Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 908

Where Did the Missing 65 Cases of Pappy Van Winkle Whiskey Go?

Batches of the rarest whiskey evaporated into thin air this week. Kentucky police are investigating the mysterious, abrupt disappearance of 65 cases of Pappy Van Winkle whiskey, the rarest bourbon in all the land, from its distillery that was discovered this week.

Tuesday, Frankfurt County authorities announced an investigation, led by Sheriff Pat Melton into an estimated 195 bottles of 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, which retails for $130 a bottle, stolen from the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky over the last two months. (There's about three bottles to a case.) Another nine cases of the 13-year-old Pappy Van Winkle Rye, which retails for $69 a bottle, were missing too. In all, thieves made off with a haul worth over $26,000 at the liquor store. This morning, The New York Times' Trip Gabriel was on the case.

Authorities think it was inside job by some enterprising distillery employees. "I think it’s going to be a tough case to solve," Melton told the local newspaper. "You got about 50 employees that had access." Distillery employees wouldn't give up any information to the Times, either: "It’s the talk of the town," was all one unnamed employee would say. 

To booze aficionados, bartenders and bourbon hounds, Pappy Van Winkle's worth is unmeasurable. We've discussed Pappy at The Atlantic Wire before, because it's "the bourbon everyone wants but no one can get," as our dearly departed Jen Doll put it. Normally fall is when Pappy purists finally get to put back a few shots of their favorite rarely bottled booze: about 7,000 bottles are shipped to liquor stores across the country around this time of year. Bottles fly off shelves; Pappy sells out in an instant. 

This year, thanks to the heist, at least one percent of supply is already gone, and demand could not be higher. "We have people with literally billions of dollars who can’t find a bottle," said Julian Proctor Van Winkle III, the current head of the Wan Winkle family dynasty, describing the market for his family's prized booze blend in a July profile in Louisville Magazine. "They could buy a private jet in cash. They’d have an easier time buying our company." Shots can cost as much as $65 if you can find a bar with stock they're willing to sell. A single bottle of 20-year-old recently sold for more than $1,000 at auction. The bourbon is so in demand the head of the distillery can't even get a drop, as the Times' Gabriel found: 

Even the chief executive of Buffalo Trace, Mark Brown, is out of luck. “I was in a steakhouse in Louisville Monday night which had three bottles of the 23-year-old locked in a display cabinet,” he said. “I had guests who were dying to try it, but they wouldn’t sell me any. They said, ‘No, this is just part of our stash.’ ”

But, hey, maybe your friend really does know a guy who procured a bottle of 20-year-old Pappy last week. Just don't ask where it came from. 

 

       

Goodbye 'Ironside' and 'Welcome to the Family'

Today in show business news: NBC cancels two new shows, CBS orders full seasons of three new shows, and Fox goes all in with one.

NBC announced today that is has canceled two of its low-rated new shows, putting two big holes in its lineup. Gone from Wednesday night will be Ironside, the procedural reboot starring Blair Underwood as a wheelchair-bound detective. And the Mike O'Malley sitcom Welcome to the Family, about two sets of parents getting to know one another after their teenage kids announce an unplanned pregnancy, has been pulled, another sign of doom for NBC's once-respectable Thursday night programming bloc. The network is pretty much in shambles right now, with none of their new shows performing well and older series like Parks & Recreation bringing in diminishing returns. How long until The Voice is just on every night? [Entertainment Weekly]

As has been the case for many years now, things are looking decidedly rosier over at CBS. They just ordered full seasons of three new sitcoms, We're the Millers, The Crazy Ones, and Mom. Interestingly, all three shows are about wacky parents and their exasperated adult children. None are terribly good, though Mom has shown some glimmers of promise. This isn't really surprising news coming from CBS, which tends to give its new shows at least a full season before canceling anything. (Well, unless you're Made in Jersey.) Congrats, all! [Deadline]

At Fox, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has just gotten a full-season pickup. That'll mean a 22-episode season for the affably low-key show, which stars Andy Samberg as a wise-crackin' cop. The show has performed decently in the ratings, the hope likely being that word-of-mouth will help bring it closer to the level of New Girl as the season goes on. Will it be hurt by the baseball blackout though? We've seen that happen before. Clearly Fox isn't terribly worried. This is good news in a pretty bad-news TV season. [Vulture]

On the big screen, the deeply flawed WikiLeaks movie The Fifth Estate is tracking terribly at the box office. Current estimates have it not even clearing the $4 million mark in North America this weekend. Even the power of Benedict Cumberbatch mania can't conquer Americans' lack of interest in WikiLeaks or its enigmatic founder Julian Assange. (Whom Benedict plays beautifully in an otherwise dreary film.) And all the bad reviews certainly don't help. Oh well. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Finally, another adult. After two kids were cast in Jurassic Park 4: Isla Nublar Drift, we get word that Josh Brolin is circling a role in the film. Hopefully he'll be playing a Pachycephalosaurus. Couldn't you kind of see that? No? [Deadline]

Haley Joel Osment just booked two movies! They're little indie things, but still! He's working again! Maybe he'll beat the child actor curse. That'd be a nice end to that story. [Deadline]

       

Could Immigration Reform Still Happen?

Immigration reform is President Obama's number one priority right now — he said on Thursday that he wants action "this year." But after the government shutdown, it's Republicans' number one priority to block what Obama wants. Most are calling reform "dead," claiming that there's no way the House will pass Obama-friendly legislation before the 2014 election. 

Republican Rep. Aaron Schock certainly doesn't plan to. He told Talking Points Memo Friday:

"I know the president has said, well, gee, now this is the time to talk about immigration reform. He ain't gonna get a willing partner in the House until he actually gets serious about ... his plan to deal with the debt."

The likelihood of House Speaker John Boehner passing immigration reform with Democratic support in the house does seem slim. If he were to move on Senate proposals, he'd have to break the Hastert Rule to allow a vote without a majority of Republicans' support. As TPM points out, Boehner's only done this when there would be "dire economic or political consequences if Boehner didn't permit a vote." Immigration reform doesn't fall into that category.

But as The Washington Examiner's Byron York points out, immigration reform activists still have some hope, in the form of money. "There is no money on the other side of the issue," Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth noted at a recent Congressional Hispanic Conference meeting. Pro-reformers (like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) have poured millions into the cause. "There is nobody out there ready to spend $100 million against this." 

Greg Sargent at The Washington Post thinks one act in particular could pass the House: the KIDS Act. This proposal, which Boehner supports and Majority Leader Eric Cantor plans to introduce. The bill provides a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought into the country as children. Democrats are prepared to accept the bill if Republicans agree to go to conference negotiations. 

Boehner said of the bill in July, "This is about basic fairness. These children were brought here of no accord of their own. Frankly, they’re in a very difficult position and I think many of our members believe that this issue needs to be addressed." But unfortunately, many of them don't.

Rep. Raul Labrador said on the eve of the shutdown, "I don't see how [Obama] would in good faith negotiate with us on immigration reform."

       

Apple Can Read Your Encrypted iMessages (But Probably Won't)

Remember when Apple said it couldn’t read your iMessages? It turns out that isn’t necessarily true.

Apple, it appears, could potentially read texts sent via its iMessaging service, according to a presentation given by security researchers at Quarkslab on Thursday (Oct. 17) titled “How Apple Can Read Your iMessages and How You Can Prevent It.” While iMessages, as Apple has rightfully claimed, are encrypted and therefore difficult to read, they aren’t as impossible to read as Apple’s claims might strictly suggest. (IMessage is an instant messaging service developed by Apple that allows iPhone, iPad and iPod and Mac users to send messages back and forth over the internet.)

This is what the company said back in June:

Conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data.

The claim is essentially that while Apple can see who is sending a message, and to whom that message is being sent, it cannot see what the message contains. The researchers, however, came to a rather different conclusion:

Apple’s claim that they can’t read end-to-end encrypted iMessage is definitely not true. As everyone suspected: yes they can!

The catch, according to researchers, has to do with encryption keys used by Apple’s iMessaging service. When a user decides to send an iMessage to someone, the recipient’s key is fetched from Apple’s servers so that the recipient can see the message, rather than a codified encryption of it. Apple, however, can not only change a key at any time, but also, presumably, switch or include other keys without a sender or receiver knowing, say the researchers. “The weakness is in the [encryption] key infrastructure as it is controlled by Apple: they can change a key anytime they want, thus read the content of our iMessages,” they said. We actually noted the possibility of this back in June.

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But just because Apple could potentially read iMessages doesn’t mean the company is actually actively doing so. Apple claims it isn’t, and there’s no evidence to suggest it is at present. Apple’s iMessage system has roughly 300 million users worldwide. Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. “The research discussed theoretical vulnerabilities that would require Apple to re-engineer the iMessage system to exploit it, and Apple has no plans or intentions to do so,” the company told AllThingsD.

As we’ve all learned over the past year, any claim that privacy is absolute and surveillance is limited is likely to have an exception.

Apple: We're not reading your iMessages. allthingsd.com/20131018/apple… But what if govt issues secret order? You'll never know.—
Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) October 18, 2013

Top photo by igor.stevanovic via Shutterstock.

       

Long Island Man Arrested for Trying to Help Al-Qaeda in Yemen

Federal agents and local police arrested Marcos Alonso Zea, a Long Island resident and American citizen, for allegedly trying to aid al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. "Ali" Zea, as he is known, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, attempting to provide material support to terrorists, and other charges.

Authorities had been on Zea's trail since at least 2011, when he attempted to fly to Yemen to join al-Qaeda's efforts and wage "violent jihad," according to prosecutors. He flew from New York to London, where he was then stopped and sent back to the U.S. by British customs agents. Undeterred by that failure, Zea then allegedly began monetarily helping another Long Island-based al-Qaeda-supporter, Justin Kaliebe, in his efforts to fly to Yemen. Kaliebe didn't get as far than Zea; he was captured by federal agents in January, attempting to board a flight while still in New York.

The son of Guatemalan immigrants, Zea was born an American citizen and converted to Islam around 2009. Zea's mother, a Catholic, said that she had noticed surveillance on her family since Kaliebe's January arrest, and Zea's father said it had become oppressive. "About the only place they haven't followed us is into the bathroom," he said.

That surveillance turned up a wide range of evidence against Zea, prosecutors said, after they seized Zea's computers and found copies of al-Qaeda's "Inspire" online magazine. Prosecutors said Zea had directed an associate to erase the hard drive on his computer and two other hard drives, which U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch described as "a desperate effort to cover his tracks." Undercover NYPD officers also recorded conversations with Zea to as evidence against him.

Zea's co-conspirator, Kaliebe, faces up to 30 years in jail at his sentencing in December.

(Photo of Zea: Handout via Newsday)

       

It Is Important to Update Your Security Software, Especially if You're the NSA

When Edward Snowden arrived for his contracting position at the NSA's facility in Hawaii, the agency was one of only a few in the government that hadn't yet upgraded its internal security to spot leakers. Oops.

Reuters reports on this particularly unfortunate bit of technical oversight.

The main reason the software had not been installed at the NSA's Hawaii facility by the time Snowden took up his assignment there was that it had insufficient bandwidth to comfortably install it and ensure its effective operation, according to one of the officials.

It's not entirely clear what that means. One possibility: the process of tracking and analyzing internal network activity at the facility would have decreased overall network speeds. Which is somewhat surprising, given the NSA's obvious ability to track and analyze activity on the networks of others.

The software was introduced in the wake of a 2010 task force, part of the Obama administration's unprecedented push to block and expose leaks. The software set was designed to "detect unusual behavior" on internal networks that held classified content, in part to prevent the leaks like the one initiated by Army Private Chelsea Manning. As BuzzFeed reported earlier this month, the State Department system of which Manning took advantage to collect classified cables has itself not yet been upgraded — years after the Manning leak. An NSA spokesperson promised Reuters that her agency felt more urgency: "She said the agency has had to speed up its efforts to tighten security in the wake of Snowden's disclosures."

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Snowden had been sniffing around networks at the CIA when he was employed there in 2009. (The agency later denied the report.) But it raises the question: Could upgraded system software have helped prevent the Snowden leaks? Perhaps. And perhaps not.

Photo: NSA head Keith Alexander shrugs. (AP)

       

The Season of the Movie Star

If this fall Oscar season tells us anything, it's that Hollywood loves its good old fashioned movie stars. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

In an essay today on Vulture, Nick Schager argues that the buzz around Robert Redford's performance in the new film All Is Lost reveals that Hollywood doesn't have much respect for its movie stars. You see, Redford—despite his storied career—has never won an Oscar for acting. (He has won for directing and for lifetime achievement.) "The reason Hollywood frequently finds itself in these remedial situations is that it takes its movie stars for granted," Schager writes. "Not in terms of box office, naturally — regardless of recent talk about a dawning post-movie-star age, there’s little the industry adores more than A-listers capable of carrying franchises both domestically and internationally. But in terms of the work and skill that goes into being a movie star, Hollywood too often sees little artistic merit."

But this entire season would seem to disprove that. It looks like banner year for movie stars, and we don't mean Daniel Day-Lewis type, respected thesps. We mean can-open-a-movie, respected-but-tabloid-stalked, America's-sweetheart-type movie stars. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock hold down Gravity, and Clooney's back later in the year with the self-directed Monuments Men. Tom Hanks stars in both Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks. Julia Roberts is in August: Osage County. Redford carries All Is Lost all by himself. While all, undoubtedly, doing fine acting work, all of these performances are buoyed by the fact that these actors have the glittery, bombastic presence of movie stars. Their history cannot be ignored. What also cannot be ignored is that, save for Redford, all of these people have won Oscars and there's a good chance they might be nominated again. 

That's not to say there isn't any truth Schager's argument. We often hear of instances of the Academy forgetting about an actor or actress until the end of his or her career. But that discrepancy may just have to do with the fact that the Oscars can be a fairly arbitrary measuring tool, and that for some reason it was never Redford's year, even though he made a plethora of well-respected "adult dramas," like the Clooneys and Robertses and Hankses of the world. Redford's career looks something like that of Leonardo DiCaprio, an actor who hasn't won, but may also be in the running for something this year if The Wolf of Wall Street comes out in time. 

Of course, this might be a moot point in the future, as this week there's yet another piece declaring that we don't have a new generation of mega stars.  In Variety, Ramin Setoodeh bemoans the lack of young male stars in the wake of the Fifty Shades of Grey casting crisis that erupted after Charlie Hunnam dropped out. (We should mention that no one is worried about the state of young female movie stars with Jennifer Lawrence holding down the fort, even though the actress category has a wealth of problems too.) "Hollywood is a now a town with angst-ridden actors jittery about their own fame," Setoodeh writes. "A big part of this change comes from the new reality of stardom, if such a thing even exists anymore. In the era of TMZ, celebrity is a bad word, and the instantaneous news cycle has led to high burnout." Now these, ultimately, are two very different things. No one who stars in Fifty Shades of Grey could take the lead away from, say, Redford or Hanks in their movies out this year. But Redford and Hanks were stars even when they were young. Redford, in his hunky hunky youth, could have maybe even been in line for the Christian Grey role.

If, anything, this year seems to prove that Hollywood  is holding on tightly to its old generation movie stars, who may ultimately take awards and attention away from lauded (relative) newcomers. The business seems to love its tried and true heroes so much that it hasn't had time to develop new ones or shelter them from the cruel outside world of the gossip vultures. Or maybe we're just nostalgic. 

       

Watch 'Reign' Before It Goes Away

Judging by the ratings, it's safe to assume that not a lot of you watched the premiere of The CW's new bodice-rippin' courtly intrigue drama Reign last night. Which is a shame! Because you know what? It's actually kinda good.

Well, OK, "good" is a pretty relative term. The show is about Mary, Queen of Scots, but don't expect something on the level of, say, Elizabeth or, uh, Elizabeth I. This is more in line with The Other Boleyn Girl. With a dash of A Knight's Tale. Meaning it's full of silly anachronisms and everyone's young and sexy and nothing is remotely believable. But! There's something undeniably sprightly and entertaining in all that absurdity. Why not have a Teen Tudors? What a grandly ridiculous idea.

The show starts with a teenage Mary as she is taken from hiding in a convent back to the French court where she spent her childhood. You see, she is betrothed to the dauphin, their intended wedding creating a powerful union between Scotland and France. The prince is, of course, now all grown up and a handsome, dashing ladies man. And of course there is the requisite "My how you've grown" blushy banter when lord and lady first see each other again. And, as is required, the prince also has a dark and handsome bastard brother, with whom young Mary has some sort of attraction/connection. Then there's the conniving queen (older women, amirite?) and her trusty vizier, sexy Nostradamus. Yes, here Nostradamus is young and handsome and broodingly does the bidding of the queen. He seems to have actual (and accurate) visions, so I guess there's a bit of magic involved in the show. Mary's ladies in waiting also have their own bits of drama, one of which ended in a beheading last night. (Not hers.) It's all a pleasantly soapy soup of lust and ambition and all that other good stuff.

And it looks great! The production values are remarkably good considering this is The CW, with special attention paid to the costumes. The dresses are essentially modern tweaks of the garments of the time, with more revealing lines than I think was customary back then. And the hair is all sultry tousle, the girls looking like Lana del Rey in a windstorm while the guys are scruffy and bedroom-eyed. The aesthetics are expertly done, and a few scenes even ached with an elegant beauty that I didn't think The CW capable of. The writing is also sharper, more assured, than you might expect. I even detected a hint of giddy self-awareness, as if the writers were having a wonderful time writing something so cleverly silly. I also got a whiff of parody; at times the show seemed to be riffing on the stiff conventions of shows like The Tudors and even Game of Thrones. That may be overreaching on my part, but it's possible the show is being ever so slightly subversive.

So it's a bummer that the show opened with such soft numbers. I urge you to check it out this weekend on demand or online or wherever it is and try to see past the immediate absurdity and enjoy the show's slyly charming style and swoony good looks. This isn't Shakespeare, but it's admirably not trying to be.

       

Look Who's Warring Now: A Map of GOP Fights, Post-Shutdown Edition

The Atlantic Wire has created three maps of conservative feuds. (Previously: 1, 2.) Each successive feud map has featured more fighters in more intense fights. In this edition: a sprawling conflict between the Tea Party and the GOP establishment, all swirling around Ted Cruz.

Cruz is like a Tea Party virus that finally penetrated the Washington establishment. In ten months, he gave Republicans a shutdown they didn't want, ruined their debt limit strategy, cratered their poll numbers, and raised more than $1 million for his own campaign. As has been extensively noted, many Republicans are not happy about this state of affairs. Neither are big business donors.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party types are not happy with how the establishment has responded to the Cruz situation. Erick Erickson, editor of the conservative blog RedState and influential among the defender caucus, said on Friday that he's donating money to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Erickson summed up the problem facing the GOP quite nicely: "I do not expect to have to win every one of the races, but then the brilliance of this effort is that the establishment must win them all and we don’t have to."

So here's the battlefield, the rebellious insurgents of the Tea Party (and their enablers) pushing across the dividing line with the institutional Republican establishment (and their enablers).

 

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And here are all of the skirmishes, explained.

Shutdown fight

House Speaker John Boehner did not want to shutdown the government over Obamacare. But utah Sen. Mike Lee and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz forced it to happen, with pressure from conservative groups like Heritage Action. Many GOP members of Congress warned this was a terrible idea, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who essentially said I told you so on Thursday. In future fights, "A government shutdown is off the table," he said. But he did not specifically single out Cruz. "I don’t have any observations to make on that."

Lots of other Republican senators, did, however. They include: Tennessee's Bob Corker, North Carolina's Richard Burr, Utah's Orrin Hatch, Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, Arizona's John McCain. Not to mention: New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte, Arkansas' John Boozman, Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, and Indiana's Dan Coats. Ayotte reportedly started a "lynch mob" against Cruz at a meeting of senators when she demanded he renounce a Senate Conservatives Fund letter attacked those who didn't support the defunding effort. We can't bold other senators' names names, because they remain anonymous. But a Republican senator told Cruz, "The president gets up every day and reads the newspaper and thanks God that Ted Cruz is in the United States Senate."

Of course, the Senate didn't hog all the fun during the shutdown fight.

Battles in the House

California's Devin Nunes came up with one of the more evocative turns-of-phrase during the shutdown, referring to his pro-defunding, pro-fight colleagues as "lemmings with suicide vests." Included in that group are the Tea Party go-tos: Minnesota's Michele Bachmann, Iowa's Steve King, Texas' Louis Gohmert. Pushing the lemmings from the rear were conservatives from off of Capitol Hill. Sarah Palin and Erick Erickson both cheered on the caucus from the web as FreedomWorks organized the grassroots, largely by fundraising from them.

The cost of the Washington bad deal this week: $1 Trillion in debt. The value of exposing Republican collaborators: Priceless

— Cong. Tim Huelskamp (@CongHuelskamp) October 18, 2013

Gohmert had his own side battle. Gohmert told the Value Voters Summit that Sen. John McCain befriended members of Al Qaeda in Syria. McCain dismissed the attack by saying that "if someone has no intelligence, I don’t view it as being a malicious statement." And then Gohmert responded back, suggesting (weirdly) that McCain would be better off with no intelligence. Gohmert wasn't the only one taking on McCain: failed presidential candidate Donald Trump dissed the senator earlier this month.

The Vitter brawl

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter proposed eliminating the subsidies lawmakers and their staffers get for health insurance as part of a government funding bill. For the relatively low-paid Capitol Hill staff, it would have been a big pay cut. Ted Cruz backed it. But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander all publicly criticized it. While House Speaker John Boehner supported it publicly, he'd worked behind the scenes to block it.

Looking forward to 2016 — and back to 2000

The Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed Matt Bevin, who's challenging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell  in the Republican Senate primary in Kentucky next year. SCF, which circulated a pro-defunding flyer that enraged New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, also endorsed Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who is running against Sen. Thad Cochran. The Club for Growth endorsed McDaniel, too. RedState editor Erick Erickson endorsed both these primary challenges, promising to donate money to each.

Liz Cheney has fashioned herself as the outsider daughter of a former vice president in her primary challenge against Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi. Naturally, Cheney said in a September interview, "There are a number of the younger senators I have been impressed with. Ted [Cruz] is one of them, Mike Lee is another one." But Enzi, too, is keeping himself close to Cruz, signing the letter calling for the defund-or-shutdown strategy. (That's why his icon has a dotted border — and why he's straddling the dividing line between the two sides.)

Other Bush-era Republicans have spoken up in the shutdown recriminations. "Barack Obama set the trap. Some congressional Republicans walked into it," Karl Rove wrote of the shutdown disaster this week. When asked what John Boehner and Mitch McConnell should do about the Ted Cruz types, former Senate majority leader Trent Lott said, "You roll them... I do think we need stronger leadership, and there’s got to be some pushback on these guys who think they came here with all the solutions." But former House Majority Leader Tom Delay defended Cruz, saying, "I got to tell you right now, out here in the real world, outside of New York and Washington, D.C., these people think Ted Cruz is a hero."

All above images by Associated Press except: photo of Erick Erickson by Gage Skidmore and photo of a lemming by Elías Gómez via Flickr, and image of Devin Nunes by CNN via YouTube.

       

Gay Marriage Begins in New Jersey on Monday

New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled that the state must allow gay marriages to begin on Monday, even as governor Chris Christie prepares an appeal to a recent case clearing the way for same-sex marriage in the state. In response to the order, Christie issued a statement saying his office would, albeit unhappily, comply. That means, provisionally, that New Jersey is the 14th state to allow gay marriages. 

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"The state has advanced a number of arguments, but none of them overcome this reality: Same-sex couples who cannot marry are not treated equally under the law today," said Chief Justice Stuart Rabner's opinion. "The public interest does not favor a stay," he added. Read the full opinion here.

Newark mayor and Senator-elect Cory Booker confirmed on Twitter later Friday that he would marry couples at Newark City Hall on Monday: 

Thanks to today's ruling on Marriage Equality: On Monday at 12:01 AM I'll be marrying both straight & gay couples in City Hall #JerseyStrong

— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) October 18, 2013

This is just the latest in a series of incremental rulings in New Jersey's progress towards gay marriage. And that progress could also be temporary: those rights are still pending the decision of the state Supreme Court, expected after Christie's administration mounts an appeal against a lower court's ruling in favor of same-sex couples earlier this year. That ruling ordered the state to start allowing gay marriages on Monday, October 21st, after agreeing that the state's civil unions do not provide equal benefits to gay couples in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on the Defense of Marriage act. That decision opened up federal benefits to legally-married gay couples, but not to those in a civil union. Christie, who personally opposes gay marriage and believes the matter should be decided by referendum, wanted a stay on that decision while his administration worked on an appeal to the state Supreme Court. Two weeks ago, that stay was denied by the lower court. The Supreme Court agreed with that denial today. 

The court won't make a final ruling on the issue until some time next year.