After scoffing at the allegations surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) administration just two weeks ago, Daily Show host Jon Stewart changed his mind after hearing about Christie’s administration was accused of using Hurricane Sandy relief funds as political capital.
“Oh sh*t,” Stewart giggled. “That is some old-school New Jersey corruption: ‘Hey, nice city. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
At the same time, Stewart was initially non-plussed by the federal lawsuit brought against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and his wife, Christine, for allegedly taking thousands of dollars in gifts and other favors from the head of a local dietary company.
“We’ve all seen this before,” he scoffed. “It explains the state’s new motto: ‘Virginia is for 10,000 milligrams of Niacin.’”
It wasn’t until he heard that the gifts included a lakehouse vacation — including the use of a $190,000 Ferrari — and 30 boxes of “an expensive anti-inflammatory” that Stewart perked up.
“Now you’re talking my language,” he woofed. “Thirty boxes of top-shelf, black-label anti-inflammatories. How does that backroom deal go down?”
Watch Stewart take on the dual controversies, as posted online on Wednesday, below.
McConnell is fighting for his political life. He is in the midst of a re-election campaign in Kentucky and that campaign is not going according to plan. According to a PPP poll, McConnell is in a virtual tie with his Democratic Challenger Allison Grimes.
Mitch is therefore looking for all the help he can find and these days and Kentucky is loving Obamacare, they just call it by another name. So guess what Mitch’s new plan is… be the proponent for Obamacare… um Obamacare by another name that is.
Here is the latest ad the McConnell campaign put out. Notice there is absolutely no mention of his countless oppositions to healthcare.
The reaction from Conservative con men over Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying that extremist conservative politicians would have no home in New York has been swift and very funny.
Sean Hannity leads the pack of confidence men and their faux outrage by saying he’s sick of paying NY taxes and he’s going to pull out and leave NY for maybe the very hot and wet state of Florida. The poor baby’s fee-fees were hurt.
But that hasn’t placated outspoken conservatives like radio host and Fox NewserSean Hannity, who told his radio audience on Monday afternoon that he plans to flee for Florida or Texas.
“I want you to know that and I can’t wait to get out of here,” he said. “I really can’t. I don’t want to pay their 10 percent state tax anymore. I live in the second-highest property-taxed county in the entire country in Nassau County. I can’t wait to sell my house to somebody who wants it. I can’t wait to pay no state income tax down in Florida or Texas.”
He added: “I haven’t decided yet, but I’m leaning Florida because I like the water and I like to fish.” [Note: Hannity did once declare he loves Panama City.]
The radio host then addressed the New York governor directly: “Gov. Cuomo, I’m going to leave and I’m taking all of my money with me – every single solitary penny.”
I guess he’s having a hard time living off his twenty million dollar Fox News salary. I’m very confident saying this. New York would be a better place without a fool like Hannity.
Chris Christie and his administration is surrounded by scandals, and Christie’s administration would love nothing better than having everyone just leave them alone. The good “news” folks at Fox has basically granted them that wish, but MSNBC has not yet read the memo.
Take Rachel Maddow for example. Before Bridge-Gate became a household name, Maddow was one of the few reporters trying to get to the bottom of why lanes on the busiest bridge in the world suddenly closed in early September 2013.
Questions were being asked. Of course, answers never materialized. So Maddow and her crew at MSNBC began digging. One of the theories they came up with was, in addition to political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, the lanes were closed because Christie was angry with Jersey Senate Democrats. The digging by Maddow revealed that a day before the order was given to close the lanes in Fort Lee, Governor Christie had a press conference where he appeared very, very angry with Senate Democrats. So angry was he, that the governor referred to his political adversaries as “animals.”
Maddow theorized that after calling the Democrats animals, it was easier to understand the order to close the lanes, considering that the head of the Senate Democrats represented Fort Lee.
The theory apparently made too much sense for Christie and his gang. They sent a letter to MSNBC accusing the network of asking too many questions. They criticized Maddow’s theory and a more recent accusation by Hoboken’s Mayor, Dawn Zimmer, when she went on MSNBC on Saturday to tell the world that her city also fell prey to Christie’s political bullying.
Maddow of course, refused to stay quiet for Christie. On her show yesterday, Maddow responded… with more questions.
“The question of why matters. Governor Christie’s office has tried to shame people for asking what the reason might plausibly have been. But they have offered zero explanation of their own.”
“Yes, it is pure speculation. It has always been presented as such by us, and by me. We presented that theory as a way to get at the most important and, as yet, totally unexplained question still at the center of this unfolding scandal which is, Why? What is the plausible explanation for this? Why did whoever ordered those lanes closed order those lanes closed?”
The only info we got from Christie so far was that he fired a member of his administration for sending the message that started the while Bridge-Gate scandal. And he emphasized that he did not ask her why she closed the lanes.
Strange.
“Maybe he was just mad, but we still don’t know if Governor Christie is interested in the explanation now. So far, nobody on his side has offered any explanation whatsoever as to why this happened, what was the trigger. And until that question is answered, people are going to keep asking what the answer might plausibly be, even if Governor Christie’s spokesman prefers that we all stop doing that and attacks us when we do.”
The tale as told by the Pasco County sheriff’s office, a witness and the victim’s friends is of a fatal clash between two Navy veterans who happened to sit near each other in a movie theater. A woman would later come forward and tell prosecutors that two weeks earlier at the movies, Mr. Reeves had menaced her for texting as well, describing a man in sharp contrast to the generous and kind neighbor the people on his block describe.
“What’s he bringing a gun to the movies for?” said Charles Cummings, a 68-year-old former Marine who was in the row ahead of Mr. Reeves and described him as “aggressive.” “That’s a happy place. No one is going to kill you there, except that he did go there and kill someone.”
“Lone Survivor,” a movie about a covert Navy SEAL operation, was set to start at 1:20 that Monday afternoon. The lights had dimmed halfway. The previews were being shown while stragglers made their way to the plush seats.
Only about 25 people attended the showing, among them a nurse and an off-duty sheriff’s deputy.
In front of Mr. Reeves was Chad W. Oulson, 43, of Land O’ Lakes, Fla., a finance manager at a local motorcycle dealership. Mr. Oulson was a 6-foot 4-inch motorcycle enthusiast, whose 22-month-old daughter, Alexis, was at home with a babysitter and not feeling well. So Mr. Oulson defied technology etiquette and texted the sitter. The light from his phone was visible in the semidarkness.
Mr. Cummings remembers Mr. Reeves kicking the seat in front of him.
Mr. Reeves asked Mr. Oulson to quit texting. Mr. Oulson kept at it, explaining that he was just communicating about a preschooler. Mr. Reeves left in a huff to get a manager, but he returned alone.
Mr. Oulson complained about being tattled on, and the two men exchanged more words. The words got louder. That’s when Mr. Oulson made what would turn out to be a fatal move.
“He stood up,” said Joseph Detrapani, a friend of Mr. Oulson’s, who heard the story later. “That was it.”
This was a boutique theater with rows of large seats that are elevated from one another, with a foot and a half of legroom between them. Mr. Oulson turned to face Mr. Reeves and swung the popcorn bag at his side; kernels struck Mr. Reeves’ face.
Mr. Reeves, a co-founder of the Tampa Police Department’s first tactical response team, reacted. Struck in the face by what he told police was a “dark object,” he reached for his .380 and fired, just as his son, Matthew, also a police officer, entered the theater. Mr. Oulson’s wife, Nicole, had placed her hand on her husband’s chest and was struck in the finger.
Mr. Oulson was hit once in the chest. The people nearby laid him down on the floor and rested his head on Mr. Cummings’s foot. Mr. Cummings’s son called for help while the nurse in the audience rendered aid.
Police said Mr. Reeves sat down calmly, put the gun on his lap and stared ahead. A sheriff’s deputy from nearby Sumter County who saw the muzzle flash snatched the weapon from him. Police said Mr. Reeves resisted at first and then acquiesced.
The gun was jammed.
At 1:30, a call came over the police radio that someone had been shot at the theater. The police feared the worst and prepared to respond to mass casualties.
“When you hear this come over the radio, I can tell you, your heart drops,” Sheriff Chris Nocco told reporters.
Mr. Reeves’s clothes were taken for evidence, and he was taken to jail in a hazmat suit. TV cameras showed him walking up to the police cruiser as if it were his own, with no officer escorting him close behind.
His lawyer, Richard Escobar, said Mr. Reeves, who is charged with second-degree murder, acted in self-defense. He suggested that Mr. Reeves was hit in the face with something other than popcorn, and had every right to defend himself with deadly force.
Joshua Black, a Republican candidate for Florida’s state House of Representatives, tweeted Monday that President Obama should be hanged for treason.
Black, a taxi driver and former street evangelist, is challenging state Rep. Dwight Dudley (D) this November in the St. Petersburg-based 68th district. On his campaign website, he complains that “Republicans have a serious communication problem. Everything we say sounds like spears.”
Dwayne Wade and Ray Allen were at the White House being interviewed by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra about the importance of the First Lady’s Let’s Move program, when suddenly, out of no where, the First Lady swooped in with a massive dunk over LaBron James.
Chris Christie was inaugurated for his second term as Governor of New Jersey today. It’s also snowing quite a bit. That will make his downhill slide easier and the crash at the bottom more pronounced. He’s embroiled in two scandals, both of which will turn out to have been his own making, and he made a state of the state address last week that was so devoid of usable ideas, it’s probably DOA in a Democratic legislature that is in no mood to compromise with him over controversial issues.
The Bridge issue by itself could probably be chalked up to election year hi-jinx by a guy who doesn’t understand nuance and positive energy. Now we have another scandal that cuts even deeper and shows a pattern of behavior among Governor Christie’s appointees and running mate that could touch him. The results will not be pretty.
The story involves aid for Sandy storm victims, but is tied up in election year politics and the desire Christie had to win a huge, forty-point plus victory over Democrat Barbara Buono this past November.
New Jersey is already an ethical sewer. Did Christie and Guadagno really have to flush at that moment? Christie’s office did offer a rebuke to Mayor Zimmer, but never addressed the accusations against Guadagno and attacked MSNBC, the network that’s been the main mouthpiece for the story. That’s classic Christie and follows the larger Republican strategy when they’re challenged: discredit the opposition and call them names. Ouch.
There will be more subpeonas and an occasional leak of juicy information and the result will be a prolonged period of stalemate where the governor wants to move beyond the scandals and the legislature wants to air every stitch of dirty laundry to lessen Christie’s influence.
As for policy, last week’s speech in Trenton wasn’t just a rehashing of his fight with teachers and other public unions: it was a renewed call to battle against them by proposing to take more of their income and break their power. The governor wants everyone else to contribute more for their pensions and health benefits, which would severely impact those middle class workers, while he works on a tax break for the wealthy and reneges on his promise to make full state pension payments.
That idea would be bad enough, but the real insight into Christie’s thinking is his not-even-half-baked proposal to lengthen the public school day and year. His lack of detail was stunning for such a high-profile pronouncement. Clearly, he’s going through the motions of checking off ideas from the conservative playbook in an effort to curry favor with the Republican right wing. Needless to say, reaction has not been positive, and for good reason.
First of all, where is the money coming from to install air conditioning and run electrical power for the rest of June and into July? Where is the money coming from to pay teachers past June 30? What will happen to shore businesses, camps, academic programs and enrichment activities that are a vital part of summer in New Jersey? Yes, the governor rightly said that the school calendar is outdated, but other industries have grown around it that are vital cogs in the economic and academic life of students and teachers. He hasn’t addressed that, and my guess is that he probably won’t. He’ll just spend time bashing teachers for not wanting to give up summer vacation, even though the summer is just another two months where most teachers need to find an income so they can eat or not lose their houses.
Chris Christie only knows one speed when it comes to doing his job, and it’s going to result in a crackup. A comeback is certainly possible, but the damage has been done.
Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife were charged Tuesday in federal court in a gifts investigation, McDonnell confirmed:
“Earlier today federal prosecutors notified my attorneys that they have filed criminal charges against me and my wife Maureen, alleging that we violated federal law by accepting gifts and loans from Jonnie Williams, the former CEO of Star Scientific,” read a statement from McDonnell.
McDonnell came under state and federal investigation after he and his family accepted thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams Sr.
McDonnell again apologized for his actions and denied breaking any laws.
“I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans from Mr. Williams, all of which have been repaid with interest, and I have apologized for my poor judgment for which I take full responsibility,” he said. “However, I repeat emphatically that I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believed was his personal generosity and friendship. I never promised – and Mr. Williams and his company never received – any government benefit of any kind from me or my Administration.”
A Republican county official in Michigan is in hot water after making racial comments about Detroit, including the idea that the city should be turned into a detention center for “all the Indians.”
In a recent interview for a profile by The New Yorker titled “Drop Dead, Detroit!” Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson admitted, “Anytime I talk about Detroit, it will not be positive. Therefore, I’m called a Detroit basher. The truth hurts, you know? Tough sh*t.”
Patterson recalled telling his children to “get in and get out” if they needed to go to Detroit.
“And, before you go to Detroit, you get your gas out here. You do not, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That’s just a call for a carjacking,” he said.
Patterson also proposed a fix to Detroit’s financial problems: Turn the city into a reservation for Native Americans.
“I made a prediction a long time ago, and it’s come to pass. I said, ‘What we’re gonna do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and the corn.’”
After Detroit officials and activists reacted with outrage, Patterson’s office released a statement accusing The New Yorker of having an “agenda.”
“It is clear Paige Williams had an agenda when she interviewed County Executive Patterson,” the statement said. “She cast him in a false light in order to fit her preconceived and outdated notions about the region.”
Activists with Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network had planned a news conference on Tuesday to call for Patterson to apologize.
National Action Network’s Michigan chapter president Rev. Charles Williams II said that the comments were “repulsive” because they were an insult to the city’s African-American population and “a direct slight to the American Indians who occupied the land before Detroit was Detroit, and Oakland County.”
In recent years, Patterson has also come under fire for comparing Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger to Hitler and for suggesting that Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano kill himself.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will take his oath of office midday Tuesday for a second term, amid a scandal over traffic jams on a busy bridge and controversies over Superstorm Sandy aid.
In excerpts of Christie’s inaugural address provided by his office, the Republican who is considered a potential 2016 presidential candidate makes no mention of the allegations of abuse of power that are challenging his administration.
Instead, Christie touches on themes of income inequality, the role of limited government and divisions that threaten progress in the Garden State.
“One of the lessons that I have learned most acutely over the last four years is that New Jersey can really be one state. This election has taught us that the ways we divide each other — by race, by class, by ethnicity, by wealth, by political party is neither permanent nor necessary,” Christie will say. “We have to be willing to play outside the red and blue boxes the media and pundits put us in. We have to be willing to reach out to others who look or speak differently than us.”
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer turned over her journal and other documents to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Sunday, which she says show Governor Christie’s administration threatened to withhold Superstorm Sandy aid if she didn’t approve a development.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the office does not discuss publicly its meetings and would not confirm whether the office is investigating Zimmer’s allegations.
The mayor released a statement saying she met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark for several hours at their request and turned over the journal entry she cited as proof of her conversations with Guadagno and Constable.
“As they pursue this investigation, 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,” Zimmer said in a statement.
The administration has denied Zimmer’s allegations.
Zimmer went on MSNBC Saturday and accused Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, the commissioner of the state Department of Community of Affairs, of telling her they would not be able to help the city if she didn’t approve a real estate project in the northern end of the city.
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