Murphy’s fine dining and #FakeStormWarnings

How much of an out-of-touch, rich elitist do you have to be to dine on exquisite food at a high-end restaurant during a weather emergency that literally shut the state down?

You gotta be #MurphyRich.

Last Thursday, a crippling storm kept people stuck on New Jersey roadways for hours. We heard stories of special needs kids being stuck on buses for six hours, commuters being stranded on highways for 10 or more hours, complete gridlock on exit ramps and in local towns.

All because the snow removal and road treatment crews were simply not deployed until after the storm was well under way. Then it was too late.

Where was Gov. Phil Murphy during the emergency? At Emergency Management HQ? In his office? With first-responders? Nope, nope and nope. He was dining with his wife Tammy at a fancy restaurant - close to his massive estate  -in Red Bank.

Restaurant Nicholas offers a smart selection of some of the world's finest foods. Fois gras, suckling pig, butter-poached lobster (although ya gotta put up and extra $15 on top of the prix fixe cost of $75 per person for that). Isn't that nice. You were stuck on NJ Transit, on the Parkway, Turnpike, 287, 78, 80, Route 1, 206, etc ... and he was dining in a romantic, quiet setting relaxed and seemingly not bothered by the chaos going on around him.

Now to be fair, if he had done his job and ordered the deployment of the emergency response and things were in good hands on the ground, I wouldn't begrudge him the meal. Optics still not so good, but you still have to eat, and with his money, it may as well be fancy. But he didn't act. He didn't lead. He didn't do anything to help the state prepare for a storm that was forecast to be bad at least three days out. As a result, total gridlock. You would've thought we got three feet of snow without warning.

Then he started blaming. Blamed the forecasters, blamed climate change, blamed everything except his own failure to act. Apparently you build up and appetite playing the blame game.

As if dining in a fancy restaurant, close to home while first-responders fought their way through weather and blocked streets and commuters took double-digit hours to get home wasn't bad enough ... he made it worse.

On Sunday he called a press conference to reassure everyone that first, Thursday's debacle wasn't his fault, and second, he would be ready for the next storm. Apparently even if is wasn't really a storm. He talked about "two clipper systems" that could impact the Garden State Monday and Tuesday. Snow plows were deployed, roads brined, salt trucks loaded ... all at the ready. Problem? Neither system would impact NJ ... ok, ok, there were some flurries in North Jersey.

And the worst part of this fake storm prep was that it simply won't stop! Even Tuesday morning, commuters were tweeting us pics of the temps -- well above 40 -- and the DOT road signs warning of Winter Weather. What? Just how stupid does Murphy think we are? He literally missed the real storm and then spent millions mobilizing the snow removal response team for a fake storm.

When you think about voting or not voting in 2021, think about the warm, comfortable atmosphere and the exquisite meal that the governor thought he deserved after ignoring a real storm and leaving you stranded. Then think about a man willing to spend your money to brine the roads and call out the plows with the temps in the 40s and not a snowflake in sight. That's your governor. And he's governor because 3.5 million New Jerseyans didn't vote in 2017. #FirePhil #FixNJ

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