The Morning Briefing - October 25, 2016
TRENTON – There’s a lot of laughter in the mahogany-paneled board room this morning over the clinking china with fresh-brewed French Roast, as Bridgegate lawyers read quotes from Sen. Loretta Weinberg in today’s Star-Ledger. She is suggesting the New York law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher actually refund the $8 million that taxpayers were forced to spend on the firm’s Bridgegate “investigation.” (Insert uproarious laughter here.) The firm’s 300-page report apparently made no mention of the governor’s Dec. 2, 2013 conversation with an aide, in which he told Christie that other top aides were aware of the lane closures. Then, in a later press conference, the governor said he had "no reason to believe" any of his top aides were involved. Weinberg is infuriated over why this factoid wasn’t in the firm’s report, calling her demand for a refund “a big deal.”
WILDWOOD – As the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club combs through the newspapers to find something new to oppose, it has now decided to target a plan to replace the famous Wildwood boardwalk with tropical hardwood. The Sierra Club assumes the wood would come from the Amazon rainforest, and envisons some glorious headline potential in voicing opposition to the $20 million plan. So, let’s all quote Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club once again: “They should build a new Boardwalk, but not at the expense of our rainforest.”
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – If you just can’t get enough of Donald Trump – and who can’t? – a must-read is a profile of the former casino magnate that ran on Nov. 1 1987 in New Jersey Monthly. The magazine gushes about the big-time investor who promised that “Atlantic City is going to shock and surprise a lot of people.” Check out this prose: “Sipping a breakfast glass of tomato juice, the cherubic-looking magnate is expounding with his usual tinge of self-satisfaction upon the latest addition to his ever-expanding domain…” Wow. Read it here.
STATEWIDE – To get you in the spirit of Halloween, NJ 101.5 is posting the state’s directory of sex offenders. So, before you send out your little ghouls and goblins to the homes of strangers to beg for food, you may want to check out the State Police registry for a partial list of your friendly neighbors who have been convicted, adjudicated delinquent or found not guilty by reason of insanity of a sex offense. Here you go. And have a great, safe night.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
BARRINGTON, R.I. – The good news: people still read newspapers. The bad news: the man who sent a letter to a small Rhode Island newspaper, blasting women who wear yoga pants in public, now has hundreds of angry women picketing his home and thousands more slamming him on social media. So, perhaps Alan Sorrentino should not have told the Barrington Times that yoga pants are "stinky, tacky, ridiculous looking" and do nothing “to compliment a woman over 20 years old.” The 63-year-old man told a Providence radio station, WPRO, that he is now getting death threats and urges all the women to “calm down.”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 2012 that Hurricane Sandy made landfall in Cuba and Jamaica and began churning up the Bahamas, moving slowly toward New Jersey.
WORD OF THE DAY
Hoick [HOIK] – verb
Definition: To move or pull abruptly; to yank
Example: Damn I sound old. But I really wish some teens would hoik up their britches.
WORD OF THE DAY
Blustery