Month: January 2014

Fox News Ignores Christie’s Bridgegate Scandal – Until Shep Smith Mentions It Briefly, Invites Viewers to ‘Google It’

Jon Ponder

This is how propaganda works, Fox News-style.

Nearly six hours after the story first broke — and well after both CNN and MSNBC first covered it in detail — Fox News finally devoted a short segment to the bridge scandal during Shepard Smith Reporting.

While declining to delve into the details of the damning emails — Shep Smith informed viewers that “they’re an easy Google away if you want to take a look” — Smith nonetheless concluded that, “the emails will be trouble for Governor Christie at least in local politics for quite some time. And if he decides to run for president, rest assured they’ll end up in campaign ads. There’s no question about it.”

Utah’s GOP Governor Puts Hundreds of Legal Same-Sex Marriages on Hold

Jon Ponder

Herbert
Has anything like this ever happened before? After the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay on a federal judge’s ruling that same-sex couples have the right to marry in Utah, the state’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, issued an order effectively divorcing, at least temporarily, as many as 1,300 couples who had legally obtained marriage licenses.

In California, after the Mormon Church in Utah effectively drove the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat — who is now the California governor — allowed the marriages of 1,800 couples to stand. Because of this, two classes of gay couples were created in the state: those who had legally married and those who were, as a result of Prop 8, prohibited from exercising that right. Prop 8 was later rescinded by court rulings.

(It should be noted that as governor, Schwarzenegger vetoed bills passed by the legislature that would have legalized marriage equality twice.)

Gov. Herbert’s decision to put a hold on the legal marriages appears to be motivated by politics — Utah is one of the most anti-gay states in the nation, which is saying a lot — rather than the law. The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed yesterday that it is reviewing the decision.

Stewart: Christie Gives N.J. Corruption a Bad Name

Buck Banks

As a guy who grew up in New Jersey, I’m disappointed, ashamed of the state I grew up in. Political payback through traffic congestion? To see New Jersey sink to such a piss-poor, third-rate quality of corruption …. This is New Jersey! A state renowned for its piss-rich, first-rate corruption.

— Jon Stewart, not surprisingly, leading off the Daily Show last night with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R).

Stand Down, Christie

Jon Ponder

Which of these governors’ reactions to scandal is not like the others: Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevy and current New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie?

It could have been worse. Had there been a man-made or natural disaster, the aides’ actions in deliberately gridlocking traffic in Fort Lee could have endangered the lives of thousands of New Jersey residents.

Both Govs. Spitzer and McGreevey resigned, of course. In both cases, they were embroiled in sex scandals — and both were Democrats. Spitzer resigned in 2008 after an investigation uncovered the fact that he had numerous encounters with high-priced prostitutes. McGreevey resigned in 2004 after it was revealed he was engaged in an improper relationship with an appointee and after he revealed that, as he put it, he was a “gay American.”

Gov. Christie is involved in a much more serious scandal, of course. At least one life may have been lost and tens of thousands of others were put in jeopardy because of a petty and capricious act ordered by members of his senior aides, if not by Christie himself. So far, he has avoided taking responsibility for these shameless acts by shifting blame to people he hired to fill the most senior positions on his staff.

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