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

[boutons_deux]

after explaining his plan to manage the growth of en lements, the New Jersey governor said he knows that Social Security is a “third rail of American politics,” but that's why he's meddling with it.

“I just grabbed it and hugged it, everybody, because that’s what leadership is.”

Every Republican candidate has a strong suit he thinks will get him to the presidency.

Sen. Marco Rubio says he represents the future,

Sen. Ted Cruz says he’s the purest conservative,

Sen. Rand Paul is Mr. Liberty, former Gov.

Rick Perry is running on his Texas record, and

former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is positioning himself to be the general election candidate.

Christie’s route to relevance will be based on the show he puts on for voters.

“I didn't run for governor of New Jersey to be elected prom king,” said Christie in New Hampshire last month.

“I’m not looking to be the most popular guy in the world. I’m looking to be the most respected one.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/chris_christie_is_trying_to_woo_voters_with_blunt_ talk_the_new_jersey_governor.html

Tough talk from a big sack of grease.

[boutons_deux]

New Jersey Faces a Transportation Funding Crisis, With No Clear Solution


Bridges across the state are falling apart. Roads are rife with potholes. Frustrated New Jersey Transit riders are facing another fare increase.

As many commuters bemoan the mounting delays and disruptions, state officials say New Jersey is confronting a transportation funding crisis with no easy way out. Voters are so fed up, support is growing for a revenue option long viewed as politically untenable: raising the state’s gas tax, which is the second lowest in the country.

Whatever happens with the gas tax, many New Jerseyans soon will be paying more to get to work.

New Jersey Transit has proposed raising fares by about 9 percent for its 915,000 daily riders, and an increase of some amount is all but certain.

Federal and state subsidies as a share of the agency’s annual budget have been falling, and that has left it increasingly reliant on fares to cover costs, even as many passengers say service is slipping.


Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, has said little in recent months about roads and transit even as his own transportation commissioner, Jamie Fox, has forcefully called for revenue for the state’s depleted transportation trust fund. Despite the governor’s relative silence, the troubles of the state’s transportation agencies have emerged as a grinding issue for him, including the scandal involving his appointees to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the growing backlash over his decision to halt construction of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

Officials across the country are wrestling with how to pay for big transportation projects in an era of less federal funding. Nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in the transit-dependent Northeast.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/ny...er=rss&emc=rss

"Less federal funding" in an era since 2010 of Repug control of the House purse strings.

Repugs America, as dictated by Kock Bros/VRWC/ALEX/etc.

[MultiTroll]

Chris Christie Wows Roast Crowd With Expletive-Filled Media Rant

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) gave a speech on Wednesday full of vulgarities directed at reporters over the George Washington Bridge scandal, New Jersey's finances, and his travel history.

"We don't give a about this or any of you," Christie told a crowd of 350 people at the Hamilton banquet hall on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg Politics.

The event was an annual event in New Jersey which features a roast of the sitting New Jersey governor. Elected officials, journalists, and lobbyists attend the event.

The New Jersey governor said one journalist should "open your eyes" and "clean the out of your ears."

"This is a guy who says he doesn't know what I'm doing every day," Christie said of another journalist according to the Bloomberg report.

"Then just get the away from me if you don't know what I'm doing."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...ar-journalists

Will this alone sink fat phuk?
Or are these times a changin?

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Will this alone sink fat phuk?

won't sink, fat floats.

Christie doesn't have a chance at winning the primary, and I bet he's out of office after the next NJ gov election.

[boutons_deux]

Uh-Oh. Is Christie's Bridgegate Whitewash Coming Back to Haunt Him?

Bridget Anne Kelly's lawyer wants to see the interview notes for the Christie administration report which exonerated Gov Christie and inculpated Kelly.

But it seems like the outside firm Christie hired with state money to do the report might have destroyed the records, which would be a big no-no.

Brian Murphy has the story.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/uhoh-is-christies-bridgegate-whitewash-coming-back-to-haunt-him?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_camp aign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

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Just in case New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suddenly thinks he can slip through the 2016 opening left by Scott Walker's exit, bridgegate matters are still giving him a gut check. Attorneys for the two federal defendants in the 2013 week-long lane closure investigation—Christie staffers Bridget Ann Kelly and Bill Baroni—filed papers that would force a hand over of the do entation created by Christie's internal investigation into the fiasco. You might recall that the $5 million investigation—known as the Mastro Report for Randy Mastro, the partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher that created it—basically cleared Chris Christie of responsibility for the epic traffic jam at George Washington Bridge. Brian Murphy recaps:

But instead of producing the kind of Government Accountability Office-style report you might expect from a top-flight law firm using public funds to pursue a public investigation, the Mastro Report is transparently partial toward Christie. It lays blame for the Bridge operation at the feet of David Wildstein and Bridget Ann Kelly by painting them as rogue employees. Meanwhile, Gibson Dunn’s attorneys didn’t interview Port Authority chairman David Samson and seemed to avoid pursuing threads that might have implicated Christie in some way. What’s more, Mastro’s team didn’t provide transcripts or notes to support their adjective-heavy narrative – one in which the word “simply” is used sixteen times and “crazy” appears eight times.

The law firm claims that it didn't keep any additional records related to the 75 interviews it conducted with people working with and for Christie for the final report. Wow, that's a head scratcher.

They also claim they came up with some process by which their lawyers summarized each interview electronically, edited them, and then released those "interview memoranda" publicly. But attorneys for the defendants aren't buying it.

U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton agreed to the defense’s request for a subpoena to force Gibson Dunn hand over MS Word do ents and other electronic files and metadata.Since then, the firm has put up a fight to keep that metadata from the defendants.

Bottom line: Bridgegate is far from over.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...r?detail=email

Whitewash of FatBas by corrupt law firm

[TeyshaBlue]

pity post.
lol Bridgegate

lol outrage

[boutons_deux]

Christie's 'investigators': we didn't take notes because we knew the public would ask for them


After Bridgegate (sigh) threatened to harm New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's ambitions of getting out of his podunk state for good and into the White House, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took the initiative of hiring, at taxpayer expense, a top-notch law firm to look into all these charges against Chris Christie and whether they had merit.

After billing the taxpayers over ten million dollars, Christie's appointed lawyer declared that Chris Christie was innocent of the accusations

that he knew what his own staff was doing as they rejiggered traffic on the George Washington Bridge in order to create massive, and potentially dangerous, traffic jams

various groups—most notably, Christie's own accused staffers—have been asking for the notes and other papers compiled by Christie's law firm while they were conducting that taxpayer-funded "investigation." Tough luck, says the law firm, we didn't take any notes. We were winging it! That's how ten million dollar investigations roll, baby!

According to them, it's because they knew Christie's enemies might come looking for them and so they deliberately didn't write things down.

Now Mastro is offering a new explanation. His team didn't take notes because we were watching. In a letter dated October 9 to U.S. District Court Judge Susan Wigenton, Mastro wrote of his firm's "experience with extremely sensitive investigations and matters."

He went on to say that his team had "in mind the additional reality that a legislative committee investigation and related -- and often intense -- news media inquiries were ongoing."Assemblyman John Wisniewski, co-chair of that legislative committee, boiled it down.

"They didn't create that material so as not to turn it over," he said in a phone interview.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/1...28Daily+Kos%29

Repugs wanna trust this man with the Presidency.

[boutons_deux]

Chris Christie Aide Accused Him of Lying on Bridgegate, Do ents Say

An aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told a colleague that their boss lied at a 2013 press conference during which he told reporters that top staffers knew nothing of a scheme to punish a political opponent with lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, court do ents released Wednesday alleged.

"Are you listening?

He just flat out lied about senior staff and (former campaign manager Bill) Stepian not being involved,"

the aide, Christina Genovese Renna, wrote in a text message to campaign worker Peter Sheridan as they watched the Dec. 13, 2013 press conference, when the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal was just beginning to unfold.

"Yes. But he lied. And if emails are found with the subpoena or ccfg emails are uncovered in discovery if it comes to that it could be bad." The abbreviation ccfg is an apparent reference to Christie's election campaign.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chris-christie-aide-accused-him-lying-bridgegate-do ents-say-n627286?cid=sm_fb