Free Republic

Politico says its weight-loss experts estimate Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has lost 85 pounds since bariatric surgery last year. After a constituent remarked about the governor’s noticeably slimmed-down physique at a town hall meeting last week, POLITICO asked two experts to estimate the governor’s weight loss by comparing several pictures of him from 2011 with recent photos. “I think he is making progress, absolutely, for what I would expect this at this point of the process,” said Dr. Jessica Barfield, a doctor of internal medicine specializing in nutrition and weight management at Loyal Medicine’s Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still leads two major possible 2016 Republicans opponents by double digits but is held under 50% for the first times in Zogby Analytics polling. The new nationwide poll of 902 likely voters, conducted online May 21-22, shows Mrs. Clinton leading former Florida Governor Jeb Bush 49% to 32%, with 14% saying they prefer to vote for “someone else”, and 5% not sure. In another matchup, she leads New Jersey Governor Chris Christie by 14 points, 47% to 33%, with 14% selecting “someone else”, and 6% undecided. -snip- And despite being married to a Latina...

Now that it has passed the New Jersey Assembly, a new law intended to restrict the rights of gun owners heads to the desk of Governor Chris Christie. It’s being billed as legislation to “restrict magazine size” in the Garden State. The New Jersey state Assembly on Thursday sent Governor Chris Christie a gun control bill that would limit the capacity of gun ammunition magazines, but it was unclear whether the Republican governor would sign the measure into law… The bill, approved in the Assembly by a 44-34 vote, would cut the maximum capacity of gun magazines to 10 from...

Challengers see themselves in the Texas senator, even in races where their odds of an upset are considered steeper than Cruz’s surprise victory over a GOP establishment figure two years ago. He’s made endorsements in the Oklahoma and Nebraska Senate races, plus the Nebraska gubernatorial race, and sent almost $26,000 to federal candidates through his leadership PAC. “Ted Cruz would be extremely helpful as an endorser and a fundraiser,” said C. Edmund Wright, a consultant to longshot South Carolina Senate hopeful Lee Bright, in an email. “Rand Paul and Mike Lee would be great also.” But, he said, “the reason...

Gun control supporters appear poised to force New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, often discussed as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, to show where he stands on the Second Amendment. On Monday, the state's Senate passed A2006, legislation to lower the state's magazine-capacity limit from 15 rounds to 10 rounds, by a vote of 22-17, mostly along party lines. The bill will be sent to Christie for signature or veto after the Assembly, which previously approved it by a vote of 46-31, approves technical changes made to the bill by the Senate. Once the bill reaches Christie's desk, he...

Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Hillary Clinton would make a "spectacular candidate" for president in 2016. “I think she would be a spectacular candidate on the Democratic side. Bloomberg also praised former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) and Govs. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Scott Walker (R-WI) pointing to their "executive experience"on the potential candidates on the Republican side of the ticket.

Longtime Hot Air readers may recall that the first “winner” we ever had in these surveys was Chris Christie. Four years ago he earned 29% of the vote, but my, how things change. Christie now has 1% of the vote and sits well behind everyone except Mike Huckabee, who he ties, Rick Santorum, and Joe Scarborough, who out of over 3000 votes received a grand total of 6. Your current leader? Ted Cruz, who earned 29% of the vote. The top five is rounded out by Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. As to issue testing, the...

A legal restriction on the number of cartridges a gun can hold, a proposal that has bounced around the State House for more than a year, has just one hurdle left before it lands on Governor Christie’s desk. A Senate committee cleared the bill Monday after a hearing that saw gun control supporters and opponents of firearm restrictions make the same emotional arguments they’ve used since the debate over magazine capacity restrictions began. But the politics behind the bill have shifted, following the changing priorities of the state’s top lawmakers. Christie, who is positioning himself for a presidential run in...

Can we really call it “news” if it’s something that everyone already knows? Imagine if all the tea-party energy of the past five years ends up in another Bush coronation in 2016. I don’t know if the party would fracture. But it should. In private conversations that are now seeping into public view, some of them are signaling to Mr. Christie’s camp that, should Mr. Bush enter the race, their first loyalty would be to him, not to Mr. Christie, according to interviews with more than two dozen of them… The family name, [Barry Wynn] said, remains a powerful draw....

For Jeb Bush, who I believe really wants to be president, the theory of the case has always been this: At some point, his party, the Republicans, will break from the tea party. The angry fever that overtook the party when Barack Obama’s election produced its intended result: a universal healthcare bill, would break. And the movement, born on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to slag underwater homeowners, and harnessed by the GOP to break the spell of bipartisanship Obama rode into town on, would have so consumed the party base, that cooler heads within the party would...

In 2010, Sarah Palin endorsed Rand Paul for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. Most other reliable Republican hawks — Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, Rick Santorum — endorsed his primary opponent. Three years later, when Chris Christie criticized Paul’s stand on warrantless surveillance, Palin endorsed him again. “I’m on Team Rand,” she said. “Rand Paul understands, he gets the whole notion of ‘Don’t tread on me, government,’ whereas Chris Christie is for big government and, you know, trying to go along to get along in so many respects.” In a North Carolina congressional primary, however, Sarah Palin is on the side of...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who spoke Saturday at the Maine Republican Convention, was the big winner in the party’s straw poll. Paul took 26 percent of the vote, to 14 percent for the second-place finisher, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). With 690 ballots cast at the convention in Bangor, the order of finish was: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.): 176 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): 98 Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: 70 Dr. Ben Carson: 62 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: 60 Jeb Bush: 57 Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.): 37 Mike Huckabee: 28 Condoleezza Rice: 26

Chris Christie offered a challenge to critics who allege the New Jersey governor created a culture of intimidation that led to so-called “Bridgegate”: Prove it. The Republican defiantly made his case Thursday at a town hall meeting in Ocean County after an attendee told the governor that his friends and family believe that Christie must have cultivated a toxic environment that allowed such an abuse to take place. Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. resident Len Ludovico, 71, said he wanted to know what argument he could make to such critics, insisting he knows Christie would not risk his “political career and...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered a message to his fellow members of the Republican Party on Thursday: being pro-life means reforming America’s drug laws and criminal sentencing procedures. Christie has long advocated for drug treatment programs as a means of reforming the country’s prison system, but Christie took a new tactic on Thursday when he framed that advocacy as a pro-life argument. “I’m pro-life, and I believe strongly in the sanctity of life,” Christie told an audience in Jersey City on Thursday. Addressing his fellow Republican governors, Christie said that “it’s great to be pro-life, but you need to...

New Jersey Governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate Chris Christie said during a speech at a forum on drug and alcohol abuse that he is pro-life and he tied his opposition to abortion to his respect for human life, chrischristie4saying he is pro-life both before and after birth. Christie was a featured speaker at the conference, held at Saint Peter’s University. His comments on abortion came during a conversation with former Gov. Jim McGreevey. “It’s great to be pro-life, but you need to be pro-life after they get out of the womb, too,” Christie said to applause. Video and transcript...

That honor now goes to New Jersey. Tax reforms passed in the latest budget represent big improvements for corporations, but not so much for individuals. ... Still, New York remains a burdensome place to earn a living. The reforms did not change the state's poor rankings for having high sales taxes (No. 38), individual income taxes (No. 49) and unemployment taxes (No. 45). Meanwhile, the governor announced Tuesday that the state tax department collected nearly $4 billion in evaded taxes in the past year, a 5% or $200 million increase compared to the year earlier.The state collects about $87 billion...

Stunning a crowded convention, NJ Chris Christie announced to a group of supporters with former President Clinton that he would seek reelection in 2014 as a democrat. The move comes after months of odd behavior from the former NJ republican. Tensions have been mounting between the NJ Governor and the GOP. At this year’s CPAC Convention, which hosts some of the greatest names in the conservative party Christie was denied entrance. Christie struck a sour note with conservatives for palling up with Obama during Hurricane Sandy. The bill to send money to victims was full of pork and republicans wanted...

Stunning a crowded convention, NJ Chris Christie announced to a group of supporters with former President Clinton that he would seek reelection in 2014 as a democrat. The move comes after months of odd behavior from the former NJ republican. Tensions have been mounting between the NJ Governor and the GOP. At this year’s CPAC Convention, which hosts some of the greatest names in the conservative party Christie was denied entrance. Christie struck a sour note with conservatives for palling up with Obama during Hurricane Sandy. The bill to send money to victims was full of pork and republicans wanted...

Two former associates of Gov. Chris Christie do not have to hand over documents to a legislative committee investigating the traffic jam scandal engulfing the governor, a New Jersey judge ruled Wednesday. Former Christie loyalists Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien had been fighting subpoenas calling for them to turn over documents regarding the plot to create traffic jams in Fort Lee to retaliate against the town’s Democratic mayor. The legislative panel asked for the court’s help in getting the two to comply with the subpoenas. Calling the decision one involving “complicated and untested jurisdictional issues,” Judge Mary Jacobson expressed reservations...

With the January 2016 Iowa presidential caucuses on the horizon, Hillary Clinton is the far-and-away favorite among self-described Democratic caucus-goers, according to a Suffolk University statewide Iowa poll. And while some Republicans have begun visiting the Hawkeye State, the survey shows no favorites among prospective GOP presidential candidates. Meanwhile, the Suffolk University poll of likely general-election Iowa voters shows Republican Gov. Terry Branstad with a strong advantage heading into the June 3 Republican gubernatorial primary, and he leads the sole Democrat in the race, State Sen. Jack Hatch, by 10 points in a general-election match-up. Branstad, the longest serving governor...