Kissinger Supports Chris Christie for President By Elisha Maldonado, political reporter | September 29, 2011 3:36 PM EDT With the urging of George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger and Nancy Reagan, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, in what is beginning to feel rather like Groundhog Day, is said to be giving serious thought to jumping into the GOP presidential ring, the New York Post reported. And the announcement may come as soon as Monday, according to sources close to Christie. The New Jersey governor has vowed many times that he won't be running for president in 2012. Last year he even went this far to say it: "Short of suicide, I don't really know what I'd have to do to convince you people that I'm not running. I'm not running!" But the encouragement of Kissinger, Bush and Reagan, is said to have him thinking he might change his mind. Even Christie's wife, Mary Pat, has been warming to the idea of a presidential run. "It's more than just flattering," a source close to Christie said, adding that he has the ability not only to be president, but to win it. According to the Post, something also changed the night Christie gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Tuesday night. "We need you. Your country needs you to run for president," one woman pleaded after Christie's speech. Christie's father, Bill Christie, stirred the pot a little Wednesday when he told the National Review Online that he thought his son would be able to win the White House. "He has always been a leader," the elder Christie said. "I think he would beat Obama." But Todd Christie, the governor's brother, said a Tuesday that run was out of the question. "If he's lying to me, I'll be as stunned as I've even been in my life," he told the Newark Star-Ledger. Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, a Sept. 11 commission co-chairman who has reportedly known Christie since he was a teenager, stoked the rumor mill, too, Monday when he told The National Review Online that "the odds are a lot better now than they
were a couple weeks ago" that Christie might run, Fox News reported. "I know he's getting advice from all sides," Kean told NRO. "He's not going to tease anybody." Insiders say Christie is ready to put a presidential campaign together "pretty fast," which would be a requirement as key primary ballots are only weeks away. It is also reported that his top advisers had sketched out a finance plan that could be used promptly. Fueling even further the speculation is Christie's current tour, where he is attending seven fundraisers in three states. But a source close to the governor said the fundraisers have been planned for months and are not indicative of a change in attitude toward a 2012 run. I think the governor started something two years ago and we've got much further along in our agenda than we anticipated," said New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno on Monday, trying to dismiss the rumors that Christie's speech at the Reagan library is more than a speech. "I could easily get used to this, but I don't think the governor is going to run for president." Christie has seen uptick popularity lately. In a Farleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released Tuesday, 54 percent of New Jersey voters approve of his performance, while 36 disapprove; that's up from a 44 percent split in May. The polling followed praise for the Christie's handling of Hurricane Irene in August and the signing of his pension and health benefit overhaul for public workers. The New Jersey governor also added to the speculation himself when he told an audience at New Jersey's Rider University that neither Democratic or GOP leaders satisfy the public's desire for real leadership. "I think what the country is thirsting for, more than anything else right now, is someone of stature and credibility to tell them that and say, 'Here's where I want us to go to deal with this crisis," Christie said. "The fact that nobody yet who's running for president, in my view, has done that effectively is why you continue to hear people ask [Gov. Mitch Daniels] if he'll reconsider and ask me if I'll reconsider."
The Myth of American Freedom by Andrew P. Napolitano Here is Judge Napolitano's closing argument yesterday on his FreedomWatch. Show http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/freedom-watch/index.html Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Is freedom in America a myth or a reality? Tonight, what if we didn't live in a free country? What if the Constitution were written not to limit government, but to expand it? What if the Constitution didn't fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, but betrayed it? What if the Constitution actually permitted the government to limit and constrict freedom? What if the Bill of Rights was just a paper promise, that the government could avoid whenever it claimed the need to do so? What if the same generation – in some cases the same people – that drafted the U.S. Constitution enacted laws that violated it? What if the merchants and bankers who financed the American Revolution bought their way into the new government and got it to enact laws that stifled their competition? What if the civil war that was fought in the name of freedom actually advanced the cause of tyranny? What if the federal government were the product of 150 years of stealing power and liberty and property from the people and the states? What if our political elites spent the 20th century importing the socialist ideas of big government Statism from Europe? What if our political class was adopting the European political culture from which our founding fathers fought so hard to break free? What if our political leaders no longer acknowledged that our rights come from our humanity, but insisted instead that they come from the government? What if you had to produce your papers to get out of or into our once-free country? What if you couldn't board a plane, a train, or a long-distance bus without providing documentation telling the government who you are and where you're going, without paying the government, and without risking sexual assault? What if your local police department could shoot down a plane? What if government agents could write their own search warrants, declare their own enemies, and seize whatever property they want? What if the feds could detain you indefinitely, with no visitors, no lawyer, no judge, and no jury? What if they could make you just disappear? What if the government broke its own laws in order to enforce them? What if the government broke down your front door in the middle of the night and shot your dog, and claimed it was a mistake?
What if you were required to purchase a product that you didn't need, didn't want, and couldn't afford, from a company you never heard of, just as a condition of living in the United States? What if the government told you what not to put in your body as well as what to put into it; and how much? What if the government claimed that since it will be paying your medical bills, it can tell you what to eat, when to sleep, and how to live? What if the government tried to cajole and coax and compel you into behaviors and attitudes it considered socially acceptable? What if the government spent your tax money to advertise to you how great the services are that it provides? What if the government kept promising to make you safe while it kept stripping you of your liberties and committing crimes in your name that made you a target of more violence? What if you didn't have a right to every dollar you earned? What if the government decided how much of your earnings it will keep and how much it will permit you to have? What if the government took money from you and gave it away to its rich banking and corporate friends whose businesses were failing? What if the government thought it knew better than you did how to lead your life and had no problem telling you so? What if the government took the credit for every success your own human actions helped you achieve? What if the government told you that only it could build roads, run schools, keep you safe, and collect trash even though it's never been able to do so efficiently before? What if the government spent nearly twice as much as it took in? What if it couldn't pass a budget on a timely basis and funded itself just weeks at a time? And what if the government kept borrowing money against the wealth of future generations to pay for wasteful programs today? What if you worked for the government and the government didn't work for you? What if freedom were a myth? What if we don't live in a free country? What do we do about it? From New York, defending freedom; so-long America. September 30, 2011 Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at the Fox News Channel, and the host of “FreedomWatch� on the Fox Business Network. His latest book is Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History, (Nelson, 2010). His next book is It is Dangerous to be Right When the Government is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom, coming in September.
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