Gov. Chris Christie's office knew what was coming in GWB traffic controversy, emails

[boutons_deux]

Rush Limbaugh: If Christie was a true conservative, whether he lied 'wouldn't matter'

"It's just every Republican who has entered the fray defending Christie has to put a caveat out there 'if he's telling the truth.' Now, if there were a fervent ideological foundation, if there was a substantive reason of believing in Governor Christie, then whether he lied wouldn't matter. They'd be out there defending him left and right just to make sure the Democrats don't get away with this."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/15/1269863/-Rush-Limbaugh-If-Christie-was-a-true-conservative-whether-he-lied-wouldn-t-nbsp-matter?detail=email

[boutons_deux]

Christie Plummets 10 Points in Match-Up Against Hillary

While Chris Christie’s numbers have stayed held firm amidst recent controversies, the New Jersey governor has lost ground in a potential 2016 match-up against prospective Democratic contender Hillary Clinton. The latest NBC News/Marist poll shows Christie trailing Clinton by 13 points in a presidential contest. That’s a ten-point drop: Last month, Christie trailed the former secretary of state by just 3 percentage points in the same poll.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/15/1269918/-Christie-Plummets-10-Points-in-Match-Up-Against-Hillary?detail=email

[boutons_deux]

Rachel Maddow catches Chris Christie’s staff cheering on appointee who lied to lawmakers

Maddow played audio from the agency’s former deputy executive director, Bill Baroni, telling members of the state legislature in November that the Port Authority was monitoring the effects of the lane closures and that they did not impact emergency medical services in the area, even though do ents show Baroni had been notified at the time that this was not the case.

Shortly after testifying, Baroni was told via text message by another Port Authority appointee, David Wildstein, that deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly — who ordered Wildstein to orchestrate the closures — and another person, possibly Christie campaign finance chief Nicole Davidman Drewniak, “were VERY happy” with his performance.

“The do ents we have so far indicate that not just Governor Christie’s office, in the form of Bridget Kelly, applauded and said, ‘We’re really happy with that false testimony,’ even though Bridget Kelly was in a position to know it was false testimony while she was applauding,” Maddow said. “But now we also know that a person who appears to be a staffer from the governor’s re-election campaign, ‘Nicole,’ said the same thing.”

“As sprawling as this scandal and this investigation have become, [investigators] are much more tightly focused than we knew on the governor himself and his immediate staff,” Maddow said. “This is not a far-flung investigation into ‘how politics is done in New Jersey,’ which is some of the way it’s been covered in the national press. At least so far, from what we can tell about the scope of the investigation, this is about Chris Christie.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/1...e+Raw+Story%29

[Splits]

Dude is a gonner after this morning's Hoboken report: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mayor-chr...-money-hostage

Christie camp held Sandy relief money hostage, mayor alleges


01/18/14 08:30 AM—UPDATED 01/18/14 11:08 AM
By Steve Kornacki
Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with msnbc.


The mayor, Dawn Zimmer, hasn’t approved the project, but she did request $127 million in hurricane relief for her city of Hoboken – 80% of which was underwater after Sandy hit in October 2012. What she got was $142,000 to defray the cost of a single back-up generator plus an additional $200,000 in recovery grants.

[boutons_deux]

Attorney Says Christie Ally Has 'A Story To Tell' If Granted Immunity

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wildstein-story-to-tell-immunity?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm _campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

Hoboken Mayor: Christie Team Shook Us Down for Sandy Relief

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/hoboken-mayor-christie-team-shook-us-down-for-sandy-relief

[boutons_deux]

A long read, but fascinating in the complexity of NY/NJ/Port Authority/wealthy (financial) power plays, esp how Christie blocked the much needed ARC tunnel by lying about its costs to NJ so he could use PA funds for political schemes.

How Christie's Men Turned the Port Authority into a Political Piggy Bank

http://www.wnyc.org/story/how-christ...l-piggy-bank/#

=============

Report Disputes Christie’s Basis for Halting Tunnel

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey exaggerated when he declared that unforeseen costs to the state were forcing him to cancel the new train tunnel planned to relieve congested routes across the Hudson River, according to a long-awaited report by independent Congressional investigators.

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.

Canceling the tunnel, then the largest public works project in the nation, helped shape Mr. Christie’s profile as a rising Republican star, an enforcer of fiscal discipline in a country drunk on debt. But the report is likely to revive criticism that his decision, which he said was about “hard choices” in tough economic times, was more about avoiding the need to raise the state’s gasoline tax, which would have violated a campaign promise. The governor subsequently steered $4 billion earmarked for the tunnel to the state’s near-bankrupt transportation trust fund, traditionally financed by the gasoline tax.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/ny...anted=all&_r=0

So cancelling ARC is loved by conservatives who hate public works/government helping its citizens, hate debt, and hate raising (gasoline) taxes, while ARC cancellation screws NJ residents to plump up egregriously plump Christie's conservative cred.

[boutons_deux]

U.S. prosecutors interview Hoboken mayor over Christie allegations

The Democratic mayor of a town severely flooded by Superstorm Sandy said Sunday that she was told an ultimatum tying recovery funds to her support for a prime real estate project came directly from Republican Gov. Chris Christie, a claim a Christie spokesman called “categorically false.”

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said she met with federal prosecutors in Newark for several hours Sunday at their request and turned over a journal and other do ents.

“I will provide any requested information and testify under oath about the facts of what happened when the Lieutenant Governor came to Hoboken and told me that Sandy aid would be contingent on moving forward with a private development project,” she said in a statement Sunday night.

Earlier Sunday, Zimmer told CNN's “State of the Union with Candy Crowley” that the message pushing a commercial development by the New York-based Rockefeller Group was delivered by Kim Guadagno, Christie's lieutenant governor, when she and Guadagno were at an event in Hoboken in May to celebrate the opening of a new supermarket.

“The lieutenant governor pulled me aside and said, essentially, `You've got to move forward with the Rockefeller project. This project is really important to the governor.’ And she said that she had been with him on Friday night and that this was a direct message from the governor,” Zimmer recalled Guadagno saying.

Christie spokesman Colin Reed issued a statement Sunday saying, “Mayor Zimmer's categorization about her conversation in Hoboken is categorically false.”

On Saturday, Zimmer said Guadagno and a top community development official separately told her that recovery funds would flow to her city if she expedited the project.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-78965227/

Legs?

[boutons_deux]

For Christie and MSNBC, a Messy Divorce Plays Out in Public View

It was a match made in moderately minded Northeast Corridor heaven.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey needed a TV network that would burnish his bipartisan bona fides and showcase his gleefully contrarian style. MSNBC craved a Republican who cut against the party grain and lit up the screen with his everyman-ish, Springsteen-loving spontaneity.

An on-air romance blossomed, forged over chummy strolls along the Jersey Shore and heart-to-hearts in the studio about everything from overeating to education, embodying the aisle-crossing aspirations of this partisan era.

Now, the improbable relationship between a governor with his eyes on the White House and a network determined to break into the top tier, up to now so beneficial to both, has curdled in a spectacularly public fashion.

Mr. Christie is confronting the worst crisis of his career, stemming from his aides’ role in shutting down approach lanes to the George Washington Bridge. The governor’s predicament is a ratings bonanza for MSNBC, whose left-leaning viewers are eating up every development in the sordid scandal.

Over the weekend, Mr. Christie, who has appeared on MSNBC many times since taking office, angrily denounced it as a “partisan network” that is “almost gleeful in their efforts attacking” him. Christie aides have called it a “feeding frenzy.”

“There is a difference between treating this matter seriously and seeking out the truth and irresponsibly using hearsay and conjecture without confirming the facts,” Colin Reed, a spokesman for Mr. Christie, said on Sunday. Feelings are frayed on both sides. Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who makes no secret of her affection for Mr. Christie, seemed taken aback by the governor’s harsh critique.

“I was a little surprised when he took a jab at us,” she said in an interview on Sunday.

“I don’t think it’s legitimate to say this is a partisan attack,” she added. “I think this is a very real story, with legs.”

MSNBC executives and hosts said the tale of power, revenge and traffic had riveted its audience, and they made no apologies for their near-saturation coverage.

“There is an appe e to know what really happened.”

For the week of Jan. 6, when the story began to gain national attention, Rachel Maddow, who had pursued the story for more than a month, scored a rare weekly win, beating the perennial ratings leader Fox News among the coveted 25 to 54 viewer category.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/20...?from=homepage

[boutons_deux]

MAYORS BULLIED BY CHRISTIE FORM SUPPORT GROUP




NEWARK (The Borowitz Report)—A support group for mayors bullied by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie held its first meeting today at the Prudential Center arena, in Newark.

Organizers of the gathering pronounced themselves pleased with the turnout, as bullied officeholders from all over the state filled the eighteen-thousand-seat venue.

The support group was the brainchild of Carol Foyler, the bullied mayor of Sea Ridge, New Jersey.

“All of these mayors have their own painful stories to share,” Mayor Foyler said. “We wanted to give them a safe space to do that.”

The event was interrupted fifteen minutes in, however, when power to the Prudential Center was abruptly cut off, plunging the arena into darkness.

A spokesman from Gov. Christie’s office said that the sudden power outage was part of a routine electricity study.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...orowitz%20(19)

[Jacob1983]

Get over it. He won't be president so simma down now.

[SnakeBoy]

I couldn't care less about this non story but Christie lost any chance of having my support when he reviewed his weight loss options and opted for the lap band. That alone should disqualify him from the oval office.

[Jacob1983]

WTF? He had stomach surgery? Aren't you supposed to lose a considerable amount of weight when you have that done?

[SnakeBoy]

WTF? He had stomach surgery? Aren't you supposed to lose a considerable amount of weight when you have that done?

Lap bands generally don't give good results for someone his size. People that opt for a lap band only do so because they are reversible and they want to reserve the right to go back to stuffing their faces. Just shows indecisiveness and poor decision making imo. Dude needs gastric bypass.

[SnakeBoy]

.

[boutons_deux]

Get over it. He won't be president so simma down now.

Benghazi forever, but shutting down GWB is already over?

[boutons_deux]

Evidence Is Building to Support Hoboken Mayor’s Christie Sandy Aid Allegations

Murphy’s insight into the politics of the area, specifically the long charge the Rockefeller Group has been waging against the wishes of some of the town’s citizens, merits a close read. He also revealed that there may be more than a diary to back up Zimmer’s claims, as she says that another Christie appointee made the offer that Sandy Aid money would flow if she would move forward with the Rockefeller project while miked, with audio technicians able to hear. She recorded their conversation in her diary:

In a diary entry made the next day, May 17, Zimmer wrote that Constable (Richard Constable, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who worked in Chris Christie’s office when Christie was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, and who was subsequently named commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs) said, “I hear you are against the Rockefeller project.” The mayor said she was not. “Oh really?” Constable asked in reply. “Everyone in the State House believes you are against it – the buzz is that you are against it.”

According to Zimmer, he added: “If you move that forward, the money would start flowing to you.”

If you’re counting, that’s two people from the Christie administration who dangled the Sandy Aid as a reward for going along with the Rockerfeller development plans, according to the Hoboken Mayor.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/01/...iticus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

Fat Bas , Karl Rove's chosen horse for 2016, was made head of RGA to heighten (widen?) his profile. Now tea party asshole Cucci is calling for Fat Bas to resign from RGA.

[mouse]

A fat lying bag Republican is the giant wet dream that the Democrats just orgasm over so of course they're thrilled. I will again say why didn't this donut lover do this in private and off the record meaning that no information was sent on the phone or in emails? I mean this guy is the governor of one of the most populated states in America, did he really think like this would be kept hidden?

^ gets it!

[mouse]

Get over it. He won't be president so simma down now.

[boutons_deux]

Prosecutors Demand Do ents From Christie Campaign And NJ GOP

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey have demanded to see do ents from Gov. Chris Christie's (R) re-election campaign and the state Republican Party in the investigation into the bridge scandal.


Mark Sheridan, an attorney with the law firm of Patton Boggs, told TPM on Thursday he is representing both groups that were subpoenaed and they intend to comply with the subpoenas. According to Sheridan, the subpoenas "all relate to the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge" and are returnable Feb. 5.


Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, told TPM, "Our office can neither confirm nor deny any specific investigative actions." Sheridan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Christie's re-election campaign has also been subpoenaed by a committee in the state legislature that is investigating the closures and other "concerns about abuse of government power."

Do ents subpoenaed by the state Assembly committee last month indicating Christie's former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, may have been involved in the closures. Christie subsequently asked Stepien to remove his name from the running to be chair of the state Republican Party.

Some Democrats have alleged the closures were ordered by Christie's allies to retaliate against a mayor who declined to endorse him. On Saturday, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J. claimed Christie administration officials threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy aid from her city unless she approved a real estate project.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...+%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

To Roger Stone, Bridgegate ‘Cover-Up’ Is Another Watergate — And He Would Know

Very few Republican operatives knew the Nixon gang as intimately as Roger Stone, the legendary trickster whose back is adorned with an enormous Tricky tattoo. And very few know New Jersey politics as well as Stone, who toiled among the party faithful in many campaigns since 1980, when he first ran the Garden State for Ronald Reagan.

So when he suggests that “Bridgegate” is Watergate – from the imponderable stupidity of the original crime to the profound peril of the ongoing cover-up – attention should be paid. Especially on the day when the U.S. Attorney’s office investigating the Port Authority’s decision to close three lanes of traffic on the world’s busiest bridge issues subpoenas to the Christie campaign and the New Jersey Republican Party.

Speaking with The National Memo on Thursday afternoon, Stone said: “This is about hubris, this is about an arrogance and right out of the dark side of Nixon’s playbook. It’s what ultimately brought Nixon down. There was no reason to break into the Watergate, there was no reason to spy on your enemies. His foreign policy was popular, the economy was good, and he was getting re-elected. Just like there was no reason to close these lanes on the George Washington Bridge – although just like with the break-in of Watergate, we still don’t really know why they did that.” He doesn’t buy the theory that the Christie aides were punishing the mayor of Fort Lee for refusing to endorse the Republican governor — and thinks it more likely that they were trying to harm State Senator Loretta Weinberg, a determined Christie antagonist whose district includes Fort Lee.

To Stone, the governor’s explanations rang false from the beginning – and reminded him of the verbal traps Nixon set for himself. /usr/sbin/, took the initiative to close the bridge lanes.

“The mentality that existed around Nixon – that Teutonic, buttoned-down, we-give-you-orders, you-carry-them-out – that mentality exists inside this administration…It just doesn’t seem plausible to me that this Kelly woman, who seems perfectly pleasant, stepped up to her computer and said, ‘Time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.’ Someone told her to do that.” Stone says the dubious effort to blame her and a few others is the telltale sign of “a cover-up.”

Stone doesn’t know Kelly personally, but he has known David Wildstein, the Port Authority official who resigned after his role in the bridge closings was revealed, for 35 years. “He’s the G. Gordon Liddy of this tale,” he said, referring to the maniacal Watergate conspirator who secretly concocted plots to firebomb and even murder Nixon’s political adversaries. “He’s the 100 percent soldier, the kamikaze. This guy has thrown so many bombs I’m surprised he’s got hands left.”

( he has some comparisons, person by person, of Tricky 's bag staff and Fat Bas 's bag staff. )

http://www.nationalmemo.com/to-roger...he-would-know/

[boutons_deux]

Rachel Maddow: The ‘mammoth slush fund’ where Chris Christie’s friends found jobs

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow broke down the curious reversal of fortune for New Jersey Port Authority chair David Samson since the man who installed him in the position, Gov. Chris Christie (R), took office in 2010, and the intersection of his possible involvement in both the threats against the mayor of Hoboken and the lane closure scandal concerning the George Washington Bridge.

Maddow cited a WNYC-FM report pointing out that Samson’s law firm, Wolff and Samson, went from doing $40,000 worth of business a year to more than $1 million a year after being named to the Port Authority. ( only $40K? can't be right )
But the firm also represents the development group behind a development project in Hoboken that allegedly prompted Christie’s Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadano (R) to threaten Mayor Dawn Zimmer to expedite it or risk losing relief funds in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Samson appeared to be one of scores of Christie allies appointed to work at the Port Authority; a lawsuit filed by a former employee alleged that Christie’s administration installed 80 people at the agency, where the average salary exceeds $140,000.

Uncovering corruption there, Maddow said, “[is] not like busting up a card game on the corner. It’s like busting up Las Vegas. The Port Authority is rich, and it behaves like it.”

Richer, in fact, than the combined budgets of nine states — Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Delaware, New Mexico, Vermont, Mississippi, and Wyoming; the Port Authority’s budget runs about $7 billion a year.

Wildstein was in a position to do that, she stated, that was created specifically for him in May 2010, without a job description or even the need for a resume.

“There was nothing in his personnel file,” Maddow said. “But he did get the job. They did create it for him. Which, according to [investigators'] account, is slightly-above average for that mammoth slush fund — I mean, agency.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/2...e+Raw+Story%29

[mouse]

Bruce Springsteen & Jimmy Fallon

[mouse]

Rachel Maddow: The ‘mammoth slush fund’ where Chris Christie’s friends found jobs

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow broke down the curious reversal of fortune for New Jersey Port Authority chair David Samson since the man who installed him in the position, Gov. Chris Christie (R), took office in 2010, and the intersection of his possible involvement in both the threats against the mayor of Hoboken and the lane closure scandal concerning the George Washington Bridge.

Maddow cited a WNYC-FM report pointing out that Samson’s law firm, Wolff and Samson, went from doing $40,000 worth of business a year to more than $1 million a year after being named to the Port Authority. ( only $40K? can't be right )
But the firm also represents the development group behind a development project in Hoboken that allegedly prompted Christie’s Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadano (R) to threaten Mayor Dawn Zimmer to expedite it or risk losing relief funds in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Samson appeared to be one of scores of Christie allies appointed to work at the Port Authority; a lawsuit filed by a former employee alleged that Christie’s administration installed 80 people at the agency, where the average salary exceeds $140,000.

Uncovering corruption there, Maddow said, “[is] not like busting up a card game on the corner. It’s like busting up Las Vegas. The Port Authority is rich, and it behaves like it.”

Richer, in fact, than the combined budgets of nine states — Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Delaware, New Mexico, Vermont, Mississippi, and Wyoming; the Port Authority’s budget runs about $7 billion a year.

Wildstein was in a position to do that, she stated, that was created specifically for him in May 2010, without a job description or even the need for a resume.

“There was nothing in his personnel file,” Maddow said. “But he did get the job. They did create it for him. Which, according to [investigators'] account, is slightly-above average for that mammoth slush fund — I mean, agency.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/2...e+Raw+Story%29

/Thread