The Morning Briefing - May 26, 2015
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – Gov. Chris Christie was bathed in some southern hospitality over the weekend, landing himself in fourth place in the Southern Republican Leadership Conference’s straw poll of potential GOP candidates for President. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was second and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was third. Christie was able to beat out guys like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio on this one, showing his road to the White House may have to run through the South, where he’ll be sitting on plenty of porches, sippin’ for a cold glass of ma’s lemonade. Side note: That same poll put neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the top spot – the guy who compares ObamaCare to slavery.
FORT LEE – This trend of “swatting” may seem uproarious to the losers living in their parents’ basements, swigging Big Gulps and fondly remembering that time in 2011 when a girl actually spoke to them. But for the rest of America, this practice of calling in bomb threats to watch a massive SWAT reaction over the Internet has gotta stop. The latest incident was Sunday, when a Pizza Hut in Fort Lee was evacuated, wasting thousands of dollars in manpower and royally ticking off emergency responders attempting to protect the public from real crime. It seems swatting will only end when enough of these people get hauled off to prison – or finally score some dates from those sitting at the ugly lunch table.
FRANKFORD – Today, all baseball fans in New Jersey should be fans of the “Sussex County Miners.” That’s because this team is willing to give it a go in rural northwest New Jersey, which hasn’t had a minor league team at Skylands Stadium in four years. The New Jersey Herald reports the Miners played their first home game yesterday in front of a crowd of 3,819 fans, earning their first-ever win over those scrappy New Jersey Jackals. Can’t get enough of the Miners? Well, find your way northwest, as the Miners play the Ottawa Champions on Friday. Stick around into the late innings, where perhaps fans can take turns playing third base.
PRINCETON – We rarely offer movie picks, but we recommend your next selection should be “A Beautiful Mind” to learn all about the early life of math genius John Nash, a Princeton University graduate who won the Nobel Prize in 1994. Dr. Nash and his wife, Alicia, lost their lives Saturday in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike.
IN THE MEDIA
The Morning Briefing took some heat Sunday morning by a Star-Ledger columnist for quoting the Governor’s choice words at the N.J. Legislative Correspondents Club dinner.
It's clearly an “on the record” event — which its organizers readily admit – and has been so since 1994. The Morning Briefing has published excerpts from the Correspondents Club dinner for the last four years without fanfare.
But the Star-Ledger columnist argued that the governor’s comments should not have been reported. “Of course, from here on, if this event survives, speakers will not let down their guards, so it won't be as funny or revealing. So congratulations to the knuckleheads that reported this. They wrecked this night.”
First, we must apologize for "wrecking the night" because we now understand that it’s impossible to have a political roast without throwing f-bombs, even though the national press corps somehow manages to pull it off every year at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, broadcast on C-SPAN and all over YouTube.
Our Governor is running for President of the United States. His necktie choice is open for public scrutiny and debate, much less a profanity-laced media rant presented as "humor."
Of course, we’ve got plenty more to say. Click here for more.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
GOUVERNEUR, N.Y. – Call it a head scratcher, as cops are trying to figure out the owner of nine brains found on the side of the road. The brains, cops think, are from a special collection of someone who uses them for medical research, as they were professionally removed and preserved in formaldehyde. But why put the brains on the side of the street? Perhaps Dr. Frankenstein was cleaning out the garage.
BOSTON – Taking her allegiance to the New England Patriots to the grave and beyond, a 72-year-old fan has used her obituary to proclaim to the world that “Brady is innocent!” The Boston Globe notes the woman also enjoyed scrapbooking, weekly card night and spending time with her family, besides setting “the record straight” on her favorite QB.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1984 that someone in Philadelphia was able to keep a Frisbee aloft for 1,672 seconds. Assume a freak tornado?
WORD OF THE DAY
Folderol – noun
Definition: nonsense
Example: The editorial column was pure folderol, as the writer recklessly ignored facts to justify his opinion.