GOP hero Nikki Haley put 14 year old daughter on state payroll

Was Haley's 14 year old daughter really the most qualified for the job?

I never understand how the Republicans can so often criticize government and government workers yet so easily provide jobs for their family inside government. Dick Cheney was no stranger to it, having his daughter Mary run his re-election campaign, and now the Tea Party and Sarah Palin hero, Nikki Haley, is doing the same.

The unemployment rate in South Carolina remains above the national average, so why is the governor giving a job to her daughter when so many others need work?

Gov. Nikki Haley’s 14-year-old daughter having a summer job at the State House gift shop is a tad more unusual than some may have thought.

Haley’s daughter was, in fact, the only 14-year-old to hold a state job as of July 2012. And no 14-year-olds were employed by the state in either July 2011 or July 2010, according to data from the State Budget and Control Board.

UPDATE: A reader notes:

Dick Cheney's other daughter, Elizabeth, was also on the public payroll. She was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department. She was in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, as I recall. This is a matter of public record.

In my humble opinion, it's one thing to put your own relative on your campaign payroll. If the donors don't like that, well, they can effectively voice their concern. And if the media doesn't like it, well, they can report it. In the end, not a big deal.

But it's another thing entirely when it's taxpayer money.

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Remembering 9/10: How the GOP hated NYC until it was politically expedient to love it

On September 10, 2001 -- the day before we were attacked -- New York City was a long-reviled place in the hearts of Republicans, right along with Chicago, San Francisco and the District of Columbia.

While today we see Republican Southerners and Midwesterners oddly invested, and stomping mad, about things like lower Manhattan zoning issues ("they're going to build a mosque on scared ground!" -- even though it's not a mosque at all, and it's blocks away), on September 10, 2001 they largely dismissed the metropolis as a worthless sewer representing all that was wrong with America.

Perhaps Republican Vice President Dan Quayle -- the Sarah Palin of his time -- put it best in 1992, when Democrats chose New York City as the site of their convention:

"In so many ways, the liberal Democrats chose the perfect site for their convention," Vice President Dan Quayle said last month, homing in on the theme. "Almost as if they feel a strange compulsion to return to the scene of the crime."

Quayle's derision for New York City wasn't an aberration.  Fast forward to Braves pitcher John Rocker in 1999, only two years before September 11.

When Rocker gave voice to this "I Hate 'Queer with AIDS' New York" assessment, nearly 30,000 fans in Atlanta leapt to their feet in a rapturous standing ovation. He would later receive standing ovations in places like Toledo, Ohio where like minded fans would bring homemade signs reading "Rocker for President".

What exactly did Rocker say that struck a chord with so many? In a 1999 interview with Sports Illustrated, where the admitted steroid-user mocked Asian women and called a black teammate a monkey, Rocker was asked whether he'd consider playing for the Yankees or Mets:

"I'd retire first. It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing... The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?"

When George W. Bush visited New York before 9/11 he was asked if he enjoyed being in the city, and he simply gave a knowing smirk. Complimenting the multicultural mecca wouldn't have played well with the base that adored his Texas brush clearing swagger.

His father wasn't any better in 1992:

The Republicans are already well into their campaign to tar New York as proof of what went wrong with Democratic liberalism. Just last Friday, the Bush campaign sent a video news release to thousands of local television stations around the country explaining that delegates would not be seeing "the real New York," because the city has deployed thousands of police officers on overtime to create a sanitized shimmer.

But as we always hear, 9-11 changed everything. It was like the prior decades of disdain never happened, and we've all pretty much played along.  Suddenly Republicans loved New York City so much, they even decided to have their convention there in 2004.

Of course everything didn't really change, and some of those good old fashioned disses still bleed through, now that 9/11 has become less effective as a political cudgel for Republicans to wield -- so they're back to hating New York again.

While speaking in Las Vegas earlier this year, Newt Gingrich blasted "New York elites who live in highrises and ride the subway," and Rick Santorum said only people outside of New York and Los Angeles have values:

“I kept saying, you just stick with us, you go out and vote for your values and trust what you know, because you don’t live in New York City. You don’t live in Los Angeles. You live like most Americans in between those two cities, and you know the values you believe in.”

Obviously Republicans haven't evolved since jumping to their feet in denunciation of immigrants, foreign languages, "queers", or mass transit. And New York certainly hasn't become less of a decidedly blue international city.

I can't look inside one's heart, but I can observe actions and listen to words. When Republicans cheer and wave plastic flags for a tough-talking president standing on a smouldering debris pile, but yawn or grumble when those responsible are finally killed by a different president, I think it's fair to outright dismiss their proclaimed love for New York and its people, among other things.

Ideologues used the wound of a national tragedy as an excuse to rush in like an opportunistic infection and push their agenda. I'd bet money many teabaggers -- whether caterwauling about where the city's "mosques" are built, or in a blind rage over plans to include (shudder) ethnic faces on a 9/11 statue -- couldn't even identify Manhattan on a map.

9/11 was a moment where we all came together, but when hacks like Sarah Palin talk about "the real America," Fox News personalities actually seem to encourage terrorists to attack San Francisco, and the Republican nominee for president regularly disparages our third largest city, we see that for Republicans, September 10th is far more relevant, far more self-defining, than September 11th will ever be.

And that, I will never forget.

@EmperorAndoe Read the rest of this post...

Comrade Jindal now demanding MORE fed disaster aid than states normally get

We know what you are,
Comrade Jindal, we're simply
haggling over the price.

We wrote earlier about "conservative" Governor Bobby Jindal of the People's Republic of Louisiana complaining that he wanted the Obama administration to give him more federal disaster aid than he was already getting.

We noted that it was, well, odd that proud red-stater Jindal, who famously turned down stimulus funds for unemployed Louisianans and for a high-speed rail, is now such a fan of all that tainted socialist "welfare" from Washington.

But now we learn that Jinda is even a bigger hypocrite than we thought.

You see, Comrade Jindal is now demanding more from the federal teet than states normally get during these "disasters."

He wants the federal government to reimburse him for state money spent on preparing for the hurricane.  That's not something FEMA normally covers because, you know, this is America, not the Soviet Union, and states like Louisiana, and governors like Jindal, are supposed to prepare for things like bad storms on their own.

Oh but it gets even better: Jindal had no such complaint when George Bush didn't offer to pay state preparations for a hurricane in 2008.  So either Jindal is playing politics with his state's impending hurricane, or he blew off the welfare of his own state in 2008 so as not to embarrass a Republican president.

Which one is it, tovarisch?

From Brian Beutler:

Asked today to respond to Jindal’s push for further assistance, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate explained, “primary responsibility for evacuations really [falls to] state and local governments and when it’s extraordinary the federal government can support that with financial assistance. What the President said yesterday was if you have a request for specific federal assistance, we’re ready to provide that life safety issues. We’re not going to hold anything up. But we’ll look at the impacts and determine, does this really exceed the state’s capability that require federal tax dollars to support that response and particularly if they start having damages. So, early on the request was direct federal assistance. If the financial impacts are greater than the state of Louisiana can manage, we assess that and we’ll make recommendations again looking at what the governor has requested.”

That’s the same approach the Bush administration took when Gustav was bearing down on Louisiana in 2008.

According to the Louisiana Times-Picayune, “Though Jindal called on the federal government to shoulder the full cost of the federal, state and local efforts, he did not publicly make the same criticisms when former President George W. Bush issued a similar declaration that included a cost ceiling as Hurricane Gustav approached the state…though as the storm was trailing off, the state and the Bush administration fought over exactly who would pay for what portion of the federal response.”

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Romney's state funded solar panel developer went bankrupt

Timing is everything, Mitt. The day after Romney blasted Obama for the Solyndra collapse, Romney's own Solyndra filed for bankruptcy. Does this now mean that Mitt Romney is also a complete failure because one of his state loan investments went under? Boston Herald:

Lowell-based Konarka Technologies announced late yesterday that it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its 85 workers and liquidate.

“Konarka has been unable to obtain additional financing, and given its current financial condition, it is unable to continue operations,” CEO Howard Berke said in a statement. “This is a tragedy for Konarka’s shareholders and employees and for the development of alternative energy in the United States.”

The demise of Konarka could become a hot topic on the campaign trail because Romney personally doled out a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to the Lowell startup in 2003, shortly after taking office on Beacon Hill.

Interestingly enough, this bankruptcy wasn't the first Romney state investment into solar to go belly up, but the second. More from Think Progress. Read the rest of this post...

Conservative NE cattle ranchers upset over EPA flyovers

If I'm understanding this new outrage from Nebraska, government drones looking for illegal immigrants is just honky dory and makes sense but when the EPA flies over cattle ranches to photograph, that's an invasion of privacy. Suddenly the "if you have nothing to hide, why should you care?" mentality is out the window when it's them. I see.

Have I missed something here or are the Republican politicians and cattle ranchers hypocrites?

A Nebraska cattlemen’s group is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution-control flights over ranches, claiming it amounts to spying on citizens. EPA, meanwhile, says the flights are an effective way to quickly spot -- and stop -- pollution from manure lagoons and other waste at large livestock operations.

Nebraska's five federal lawmakers joined the fight this week, demanding to know on what authority EPA is flying over and photographing private property. The lawmakers sent their demands to EPA chief Lisa Jackson on Tuesday, listing a battery of questions and demanding answers by June 10.

EPA has been operating these flights across the country for nearly 10 years.

When the GOP owned Washington, aggressive invasions of privacy (including obviously the EPA flights) somehow made sense and were for freedom and protection. Why was it OK then or for other issues? Both parties will easily abuse any rights given to them as we are about to see with drones flying over the country.

In the case of EPA flyovers, it's difficult to imagine how much more the flights can provide compared to satellite images that have been possible for decades. Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich campaign $4 million in debt due to bad management

Oh those fiscal conservatives. It's impressive how they know so much about balancing budgets while lecturing others about their crazy spending habits.

Newt Gingrich ends his White House dream today with his political committee facing a mountain of debts -- owing about $4 million to scores of businesses and campaign workers around the country who fear they will never get paid.

Campaign watchdogs said the size of Gingrich's debt is extraordinary -- and could have been avoided if the candidate and his team had been more disciplined.

"He was reckless in running up these bills, especially in the last month or so of the campaign when it was quite clear that Mitt Romney would be the nominee," said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the watchdog group Citizen Union.

This reminds me of an annoying 20-something American traveler that I overheard last week telling someone that she's "um, like a fiscal conservative." Can someone please tell me what that means and who might have ever fit such a description. I always hear that type boast about it but have yet to see it in the real world. After all, the guy who spent the US into recession with his reckless tax cuts and wars was supposed to be a fiscal conservative. Read the rest of this post...

Teabagging GOP sucking on teat of Big Government

Surprise, surprise. The Teabaggers really do love Big Government bailouts. If they didn't, they would not be accepting this money and they would have already forced legislation to break up the too-big-too-fail. More on the fraudulent Teabaggers from Bloomberg:

Republican freshmen have made clear their disdain for expanding government, and openly opposed a financial regulatory overhaul enacted by Democrats in 2010 before the newcomers arrived in Washington. Their ranks include 10 Tea Party-backed freshmen on the House Financial Services Committee, part of a force that won election in a populist backlash to government spending that included emergency lending to major banks and bailout of firms including U.S. automakers. Still, the lawmakers haven’t passed, considered or even introduced legislation to address concerns about “too-big-to- fail” banks voiced by members of both parties and such Federal Reserve bank presidents as Richard Fisher of Dallas and Jeffrey Lacker of Richmond, Virginia. “I haven’t seen any of them putting forth legislation on breaking up the big banks or on other things that would genuinely prevent a bailout next time,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a Washington- based umbrella group of organizations that supported the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and other financial regulations.

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US taxpayers saved the Salt Lake Olympics, not Mitt

When the taxpayers fork out $1.3 billion, don't they deserve some credit? It's interesting to see how Romney used to brag about government funding for his projects (the Olympics and Bain) but now that he's busy trying to win over the Republican primary voters, he's completely against those same handouts. Funny how that works. Read the rest of this post...

Is SOPA author a copyright violator? Yes

Oh oh. I hate when this happens and wonderful people like GOP Congressman Lamar Smith, author of the SOPA bill, are caught violating laws that they're promoting. Vice.com:

I decided to check that everything on Lamar's official campaign website was copyright-cleared and on the level. Lamar is using several stock images on his site, two of which I tracked back to the same photographic agency. I contacted the agency to make sure he was paying to use them, but was told that it's very difficult for them to actually check to see if someone has permission to use their images. (Great news, copyright violators!) However, seeing as they're both from the same agency and are unwatermarked, it seems fairly likely that he is the only person on the entire internet who is actually paying to use a stock image (and he'd be an idiot not to). So I took a look back at an archived, pre-SOPA version of his site.

And this is the background image Lamar was using. I managed to track that picture back to DJ Schulte, the photographer who took it.

And whaddya know? Looks like someone forgot to credit him.

Oh the humanity. Go here to sign up and help identify other pro-SOPA hypocrites. Read the rest of this post...

Pope urges followers to move past commercialization of Christmas and glitter

But it's so hard to look past those Gucci slippers and the extravagance of The Vatican which has glitter all year. Oh to live the simple, humble life.

In his homily, Benedict lamented that Christmas has become an increasingly commercial celebration that obscures the simplicity of the message of Christ's birth. "Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light," he said. It was the second time in as many days that Benedict has pointed to the need to rediscover faith to confront the problems facing the world today. In his end-of-year meeting with Vatican officials on Thursday, Benedict said Europe's financial crisis was largely "based on the ethical crisis looming over the Old Continent".

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Romney was for government handouts before he was against them

Of course Mitt's now against government assistance for business because when he did it and earned a few hundred million, it was completely different because he was on the receiving end. It's OK to have positions that evolve but this guy's position evolves on every issue and changes weekly back and forth. What also jumps out here is that government assistance played such an important role in Mitt's financial success. Which way will the wind blow for Mitt tomorrow?

The likely GOP nominee made much of his estimated $250 million fortune buying companies, reorganizing them, and selling them for a profit. Though Romney, whose only government experience is his one term as Massachusetts governor, is quick to claim that he turned around investments using sound management and data-driven strategies, he does not mention one aspect of his success. Bain Capital owned companies that padded their profits using millions in public subsidies. In other cases, firms owned by Bain employed K Street lobbying firms to pursue lucrative government programs. Consider two of Romney’s first major investments: office supply company Staples Inc. and photo album manufacturer Holson Co. Both persuaded state officials to subsidize their growth. Shortly after Bain took control of Holson in 1987, executives pushed for the company to expand in the South. Officials from the firm had negotiated with Gov. Carroll Campbell, a Republican, to extend $200,000 in utility support for a new Holson plant in the city of Gaffney. The local city council also approved a $5 million bond for construction, after meeting with representatives from Holson. Five years after South Carolina’s taxpayers had helped finance the factory, Bain chose to sell Holson’s Gaffney facility for $2.8 million. Romney’s firm reaped the profits on the taxpayers’ expenditure.

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GOP Sen. Vitter opposes "cronyism" only after his cronies are losing

You remember David Vitter. The GOP Senator from Louisiana who has a thing for hookers and diapers. More from TIME:

Washington “scandals” have a predictable rhythm, and the Solyndra solar loan “scandal” has entered the phase where critics start exploiting the controversy to push their ideological agenda. For example, Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana has filed a bill to increase scrutiny of taxpayer-financed renewable energy projects. It wouldn’t scrutinize taxpayer-financed non-renewable energy projects, like the nuclear reactors that Vitter so ardently supports. It wouldn’t scrutinize why a certain Louisiana Senator has worked so hard to protect oil companies from liability for their spills. It would just crack down on Big Renewables.

“We can’t afford any more crony capitalism,” Vitter said on Wednesday. Vitter should know. He’s written a bunch of letters to the Energy Department’s loan program seeking loans for renewable energy firms.

For example, on July 1, 2009, Vitter and Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu to support a loan application by the V Vehicle Company, a clean-car start-up (backed by T. Boone Pickens and the venture capital leviathan Kleiner Perkins) that was planning a Louisiana factory. “This vehicle would serve as a catalyst for job creation,” they wrote. A year later, Vitter joined the entire Louisiana delegation in another letter pushing “expedited consideration” for VVC. Alas, the Energy Department rejected the loan, citing concerns about the company’s financial viability. Vitter must have been annoyed by all this due diligence, because in December 2010–after VVC changed its name to Next Autoworks–he, Landrieu and Congressman Rodney Alexander tried once more. “Every day that Next Autoworks’ application is delayed is another day that workers cannot be hired,” the wrote. So far, no luck.

No wonder Vitter’s angry: His cronies are losing!

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Rick Perry is bi on federal aid

From Time:

In his campaign kickoff last Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry burnished his conservative credentials by attacking the idea of deficit stimulus spending. "Washington's insatiable desire to spend our children's inheritance on failed stimulus plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed," he said.

But it was not always so for Perry. Back in 2003, lobbyists under Perry's direction went to Capitol Hill to lobby the Republican Congress for more than a billion dollars in federal deficit spending on "stimulus." And they won. A 2005 report (pdf) by the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations boasted of "$1.2 billion in temporary state fiscal relief to Texas" through Medicaid that Perry's lobbying operation had secured. (Watch TIME's video "Rick Perry Is Ready to Run for President.")
And that was just the beginning.

Perry isn't what he pretends to be. It's becoming the hallmark of his run for the presidency. Read the rest of this post...

Paul Ryan’s $350 bottle of wine while he plots to eliminate Medicare

Budget cuts and belt tightening are for the little people. Once a few years ago I bought a bottle of Echezeaux from a wine shop (about one third of the price he paid) for our wedding anniversary dinner at home. Why is it that his type always can make excuses for their own oversights but it's somehow different for others? There's no question that DC can be an expensive place to live but for a casual dinner with "friends" it's hard to see how anyone could mistakenly order two $350 bottles of wine.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a leading advocate of shrinking entitlement spending and the architect of the plan to privatize Medicare, spent Wednesday evening sipping $350 wine with two like-minded conservative economists at the swanky Capitol Hill eatery Bistro Bis.

It was the same night reports started trickling out about President Obama pressing Congressional leaders to consider changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for GOP support for targeted tax increases.

NOTE FROM JOHN: As Chris mentions, DC can be expensive but not for restaurants. We have tons of restaurants with entrees in the teens, and I've never ever heard of anyone buying a $350 bottle of wine in this town in my life. Read the rest of this post...

Tony Blair blames Labour failure on Gordon Brown

Umm, no. The egomaniac Blair, much like Bill Clinton, killed the left by becoming corporate suckup and putting a smiley face on the party so it was mildly better than the right. Both assholes like to see how good the good old days were but neither likes to accept their own very large responsibility for the economic crisis that we're in today. Blair, ever the hypocrite, now works as a banker making millions. If that's the "third way" then screw the entire system. Gordon Brown was no prize but he should give a public FU to Tony Blair. The Labour Party and the Democratic Party are both hollow shells of what they used to be because of people like this.

In the US, this is why we're seeing a discussion about cutting Medicare and Social Security. It started with bank "reform" that led to a global recession and it just keeps moving to the right. No thanks.

The former prime minister said the 13-year Labour government should be remembered in two phases – his and Brown's – and there was "no continuity" between the two.

In a speech in London to the New Labour thinktank Progress, Blair also advocated a "pick and mix" of policy that did not adhere to old narratives of left and right. He urged the party to let go of some of its old ideologies in order to arrive at the "right" policy decisions.

He said: "I remain unremittingly an advocate of third-way, centre-ground, progressive politics that came to be called New Labour. From 1997 to 2007 we were New Labour. In June 2007 we stopped.

Read the rest of this post...

Religious right group calls on GOP Sen. Vitter to follow Weiner’s lead and resign

Weiner committed a virtual indiscretion.  Vitter committed a crime (against law and decorum, I mean having multiple hookers dress you in diapers?)  Why is Weiner resigning but Vitter is staying in office, especially when Vitter claims to be Mr. Family Values?  If Vitter were really for family values he had have called on himself to resign. Of course, Vitter's constituents re-elected him by a wide margin, even after the hooker crime spree.  Which just goes to show you the real morals of family values voters (not much).  From NOLA:

"There are a lot of people that I think are committing outright hypocrisy and are forced to do so as long as he (Vitter) remains in office," said Joe Glover, the president of the Family Policy Network, based in Forest, Va. "I don't think the senator should put those folks in the untenable position of having to pragmatically defend his presence in the Senate."

Glover noted, for example, that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had called on Weiner to resign, but had also contributed to Vitter's 2010 re-election campaign.

"I think their credibility is at stake," said Glover. "I know a lot of times in Washington, pragmatism reigns supreme, but there are some things that are more important than politics and integrity is one of those things."

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Darrell Issa #FAIL: Now attacking ATF over program he knew all about but never questioned

Awesome takedown of Rep. Darrell Issa in today's Washington Post:

A chief Republican critic of a controversial U.S. anti-gun-trafficking operation was briefed on ATF’s “Fast and Furious” program last year and did not express any opposition, sources familiar with the classified briefing said Tuesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), who has repeatedly called for top Justice Department officials to be held accountable for the now-defunct operation, was given highly specific information about it at an April 2010 briefing, the sources said. Members of his staff also attended the session, which Issa and two other Republican congressmen had requested.

Fast and Furious targeted Mexican gun traffickers but was linked to the killing of a U.S. law enforcement officer. Republicans in Congress have criticized the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives over its handling of the operation, with Issa calling it “felony-stupid bad judgment” during a hearing last week in which he grilled a Justice Department official.

So, it was a briefing Issa requested -- and he didn't make a peep -- but, now he's on the warpath. What a hypocrite.

Best line in the article:

“All of the things [Issa] has been screaming about, he was briefed on,’’ said one source familiar with the session.

That says a lot about Issa and his motives. Read the rest of this post...

Evan Bayh to work for Chamber of Commerce

Who would have guessed working for the Chamber of Commerce that promotes policies that destroy the American middle class was "honorable?" Cha-ching!

Not long after announcing his plans to retire in 2010, then-Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) offered this bit of commentary on why he'd opted to leave Congress after two terms in office: "I want to be engaged in an honorable line of work." It was taken as a biting critique of the increasingly polarized and dysfunctional Senate, and a hint that Bayh's post-Senate plans might include a quiet career in academia, away from politics.

Now Bayh is eating his words. As iWatch News' Peter Stone reports, Bayh has signed on with one of the most corporate-friendly, anti-environment shops in all of Washington, DC: the US Chamber of Commerce. According to an internal memo penned by Chamber president Tom Donohue, Bayh, along with former Bush White House chief of staff Andy Card, are now part of the Chamber's anti-regulation messaging team, doing "speeches, events, and media appearances at local venues."

And isn't it interesting how the revolving door that keeps shafting the public gets so little attention but sexting is a 24/7 issue including press conferences? Great priorities but sex does always sell. Read the rest of this post...

Gov. Christie refuses to reimburse state for private helicopter ride

If the financial problems in New Jersey are as serious as he says they are, there should be no question about paying back the state for using the helicopter. If he is in a rush to see his kid play baseball and then has to rush back home to meet with people to discuss his plans for running for the White House, that should be on his own dime. It doesn't look like there's a serious financial crisis if he thinks joy riding is a normal expense for the state.

Facing broad criticism for flying by helicopter to watch his son’s high school baseball game in Bergen County, Gov. Chris Christie refused today to refund the state for Tuesday’s $2,500-an-hour flight.

"The governor does not reimburse for security and travel," a spokesman for the governor, Kevin Roberts, said in an e-mail message. "The use of air travel has been extremely limited and appropriate."

The State Police said the flight taken by Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, had presented "no additional cost to taxpayers."

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Conservative hero Christie flies state helicopter to son's baseball game

Republican austerity sounds as false as compassionate conservatism. And what's with flying in and then stepping into a state car that is waiting to drive him 100 yards? How wasteful is that?

Gov. Chris Christie arrived at his son's baseball game this afternoon aboard a State Police helicopter.

Right before the lineup cards were being exchanged on the field, a noise from above distracted the spectators as the 55-foot long helicopter buzzed over trees in left field, circled the outfield and landed in an adjacent football field. Christie disembarked from the helicopter and got into a black car with tinted windows that drove him about a 100 yards to the baseball field.

During the 5th inning, Christie and First Lady Mary Pat Christie got into the car, rode back to the helicopter and left the game. During a pitching change, play was stopped for a couple of minutes while the helicopter took off.

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