to sell you undercoating, credit insurance and an extended warranty and then wait a while longer to drive home in your new car, you can’t buy a car at Tesla’s two stores in New Jersey.

Tesla’s New Jersey stores are inside the Short Hills Mall in Short Hills and the Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus.  You can’t get your new electric car at one of those stores.  You can’t even order it at the store.  You can only look at a car and talk about it.  If you want to buy one, you have to order it online and wait for it to be built in California before you take delivery. If you want to test drive one, you have to an request an appointment online.  It might take a day or two for a representative to get back to you with an appointment.  Test drives and new car deliveries are done out of the company’s service facility in Springfield.

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Posted: March 12th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Christie Administration, Economy, Motor Vehicle Commission, MVC, NJ State Legislature | Tags: , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Toms River Crowd Gives Christie A Standing Ovation

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Sharon from Toms River asks the last question at Governor Chris Christie’s Town Hall Meeting in Toms River. March 4, 2014

After Governor Chris Christie gave his customary warning to the last questioner at Town Hall meetings…don’t ask a stupid question or the crowd will turn on you…he called on Sharon from Toms River.

While the announced topic of the Town Hall was Sandy Recovery, Christie told the crowd of over 550 jammed in to the club house of a senior citizens’ community that they were welcome to ask him about anything.

Sharon brought up ObamaCare and the crowd started to boo.  “What can we do?” Sharon asked after expressing her healthcare concerns to the governor over the boos.

“Elect a new president,” Christie said a matter-a-factually.  The crowd erupted spontaneously. 550 senior citizens jumped out for their seats as if they had bed bugs and cheered Christie’s answer for a good minute, maybe two.

Christie said his answer was not a matter of partisanship, him being Republican and President Obama being a Democrat, but a matter of what works and what doesn’t work. The governor noted that Obama keeps delaying the implementation of parts of ObamaCare, “because they are not working.”

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Posted: March 4th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Port Authority officials: Battle over toll hikes was all for show

Port Authority officials: Battle over toll hikes was all for show (via NJ.com)

On Aug. 5, 2011, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a jaw-dropping proposal to immediately raise bridge and tunnel tolls by $4 for E-ZPass subscribers and $7 for cash customers, followed by another increase in 2014. The proposed hikes…

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Posted: March 2nd, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, Christie Administration, Port Authority | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Housing group: NJ won’t release integrity monitor reports on Sandy contracts

Housing group: NJ won’t release integrity monitor reports on Sandy contracts (via NJ.com)

A housing advocate group today said New Jersey has declined to release integrity oversight monitor reports on Hurricane Sandy contracts that are required by a state law passed last spring but state officials have contended those reports aren’t yet…

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Posted: February 28th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Christie Administration, Fair Share Housing Center, Superstorm Sandy | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments »

Chris Christie promises to take ‘extreme measures’ on pension if Democrats don’t play ball

Chris Christie promises to take ‘extreme measures’ on pension if Democrats don’t play ball (via NJ.com)

LONG HILL — The day after his budget address, an upbeat Gov. Chris Christie returned to a message that has worked for him in the past: State finances are in trouble and only he can help. The Republican governor urged Democrats in the state Legislature…

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Posted: February 26th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, New Jersey State Budget, NJ State Legislature, Pensions | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »

An attitude of status quo

IMG_7089Governor Chris Christie came charging into Trenton pledging to turn it upside down in 2010. He made a left turn onto the Boulevard of Compromise in 2011, cruised the boulevard through 2012 and rode the waves of Sandy through 2013.   Now he’s hit a dead end on the bridgegate to nowhere.

The message of the FY 2015 Budget Address is ‘No Change.”   Christie warned of the looming crisis we sent him to Trenton to fix and offered no solutions. No reductions in government.  An increase in spending. Christie lamented that he couldn’t spend more because of commitments made to people who are no longer working and to repay money that has already been spent.

Christie meekly suggested that more pension and benefit reforms are necessary in order to grow the state government. State Senate President Steve Sweeney said, “We’re not doing it.”

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Posted: February 26th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, New Jersey State Budget | Tags: , | 5 Comments »

Governor Christie’s 2015 Budget Address

Governor Chris Christie will deliver his annual budget address to the legislature at 2pm this afternoon.  The address can be viewed via livestream provided by NJTV here:


“A Choice of Attitude” is the theme of Governor Chris Christie’s FY 2015 budget address.

Christie will argue that state government spending as proposed in his budget is $2.2 billion lower than the fiscal 2008 state budget, save for the $2.25 billion pension payment budget for this year.   He will call further pension reforms, arguing that the massive obligation to state employees prevents the government from spending on education, university research, energy, the environment and infrastructure.  He will argue that pensions and entitlements must be reformed in order to prevent a looming crisis.

Christie says new taxes are not an option.

Excerpts of Christie’s address as released by the Governor’s office is below:IMG_6919

 

A 5th Balanced Budget Without Raising Taxes That Makes The Largest Pension Payment Ever

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Posted: February 25th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chris Christie, Christie Administration, New Jersey State Budget | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

David Samson’s business interests overlap with work at Port Authority

David Samson’s business interests overlap with work at Port Authority (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — As chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, David Samson voted to award millions of dollars in Port Authority contracts to a company whose owner is represented by Samson’s law firm in a hotly contested and lucrative legal…

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Posted: February 23rd, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Bridgegate, Christie Administration, Port Authority | Tags: , , | 1 Comment »