What we haven’t discussed at-length is one of the terrible ironies of Big Government’s central planning in New Jersey: many welfare beneficiaries are already receiving significantly more money than they would working for the minimum wage after this proposed increase!
The libertarian CATO Institute released the results of an eye-opening new study this week that found welfare benefits in 35 U.S. states are actually worth more than a minimum wage job. You can click here to read the full report.
Specifically, in our own state of New Jersey, the full government welfare package (TANF, SNAP, housing assistance, Medicaid, etc) is worth $38,782 annually. That works out to roughly $18.62 per hour.
You may’ve missed this the other day, Save Jerseyans, but some WNYC reporter asked Chris Christie at his Lavallette presser whether NJ Transit had been under-prepared for climate change ahead of Superstorm Sandy. Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently the reporter had never ridden NJ Transit before or she’d know that its problems predate the global warming fad!
Well, first of all, I don’t agree with the premise of your question because I don’t think there’s been any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change,” Christie said, as residents and officials from Lavallette clapped. “But I would absolutely expect that that’s exactly what WNYC would say, because you know liberal public radio always has an agenda. And so since I disagree with the premise of your question I don’t feel like I have to answer the rest of it.” (You can hear the full audio at the bottom of this post.)”
For the record, I don’t accept the contrived right wing argument that anyone and everyone has a constitutional right to purchase a kitchen appliance no-strings-attached. Sure, the Founding Fathers did significantly limit the government’s right to restrict private property ownership and commerce in the U.S. Constitution, but did the framers ever contemplate a microwave? Or automatic cake mixer? Or pressure cooker? It’s hard to argue that they intended to protect our right to own something so dangerous and technologically advanced that didn’t even exist in their own time!
Butter churners? Sure. And butter churning has the added benefit of combating childhood obesity and reducing the user’s carbon footprint
Non-conservatives sometimes get a little frustrated with conservatives for complaining about “media bias.” To be fair, I do think there’s something to be said for the fact that simply whining about how crappy the press can be isn’t an effective electoral strategy. Plenty of radio hosts make a living that way but it’s not helpful.
That doesn’t mean media bias isn’t a very real problem, and some instances of bias, however, are especially egregious. The complete mainstream media blackout surrounding the Dr. Kermit Gosnell trial across the Delaware River is one such instance, Save Jerseyans. The allegations in that trial — “43 criminal counts, including eight counts of murder” — are nightmarishly grizzly and reveal a completely non-sanitized account of abortion that many willfully-blind Americans need to see.
What Kirstin is apparently waking up to is the reality of a hyper-ideological press corps that lives by the doctrine of selective outrage. Reporting the news is a secondary objective for these people. Affecting their desired vision of “change” in society always takes primacy. In this case, abortion doesn’t offend them (most even see it as a sacred natural right). Private gun ownership does offend them (in case you hadn’t heard!). As a result, you can expect to see story after story lamenting isolated, statistically rare gun accidents but nothing in print about the alleged mass murder of infants.
Again, the media’s goal here isn’t to inform you. They’re trying to shape you.
There’s both a theological and political answer to this age-old question, Save Jerseyans, one which every Christian ponders at one point or another during childhood.
After all, what’s so “good” about an objectively nice guy — Jesus of Nazareth — being arrested without cause, denied due process, condemned without evidence, ridiculed by his own people, betrayed by his closest friends, and brutally put to death by a tyrannical foreign power?
That’s a pretty “bad” Friday by anyone’s yardstick. The ACLU would’ve been all over this one.
Ghoulish though the scene may’ve been, it was truly “good” from a theological perspective because Jesus wasn’t just Jesus the regional political pariah or run of the mill desert preacher. He was the “Christ” incarnate, and He proved it by subsequently overcoming death and rising from the grave just three short days later. Having done so, He successfully ransomed mankind from eternal death and purchased eternal life for everyone audacious enough to believe in Him. So He quite literally saved us from ourselves… Jersey and all!
But like any great heroic tale, the “how” here is no less significant than the “why.”
As of this writing, Save Jerseyans, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is engaged in one of the most dramatic practices unique to American-style democracy: the Senate filibuster.
Typically, U.S. senators “filibuster” a nomination or legislation by refusing to provide a majority of the 60 votes required for cloture. Paul is using the much rarer one-man approach made popularly famous by Mr. Smith Goes to Washington whereby one Senator continues to speak on the floor until he decides to stop (or simply cannot carry on). The Senator’s aim? Holding up the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director; he hopes this gesture will raise awareness of a controversial new Justice Department policy that many believe would permit drone strikes on American citizens without any due process whatsoever.
Back in 2004, Save Jerseyans, your Blogger-in-Chief was an undergraduate at Washington, D.C.’s Catholic University of America when a couple other friends and I interned at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
It was an amazing experience for a wide-eyed young conservative nerd to interact with so many distinguished politicians, media personalities and career activists in one place.
It was also a very different time in the Republican Party, and I discovered a healthy level of intellectual diversity on display from the right-of-center CPAC attendees. Libertarians, neocons, paleocons, fiscal conservatives and social conservatives from across the country mixed, drank, shared cabs, and downed hot dogs while discussing equally hot races in long book signing queques.
The common thread among the CPAC patrons? A healthy disdain for large, active, expensive and intrusive federal governance.
Our Governor and other like-minded pols are opposed to turning schools into ”armed camps,” but I wholeheartedly disagree with their premise. It’s an logical leap, particularly when so many of our high schools already have a regular police presence. The fact also remains that there seems to be little or no political will on either side of the aisle to address the real problem: an over-medicated, under-parented generation whose less stable members are shielded from meaningful psychiatric action by asinine post-deinstitutionalization laws and administrative regulations.
I love politics. Always have. But after living through the 2012 GOP Primary, Save Jerseyans, I’m psyched to be three years away from another borish Republican debate.
I’m sure you agree!
Three years out, Chris Christie finds himself in a strong position relative to the rest of the hypothetical field according to a new national registered voter poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Naturally a lot can still change. And as predicted by your Blogger-in-Chief, the same Obama-related interactions that have elevated Christie’s brand in the minds of Indies and Dems have also potentially damaged his standing among Republican primary voters outside of the Garden State.
The numbers:
Right now, the FDU poll found Christie’s name recognition to be superior to FL Senator Marco Rubio’s by 12-points, 68% to 56%, among all voters. Christie is also viewed more favorably than Rubio by 9-points, 55% to 46%, though their unfavorable rating is about the same (20% and 21% respectively).
Save Jersey bloggers have spent a lot of time discussing how a minimum wage hike will kill jobs if this fall’s ballot question passes.
