In the post-Bridgegate world, charges of Gov. Chris Christie’s political bullying have gained more credibility. It’s like when one woman accuses a public figure of sexual harassment, inspiring several others to come forward too.
In the wake of the revelations that Christie’s allies toyed with traffic at the George Washington Bridge, apparently to punish a mayor who failed to endorse him, we heard new allegations from Dawn Zimmer — the Hoboken mayor who says his officials threatened to withhold Sandy aid unless she supported his favored real estate project.
And now, we are reminded of the accusations of Ben Barlyn, a former Hunterdon County prosecutor who says he was fired because he refused to drop a case against a Christie ally. For the past year, he’s been striving to prove his story, paying through the nose for a civil lawsuit against the state while telling it to anyone who will listen.
Barlyn says that after he secured an indictment in 2010 against Hunterdon County Sheriff Deborah Trout, a Republican with political ties to Christie, he was fired and the case hastily killed by Christie’s appointed attorney general at the time, Paula Dow. The real story isn’t the mundane crimes that were alleged: hiring without proper background checks, making employees sign loyalty oaths, threatening critics and producing fake police badges for a prominent Christie donor. It’s the possible abuse of power by the administration’s head prosecutor.
Barlyn is now trying to compel the state Attorney General’s Office to release the grand jury transcripts to prove his case had legs.
He’s not the only one who says so: Four grand jurors and other dismissed prosecutors have come forward to agree. A judge even ordered the release of the transcripts — yet still, the state is refusing to comply. It has filed a torrent of briefs in an effort to suppress the grand jury record, and will continue this fight at a hearing Tuesday.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Following a second week of revelations about “Bridgegate,” Gov. Chris Christie’s job approval and favorability ratings have dropped dramatically among New Jerseyans, with Democrats driving the decline, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll. Following more than a year of strong bipartisan support, Christie’s favorability rating is now 46 percent favorable to 43 percent unfavorable, down from 65 percent favorable just before his landslide re-election. This drop in support is led by a 26-point decline among Democrats.
Voters are slightly more positive about Christie’s performance as governor, with 53 percent approving how he handles the job. But this is down 15 points since November; well below the 66 to 73 percent support Christie had enjoyed throughout the year since Superstorm Sandy. Asked to grade the Governor, 43 percent now award Christie an A or B – down 16 points– and 29 percent assign either a D or F, compared to just 18 percent two months ago.
Christie’s ratings drop is driven by a very large decline among Democrats while most Republicans – and many independents – continue to stand by the Governor. In November, 45 percent of Democrats were favorable, but with new challenges to Christie’s bipartisan leadership, only 19 percent of Democrats are now positive. Democratic approval of Christie’s job performance has dropped from 51 percent to 29 percent. While noticeably down from November, Republicans are still very positive: 78 percent feel favorable, and 83 percent approve of the job Christie is doing. Independent support has also dropped, but a majority continues to favor Christie.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
Last week, I touched on this subject in a post called, Hoboken Could Make Bridge-Gate Look Like Small Potatoes. The point of the piece was based on some reporting by Chris Hayes showing Chris Christie’s lack of interaction with the city – a city ravished by hurricane Sandy – due to political retribution against Hoboken’s mayor, Dawn Zimmer.
Today, MSNBC’S Steve Kornacki took Christie’s new Hoboken scandal to a whole new level. Bringing Hoboken’s mayor on as a guest, Steve showed just how deep Chris Christie’s retaliation against the mayor and the people if Hoboken went.
Breaking the Campaign Finance Laws, bribery, political retribution, holding back federal relief funds, it’s all part of how business is done under the Christie administration and it’s all illegal. This piece by Steve shows that.
Worried about a cold weather Super Bowl in a couple of weeks? Don’t be: Now that the subpoenas are out and Randy Mastro is in, there’s going to be plenty of hot air to warm the New Jersey Meadowlands and nourish the state and national news media for the game and beyond.
First up is the list of those individuals who have been subpoenad to testify in front of the legislature. This includes people close to Christie’s campaign and political offices and reaches into the day-to-day operations of the government. Let’s see how much they say, but given immunity, I believe we might hear some evidence that Christie had at least some knowledge of the Bridge lane closings.
Christie’s hiring of former federal Prosecutor Randy Mastro is evidence that the governor is taking this scandal very seriously. Mastro worked for Rudy Giuliani, another politician who liked to bully people and thought that he was above the law. Remember Giuliani time? That was when the mayor sent the message that it was OK to do anything to fight crime. We need to hope that we don’t see a text or e-mail that refers to Christie time, which would be the desire to win a reelection bid by more than 40 points. Which really sounds like it’s the real impetus behind the Bridge scandal.What a waste.
We’ve had our fun with this, but I don’t think the next few months are going to be fun for the governor. And rightly so.
We all may have missed this little piece of information yesterday, but it didn’t get pass the watchful eyes of Rachel Maddow.
On her show yesterday, Maddow explained that a recent appearance by New Jersey’s embattled governor Chris Christie may have contained news about his 2016 presidential prospects.
In his appearance, Christie explained that he was governor of Jersey for eight years, not four. He also said that he was born in Jersey and will stay in Jersey.
This information was interpreted by Maddow to mean that Christie’s Bridge-Gate scandal is taking its toll and the last Republican hope for 2016, is calling it quits.
Amazing, that the man who could be behind the traffic nightmare on the world’s busiest bridge in Fort Lee New Jersey, explained recently that he loves being a governor because one of the perks is getting away from traffic.
A little girl named recently asked the New Jersey governor the question, what do you enjoy most about being governor. The BridgeGate centerpiece then went into a long explanation, stating that he hates traffic and that anytime he travels to New York, they stop traffic so that his entourage could drive through.
Chris Christie is presently embroiled in a huge scandal in New Jersey. The scandal, affectionately dubbed BridgeGate, is big enough to oust Christie if the claims that he had something to do with the lanes closure, turns out to be true. But BridgeGate is a small potato compared to what Christie did in Hoboken.
New Jersey got billions from the Federal Government to help the state recover from the Hurricane Sandy devastation. One of the cities that suffered was Hoboken and Chris Christie promised the people of the city that he would do whatever he can to help them recover. But when Hoboken’s mayor refused to endorse Christie’s re-election, Christie refused to help the people of Hoboken.
If it is determined that the people of Hoboken did not get the recovery funds allotted to them from the federal government because of Christie’s political retribution, then this could be a criminal act.
Chris Christie was in the middle of a reelection campaign. In this country, there is a law that governs campaign finance and all indications are that Chris Christie violated the campaign finance law when he took federal funds and distributed those funds based on political endorsements. That’s against the law.
You you cannot bribe someone to endorse you. Federal funds, intended to offer relief to those affected by a federally declared natural disaster, cannot be doled out to your political buddies or your endorsers alone, and when Christie shortchanged Hoboken because the mayor of that city chose not to endorse him, that’s a form of bribery using federal relief funds, and that’s against the law.
Forget what the pundits have to say. The musical legend, Jersey native Bruce Springsteen is the only authority on Bridge-Gate and this Chris Christie scandal.
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