Appearing on MSNBC to react to a nearly two hour long press conference on Thursday from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addressing the controversy surrounding the closure of two lands (sic) of the George Washington Bridge last year, Christie's former Democratic gubernatorial opponent Barbara Buono told Andrea Mitchell that she does not believe the governor is sincere when she says that he had known knowledge of the scandal before it broke in the news. She added that the governor runs a "paramilitary organization."
"When this first surfaced back in September, I was convinced that Christie was directing it," Buono charged. "You get to know how he operates. He runs a paramilitary organization, very strict discipline."
"People don't sneeze or go to the bathroom without asking Christie's permission," she continued. Buono added that it "strains credulity" to think Christie was not involved in an attempt to punish the mayor of Fort Lee with increased bridge traffic.
I realize that Buono is Christie's political adversary, but I thought her description of his organization, and her inability to believe that he was out of the loop on Bridge-gate, was dead on.
I will predict that since David Wildstein pleaded the fifth this morning during questioning that Bridget Kelly, his former Deputy Chief of Staff will follow suit.
If that does indeed happen I predict that Christie could find himself facing impeachment proceedings and that nationally he will be considered radioactive.
Already newspapers around the country are gleefully writing his political obituary.
The Democratic National Committee seized on Chris Christie’s imploding Bridgegate scandal today. They’ve already released a video clip of Christie saying he’ll show D.C. “how it’s done,” and then CNN’s John King saying many are comparing Christie to Nixon. Ouch.
ReplyDelete“They’re saying this guy sounds like Richard Nixon, he sounds vindictive…”
Watch here:
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/01/09/democrats-it-release-video-cnns-john-king-comparing-christie-nixon.html
If Richard Nixon had yanked the Oval Office recording system and destroyed the tapes the morning after the Watergate break in, he would have retained the presidency. He understood the principle of deniability and had no qualms about watching underlings being sentenced to prison.
DeleteNixon was in essence a failure of imagination.
Christie is just a small time bully that rose to his level of incompetence.
What the hell is it with Republicans and bridges? Palin's for and then against the Bridge to Knowhere, and Christie's Bridge With Traffic Going Knowhere?..... The two are complete assholes who need to retaliate to strut their power.
ReplyDeleteThey are anti-infrastructure.
DeletePower and $$$.
DeleteSweetheart contracts for donors to build and to operate tolls, etc. The GW Bridge yields $600 million/yr in tolls, per WSJ.
Plus, having control of infrastructure allows them to create winners and losers in commerce.
Vengeance is mine sayeth the Gov of NJ.
"He's copying me by using his position in gov't to settle personal and political scores," said the Half-Ass Half-Term Quitter. ®
Kudos to Maddow at MSNBC and Mann at WSJ for staying on this story. I hope everyone remembers that Ailes begged Christie to reconsider running for POTUS in 2012 after he declared himself a non-candidate (IIRC, Christie had said he wasn't ready. I hope Gabe Sherman writes in his new book about Ailes' crush on Big Boy, similar to Ann Coulter's. I can't wait to read it!)
Sarah Palin is in no way comparable to Chris Christie...he's much smarter, better prepared, a proven bully and a much better speaker!
DeleteBut, they are BOTH liars and nasty! Sarah is even worse - stupid and a racists. Many things have been found out about her already, but we are just beginning w/Christie of New Jersey.
Neither would be qualified for POTUS!
The more I hear about the Christie organization, the more I am reminded of the Palin administration in Alaska. Palin and Christie are two hateful peas in a pod.
ReplyDeleteC
Sarah needed to play "good cop, bad cop" with Todd playing the role of the enforcer, from his own table and his own phone in her office. Christie is big enough to handle both jobs by himself. What an act he put on today, while he mocked and bullied in the past.
DeleteDitto that.
DeleteThe lawsuits have begun. Power to the people!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/chris-christie-bridge-lawsuit_n_4571581.html
Chris Hayes has got a whopper of a good show today. Best news: the legislature is going to get another subpoena in the next session. Doesn't look like Christie operatives in the Port Authority are going to get away with redacting all the information in emails the way Sarah's buddies in the Parnell administration redacted all the incriminating statements in Palin's emails.
ReplyDeleteC
I think Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell are the best on MSNBC. Chris Matthews does pretty well too except for the fact he talks on top of the folks he has on his show and when asking them a question goes on and on first about his opinion.
DeleteI think he has a good heart though and is knowledgeable...just needs to ask the question and then listen to the response before he issues his take or thoughts on the subject.
If he were smart, he would resign, lie low for a while and then do a show on Fox. He'd be great as a pundit. But the longer this drags on, the less popular he'll get, the more likely it is that he'll fall out of favor and will be too toxic for Fox.
ReplyDeleteHis political life is over though. After the hug of Obama, most of the GOPers are looking for a reason to NOT vote for him. And this is it.
"the longer this drags out"
DeleteNixon dragged it for what seemed like forever. Reality is not a strong suit for people like Christie. He'll watch his people twist in the wind, still believing somehow he'll keep his political future intact.
I wouldn't be surprised if Christie is doing the equivalent of creating an 18 minute multiple erasure gap right now.
He's not stupid, he just has a HUGE EGO and he's a bully. Two qualities people tire of quickly in a politician.
DeleteGryphen, Must See TV: Rachel Maddow's investigative skills are the sharpest ever! She has made the best argument why Chris Christie is probably involved in the traffic problems in Fort Lee, NJ case. August 12, 2013 something happened which probably precipitated the August 13, 7:34 AM email sent from Bridget Ann Kelly. Watch it and be enlightened! I am in awe of Rachel Maddow!
ReplyDeleteI agree! Rachel and her staff are amazing - they started the coverage of bridge-gate and now have a presented a very good argument on why it actually happened that has nothing to do with political endorsements. Stocking up on popcorn!
DeleteGreat story by Rachel, as usual. The timing seems just a little too coincidental, and she may have discovered the REAL motivation behind the lane closures.
DeleteHere's the link:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/an-alternate-theory-of-the-bridgegate-scandal-111611971764
On AUg. 12, 2013 Christie pulled the long-time superior court judge because he accused the Dems of being savages about blocking appointments. The smoking gun e-mail was sent early the next day. Revenge? You Betcha! Very Palinesque.
DeleteRachel's theory has legs in my opinion.
DeletePlus, I think it was in Rachel's interview w/ NJ State Sen. Barbara Buono where Buono dropped an interesting bit of information.
She ran against Christie and lost. The Democratic Committee wasn't supportive money-wise and when she would approach some for contributions they would give her no more than $300.
Over that amount and the name of the contributor would be public. These were Dems who didn't want to get on Christie's naughty list.
Rachel also broke the story about Rand Paul's plagiarism and then the newspaper followed a week later with cancelling his column when they discovered it contained plagiarized materials in it. Go Rachel!!
DeleteThat was just....Wow! Fascinating, and you just want to say Bingo!
DeleteWell researched. Incredible and fearless reporting. All others in the media: take note, this is how you do it.
7:00 Christie called them 'animals' not savages.
DeleteI hope Rachel Maddow has good security as I'm afraid for her. I love her show and have watched it for years...she gets better and better and is not afraid to report the facts!
DeleteShe's always well researched and if she makes a goof (which is rare!), she corrects and apologizes.
Rachel is so far and above any of the people at FOX - no comparison!
It seems that this is not the first time Christie has engaged in political retaliation (you're shocked, I know!).
ReplyDeleteI suspect there will be many more examples and many more victims coming out with their stories before this is over. He has proven himself to be a nasty, arrogant bully over and over again and no doubt has hurt a lot of people on his way to the Governorship.
"Not An Isolated Incident: Christie Has Been Repeatedly Accused Of Political Retribution"
http://thinkprogress.org/home/2014/01/09/3141001/aide-fired-vendetta/
Imagine Chris Christie in a court and seated on the witness stand.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk
ReplyDeleteChunky Palin has his own Talis. His name is Charles McKenna ("Charlie" in the emails) the former Chief Counsel to Christie. He is already directly implicated as a participant in Bridgegate.
ReplyDeleteThat is who will bring Christie down.
How odd there doesn't seem to be any mention of money/favors payments for silence in this bridgegate mess. Watergate circled in tighter and tighter on GOP slush funds and who got paid for what.
ReplyDeleteTake a trip to 1974 and read about Nixon's Oval Office discussions of hush money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/050174-2.htm
Christie's mess seems surprisingly free of any mention of money.
Ms. Buono appeared on Chris Hayes' show tonight, I think. I've watched wall-to-wall coverage of the Bridge-gate scandal and I can't remember. Anyway, Barbara Buono said that she couldn't get ANY help from any Democratic fundraising groups because they were all afraid of Gov Christie. If anyone gave her money they wouldn't give her over the $300 limit so their names would not be on a list that Christie could access. He must be very thin-skinned and vindictive, like we didn't already know this. I feel bad that Ms Buono had such a hard time of running a campaign without sufficient funds. I'm proud of her for doing as well as she did 38% to 60%. Christie admitted in his presser of wanting to "run up the score" in his win for the governorship. Christie, quite the a-hole, yesirree! More questions need to be answered. Christie thought he could run out the clock til next Tuesday when the new legislative session begins and the current inquiry would expire.
ReplyDeleteComes down to
ReplyDeleteEither Cjristie......
Didn't know what was going on and thus is NOT presidentialmaterial
Or He did know and is not presidential material
Love the picture from the newspaper, The Trentonian with Christie wearing the dunce cap/cone that he joked about last month. What a sarcastic POS!
ReplyDeleteThe Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell is very good tonight. Lawrence is going to pick apart Christie's speech and going to find all the contradictory statements and lay them bare. Steve Schmidt's going to appear and offer his insight because he's such a good judge of character as we saw in his attempt to polish the Tundra Turd back in '08.
ReplyDeleteyou realize these sick fucks did this to the people of NYMetro
ReplyDeleteon 911. held them up in that traffic like that on a day they
can Never forget.
that some sick shit people. sick fuked in the head shit.
I'm a bit astounded that so much is being made of this. I guess while we all realize that all politics is quid pro quo and that favors are done for supporters and enemies are penalized, we don't often get written proof that this is what occurred. I just figured that since we all realize that Christie's behavior is "politics as usual" that it would be ignored by the media. Slow news week maybe?
ReplyDeletei think considering rachel maddow's alternative reason for the land closure as retaliation related to supreme court appointments and the leader of the democrats is from fort lee.......then this is a symptom of a sick twisted mind, not a reliable statesman.
Delete"Slow news week maybe?" Maybe if you are a Fox News viewer. Plenty of news this week. The new book that Robert Gates is releasing, the new unauthorized biography about Ailes, more obstruction from Republicans in extending Unemployment payments, anniversary of the attempted assassination of Gabbe Giffords, record-breaking low temperatures around the US. Not a slow news week.
DeleteGabby Giffords jumps from an airplane today, Sarah Palin is left searching for something to jump to conclusion to.
DeleteReally? You don't think it's "astounding" that people in a governor's office would conspire to limit traffic from the most heavily traveled bridge in the world, causing FOUR HOUR TRAFFIC DELAYS for FOUR DAYS? You don't think that's a little insane?
DeleteI watched this entire show and it was excellent. Barbara spoke the truth to Andrea Mitchell, and watching the hearings was truly a riot. They wanted to plead the fifth, and the lawyer was dilly dallying with tabbed emails and texts related to the bridge closure.
ReplyDeleteThe lawsuits have already started, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there weren't hundreds to thousands more.
Usual procedure when a "traffic study" is about to take place, at the bare minimum is first having it on all the local stations, times and dates of closures. Then signs by the side of the road with the same information plus cautions for changing traffic patterns (for public safety and Toll taker's safety). People can plan accordingly and avoid long waits in traffic, even though it's almost impossible on the GWBridge, the people are owed that at the least.
This went on for four or five days, and Christie didn't question it? Did he watch the news? Read the papers? Or listen to television?
There's a huge shitslide on bullshit mountain coming his way. He didn't explain things adequately today, and this issue may end his aspirations at higher office, and possibly his entire political career.
Oh Well, at least he bi partisanly got to meet broooooce and shake President Obama's hand.
Yeah if Christie thought there was something wrong,causing a massive traffic snafu and pissing off his bipartisan voters, then he'd kick asses first and take names second.
DeleteOn the other hand, he has a helicopter so what would he know about traffic...
There was some reason even an idiot like Mitt didn't pick Christie, and it was some of his old acts, which are surprisingly like this new act.
Rumor has it Christie was all ass kissy (figure of speech I think...) with KKKarl Rove to keep his job and get all hooked up for his run for governor. That's as much an indicator of character as being a Palin staffer imho.
Ass Kissy KKKarl links. They relate to the US Attorney rigging and firing probe that got U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (just hurled typing those words) fired:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/did-christie-play-politics-with-probe-u-s-attorney-docs-add-to-questions?ref=fpa
www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/washington/29rove.html?pagewanted=2
"In May 2007, Christie told the Washington Post, which reported on his inclusion on Elston's list, that Elston had contacted him that March to inform him of his inclusion, and to apologize for it -- an apology Christie said he refused to accept.
"I was completely shocked. No one had ever told me that my performance had been anything but good," Christie told the Post. "I specifically asked him why he put my name on the list. He said he couldn't give me an explanation."
He added: "I still to this day don't know how I got taken off the list."
None of the available evidence answers that question (or explains how Christie got on those lists in the first place).
But it's worth noting that in September of 2006 -- by which time he almost certainly had a run for governor in mind -- Christie did something that greatly pleased national Republicans: His office leaked word that it was aggressively investigating Rep. Bob Menendez -- the New Jersey Democrat who at the time was in a tight race for the Senate -- over a rental deal.
Publicly tarring Menendez was especially helpful to the GOP at the time. First, the Senate hung on a knife edge -- a Menendez loss would, as it turned out, have allowed Republicans to hang onto the chamber. Second, Republicans that fall were fending off charges that they had presided over a "culture of corruption." Any hint of evidence that the corruption problem was bipartisan could potentially be used by the GOP to change the prevailing narrative and impact races beyond New Jersey.
Neutral observers wondered at the time about Christie's motives. "I think you really do have to question the timing, particularly the subpoena of Menendez's tenants," one expert told the New York Times shortly after the leak. "That strikes me as having very important political implications.""
Thanks for your excellent comment and links. This is why I come to IM, I always leave having learned much more than when I sign in. Anyone who refuses another's apology has something seriously wrong with them, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, he's blaming everyone else but himself. Can't wait to see how this plays out, but one thing I know, he's seriously flawed and can kiss his aspirations goodbye.
DeleteDo you think he called Palin? he sure played the victim card.... BTW, how did the guy at the port authority know what kind of traffic problems he was to cause? All he said was gotcha... liars one and all.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone ask him that at the press conference?
DeleteThe press group got tired and bored w/Christie ... and, didn't ask the correct questions? They were idiots as is the usual we are seeing in our press today.
DeleteOT. But I have watched and can't see where he has lost weight. I'm curious...what do the rest of you think?
ReplyDeleteI could really tell when he was walking into the mayor's office today. I don't have a video link, sorry.
DeleteI think he's been loosing his shit lately, that's probably a few pounds. He's still full of it though!
DeleteThat bypass doesn't seem to be working though. Seriously hope he has a good cardiologist close by.
Yes, I've been watching closely, and can see that he's lost weight since the surgery in early 2013. It largely shows up in his face. Of course, he could have lost close to 100 pounds so far, and still looked grossly obese. The surgery was timed to allow him to lose up to about 200 pounds before the primaries and caucuses began.
DeleteNow thanks to this scandal, which will play out for weeks or months, his radical physical makeover won't do anything for his evil career. Put an apple in his glib mouth, turn him over, and stick a fork in him, because this succulent pork roast is done and ready for the carving board.
10:29 Due to the stress and strain of what he is currently going through (self imposed!), he could go back to his old eating habits (even though that surgery is done - they can lose substantially and then regain it - have seen it done where the guy actually ended up dying!).
DeletePeople that have that surgery have to maintain their 'new' eating habits! Can Christie keep doing it?
You just know $arah is pissed, Christie is getting all the attention, if the lawsuits continued will he take the same road as $arah, she quit when the lawsuits was piling up against her
ReplyDeleteRachel has figured it out.....as usual. The whole judge thing using that democratic district for retribution makes soooo much more sense than the mayor. As a NJ girl born & raised I have never understood how this cruel, arrogant bully was ever elected in the first place except Jon Corzine was such a corrupt governor. There is a huge list of bad judgements in his first term and listening to Lawrence's show after Rachel just proves his press conference was more an "acting" performance filled with double talk. He is just like Palin....but has a bigger vocabulary. I totally sympathize with the Alaskan community having Palin as a perpetual embarrassment of stupidity....Christie is going to be the permanent stain in NJ for revenge politics. I really hope his entire record of horrors becomes national news, maybe NJ will wake up. I am glad to be in Las Vegas now...and big surprise, our asswipe GOP congressman Joe Heck is pushing for unemployment extension.
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing I have never understood and nobody seems to have asked. How, exactly, does one perform a "traffic study" by stopping traffic? In my 30+ years as a traffic planner, I have never heard of a technique requiring traffic stoppage to see the impact. You do not need a "traffic study" to determine that shutting down traffic lanes will result in massive traffic tie ups, especially on what is said to be the busiest bridge in the world.
ReplyDeleteThe only possible explanation I can think of would be to close down lanes to study the impact on alternate routes. If so, what alternate routes were being studied, and if that was the reason, why wouldn't people be advised via a massive advertising campaign to let people know what alternatives would be available? Also, I don't know the area myself, but my impression is that there are no convenient alternate routes available - the bridge is the only route and hence the alternate routes such as extra lanes and traffic levels are built into that bridge.
First response- That's not how they roll in New Joisey!
DeleteSecond response- Chris Christie is the HMFIC so I'm sure he will be answering these types of questions soon and under oath. Unless he Palins! Maybe even if he does Palin!
I have a sibling who is working on this story for the NYT. They are working on the angle that Rachel Maddow put out yesterday--that it was retaliation for the dispute with Dems over state Supreme Court nominees. Says its unthinkable that he would not be involved, and "he's going down." And the fall will be behemoth.
ReplyDeleteI tried my best to google why Christie wouldn't reaffirm Justice Wallace, seems like the chickens has come home to roost...stay tune
ReplyDeleteGryphen, you may want to correct the spelling of the guy who took the Fifth repeatedly: David Wildstein (which actually translates to Wildstone, which I find funny!)
ReplyDeleteThis was Snooki's response to a tweet about Christie: "HA! It was only a matter of time people see the scum and rude ass that he really is."
ReplyDelete