The problem for Christie and his “office” is not that they would be perceived to be using the office of governor as petty personal fiefdom. The problem for Christie and his “office” is this.
Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.
The woman later died, borough records show.
And this.
“There was a missing child that day. The police had trouble conducting that search because they were tied up directing traffic,” says Jan Goldberg, a Fort Lee councilman who works with local emergency personnel.
Endangering the public safety as “payback” for a member of the opposing party not sufficiently cowing to you would seem to be beyond what a non-sociopath would consider to be reasonable policy.
In a statement released on Thursday, former NBA player and current BFF to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un, Dennis Rodman apologized for the freak show performance he displayed in an interview with CNN.
“I want to first apologise to Kenneth Bae’s family. I embarrassed a lot of people. “I’m very sorry. At this point I should know better than to make political statements. I’m truly sorry.”
Rodman blamed his outburst on drinking, stating that some of the other players he brought to North Korea were feeling pressure from back home and were preparing to leave.
In the game they played against North Korea on Wednesday, Rodman played the first half of the game, changed, then watched the rest of the game with his new best friend, Kim.
First, Republicans had to teach their members how to talk to women. Seems the knuckle – draggers needed some help in that department.
Now, after voting to deny unemployment insurance to the unemployed, another memo has surfaced. This time, Republicans are trying to teach their members how to appear as if they care about the unemployed.
Of course, this too is all a sham intended to fool the American people into thinking Republicans care. But they are not fooling anybody, except the sad folks who watch Fox News.
In the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post, House Republicans are urged to be empathetic toward the unemployed and understand how unemployment is a “personal crisis” for individuals and families. The memo also asks Republicans to reiterate that the House will give “proper consideration” to an extension of long-term insurance as long as Democrats are willing to support spending or regulatory reforms.
A bipartisan Senate bill that would extend benefits for the long-term unemployed cleared a procedural hurdle Tuesday, with six Republicans joining Democrats to vote for it. But the bill faces an uncertain future in the upper chamber, where it will have to clear another 60-vote hurdle before moving to a final vote.
Chris Hayes invited Fort Lee’s Mayor, Mark Sokolich on his show tonight, to get a first hand feel of what his response is to members of Christie’s office shutting lanes to the Washington Bridge, in an apparent retaliatory move against him. So passionate was the mayor, that he openly declared that one of Christie’s main man at the center of the controversy “deserves an ass kicking!”
Just what Chicago needs. More guns. That should slow the ever increasing crime rate *wink wink*. This, after a judge gave the green light for more gun shops to open their doors for business in the bullet ridden capital of the United states.
Knicks guard J.R. Smith was fined $50,000 for what the NBA termed “recurring instances of unsportsmanlike conduct” in a Wednesday announcement, stemming from Smith’s shoelace-untying antics in the team’s past two games.
Smith initially was let off with a warning after the league investigated him for untying the shoelace of the Mavericks’ Shawn Marion during a free-throw attempt in Sunday’s game in Dallas. Then he was back at it Tuesday, trying the shoelace trick again — but the Pistons’ Greg Monroe successfully avoided it.
“He was warned, he comes back and he makes the same mistake, and it’s not right,” coach Mike Woodson said Wednesday on ESPN radio. “I’m going to address it tomorrow when he comes in for work, because it’s unacceptable. It’s unprofessional. That’s the only [two words] I can use. You just can’t do that.”
The mercurial swingman, who is averaging 11.3 points on miserable 34.8 percent shooting, was previously fined $25,000 by the NBA in November for directing “hostile” Twitter posts at Detroit’s Brandon Jennings.
Ah Chris Christie. Allow me to refer to you as piblic bully number one.
By now everyone’s heard of Bridge-Gate, where the busiest bridge in the nation – the George Washington – was mysteriously closed back in September on the first day of school, right before the election in 2013.
No one seemed to know the reason for the bridge closing and although questions were asked, answers were few. The answer that initially came forth – the closure was a traffic study – made no sense.
Then it was revealed that the closure to the bridge happened in the town of a Democratic mayor who endorsed Chris Christie’s opponent in the gubernatorial election. Then more questions were asked. Did Chris Christie ordered the bridge closing to cause havoc in this town of Fort Lee, thus, causing unnecessary problems for Mayor Mark Sokolich – the man who refused to endorse him?
Christie denied it of course, then today, the emails were made public.
“It will be a tough November for this little Serbian,” wrote David Wildstein, one of Christie’s appointees to the agency responsible for maintaining the bridge. His comment, apparently referring to Mayor Mark Sokolich.
The emails show that Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff in Mr. Christie’s office, gave a signal to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to close the lanes about two weeks before the closings occurred.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she emailed David Wildstein, Mr. Christie’s close friend from high school, and one of his appointees at the Port Authority, which controls the bridge.
After the emails were released on Wednesday, Mr. Christie canceled his one public event for the day, which had been billed as an announcement of progress in the recovery from Hurricane Sandy. His office had no immediate comment.
Mr. Christie’s handpicked chairman of the Port Authority, David Samson, was also involved in the closings, according to the emails, which describe his efforts to “retaliate” against New York officials who had not been told of the changes and sought to ease the gridlock.
A text between Christie affiliates went like this.
“Is it wrong that I am smiling?” Mr. Wildstein texted Ms. Kelly.
“No,” she texted back.
“I feel badly about the kids,” he texted.
“They are the children of Buono voters,” she said, referring to Mr. Christie’s Democratic opponent, Barbara Buono, who was trailing consistently in the polls and lost by a wide margin.
Christie’s canceled all appearances today after these emails were made public. He might as well cancel his plans to run for president in 2016.
About 24,000 retired Detroit public servants will soon receive letters notifying them that they are losing their health insurance on March 1, even as the city claims to be negotiating with retirees’ groups to strike a better deal on health care.
The bankrupt city’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr is sticking to the same proposal for drastic retiree health care cuts that he initially intended to implement this month, prompting a group that represents retired Detroit workers to threaten they will sue the city.
For the two-thirds of the retiree group who are old enough to be eligible for Medicare, the plan means shifting onto the government-run insurance program for seniors. But 8,000 younger retirees will have their insurance plans replaced with a monthly stipend check of just $125 to subsidize the cost of insurance plans they will have to find on their own.
When that plan was initially floated last fall, a pair of retired firefighters young enough to be stuck with stipend checks told ThinkProgress that the change would doom their recoveries from the serious injuries they sustained protecting the city. Retired librarian Gwendolyn Beasley, 67, said the shift to Medicare’s less-generous coverage would mean choosing between groceries and prescriptions
Jay Carney, the President’s press secretary didn’t actually say whatever dude, but he could have. When Carney responded to Rodman CNN outburst, he basically dismissed the nose-ring wearing nutcase.
“I’m not going to dignify that outburst with a response,” Carney said at as his daily press briefing. He repeated the Obama administration’s position that the communist country has the choice to “join the community of nations” or will face further sanctions and isolation “because of its insistence upon using its resources to fund its military program and fund its nuclear ambitions.”
During the CNN interview, host Chris Cuomo asked Rodman if he would speak up for Bae’s family and “say, ‘Let us know why this man is being held?’ If you can help him, will you take the opportunity?”
The eccentric hoops star began to raise his voice, responding, “The one thing about politics, Kenneth Bae did one thing…If you understand what Kenneth Bae did. Do you understand what he did? In this country?” Rodman seemed to suggest Bae did something wrong but would not go into detail.
Bae, who was in North Korea as a tourist in 2012, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for alleged anti-government crimes. The punishment came amid high tensions between the U.S. and North Korea following Pyongyang’s third nuclear test. The White House has repeatedly urged North Korea to release Bae, a Christian missionary who was living in China and leading tours to North Korea.
I have no words for this, except… Prozac… and maybe if he removed that lip ring, the words would come out better… but, I have no words…except, Prozac… maybe…!
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