When Peter Griffin from Family Guy comes after you, you know its officially over.
Family Guy’ is now taking on Chris Christie and his BridgeGate scandal.
In a flyer sent to Emmy voters, the star of the popular cartoon is seen holding a couple of traffic cones – a scene taken directly from Christie’s press conference when he awkwardly joked that he was the one putting down the cones for the lane closure at the George Washington Bridge.
A warning was issued in the flyer – “Vote for us, or it’s time for some traffic problems in Brentwood,” a Los Angeles neighborhood where many Emmy voters live.
Family Guy is nominated in the Best Animated Program category.
It’s not enough that Governor Chris Christie is not going to make a full contribution to the state’s public worker pension system, despite promising to do so as a result of his signing the pension and benefits bill in 2011. And it’s also not enough that he continues to blame public workers for the state’s economic and fiscal messes.
It’s far too much, though, for him to blame cuts in cancer research and other programs on the fact that the state’s pension obligation would take too much money out of the budget. Yes, it’s politics. Yes, it’s a tactic to deflect interest and attention away fro the George Washington Bridge scandal, and yes, it’s not beneath a man who will say anything to become 2016-relevant again. But this kind of class warfare is disgraceful.
Blaming public workers and asking them to pay more for their pensions, which would take money out of the economy at a time when he should be stimulating it, continues Christie’s consistent failures on the economy. He could instead be asking the wealthy to pay more to help bail out the state. He could have approved the third railroad tunnel between New York and New Jersey, which would have provided jobs and a needed infrastructure project. He could have raised the nation’s lowest gasoline tax, which not only would have provided funds but would have sent a message that it’s time for New Jersey’s drivers to economize for the environment.
But no. New Jerseyans are stuck with a governor who hasn’t a clue about how to successfully grow an economy and invest in education. All he has is a surplus of bluster, and that we don’t need.
ABC news reported that the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey has convened a grand jury to investigate the involvement of Governor Chris Christie’s office in the George Washington Bridge scandal, ABC News has learned.
Twenty-three jurors convened in a federal courthouse in Newark today to hear testimony from a key staff member, Christie press secretary Mike Drewniak, whose lawyer, Anthony Iacullo, said Drewniak was not a target of the investigation.
“We’re here to answer questions and that’s what Michael did today,” Iacullo said.
The convening of the grand jury is evidence that the U.S. Attorney’s investigation has progressed beyond an inquiry and moved to the criminal phase.
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart took apart New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for exonerating himself in the Bridgegate scandal, at the taxpayers’ expense, no less. After getting in a few shots at the media for their ridiculous claims that Christie’s “got his mojo back,” Stewart and his cohort, Samantha Bee slammed Christie and his fellow Republicans for heading to Las Vegas to kiss billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s ring.
Adelson wasn’t too happy with Christie for daring to use the words “occupied territory” during his speech at the event, which made Stewart wonder aloud how this happened.
STEWART: This is crazy. If Sheldon Adelson doesn’t approve of a term as widely accepted as occupied territories, what does he think is an acceptable term for that area? […]
When did the guy who makes Donald Trump’s hair look natural get veto power over every word Republicans say about Israel?
So far, the political discussion revolving around Chris Christie’s diminishing prospects for 2016 have centered on the George Washington Bridge scandal, (and the laughable investigation by his own attorney), and the not-yet-vetted story about Sandy aid being withheld from less-than-enthusiastic supporters of the governor. These are certainly key issues that tell us a great deal about Christie’s style and demeanor, but even without them, he simply doesn’t have a record that would support a national run.
There’s no New Jersey Miracle, no New Jersey Rebound, and no New Jersey Bounce (OK, there’s one of those, but it’s unrelated to economics and politics). The governor hasn’t led New Jersey into a new ideological paradigm, nor has he provided a new framework by which the state operates. Democrats still outnumber Republicans. His 2013 coattails were, shall we say, a bit short when it came to counting legislative seats. His Supreme Court nominees have been rebuffed.
And this guy wants to be president?
About all he can run on is a state worker’s pension and benefits bill that is providing little relief to anyone. Middle class public workers are being whacked because more money is coming out of their checks for pensions and health insurance (which should have been negotiated, not imposed), and property taxes remain stubbornly high (remember that these taxes were supposed to go down as a result of the pensions bill). The result is that the governor took spendable money out of the economy at a time when he should have been putting more money into the economy to create jobs. What we have in New Jersey now is slow growth, a deteriorating middle class and a governor who wants to have public workers pay even more into their pensions. What about millionaires, you ask? He won’t touch their taxes.
Funny side note: Christie is seen as a moderate Republican. You can stop laughing now.
Christie’s latest economic gambit is to renege on his mandated duty to make full payments to the public worker pension system. That would put it in serious jeopardy and would negate a promise that the courts have ruled to be essentially non-negotiable. He’ll lose this argument and more credibility because the Democrats in the legislature will not cave in to him as they did in 2011 and the crossover vote that earned him his victory in November is abandoning him. Conservative Republicans in NJ still back him, but that’s not nearly a majority of the voters.
My sense is that the governor will survive the scandals. The larger question is whether New Jersey can survive him.
The investigation was done by his own people. They found nothing wrong and that’s their final answer.
With his office suddenly engulfed in scandal over lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey two months ago summoned a pair of top defense lawyers from an elite law firm to the State House and asked them to undertake an extensive review of what had gone wrong.
Now, after 70 interviews and at least $1 million in legal fees to be paid by state taxpayers, that review is set to be released, and according to people with firsthand knowledge of the inquiry, it has uncovered no evidence that the governor was involved in the plotting or directing of the lane closings.
The review is the first of multiple inquiries into a scandal that has jeopardized Mr. Christie’s political future. It will be viewed with intense skepticism, not only because it was commissioned by the governor but also because the firm conducting it, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has close ties to the Christie administration and the firm’s lawyers were unable to interview three principal players in the shutdowns, including Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff.
Sounds like Christie’s folks are engaging in, can you say… intimidation?
Amid mounting criticism that their tactics violated civil liberties, the state attorney general today ordered the State Police to stop taking pictures of protesters at Gov. Chris Christie’s town hall meetings — for any reason.
The order came a day after a man who identified himself as a member of the State Police photographed people who disrupted one of the governor’s usually highly orchestrated events.
In a statement issued to The Star-Ledger, acting Attorney General John Hoffman said he and State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes had “instructed the State Police to no longer photograph at these events for security or any other purposes.”
Christie plans to hold another town hall meeting Thursday in Flemington.
In calling for a halt to the practice, Hoffman said: “The State Police is responsible for the safety and security of the governor and the public at town hall meetings. In doing so, the State Police are careful to guarantee that First Amendment rights are respected and the public — whether expressing positive or negative sentiments toward the governor and his policies — have ample opportunity to make their positions known.”
More document revelation – Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Christie’s campaign, wrote to campaign manager Bill Stepien: “Coordinating with Drewniak on this, but heads up. I’ll let you know when I hear back from him on the conversations on his side of things.”
Michael Drewniak is Christie’s chief spokesman. In a reply two minutes later, Stepien wrote, “Awesome.”
Stepien asked in another message sent later that day, “Who is writing the follow-up story on Fort Lee?”
In a text message that evening to Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, another Christie appointee, the documents show that Stepien wrote, “WSJ writing a follow-up on the Fort Lee issue. You probably know but wanted to make sure.”
In a subsequent text, Stepien praised Baroni for the explanation he gave that the lane closures were part of a traffic study, which has since been called into question.
According to the brief, Stepien wrote, “Hey great job yesterday. I know it’s not a fun topic, and not nearly as fun as beating up on Frank Lautenberg, but you did great and I wanted to thank you.”
Last week, Bryan Fischer said that pleading the Fifth was a sure sign of guilt. Of course he wasn’t talking about the participants in Chris Christie’s BridgeGate scandal, because those people are on his side of the political isle.
Well now it seems that pleading the Fifth and refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents are not enough. The main characters in the BridgeGate scandal now want a judge to legalize their decision.
Two figures in a political payback plot that has overshadowed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration will attempt to convince a judge that they shouldn’t be forced to turn over documents to a legislative panel.
Lawyers for former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien and fired Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly have asked the judge to throw out their subpoenas.They say handing over personal emails, text messages and planning calendars would be like testifying against themselves.
They also cite the possibility of criminal prosecution as a legal basis for not complying with a request for correspondence involving a plot to create traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge.
More than a dozen individuals and organizations close to Christie have complied with similar subpoenas.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” – the now infamous quote by Bridget Kelly that closed down lanes on the busiest bridge in the world – was not the first time Christie’s people spoke about willfully causing problems for the constituents of New Jersey.
Documents released by Wildstein to a state legislative committee probing the incident, in which lanes were shut near the busy George Washington Bridge, causing a huge traffic jam, reveal that on August 19 he and Kelly discussed another traffic scheme.
“We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?” Kelly wrote in a message to Wildstein.
“Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed,” Wildstein wrote in reply.
Kelly and Wildstein appear to be joking.
“This is part of the drip, drip, drip of bad news for Christie,” said Lee Miringoff, a political observer and a pollster with Marist College.
The Star-Ledger newspaper has identified the rabbi as Mendy Carlebach of the Chabad of North and South Brunswick who was also a chaplain for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department.
“He has officially pissed me off,” Wildstein wrote.
Carlebach did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attorneys for Wildstein and Kelly also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich met Friday with federal prosecutors who wanted to talk about the George Washington Bridge lane closures, Sokolich’s attorney confirmed to TPM on Monday.
The meeting, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was a voluntary one. In a statement, Sokolich’s attorney declined to discuss details of his client’s conversation with members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the district of New Jersey.
“Since there is an ongoing criminal investigation, neither Mayor Sokolich nor I will comment on the substance of those discussions,” attorney Tim Donohue wrote. “The Mayor is grateful for the efforts of the US Attorneys Office, and the Mayor and his entire administration will continue to cooperate fully with this investigation as well as the Select Committee’s investigation.”
Sokolich has been at the center of the bridge scandal from the start. The lane closures caused a massive, multi-day traffic jam in Fort Lee. The same week they began, Sokolich told a local columnist that he had begun to wonder if the closures were intended to send him “some sort of message.” Democrats in the state have since suggested that the closures were retaliation against Sokolich’s decision not to endorse Christie’s re-election last year — an allegation that has not been proven.
In an unexpected move, the lawyer for Gov. Chris Christie’s office in the George Washington Bridge scandal withdrew this week as counsel to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in an ongoing federal lawsuit, setting off speculation about what it means and why he did it.
Randy Mastro, a head litigation partner of the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, represents the governor’s office in the bridge scandal and other controversies tied to Hurricane Sandy aid. At the same time, he had served for more than a year as a lead attorney for the Port Authority in a federal lawsuit focused on controversial toll hikes.
Christie hired Mastro in January after the disclosure of emails showing that a Christie aide allegedly orchestrated a four-day closure of two local-access lanes to the bridge, causing massive traffic jams in Fort Lee. Many suspect the closures were retaliation after the borough’s Democratic mayor didn’t endorse the Republican governor for re-election.
In recent weeks, some attorneys and legal observers had expressed concern about Mastro’s dual role, especially because Mastro’s duties for Christie include his firm assisting with an internal review of the governor’s office’s actions, including events tied to the Port Authority.
On Wednesday, Mastro quietly withdrew as counsel to the Port Authority in the ongoing lawsuit brought in federal court in Manhattan by the New York and North Jersey chapters of the AAA. The suit aims to block toll increases at six bistate bridges and tunnels, contending that the Port Authority violated federal law by imposing toll hikes as part of a plan to finance certain capital projects unrelated to transportation.
Mastro declined comment Friday. In mid-January, he told the Wall Street Journal through a spokesperson that there was no conflict of interest in his “firm’s separate representation of the Port Authority and the governor’s office in these separate matters.”
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