He’s talking about Christie here, but you could say the same about any of the GOP leaders.
NJ New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney: “He’s a rotten prick.”
Also. Too.
“He’s just a rotten bastard to do what he did.”
Hard to feel any sympathy for Sweeney. For reasons unclear to me, he sold out his constituency on pensions and health reforms, apparently expecting Christie to give him something in return in the budget. You’ll be shocked to learn that in return for Sweeney’s bipartisan comity, Governor Blowhard screwed him. Or rather, Christie screwed the most vulnerable among us.
He mowed down a series of Democratic add-ons, including $45 million in tax credits for the working poor, $9 million in health care for the working poor, $8 million for women’s health care, another $8 million in AIDS funding and $9 million in mental-health services.
Wondering when we start calling the GOP death by spending cuts agenda what it really is — virtual genocide.
Scott
Calling things what they really are has a well-known liberal bias.
jwb
Politically, Sweeney is dead, and he got about what he deserved. The only sad thing is that so many innocent people are going to suffer badly for his idiocy.
Walker
This is exactly why line-item-vetoes are unconstitutional. And anyone who proposes them should be beaten senselessly.
Chris
Water, still wet. Sky, still blue. Rick’s casino, still gambling. And Wall Street’s fat hired thug, still a fat hired thug. Hoocodanown…
burnspbesq
What Sweeney did is the way politics is supposed to work in this country, and how it did work until relatively recently. It’s certainly the way politics worked in Trenton when I was growing up in Bergen County.
Sweeney can be criticized to an extent for not understanding quickly enough that Christie has unilaterally abrogated every rule by which politics has been done in New Jersey for the last 80 years, but (to cite only one example) jwb’s critique seems to me to be absudly harsh.
@ Walker: The line-item veto has been held by the U.S. Supreme Court to violate the Federal Constitution. State Constitutions are different animals; different rules apply, and the Supreme Court’s view of why the line-item veto isn’t permitted under the Federal Constitution is of little or no relevance. It’s also worth noting that “stupid” and “Unconstitutional” are not synonyms. Finally, check the grammar in your second sentence. I don’t think you said the completely inappropriate thing you meant to say.
burnspbesq
FWIW, it’s a bit rich to suggest that Christie is wholly out of step with the views of the average New Jerseyan. After all, the district that includes the town in which I grew up has elected Scott Garrett to Congress five times, and that doesn’t happen by accident.
cleek
oy
Libby Spencer
What would you call it Cleek?
Gin & Tonic
I think to the average New Jerseyan “fuck you” is a deep and complex political philosophy, which their governor embodies quite well.
Walker
@burnspbesq
I know this. My comment is because people still keep pushing for this power at the Federal government.
gonzone
And Christie has a name for Sweeney: SUCKER!
steve duncan
There are voting booths, easily accessible in almost all instances, that afford citizens the frequent opportunity to vote in or out the people that represent them in Congress and their state offices. That these citizens will soon suffer the loss of many benefits they’ve come to expect (and often actually paid for with their own hard earned tax dollars and wage witholdings) is sad but somehow amusing all the same. You get the representation you deserve. Watch as common folk are driven to despair and poverty as they cope with their aging parents’ loss of government help in their last years. Then watch as those same struggling children, many themselves now fast approaching retirement and faltering health, blame Democrats for all their problems. The coming decades will see the U.S. get what it deserves, which judging by current voting behavior will be bad times for all (save 1 percent). You asked for it people, enjoy…….
The Moar You Know
I wonder what Sweeney was thinking. There is absolutely nothing in Christie’s history that would suggest that he’s the kind of guy who would keep his word under any circumstances.
aisce
@ libby spencer
not that.
burnspbesq
@ Gin & Tonic:
New Jerseyans differ from residents of other states only in that they are honest and upfront about it.
In other words, take your condescension and shove it up your ass.
Pangloss
Chris Christie: Disproving the notion that overweight people are jolly.
Bobby Thomson
Cry me a fucking river.
ShorterParaphrased Sweeney: Christie gave me an STD, posted our sex tape on the internet, and laughed about me to all his friends. What’s worse, the bastard said he’d call!Xenos
In my opinion, anyone proposing a federal line item veto should, quite sensibly, be beaten insensate incessantly.
Gin & Tonic
Condescension? I see just facts.
Having grown up in NY, I’ve long since become accustomed to dicks from Jersey being dicks. Chris Christie is the perfect governor for them.
TBogg
To put it somewhat indelicately: Sweeney believed Christie when he promised to not cum in his mouth.
Now Sweeney is spittin’ mad.
Also. Too. Ick.
Howlin Wolfe
Van Jones called the GOP the party of assholes. I’m trying to figure out why telling the truth got him fired.
Dennis SGMM
I tried to find NJ voter demographics but came up empty. I”d think that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans there. If so, how did Christie get elected?
ruemara
Dennis @ 21: voters stayed home and the Dem running as incumbent was not popular. As a Nyer, yeah, an awful lot of what washes over from NJ is morass of mousse, tanning cream and dickitude. But, since I’ve stayed in NJ a bit, it’s not the whole of the state, it’s just the loudest part of the state.
Xenos
The lumpenbourgeoisie, a/k/a Reagan Democrats voted for him. Because class stratification is a bedrock social imperative in New Jersey.
Not a slur on NJ, as we Massholes are nearly as bad.
Maude
Christie’s poll numbers have been going down.
He is losing the state $17 million in Medicaid from the feds because of the cut he made.
Christie did stab the Dems in the back. He is on vacation for two weeks. The NJ legislature will be in session all summer.
The people who are going to suffer are the ones who are least able to do anything about it. They are what matters.
Sweeney did believe Christie and I can’t fault him for that.
It hasn’t sunk in that Christie has created a large underclass. Unemployment is rising and he is tanking the state.
bkny
there’s more:
When Democrats tried to restore money to a few favorite programs — including college scholarships for poor students, and legal aid for the needy — the governor not only rejected the additions, he added new cuts on top of that. …
But the governor added $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state. That is enough to restore all the cuts just listed.
Maude
bkny
Thank you. The school funding bit was to lower property taxes. Well, the money he added to the well off school districts is not going to lower their property taxes.
This will anger his “base”.
Edit: He cut $3.5 million per capita from libraries. I don’t know how this will play out. Libraries are struggling now.
Xenos
As to ‘virtual genocide’, aside from the hyperbole, are the poor and disabled a γένος?
Maude
Xenos
The poor and disabled are in real trouble now. Not that things were okay before this.
brendancalling
Sweeney can go fuck himself with all his fake outrage. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/business/28union.html">He's been doing the anti-union schtick since last year.
He and Mayor McCheese deserve each other. Sweeney got just what he deserved, and it’s hilarious watching him flail, as if calling the Governor a prick makes up for fucking his base. He can call christie every name in the book, but NO ONE in the public sector is going to forget how Sweeney fucked them.
Svensker
@ Xenos
A lot of very liberal folks stayed home because “Corzine was just as bad”. And he was pretty bad. I had to hold my nose and try not to vomit in my mouth to vote for Corzine (Mr. Goldman Sachs).
phillygirl
Sweeney is not pissed off, and he was not double-crossed. The script is working beautifully: Sweeney’s bosses, who put him in his seat and now direct him from offstage, cut their deal with Christie. They got Sweeney and the other Dems on their payroll to carry it out. Now they are extracting their asses from the sling by pretending to be Democrats again. After all, it does no good to control the party if you can’t get your agents re-elected. I know this sounds right-wing-nut-worthy conspiratorial, but, having worked in Jersey politics for a long time, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on. Sweeney has probably taken acting lessons as part of the deal.
NorthernMNer
As a Minnesotan watching this, (and being very proud that our own Mark Dayton should be giving classes to Dems on how to deal with Republicans), I can’t say I feel too bad at all for Sweeney.
Its high time you New Jerseyians (Jerseyinites?) started using your primary process. You have one, I assume?
Joel
Virtual genocide? A touch strong, don’t you think?
the idler
@burnspbesq
Haha–pathetic: Scott Garrett’s high-income district SURE is “average” for NJ. I live in Westfield, where everyone considers themselves an “average” Jerseyian. Out here in the the white-wingnut suburbs, the blood flows to WASPy loins every time Christie kicks “those people” in the teeth. Who are “those people”?: Everyone who is non-white and not wealthy, which comprises about 80 percent of the state.
phillygirl
Oh, NorthernMNer, a primary process would be great. But no, New Jersey Dems do not have one. The county chairmen, who are purchased by the highest bidder (at one point, that was Corzine), decide who goes on the ballot by starving potential challengers of all organizational support and money. They resort to tougher measures if necessary. The voters have nothing to do with it. It must be good to live in the Midwest, politics-wise.
arguingwithsignposts
Um, no. Minnesota is closed. Wisconsin is … well, Walkerstan atm. Indiana = Mitch Daniels. Iowa keeps sending Chuck fucking Grassley to the Senate. And Illinois, well, we have Chicago to keep us half-sane. But that’s not saying a lot.
Bender
Because he’s a batshit-crazy Truther racist moron Communist? Oh, I forgot: in this Administration, feature-not-bug.
Bender
Spending cuts = Genocide. Wow.
You must make John so proud of his blog.
Tata
These exciting words do not mean what Bender thinks they mean. I bet the inside of his head feels like it is filled with soda.
Tata
Spending cuts = genocide when $ goes to food and healthcare.
Without those, people die. Simple concept.
NorthernMNer
@phillygirl
Gosh, that is a system designed for smoke-filled rooms that could generate the most dickish of politicians. My sympathy. On the other hand, our endorsement process here produces Michele Bachmann, so I don’t have a lot of room to brag. (She is not my representative, thank goodness.)
Then again, it also produces Senator Al Franken and Governor Mark Dayton, so at least it has redeeming qualities. And while MN is still in shutdown mode, our governor’s tactics are helping display for all voters here how unfit the MN GOP is at governing, all but ensuring a ’12 takeback of our legislature.
lawguy
I have now back to the point where I am trying to figure out wheather the democrats are as stupid as they appear, or it is all for show and they all (both republicans and democrats) want to screw everybody who makes under $250,000.00 a year.
Although in a historical sense, it does make it easier to understand just what was going on in ancient Rome back in the day, as their republic crumbled.
Dollared
Support “genocide,” but would compromise on “mass manslaughter.”
gene108
Just to add to what others have written about how Christie got elected.
NJ governor elections are off-off-year stuff. Christie got elected in 2009, with the economy in free fall.
I know a few guys, who voted for Christie because Corzine couldn’t get the economy turned around fast enough and they figured “why not give the other guy a chance?”
Corzine pissed off a lot of people because he was “arrogant”, which he was in some ways, but at least he tried to make sure government continued to provide services to people and introduced something like the millionaires tax, so school budgets, etc. for places like Newark and Camden wouldn’t be gutted.
I find it ironic that people thought a career government bureaucrat would be more pro-business than the former head of Goldman-Sachs.
The company I work for just got a notice that we underpaid corporate income taxes in 1992, by $400 and we have to fight this now. The interest and penalties add up to another $2,000. And 1992 isn’t a misprint. Who the hell has 19 year old records readily accessible?
Christie could’ve just kept the millionaires tax and avoided a lot of pain and suffering he’s inflicting.
dogwood
It seems to me that there have always been 2 wings of fiscal conservatism in the Republican party. Those who believe that social programs aren’t necessarily bad, but we just can’t afford them. These people are essentially selfish because they refuse to see their taxes raised to help the poor and the vulnerable, but I don’t think they get any pleasure from watching people suffer. These are the guys who used to control the party. They could be assholes, but they weren’t immoveable. The other wing is a different breed- faux fiscal hawks. They use draconian budgets cuts to inflict pain on those they hate, and enjoy the suffering they inflict. They really don’t care about budgets or taxes. These are the people who now control the party.
brendancalling
@phillygirl (comment 32). I think you nailed it. I was reading last week about how a few well-heeled individuals pretty much run both parties in NJ.
here it is: http://www.salon.com/news/chris_christie/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/28/christie_njn
sparky
do you really want to go there? if so, i have two words for you: Alfonse D’Amato.
Swishalicious
Several things:
We are New Jerseyans (rather than Jerseyians, Jerseyites, or just the generic “douchey pieces of shit”)
We are not all fake tanned and dripping with hair gel; this stereotype is largely confined to parts of northern NJ closest to New York. My personal experience is that it actually tends to be people from Staten Island who embody the Jersey stereotype, oddly enough
Christie is a piece of shit, and his behavior is wholly unsurprising: his constant refrain is to screw those who oppose him in any way possible. He is a Republican. Democrats are not Republicans. Ipso facto, all Democrats oppose Chrispie, and he will break them at every opportunity
Sweeney is a hack and a sellout, put into place by the Democratic power players – he is also perilously stupid, incapable of handling the policy issues that face the state. Don’t get me wrong: he is only marginally worse than other alternatives, including crooks like Richard Codey. He hugged Christie on pension reform (not going to debate the merits of that here, but suffice it to say that Sweeney’s own union was unaffected by those pension changes), and for some reason known only to him, then assumed that Christie would hug it out with him for the rest of the term? That’s too dumb to believe.
So, my conclusion is that this is all a ploy – he screwed the unions because that’s what he was told to do by the power brokers, knew he was going to be rolled by Christie, and then turns the Outrage-O-Tron up to 12 to try to recover with the Democratic base.
With leaders like these…
Jennifer
Heh.
After I read about this last night, I sent Sen. Sweeney this email:
rikyrah
Sweeney should have known better. period.
he should be voted out of office.
Libby Spencer
I’ve been on the road all day and just got on line so probably no one will see this, but I stand by genocide. I posted on the fly before I hit the road this morning, so on reflection I should have said slow motion genocide instead of virtual, but people are going to to die because of the GOP agenda. At least thousands, maybe millions. The label may be not be perfect, but the effect in the end is the same.