The Morning Briefing - May 6, 2015

**Reminder: The Morning Briefing is on break beginning Monday, May 11, returning Tuesday, May 26. You can’t say you weren’t told.

NEW BRUNSWICK – When Rutgers football fans return for the fall games, perhaps they will be welcomed by the Scarlet Knight mascot, as well as all his “friends.” The Scarlet Knight is a well-known white guy. Now the Student Assembly wants him to have some multi-cultural friends representing the student body – like the black mascot, the Latino mascot, the female mascot and the “third-gender” mascot. And, then, perhaps, there should be the brainy mascot, the handy mascot, the hefty mascot, the jokey mascot, “Papa” mascot…And all the rest of the smurfs.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – Perhaps Gov. Chris Christie should give up this whole President thing and acknowledge that 2012 was “his moment,” as the latest CBS poll says he is trailing even the wackiest and most unproven GOP candidates for President. More than four out of every 10 Republicans say they wouldn’t vote for Christie for President – now with the designation of the most unpopular candidate – unannounced or not – in the race for the party line. Party pundits will write many books about how Christie will descend from party savior to, well, party pundit.

TRENTON – It looks like the New Jersey bean counters finally have some good news for Gov. Chris Christie to trumpet on the chicken dinner circuit. The state could have an additional $200 million in revenue by the end of the fiscal year, the Record reports. And, if so, the governor’s office wants the money to go toward the 2015 pension fund payment. It certainly doesn’t whitewash the fact the governor slashed the 2015 contribution from $2.25 billion to $681 million. But, hey, one would argue $200 million seems like real money.

BRIDGEGATE – Gov. Chris Christie has yet again declared the Bridgegate mess is officially over, following a plea by one aide and the indictment of two others in his inner-circle last week. “I think Friday confirmed everything I’ve said for the last 15 months, that this was confined to a few folks, that we dealt with those folks at the time as soon as we discovered it,” Christie told reporters yesterday. The governor notes he’s been cleared by a Democratic-led legislative committee, his own taxpayer-funded internal investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. All agree, he says, “I had nothing to do with this.” So, perhaps everyone should just ignore the indictments and pleas… Right?

UP IN THE AIR – It seems to have happened to all of us: Swiping a credit card to watch a movie on a plane, and then the service fizzles out just when we will learn if Jennifer Aniston will fall in love with her really complicated best friend. This shaky service is the focus of a $5 million lawsuit against United Airlines, with a West Orange woman furious she paid $7.99, only to see the service work for 10 minutes on her Feb. 21 flight from Puerto Rico, the Record reports. The lawsuit claims United defrauds passengers by not saying its service won’t work over water or outside the continental U.S. No word from United brass, still likely glued to Jennifer Aniston’s Oscar-quality performance.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

ON AIR – For those who still watch daytime game shows, the Price is Right became must-see television earlier this week. Well, at least for a moment. That was when America’s bored housewives, the chronically unemployed and retirees collectively cringed, as the watched host Drew Carey award a treadmill to a contestant in a wheelchair. “Wow,” she gushed.

See it here.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

It was this day in 1997 that Michael Jackson and the Bee Gees were inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, likely under the category of “High-Pitched Male Singers Who Can Only Be Heard By Dogs.”

WORD OF THE DAY

Hemidemisemiquaver – noun

Definition: A musical timing of 1/64. It’s a note played for half the duration of a 30-second note, which everyone knows, of course, is a demisemiquaver. Duh.

Example: “Telling a girl how you can play an awesome hemidemisemiquaver on your harpsichord may not be the ideal pick-up line.”