President Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were both in New Jersey yesterday. With Christie desperate to rejuvenate a moribund 2016 presidential campaign, Obama has become a convenient political foil, never mind that three years ago they forged an unlikely cross-party alliance to respond to Hurricane Sandy, reports the Washington Post. Even before Obama touched down in Newark to highlight his efforts to help ex-offenders reenter society and find jobs after prison, Christie was denouncing the president's appearance and appeared at a photo op in Camden to tout his own efforts to reduce crime and rehabilitate convicts. “It's great for the president to come and take credit for something he has nothing to do with,” Christie said, citing a statewide drop in crime of 20 percent. “He wants to take credit for someplace that's actually working, and, by the way, that's happened in a state where what they know is the governor stands behind law enforcement.”
Obama toured Integrity House, a halfway house and drug treatment center, and met with a former offender. He participated in a criminal justice roundtable at Rutgers University, where he announced small-scale executive actions to ease the process. Among them were new education grants for community-based programs to help ex-offenders and new guidelines to delay inquiries into the criminal histories of applicants for federal jobs. Meanwhile, on “Fox & Friends,” Christie referred to comments from FBI Director James Comey, who suggested a link between the heightened scrutiny of police tactics and a spike in homicides in some cities, saying he believes some law enforcement agencies fear being accused of using excessive force. Christie said he stands behind police departments, “unlike this president, who does not support law enforcement and whose own FBI director is now saying 'a chill wind is blowing through law enforcement' because of the rhetoric of this president and his friends.”