The Morning Briefing - June 24, 2016
TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie is leaving absolutely no stone left unturned in his campaign to remake the school funding formula. How do we know this? His office even sent us an email yesterday, inviting us to join his so-called “Fairness Formula” movement. We are told it provides “equal funding for every child, our path to lower property taxes.” There's even a website, funded with your tax dollars, where you can learn how the cities have raided your wallet to provide substandard education to failing kids. Learn how your property taxes can easily be lowered if the state simply shifts money away from the poorest children. So, maybe that Chevy Malibu you're leasing can be upgraded to a nice BMW 5-Series with all that extra cash Christie hopes to give you. Just don’t drive it into Newark after, say, 5 p.m. It's gonna get pretty rough down the road for places like that.
TRENTON – July is upon us. That means one thing: Fireworks over a new state budget. You may recall our state lawmakers somehow have to come together with a budget by June 30 each year. The Democrats were trumpeting their $34.8 billion plan yesterday, which is about $300 million more than what Gov. Chris Christie wants to spend. The Democrats say there is a lot of poverty in this state, and money is needed for people who desperately need it. But, as we know from the news in recent days, our governor is laser-focused on saving money for suburbanites. Expect him to slash and burn the Democratic plan with line-item vetoes. “They’re going to pass whatever they’re going to pass,” Christie said. “And then I get to take my pen out.”
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – We wouldn’t exactly take Donald Trump’s word to the bank, but the leading GOP candidate for President apparently has huge plans for Gov. Chris Christie in a Trump White House. We certainly have no idea what that would be in this doomsday scenario, maybe Vice President or Attorney General or Presidential Liaison to the Mailroom. In any case, Trump was on the airwaves yesterday saying Christie is “high on the list for something at least, that I can tell you.” Until, of course, like everyone else, he is fired.
WILDWOOD – You have probably been closely following the 93rd annual National Marbles Championship, so forgive the redundancy. But the four-day tournament has crowned a winner – which you probably already know. It’s an 11-year-old Colorado boy, now considered the best marble player in the world, after crushing some Pennsylvania kid yesterday with a best of 15 game series in front of a wild crowd of 200. The prize? A $2,000 scholarship. And, if this were 1920, when kids played marbles all the time, his buddies back home would be darn impressed.
JERSEY CITY – The folks who picked Jersey City as America's second happiest place to work must not get to the East Coast very much. Yet, California-based CareerBliss says Jersey City is “No. 2,” right behind … um, Miami in terms of workplace joy. Mind you, Miami is routinely listed among the nation's most dangerous, crime-ridden cities. CareerBliss annually surveys over 35,000 workers nationwide, and their answers help create a “bliss rating” used to rank cities. Sounds fine, at least on paper. The last New Jersey city to make their happiest-workplace list was Trenton in 2013. Perhaps they just have odd interpretations for the definition of “happy.”
STATEWIDE – It's not that Gov. Chris Christie opposes cultural diversity training for cops. He probably even thinks it could be a huge way to reduce prejudice and discrimination. Yet, Christie vetoed a bill this week to require New Jersey's 550 law enforcement agencies to create their own cultural diversity training courses. He says he didn't want them doing it willy-nilly. And, he was concerned about it being an “unfunded mandate.” Christie would prefer the state create a uniform, online training course, then require the state's 35,000 uniformed officers to take it. Assemblyman Gary Schaer, who sponsored the bill, told N.J. Advance Media that Christie's alternative was “not what I wanted, obviously, but it's a step in the right direction.”
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
HOUSTON – A Houston woman is saying farewell to her Texas twang after jaw surgery has left her with this odd British accent. KTRK-TV tells the story of the local woman who has stumped doctors, following the December surgery. She now sounds like a mix of Benny Hill, David Beckham and Crocodile Dundee, and doctors figure she has a rare neurological condition that they’ve given a name: “foreign accent syndrome.” Perhaps it is caused by stoke, head injuries or a psychiatric condition. Who really knows? But check out her fancy new accent here.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Hey, sure she was Lord Baltimore’s niece, but that still doesn’t give her a right to vote. It was this day in 1647 that Ann Calvert was booted from the Maryland Council, after she requested to cast a ballot. Women would need to wait until June 4, 1919, with the passage of the 19th Amendment, to exercise the right.
WORD OF THE DAY
Dolorous - DOH-luh-rus - adjective
Definition: Causing, marked by, or expressing misery or grief
Example: With all this dolorous talk about the future of the European Union and how it will destroy U.S. investments, I’m thinking about putting my savings back in the mattress.
WEATHER IN A WORD
Golf.