National Geographic

The wingnut fallout from this will be delicious.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has reimbursed the state for his helicopter ride to his son's baseball game.

The unapologetic governor on Thursday reimbursed the state $2,100 himself and $1,200 from the state Republican Party to cover the cost of two helicopter flights to see his oldest son, Andrew, star in two baseball tournament games. “Afterwards, he said to me, ‘Dad, thanks for coming,” Christie recalled at a news conference in Denville. Democrats had a less heart-warming response when learning of Christie’s use of a month-old, $12.5 million state police helicopter to shuttle him from the Statehouse to the ballpark. They have called for hearings to look into the governor’s personal use of the perk and called Christie a hypocrite for wasteful spending.

This is how New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the fiscal hero to conservatives, attends his son's baseball games.

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.

Despite a media outcry, today Christie's spokesman defended the helicopter trip as "appropriate" and said the governor would not be reimbursing the state for its cost.

He waited until the very last minute, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie this morning signed what is being hailed as the nation's most comprehensive anti-bullying legislation. Garden State Equality exults:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today signed the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, which enacts a new paradigm in America to counter school bullying and provides a template for anti-bullying laws in other U.S. states. The bill passed both houses of the New Jersey legislature on November 22, 2010 – by 73 to 1 in the Assembly and 30 to 0 in the Senate. Though New Jersey and 44 other states have had anti-bullying laws, experts say those laws have been based on a vague, loophole-riddled model that gives vast discretion to local school districts to do whatever they want or don’t want, and have lacked teeth to work in the real world. The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights corrects that problem with a sweeping overhaul of New Jersey's current anti-bullying law, enacted in 2002.

“We are grateful to the prime sponsors, Assemblywomen Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Mary Pat Angelini, and Senators Barbara Buono, Diane Allen and Loretta Weinberg, for their leadership that brought Democrats and Republicans together rapidly,” said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality. The overwhelmingly bipartisan support for this landmark legislation will give impetus to other states across America, whether they are blue or red, to adopt anti-bullying laws just like ours. The era of vagueness and loopholes in anti-bullying laws is over, and hope for our children has begun.”

The complete text of the law is here.