Even though FDA guidelines approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B to anyone 17 or older, Andrew Andrade said staff at the Jersey City Rite Aid would not sell it to him because Andrade is a man:

“I was thinking if this guy doesn’t sell me this pill then I’m going to have a bigger problem than I already have,” said Andrade.

Andrade says he desperately needed emergency contraception and his girlfriend couldn’t pick it up because she was at work. [...]

“I was a little upset. I said let me speak to the manager. Maybe the manager knows a little bit more about this. They introduced me to the pharmacy manager and he said I cannot sell the pill to you because I was a male,” he said.

Andrade eventually bought the morning-after pill at another pharmacy down the street, and he alerted the ACLU of New Jersey about Rite Aid’s refusal. The state ACLU sent a letter to Rite Aid’s corporate headquarters asking it to “instruct its employees on the law, provide the ACLU with a copy of its guidelines, and apologize to Andrade.”

Rite Aid spokeswoman Ashley Flower said the company’s policy is to provide emergency contraception to any man or woman who asks for it as long as they have a valid ID showing they’re at least 17.

But this is not the first time a pharmacy has refused to sell emergency contraception to a man. A CVS in Texas refused to sell to a man in January and suggested he was a rapist for needing it. Pharmacists at Walgreens have also refused to sell to men, most recently in Georgia and Alabama. And after pharmacists had failed to fill birth control prescriptions and requests the morning-after pill, Walmart instituted a storewide policy requiring pharmacies to provide these medications.

However, a new report from the Government Accountability Office shows that Christie vastly exaggerated how much of the project would be paid for by New Jersey:

The report by the Government Accountability Office, to be released this week, found that while Mr. Christie said that state transportation officials had revised cost estimates for the tunnel to at least $11 billion and potentially more than $14 billion, the range of estimates had in fact remained unchanged in the two years before he announced in 2010 that he was shutting down the project. And state transportation officials, the report says, had said the cost would be no more than $10 billion.

Mr. Christie also misstated New Jersey’s share of the costs: he said the state would pay 70 percent of the project; the report found that New Jersey was paying 14.4 percent. And while the governor said that an agreement with the federal government would require the state to pay all cost overruns, the report found that there was no final agreement, and that the federal government had made several offers to share those costs.

After canceling the project, Christie steered money earmarked for the tunnel into the Garden State’s transportation trust fund, rather than fixing the fund’s obviously broken revenue stream (which might have included raising the gasoline tax). “[The tunnel] was critical to the future of New Jersey’s economy and it took years to plan, but Gov. Christie wiped it out with a campaign of public deception,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in a statement. “The future of New Jersey’s commuters was sacrificed for the short term political needs of the Governor.”

At the moment, both Amtrak and New Jersey transit trains share a pair of 100 year old tracks under the Hudson River, which are operating at capacity. Demand for mass transit between New York and New Jersey is expected to increase by nearly 40 percent by 2030. But instead of financing this important project, Christie used it for his political advantage, and then turned around to throw money at a boondoggle of a mall project.

Since taking office in 2010, Gov. Chris Christie has approved a record $1.57 billion in state tax breaks for dozens of New Jersey’s largest companies after they pledged to add jobs…The critics pointed out that even when the promised jobs have not materialized, the Christie administration has merely reduced, not withdrawn, the subsidies. And they say that the administration is mortgaging the state’s future by forgiving so much tax revenue for the next 10 to 15 years.

One program Christie has run doled out $900 million in tax credits. The companies receiving that largesse “have promised to add 2,364 jobs, or $387,537 in tax credits per job, over the next decade.” In one instance, Campbell Soup was given $42 million to create jobs in Camden. When the company proceeded to cut 100 jobs, Christie merely slapped it on the wrist, reducing its tax credit to $34 million, with the stipulation that the company add five jobs per year over a decade after it regains its previous employment total. For those keeping score, that’s $34 million for 50 jobs.

As the Economic Policy Institute and the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center found, “a growing body of research suggests that state and local tax cuts and incentives cannot create jobs in a cost-effective manner.” Citizens for Tax Justice calls corporate tax incentives and business exemptions “deeply flawed as policy.”

Q: His, chris christie, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Recently you passed an anti-bullying law, which I really am appreciative for, because bullying should not be allowed in the state of New Jersey, so i really thank you for that. However, one of the main reasons why kids even do get bullied in school is whether or not they’re homosexual. And recently there has been a bill to allow gay rights in the state of New Jersey. Can you tell me what was your decision to veto the bill, because I heard that you had vetoed the bill.

CHRISTIE: I did veto a bill on gay marriage, not on gay rights. And gay rights are protected and protected aggressively in New Jersey. But listen, this is something I feel strongly about. I think marriage is between one man and one woman, but I also know that people have very different opinions about that in our state. So what I’ve said to folks after vetoing the bill, let’s put it on the ballot. If a majority of people in New Jersey want to have same-sex marriage, then vote for it and I’ll be governed by it. But I don’t think that’s a decision that should be made by 121 people in Trenton alone. It’s a major change in the way we’ve governed our society.

Watch it:

Since Christie vetoed the measure, support for marriage equality has increased in the state. Fifty-seven percent of residents siad they would approve of a same-sex marriage law, but 67 percent supported Christie’s idea to decide the issue through a referendum.

The Associated Press has issued a series of reports on NYPD’s secret surveillance of Muslims in New York and outside the state. In response, a coalition of New Jersey Muslim groups wrote to Christie to ask for a full investigation of the allegations. The New Jersey attorney general began an investigation and, at a previous town hall meeting, deferred judgement on civil liberties issues to the outcome of the inquiry.

But spending eight minutes of his Wednesday “Ask the Governor” radio show on the matter, Christie escalated his complaints about the NYPD’s conduct on the basis of jurisdictional issues. “My concern is this kind of obsession that the NYPD seems to have that they’re the masters of the universe,” he said, noting that he did not recall being informed of the spying at the time, when he was a federal prosecutor in the state. He went on to speculate about what caused the lapse in coordination:

CHRISTIE: I don’t know if it was born out of ignorance or paranoia.

HOST: But you think lives could have been at risk, because they refuse to share or be forthcoming.

CHRISTIE: They always can be. In terms of law enforcement lives when you got people stumbling over each other who are surveilling the same people. Also, because we know… that the basis of criticism after 9/11 was the refusal of rival law enforcement agencies to share information with each other.

Watch a clip of the Christie interview:

Christie also had harsh words for NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who, like New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, has refused to apologize for the surveillance or its scope outside New York. The host of “Ask the Governor” noted that Kelly had not apologized, prompting Christie to reply: “Of course! Because he’s Ray Kelly! What are you going to do? He’s all knowing, all seeing.” Kelly came under fire last month for appearing in a film by an Islamophobic group called the Clarion Fund, and, after dissembling about his role, apologized.

Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney Eric Holder said the Justice Department was reviewing the NYPD surveillance to determine if there were civil rights violations.

But the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart challenged Christie’s comparison, pointing out that Obama opposes state efforts to deny rights to gay and lesbian Americans and has ordered his Justice Department to stop defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act:

CAPEHART: Governor Christie, I heard you say that you have your feet firmly planted next to President Obama on this issue, but the key difference between you and the President is while you support putting the civil rights of a minority up for a public referendum, the President is certainly not in favor of that.

CHRISTIE: Has he said that, Jonathan? Jonathan, has he said that? I haven’t heard him say that…The President is silent on this like he’s silent on every issue that’s difficult for him. [...] Let’s have the President of the United States show some courage, come on this program, look into the camera like I’m looking into the camera, and state his position. He won’t because he wants to have it both ways. I’m not looking to have it both ways, I vetoed the bill. That’s my position. What I’ve offered to the supporters of same-sex marriage is if one of your reasons for why I should have voted signed it was because you’re telling me the majority of the people of New Jersey want it, then prove it. Put it on the ballot and prove it. At least I’m standing up for what I believe in. The President has hidden on this issue, Jonathan, he’s hidden on it….This is the type of cowardice that we don’t want.

Watch the entire exchange:

Capehart went on to defend the notion that marriage equality is a civil rights issue that should not be left to the whims of voters. Civil marriage is “an issue of equality, of equal treatment under the law,” he explained. “It’s an issue of whether — if I were to get married to my partner and we were to have children, that my children would have the same protections that your children have because you’re able to legally marry.” “In that regard, we’re talking overall a civil rights issue and what African Americans continue to struggle with is exactly what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are struggling with today.”

Gertrudis Ramirez holds his granddaughters Gisselle and Yarelis after Gisselle arrived from El Salvador to give her sister a bone marrow transplant. (Source: The Star-Ledger)

Gisselle and every member of Yarelis’ family were tested as possible donors when Yarelis was diagnosed with leukemia. Only Gisselle, who lived thousands of miles away, matched perfectly.

Without a transplant, the extremely acute form of leukemia is treated with three years of chemotherapy, [Dr. Alfred] Gillio said. The chance of survival is about 30 percent.

With a transplant, the chance of survival is 70 to 75 percent, he said.

The challenge was to get Gisselle to the United States. She lived with her maternal grandmother in Ilobasco, about 30 miles northeast of San Salvador. Her parents had left for the United States when she was a baby. Yarelis was born two years later in the United States, making her a U.S. citizen.

Family friends highlighted Yarelis’ plight to a local newspaper and Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) office. Menendez intervened and the American Friends Service Committee pressured the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau before ICE granted Gisselle “humanitarian parole” in December to come to the U.S. for the procedure.

“The government’s role is to ultimately protect its citizen. [...] In this instance, that happens to mean having this young girl get her sister here to give her a transplant is something we should be able to do,” Menendez said in November. And after ICE granted Gisselle “humanitarian parole,” Menendez said it was “shocking” that “common sense could not prevail over bureaucracy to help save a young child’s life.”

But Nancy Erika Smith, the friend who told Menendez’s office about the visa denials, said she remains angry at ICE officials for denying Gisselle’s visa in the first place. And she is right — it should not require the intervention of a U.S. senator for the immigration system to work in a humane way.

However, the middle class is likely to hardly notice Christie’s cut, as it would give just $80 annually to a households making $50,000. In fact, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective, President Deborah Howlett, 40 percent of the benefit of Christie’s tax cut will go to the state’s richest 1 percent:

The recession blew a $2.5 billion hole in the state budget that has never been filled. Now, the governor wants to dig that hole even deeper with an irresponsible gimmick that only benefits the wealthiest 1 percent.

Proposing an income tax cut might be good politics, but it’s bad policy for most New Jerseyans.

For most of us, the governor’s proposed income tax cut will amount to $2 a week, which will be quickly eaten up by rising property taxes. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent will reap nearly 40 percent of the savings.

The state’s tab for this tax cut will ultimately be $1.1 billion, and that money has to come from somewhere. While the governor seems to think it will come from his pie-in-the-sky revenue projections, it’s hard to imagine the state’s stagnant economy will turn around quite so quickly.

Already, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), New Jerseyans in the bottom 20 percent of earners pay 10.7 percent of their overall income in taxes, whole, those in the top 1 percent — with an average income of $2,258,300 — pay 7.2 percent. Christie’s income tax plan certainly won’t add any progressiveness to the code, though it will help those at the very bottom of the income scale via an increased Earned Income Tax Credit.

As Blue Jersey’s Bill Orr noted, tax collections in the Garden State are already off $325 million through the first six months of the current year, so “the governor is in no position to arbitrarily call for a self-inflicted wound through deliberately reducing the State’s income stream.” Christie’s tax cut will cost about $1.3 billion when it is fully phased in in four years.

(HT: Towleroad.)

He also predicted that if Republicans could “vote their conscience,” the legislature would have the votes to override Christie’s veto. Last week, the Assembly passed marriage equality in a vote of 42-33, falling 12 votes shy of a two-thirds majority. The Senate was three votes short in its vote. The legislature has until 2014 to build a majority for same-sex marriage. Watch Sweeney’s remarks:

The legislature now has two years or until January 2014 to try and override his veto. On Thursday, the Assembly passed the bill in a vote of 42-33, falling 12 votes short shy of a two-thirds majority. The Senate was three votes short in its vote on Monday.

Democrats would have to vote to approve Christie’s offer of an Ombudsman and Assembly Majority Louis Greenwald has released the following statement: “Thousands and thousands of New Jersey families are denied financial security, health security and fundamental equal rights every day because of a failed civil union experiment. And yet in spite of their second-class citizenship, the governor single-handedly – -through the stroke of his pen – seeks to codify discrimination against them…He has just violated his own oath of office. And in the end, he will answer to every New Jersey citizen for his actions.”

CHRISTIE: They’re gonna be nowhere near the votes to override in either chamber. And so hopefully we can move on from this issue. If they pass it on Thursday and send it to my desk, believe me I will take very swift action on the bill and then we can move on to the things the people of New Jersey say are most important to them, which is creating jobs, lowering taxes and continuing the New Jersey comeback and not the last month that we spent, which really is an act of theater on their part because they know it’s not going to happen.

Watch it:

The Senate voted 24-16 to advance the bill, three votes short of the 27 necessary to override such a veto. New Jersey already offers same-sex civil unions, but a commission found in 2008 that “the Civil Union Act invites and encourages unequal treatment of same-sex couples and their children.” Christie, who has previously said that he would like state residents to vote on the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples, has claimed that he is offering LGBT equality advocates the “bargain of your life.”