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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Corzine Allies Plan Attack in G.O.P. Primary

The NYT headline reads, Corzine Allies Plan Attack in G.O.P. Primary.

Apparently the Corzine campaign people are worried because he’s now tied with former State Attorney General Chris Christie:

Mr. Corzine’s popularity has nosedived along with New Jersey’s economic fortunes, and recent polls show him trailing Mr. Christie, the former United States attorney for New Jersey.

Mr. Christie has based his campaign almost entirely on his credentials as a corruption fighter, having obtained convictions of some 130 New Jersey politicians and public employees. and promises to bring the same forceful leadership to tackling the state’s fiscal problems. The Democratic assault, according to one of the people briefed on the plans, will aim to tarnish that image.

Considering how the New Jersey electorate has continued to elect Democrat after corrupt Democrat no-matter-what in the past decade, perhaps Corzine’s overreacting.

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Soaked yet?

The Corzine administration thinks New Jersey is not overtaxed.

From their own lips:

New Jersey Treasurer David Rousseau answer to this simple question, posed by Assembly Republican Budget Officer Joseph Malone (R-30) last week:

JM: In your observation, do you feel New Jerseyans are overtaxed?

DR: No.

Rousseau recognizes that we have the largest real estate taxes in the country but still does not think we’re overtaxed.

That’s what happens when politicians see you, the tax payer, as a blank check.

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Shovel-ready “stimulus” manure

Dan Riehl explains Your Stimulus Dollars At Work and how the (NJ) School Construction Corp. wasted $9 billion. It involved “poor planning, excessive professional feels, lax oversight, and the rush to get projects under construction quickly.”

Deja vu can be a brutal, can it?

But hey, it’s New Jersey, so Corzine – formerly of Goldman Sachs – going back for… you guessed it! A bailout! Not just Corzine, but municipalities across the state.

Over 132 of them.

Read it and weep.

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Note to Obama: Invite “Sully” Sullenberger to the inagural ball

The pilot of the US Airways plane saved the lives of all his 155 passengers by executing a perfect emergency water landing, and deserves recognition for his extraordinary accomplishment. I hope the Obama people will invite him as a distinguished guest to the inagural ball. While they’re at it, co-pilot Jeff Skiles should also be invited.

sully-sullenbergerHere’s more on “Sully” Sullenberger:
Hudson River hero is ex-Air Force fighter pilot

The pilot who guided a crippled US Airways jetliner safely into the Hudson River — saving all 155 people aboard — became an instant hero Thursday, with accolades from the mayor and governor and a fan club online.

The pilot of Flight 1549 was Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, 57, of Danville, Calif., an official familiar with the accident told The Associated Press. Sullenberger is a former fighter pilot who runs a safety consulting firm in addition to flying commercial aircraft.

Sullenberger, who has flown for US Airways since 1980, flew F-4 fighter jets with the Air Force in the 1970s. He then served on a board that investigated aircraft accidents and participated later in several National Transportation Safety Board investigations.

Sullenberger had been studying the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning even in the face of crisis, said Robert Bea, a civil engineer who co-founded UC Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

Bea said he could think of few pilots as well-situated to bring the plane down safely than Sullenberger.

“When a plane is getting ready to crash with a lot of people who trust you, it is a test.. Sulley proved the end of the road for that test. He had studied it, he had rehearsed it, he had taken it to his heart.”

Sullenberger is president of Safety Reliability Methods, a California firm that uses “the ultra-safe world of commercial aviation” as a basis for safety consulting in other fields, according to the firm’s Web site.
…
Sullenberger’s co-pilot was Jeff Skiles, 49, of Oregon, Wis., a 23-year US Airways veteran.

Governors Paterson of New York and Corzine of New Jersey, and New York’s mayor Bloomberg should also celebrate Sullenberger and Skiles for their extraordinary heroism.

UPDATE
Backyard Conservative says Skiles took the shirt off his back for a passenger.

UPDATE 2
In case you were wondering, about that airplane in the Hudson

To deal with an extremely serious problem — failure of both engines, at least as now reported; to consider various options (on to Teterboro? back to LGA? what about the water?) while the plane is inevitably descending and each passing second narrows your choices; to decide on and commit to a course of action; and then to carry it out flawlessly .. all this deserves admiration, study, and thanks. So, yes, he’s a hero.

And by the way…
I was talkiing to a friend who’s a retired 747 pilot. He told me he’s never met anyone who’s made a successful emergency water landing of a commercial aircraft, anywhere.

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Bailout galore: And now for the states

Since rewarding failure is all the rage now, the governors of five states have their snouts on the trough:
U.S. governors seek $1 trillion federal assistance:

Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.

As expected New Jersey is one of the five.

All the governors involved are Democrats.

Here in the banana republic of the Garden State we’ve been bombarded with tax increase after tax increase to finance “education, welfare and infrastructure” year after year. As a banana republic does when it runs out of money, now the head of state goes to the US government to ask for money, and not a “shockingly large” amount:

Corzine said the money called for represents about 3 percent to 3.5 percent of the economy, equivalent to the amount that the economy is expected to contract by over the next two quarters.

In light of the $700 billion provided to bail out the financial industry, “It’s not shockingly large,” he said.

Yes, record high state taxes, soon to be followed by record high federal taxes.

Nice going, guys.

Note: Post edited to add the Corzine quote

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Corzine: Gimme, gimme, gimme

Via Larwyn,
Corzine wants the Federal government to
bail out the auto industry,
bail out the states, including New Jersey.

As Taranto (via Larwyn) points out,

Corzine “said the nation’s three major automakers should not be allowed to fail, but must make dramatic changes in leadership to qualify for a federal bailout,”

And Taranto reaches the inescapable but highly unlikely conclusion,

We would agree that New Jersey should not be allowed to fail, but it must make dramatic changes in leadership to qualify for a federal bailout.

Highly unlikely because the NJ electorate will continue to vote Democrat, no matter how deep the elected officials drive us to ruin.

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Corzine: Squeeze the towns for state trooper costs

Coalition of the Swilling has the story:

Rather than do something silly like, say, cut waste in Trenton or perhaps not add thousands of people to the state payroll our glorious bloated bureaucracy has instead chosen to charge people for what they already pay for.

Asbury Park Press has the details: As times change, so may NJ’s free rural state police patrols

TRENTON — New Jersey State Police have patrolled the state’s rural areas for 87 years at no extra cost to smaller towns that never created police departments.

In fact, the law that created the state police agency stated it would “primarily” be used to protect rural areas.

But times have changed, and free rural New Jersey state police patrols may soon end.

As the state grapples with chronic state budget woes, Gov. Corzine has proposed requiring municipalities that get free state police patrols to pay a quarter of the estimated patrol cost to raise $20.5 million for the cash-strapped state.

“These are difficult times, and the decisions and choices we must make are difficult,” state Attorney General Anne Milgram said.

Of course, reducing the bloated state bureaucracy would never cross their minds, would it?

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