Christie's fondness for engaging audiences attracts hecklers, others seeking headlines

New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie has forged a reputation as an imposing lawmaker who can get the job done by sheer will and force. But his confrontational style also poses a liability should he make a 2016 White House bid -- attracting hecklers, political rivals and others intent on disrupting his message to spotlight their own.   
Though Christie’s brash style has long been a topic for conversation, it has resurfaced amid political talk moving from the midterms to the next presidential election and Christie telling New Jersey resident Jim Keady to “sit down and shut up.”
Keady, who challenged Christie at a recent public event about his Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts, is a well-known activist.
Keady got his start by raising concerns about working conditions in overseas Nike factories, which led to a 2008 ESPN story and an HBO documentary.
And he has now turned his attention to the lingering Sandy-recovery effort, particularly drawing attention to roughly $800 million of $1.1 billion earmarked to rebuild the Jersey Shore that remains in federal coffers.
Keady has acknowledged that his actions at the Oct. 30 event -- which began with him holding a sign that in part read “finish the job" -- were indeed acts of civil disobedience and that his heckling kept the cameras rolling.
He has done at least five radio or on-camera interviews since the event, held in his hometown of Belmar, N.J. However, Keady rejects the accusation that he tried to bate Christie into a shouting match.
“That was about roughly 6,000 households failed by the (federal recovery) program,” Keady, an independent and former Asbury Park city council member, told FoxNews.com.
Christie’s tough-talking persona and rise to national prominence started long before 2010 when he became the state’s first Republican governor after four consecutive Democratic administrations.
He started attracting attention during six previous years as New Jersey’s U.S. attorney general, as he tried to eradicate decades of political corruption.
And his efforts as governor to cut government waste and reel in public-employees pensions under a Democrat-controlled General Assembly have only furthered his reputation.
Christie has indeed rankled his share of reporters, teachers and others.
But opportunists along the way have come to realize that a sharp, public exchange with the governor can turn his speech into an outburst and give their message a national spotlight.
Marie Corfield, the New Jersey teacher in the much-talked, Sept. 2010 town hall exchange with Christie, has long been associated with progressive and Democratic politics, including the group Blue Jersey and making a failed 2013 bid, as a Democrat, for the state legislature.
The 52-year-old Christie seems acutely aware that people are using him and his events.
He suggested to Corfield -- who now bills herself as “that teacher in that Chris Christie YouTube video” -- that she was “putting on a show,” and he accused Keady of trying to get his “15 minutes of fame.”
Those exchanges and others, videotaped and posted on YouTube, have collectively attracted more than 1 million views and appear destine to become fodder for attack ads should Christie indeed run for president.
The Christie-Keady exchange was in fact videotaped by a staffer from American Bridge 21st Century, a self-described progressive group committed to “holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions” and that encourages people at town hall meetings to record them.
“Boring Republicans need not apply for the 2016 presidential race,” said David Payne, a GOP strategist and vice president for Washington, D.C.-based Vox Global. “We need a fighter, a campaigner, a winner. Sometimes it’s refreshing to see a politician tell a heckler in the crowd to ‘sit down and shut up.’ But if Christie looks mean, he won’t make it through the Republican primary, let alone the general.”
Michael Czin, a Democratic National Committee spokesman, anticipates that such video clips will appear in campaign ads and that Christie’s political rivals will have his public events recorded by so-called campaign trackers.
However, he thinks Christie has an image problem that goes beyond potential attack ads and that he lost the support of the news media last year after rouge aides extracted political revenge by closed some bridge-access lanes without notice, causing massive gridlock.
“It’s not just trackers,” he said. “Christie and his team promoted and elevated his outbursts. But it crossed the Rubicon with Bridgegate. It extended from teachers and veterans … to where it was dangerous.”
Ben Tulchin, a Democratic strategist and president of San Francisco-based Tulchin Research, argues that Christie’s declining poll numbers after Bridgegate could hurt his ability to raise 2016 campaign money and essentially settle the debate about whether his public image is a problem.
“In the TV era, the president is in your living room all of the time,” Tulchin said Wednesday. “If a voter feels uncomfortable with you, then it’s really, really hard to prevail.”
Some of Christie’s other public exchanges appear more damaging -- including two in July 2012.
Within days, Christie referred to a reporter as an “idiot” for asking a question unrelated to the press conference. And he testily responded to a male passerby’s comment while walking with his family on the Seaside Heights, N.J., boardwalk, calling the guy a “big shot” and telling him to “keep walking.”
“Christie’s natural spontaneity can be an asset, even if it comes with risks,” Payne said. “At the presidential campaign level, every trait gets more scrutiny. So Christie will need to look strong, perhaps even tough. But not mean.”

Michael Brown case: Ferguson teen's parents and double standards

On October 24th, Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Michael Brown's family, told MSNBC that "All Michael Brown's family has asked from day one is equal justice for their son. The concept of due process, this notion of all the laws in the legal proceedings being fair for them, just like it is for a police officer."
I have to wonder how they define fair.
A grand jury has been reviewing evidence in the case against Officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown since August 20.  

Ms. McSpadden is being investigated for felony robbery in an incident involving her mother-in-law and the sale of "Justice for Mike Brown" merchandise.  However, Ms McSpadden asked the police not to release the incident report.

This week, the grand jury heard from Dr Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by the family's attorneys to perform an autopsy. This autopsy was done in addition to the one performed by the County Coroner, and another performed by a federal pathologist.  
Attorney Crump has complained that when leaks happen he cannot have confidence in the grand jury, but another attorney for the family didn't hesitate to tell the St. Louis Post Dispatch that Baden is testifying.
It is unusual for an expert hired by one of the parties to address a grand jury.  Typically the evidence presented is meant to be objective and the people who testify are meant to be not interested (or paid).  
There has been no leak to support the idea that the same opportunity to offer paid witnesses is being afforded for Officer Wilson. We have not heard that anyone retained by his attorney has presented to the grand jury, and in fact Wilson's own lawyer is not allowed to speak during the proceedings. Lawyers for Officer Wilson have also chosen not to speak to the media, in contrast to those hired by the Brown family.  But all they want is equal justice...
There are some who have questioned the timing of Dr Baden's testimony.  Lisa Bloom, an attorney who often provides commentary for various media outlets, tweeted this week that it is "amazing that the prosecution only called him before the grand jury this late"
Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom)
11/12/14, 6:08 PM
Dr. Michael Baden is a renowned pathologist retained by Mike Brown family. Amazingly prosecutors only called him before grand jury at this late date.
Maybe she has heard a leak that we haven't, because without other information this is not amazing at all.  
It could be that after almost two months the grand jury is only now hearing from all of the pathologists who reviewed the evidence.  
Ms.Bloom doesn't mention that Dr. Baden has been given access to all of the evidence reviewed by the state's pathologist, or that the family attorney wouldn't say whether he expected Baden to present an interpretation contrary to the state's pathologist. Without a full transcript of the grand jury proceedings, it is hard to agree that this is amazing.  
I find it far more amazing that Michael Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, does not seem to want the same fairness and transparency to apply when she is investigated for a crime.  
Ms. McSpadden is being investigated for felony robbery in an incident involving her mother-in-law and the sale of "Justice for Mike Brown" merchandise.  However, Ms McSpadden asked the police not to release the incident report and the report was only released after a judge said the law mandated it.
It seems that for Ms McSpadden and her attorneys, the idea of equal justice and the laws being the same for all depends on the circumstance and the persons accused. And now, as the grand jury continues to hear evidence, Brown's parents have flown to Geneva to present to the UN Committee Against Torture. They've submitted a statement requesting the UN to recommend immediate arrest of Officer Wilson.  Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, said "We need the world to know what is going on in Ferguson and we need justice."
It is hard to imagine how this quest for justice at the UN can be fruitful when there will be no evidence presented and no presentation by Officer Wilson or someone on his behalf.  The Committee does not have the evidence necessary to determine whether an arrest is appropriate or warranted, and yet they are asked to recommend arrest all the same.  It seems that Attorney Crump's call for due process doesn't extend to the United Nations either.
When calling for justice it is important to remember that while Lady Justice is blind,  hypocrisy is something one feels in the gut.

The Drifters - Stand By Me

Declarations of Independence of the United States and the State of Israel.

Nano-sized inscribed replicas of the Declarations of Independence of the United States and the State of Israel.

nano-sized inscribed replicas of the Declarations of Independence of the United States and the State of Israel. Created by scientists at the Technion's Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), at the request of PM Netanyahu, the Declarations appear side-by-side on a gold-coated silicon chip smaller than a pinhead. The juxtaposition symbolizes the shared values of both countries.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-obama-nano-sized-declarations-independence.html#jCp

Despite Dem claims, trash-talking Gruber was well-paid adviser for ObamaCare and more

Face of the Democrat Party.

During the heyday of the ObamaCare push, Jonathan Gruber was whiz-kid-in-chief. His number-crunching on the benefits of the plan was frequently cited by Democrats trying to sell the proposal to the public.
Now, Washington Democrats have a new message: He’s not with us.
After a string of videos have emerged showing Gruber gloating about how the law’s authors exploited Americans’ “stupidity,” the White House has distanced itself. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi even claimed: “I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill.”
But while Jonathan Gruber might not have been a familiar name until this week for many, Pelosi and the rest of the lawmakers who pushed the law certainly knew who he was in 2009 and 2010.
A look at the record shows he was in fact paid to advise the Department of Health and Human Services. And he continues to play a role in health policy elsewhere, even as his unearthed videos cause headaches for the administration, just ahead of this weekend’s Round 2 enrollment launch.
Gruber, an MIT professor and economist, has lived amid the health care debate in Washington for at least 20 years.
Gruber was retained by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2009 on a $297,600 contract to provide “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform.” Gruber also confirmed to The Washington Post that he was paid another $95,000 before that, for a total of nearly $400,000. 
Around this time, his analysis was not only featured on Pelosi’s House speaker website in 2009, but cited by the White House several times. Though he often was billed as an analyst in media interviews where he touted the merits of the plan, critics complained his financial ties to the administration weren’t disclosed.
Gruber also spent a good deal of time testifying on the Hill and in meetings at the White House – 19 visits from 2009 to June of this year, according to publicly available logs
Aside from his work in Washington, he went on to bag similar contracts for health care work at the state level after that, working six-figure deals with multiple states.
“He talks himself about being in the Oval Office, on loan to Congress, particularly the Senate Budget Committee,” Rich Weinstein, who helped dig up the Gruber tapes, told FoxNews.com.
Weinstein has made a hobby of sorts out of researching Gruber’s involvement. Weinstein said after losing his own health insurance plan due to ObamaCare, he decided to do some background research on the “architects” of the bill, who were making the rounds on the TV circuit promoting the benefits of the legislation.
He first unearthed some Gruber remarks in July, showing him at a January 2012 forum appearing to suggest that ObamaCare was designed to pressure states to set up health care exchanges or risk valuable tax subsidies. (The precise ACA language on subsidies and Congress’ intent is now the subject of a federal lawsuit, King v. Burwell, which the Supreme Court agreed to take up last week.)
That video attracted some attention, but he unleashed a bombshell this week – a video where Gruber is heard referring to the American public as stupid, forcing Gruber to respond. Conservative group American Commitment and others circulated the video, and it went viral. 
In the clip, Gruber suggested the law would not have passed if it was made explicit that healthy people would “pay in” and the sick would get money for coverage. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass,” he said.
Weinstein said while it’s a question how much of the law Gruber actually wrote – it’s a sausage with many makers – there’s no doubt his stamp is on it.
Gruber, an MIT economics professor who specializes in cost modeling for health care policy, also helped design the individual mandate system in Massachusetts, otherwise known as “RomneyCare” – which Obama aides said was the basis for their proposal.
In a 2012 interview with PBS, he made his involvement crystal-clear: “I helped [Governor] Romney develop the Massachusetts health care reform, or Romneycare. I then worked with the Obama administration and Congress to help develop the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare.”
The involvement didn’t end there. In 2011, he published a graphic novel, “Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works,” promoting the ACA.
Gruber is still in demand to help other states overhaul their health care systems. According to reports in July, he was hired by Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin for $400,000 to study how to create a revenue stream for a single-payer health care system. Records show Minnesota paid him nearly $330,000 for health care work in 2011 and 2012. And around the same time, a 2012 contract from Michigan offered $481 million for health care analysis to a team of three firms, including Gruber and his “Gruber Microsimulation Model.”
Some ObamaCare critics already are calling for hearings in response to the videos.
“They’re going to have to answer to the American people on C-SPAN in a transparent way -- even though they didn’t do it when they passed the bill, they’re going to be held accountable in public view this time,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News. 
Defenders of ObamaCare say the tenets of the law have been transparent from the get-go. If anything, they are blaming Gruber for getting it wrong. Brian Beutler of The New Republic wrote, “His suggestion that the key cost-sharing tradeoffs weren’t widely discussed just isn’t true.” 
Jerold Duquette, political science professor at Central Connecticut State University, argued on his blog that "all legislation is framed for maximum political acceptability and minimum pushback" and "includes spin intended to short circuit opposition spin." He wrote: "The incredibly phony outrage of conservative pols and pundits is pitiful." 
Gruber, who did not respond to a request for comment for this story, expressed regret for his comments on Tuesday on MSNBC. “I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately, and I regret making those comments.”
Several more videos have emerged this week since the “stupidity” clip. They included speeches where he talked about how the so-called Cadillac tax on high-end health plans was envisioned to charge insurance companies rather than consumers, all the while knowing the enrollees would get hit with higher prices anyway as a result.
In one clip, he said of the Cadillac tax: “They proposed it and that passed because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest disagreed with Gruber, telling reporters on Thursday, “The fact of the matter is, the process associated with the writing and passing and implementing of the Affordable Care Act has been extraordinarily transparent.”
But ObamaCare opponents say this is more proof the administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill misled lawmakers and voters. “This guy keeps digging himself a deeper and deeper hole,” said Phil Kerpen, of American Commitment, a conservative nonprofit which has spent millions on issue ads favoring Republicans in the last two election cycles. “And all Democrats can do is pretend that this guy wasn’t the architect who was central to writing and passing the law when all the facts say he was.”

House votes to approve Keystone pipeline, showdown looms in Senate

The House voted Friday to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, sending the bill to the Senate for a showdown vote next week that could -- for the first time -- put the legislation on President Obama's desk. 
The measure passed Friday on a 252-161 vote, with 31 Democrats joining Republicans to approve it. An identical bill is expected to be voted on in the Senate on Tuesday. 
The legislation has re-emerged after Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu began championing it, in a bid to not only help the energy industry but also her struggling runoff Senate bid. In response, Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, who is running against Landrieu in the runoff, sponsored the House bill that was approved on Friday. 
Though the Louisiana election battle is a driving force behind the latest Keystone push, the legislation nevertheless could land on Obama's desk if the Senate passes it next week. Senate supporters said they were confident they'd have the 60 votes needed for passage. 
This would force Obama to either sign it -- defying his environmentalist supporters -- or veto it. 
The pipeline has been stalled by environmental reviews, objections to its route and politics for six years. The White House has threatened to veto similar attempts to move the pipeline forward. 
In response to the latest efforts, Obama, traveling in Burma on Friday, indicated he still wants to let a review process run its course. 
"I don't think we should short-circuit that process," he said. He said the administration thinks the project should be judged on the basis of whether it accelerates climate change, and pushed back on claims that it would be a "massive jobs bill." 
After Friday's vote, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it was time for the president to listen to the American people, especially after the Republican gains in the midterm elections, and sign the bill. 
"Thousands more Americans would be working today if President Obama had put their priorities ahead of his political interests and approved the Keystone pipeline. Instead, he continues to block the project, and the new jobs, lower costs, and increased energy security it would provide," he said in a statement. "The president doesn't have any more elections to win, and he has no other excuse for standing in the way. It's time he start listening to the vast majority of Americans who support Keystone and help get more people back to work." 
The 1,179-mile project is proposed to go from Canada through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. 
Advocates say it will create thousands of jobs and aid energy security, but environmentalists warn of possible spills and say the pipeline will expedite development of some of the dirtiest oil available. 
The State Department said in a Jan. 31 report the project would not significantly boost carbon emissions because the oil was likely to find its way to market by other means. It added that transporting it by rail or truck would cause greater environmental problems than if the Keystone XL pipeline were built.

Darren Wilson's fatal encounter with Michael Brown was brief, report says

As a grand jury weighs the option of indicting a St. Louis officer on charges of shooting and killing 18-year-old Michael Brown, new video shows the encounter between the two individuals was very brief.
Video and records obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch show police officer Darren Wilson leaving for the hospital two hours after the shooting with his union lawyer and other officers.
Wilson returned to the station about two and one-half hours later.
Wilson was searching for a thief that matched Brown’s description, the paper reported. Brown allegedly attacked Wilson prompting the officer to fire upon Brown.
After calling for backup, Wilson reportedly continued his search on foot, but claimed Brown charged at him prompting more gun fire.
Witness accounts vary.
Dorian Johnson, Brown’s friend who was with him at the time, claims Wilson grabbed Brown by the throat and attempted to put him in the SUV Wilson was driving. He also has said the fatal shot came when Brown’s hands were up.
A grand jury could come up with a decision at any time.
Protesters in Missouri are reportedly planning to shut down Clayton, Mo. after the verdict.
 The protesters want to financially hurt Clayton, a city of roughly 15,000 residents that borders St. Louis, where organizers met late Thursday to hopefully attract hundreds if not thousands of people to show up on the first workday after the grand jury reaches a decision, KTVI reports.
The protesters will meet in public spaces and may spread out in small groups, possibly to take part in civil disobedience like shutting down roads.
“We want people to know these meeting are about non-violence direct action,” said Michael McPherson, co-chair of the Don’t Shoot Coalition. “Some of it will be people talking to people, expressing themselves. There’s nothing we’re doing to try to create violence. We don’t want to diminish tension without there being change.”
Attorney General Eric Holder said Justice Department officials have been working with local officials to make sure the law enforcement response to any protests is appropriate.
"Certainly we want to ensure that people who have First Amendment rights have the ability to protest as they deem appropriate while at the same time making sure that we protect people in law enforcement and that we minimize the chances that any legitimate protest devolves into violence," he said.

Obama’s immigration overhaul could put burden on states

President Obama’s looming announcement on major changes to the U.S. immigration system could take a financial and economic toll on the states, some critics say – as undocumented residents come out of the shadows and, in some cases, become eligible for benefits.
The White House has not confirmed the details or the timing of the president’s executive action plan, but the president has vowed to act before year’s end. As Fox News reported on Wednesday, the president could act as early as next week – and a draft document calls for giving millions of illegal immigrants a deportation reprieve as part of that plan.
This would immediately raise questions about the impact on states where illegal immigrant populations are concentrated.
"State and local governments and taxpayers will pay the price if President Obama takes immigration into his own hands,” Republican Texas state Sen. Kelly Hancock told FoxNews.com in a statement.
The draft Obama plan calls for expanding a program known as “deferred action,” which currently allows some undocumented residents who came to the U.S. as children to stay. The potential expansion would extend that to anyone who entered before they were 16, and before January 2010 – a change estimated to affect up to 300,000 people.
The bigger change would, according to the draft, extend the program to some illegal immigrant parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents – affecting up to 4.5 million people.
The impact on the states is a subject of speculation at this point, as it’s unclear whether states would give these newly protected immigrants access to things like driver’s licenses, health care and in-state tuition for college.
Dan Holler, spokesman for the conservative Heritage Action, said, for starters, “it will have a ripple effect on jobs” – because they likely would be handed a Social Security card and the ability to work in more varied occupations.
“That’s going to put extra pressure on a job marketplace that is, by most accounts, not doing so well,” he charged. “Some communities will be hit hard and others won’t, based on where the illegal immigration trends are, and what the job markets are like. There is a jobs component here that just can’t be ignored.”
While giving immigrants who are here illegally “deferred action” status likely would not make them eligible for green cards or the panoply of federal social services, including Medicaid, each state has its own laws dictating the level of state-funded benefits such as protected immigrants can get. Some are more generous than others. One guide would be how states reacted when the administration enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy in 2012.
After that measure, the U.S. approved 550,000 applications. Five states had 60 percent of the approvals: California, Texas, Illinois, New York and Arizona, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. Those DACA immigrants are now able to get driver’s licenses in 10 states and access to in-state college tuition in 17 states.
California, Washington, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington, D.C., also now offer low-income DACA recipients health insurance. Others states like Texas and Nebraska offered no new benefits under DACA.
Under any future changes, states like California and Texas probably would see the biggest impact based on their populations.  
According to the most recent statistics by the Department of Homeland Security, there were 11.4 million people in the U.S. illegally in 2011. State Census figures in 2010 showed that 2.5 million lived in California and 1.6 million in Texas, representing 6.8 percent and 6.7 percent of their total populations, respectively. Many of those, particularly in California, may be eligible for new benefits, under any new deferred action policy. (Currently, however, 23 states already offer illegal immigrants a host of health care and other welfare services, with eligibility varying.)
“Right now it is up to the states what kind of care they want to give illegal immigrants. After DACA, some states gave illegal immigrants access to a full range of services, others did not,” said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes the push for an executive order.
“I think it is a very unsettled question, but I do believe the largest states will go ahead and make people eligible for their programs,” she added. “There’s not likely to be new tax revenue to pay for that [at the state level]. It’s just not there unfortunately.”
Not everyone sees the executive order plan as an economic negative. “There is a thorny constitutional question that needs to be addressed, but from a pure policy perspective such an action will have positive effects on the United States,” said Alex Nowrasteh, immigration policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“Legalizing some parts of the unauthorized immigration population will allow them to come forward,” said Nowrasteh. “It will also allow these unauthorized immigrants to be legal workers which means they will become more productive, making higher wages, competing on a fair and even step with the rest of American workers.”
And as for paying for it, Wendy Feliz of the American Immigration Council said the millions of working immigrants who would be paying new taxes would be contributing to the revenue stream.
“They will get work permits now and that will ensure that 100 percent of them will be paying income taxes,” she told FoxNews.com “The states would benefit. Really, it would make them more accountable, it would make them pay more and they will be able to participate more.”  
Republican Texas state Sen. Charles Schwertner, disagrees, saying he believes the states will be more fiscally burdened because Obama’s executive actions would encourage more illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. in the long run. He said Texas will continue to resist offering new services to unauthorized immigrants, “protected” or not.
“I guess it will put a strain on our medical system, our social safety networks,” he told FoxNews.com. “It encourages further lawlessness, and it is unfair to those seeking to immigrate legally.
“Texas is going to take the stand it needs to – we’re going to protect our citizens.”