Because of threats from the President Obama’s Department of Justice, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee (I) has finally decided not to let the state license its three planned medical marijuana dispensaries.

The New Jersey state Assembly, with a large Democratic majority, gave final approval yesterday to a bill that eliminates collective bargaining rights for public employee health care benefits and imposes the equivalent of a pay cut by increasing health and pension contributions. Unions in New Jersey actually have no collective bargaining guarantee other than health benefits, so this eliminates pretty much their main bargaining chip.

I remember receiving a phone call from a prominent newspaper reporter in Fall 2009 about the emergence of the Tea Party, largely in opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care legislation. “Is the Tea Party going to become a major force in American politics,” the reporter asked. “No,” I responded confidently. “Like other fringe protest parties in the past, it will fizzle quickly. Their message is too negative.”

I have never been so wrong in my life!

Chris Christie, New Jersey’s increasingly unpopular right-wing governor, is a big believer in small government and austerity. Just not for him.

New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has found a new and exciting way to have the state taxpayer’s pamper him, while telling everyone else to tighten their belts…. he arrived at his son’s baseball game this afternoon aboard a State Police helicopter.

Negotiators with the proposed mortgage servicer settlement sat down with leaders of the biggest banks for the first time. The state Attorneys General and federal regulators set out their position with a 27-page term sheet; the banks responded days before the talks with their own offer. It included two of the major policy changes in the AG term sheet. But it did not include any of the monetary penalties for commissions of fraud and abuse, and the third-party overseer it recommended could potentially be a way to get the unending foreclosure cases being fought by attorneys with clear knowledge of the fraud out of the hands of the courts. So this is a proposal from the banks to essentially do the job of servicing that’s within the bounds of the law, with no consequences for past lawbreaking.

So where was all this “fiscally responsible” fighting spirit when it came to paying out $32.6 billion in taxpayer funded banker bonuses?

Well, as Larry Summers said, “we are a country of law.”

Public workers have become the new demons ruining America, with their greedy pay and pension benefits. As this video from Brave New Films makes clear, that notion is just a load of crap. Pension benefits are not all that generous for the vast majority of workers; the average benefit for th workers in Prichard, Alabama (who were eventually cut off) was pretty much the size of Social Security, around $1,000 a month. They signed a contract to receive those benefits, a contract singed by both sides, but contracts only matter when they have to do with AIG credit default swaps.

When the Christmas Snowpocalypse hit, Mayor Booker ran himself into the ground trying to singlehandedly dig out everyone in Newark. Governor Christie went to Disney World.

On “60 Minutes” last night, wingnut favorite Chris Christie sat down with Steve Kroft and wagged his finger at people who work for a living.