Kudos to NJ Governor Chris Christie!

Seriously. No kidding!

NJ Governor Chris Christie was famous in the state for his no nonsense outbursts, interruptions of others and blatant and public rebukes of reporters who questioned him about wrongdoing such as in the case of the Bridgegate scandal or constituents who questioned his true intents regarding the affairs of New Jersey residents such as in the case of the Sandy storm aftermath.

That was then. A year ago however, Christie had remade his image after he exited the presidential race and gave a full endorsement to then candidate Donald Trump. Besides having shocked everyone to have made such a bad decision – although I saw the move differently (story for another day) – Gov. Christie had lent candidate Trump his time, his voice, his ability and yes even his loyalty. Christie had given new meaning to right hand man; during a press conference Donald gave after winning one of the primaries, Chris was standing to his right motionless, looking straight at nothing, thinking of nothing. That, my friend, is the very definition of loyalty. Chris hears no evil, sees no evil.

At one point it seemed that his loyalty was paying off when Donald Trump became the GOP nominee; Christie immediately climbed up to becoming involved in the finding and the vetting of Trump’s running mate. Although both he and Ben Carson who was also involved in the process vied for the vice presidency didn’t receive the thumb up from Trump, the NJ Governor stood by the GOP nominee and was later promoted to lead the transition team when Donald Trump won the general election.

Although he was quickly removed from the position due to the renewed interest in the Bridgegate scandal, Chris continued to lobby Trump for the position of Attorney General. All hope for Christie seemed to have been lost when Trump picked Jeff Sessions as the Attorney General for his administration. Chris was offered a number of other positions, he declined them all.

One would say that Chris Christie had gone through mountains and valleys since his support for Trump, something which contributed to the plummeting of his approval rating in the state of New Jersey. Once one of the highest rated Governors in the nation, – as of November 2013, Christie’s approval rating was 68% – Chris’ approval rating stands at just 21% as of this writing, one of the three lowest in the nation, the other two being Sam Brownback from Kansas (23%) and Dan Malloy from Connecticut (26%).

But despite what seems to be a failure of his administration, NJ Governor Chris Christie deserves applause for his stance on a very critical issue which has plagued the nation for well over a century, the incarceration rate in the nation. According to Think Progress, US has the largest population of prisoners in the world and it continues to grow.

Since 2012 however, Governor Chris Christie has been working arduously to change the law in regards to “nonviolent criminals” (I’ll come back to that in the next article); last year, he signed into law a number of provisions which deserve plenty of attention and Chris deserves to be praised for.

In the state of NJ, “non-violent offenders” will get help not jail.
Minor crime’s offenders will be released without having to post bail
Drug users will be sent to rehabilitation instead of being thrown in jail
Non-violent offenders’ record will be expunged

By signing those provisions into law, Governor Chris Christie broke a pattern of “stupidly ridiculous” laws which have specifically targeted minority groups in general, Blacks and Hispanics in particular but most importantly the governor took a step which will prove financially beneficial to the state of NJ.

In the next article, I will discuss why this move by NJ Governor should be implemented across the nation.

Kudo to NJ Governor Chris Christie for applying reason in a world with no common sense!

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