The GOP Bully of the East Coast Has Himself a Scandal.

Ah Chris Christie! Political retribution is a bitch especially when you get caught doing it. Has the most popular 2016 candidate for the GOP nomination just bullied himself right out of the running? Or is this kind of political revenge just the kind of thing the Right-wing likes and will support him anyway.

Chris Christie's Top Aide Linked To Traffic Jam Payback Against Democratic Mayor



WASHINGTON -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) deputy chief of staff was directly involved in a mean-spirited effort to create "traffic problems" for a mayor who declined to endorse the governor's reelection bid, according to newly released emails.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly wrote in an email on Aug. 13.
"Got it," replied David Wildstein, who was then one of Christie's top aides at the Port Authority, which is run jointly by New York and New Jersey.
A month later Wildstein did indeed create the traffic problems that Christie's office requested. He closed down two of Fort Lee's access lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge, the busiest bridge in the country. The closures came on Sept. 9, the first day of school in Fort Lee, leading to massive traffic jams as bridge traffic backed up into local streets. As a result, police and emergency vehicles were delayed in responding to reports of a missing child and a cardiac arrest.
The closures came just weeks after Fort Lee's mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, had declined to endorse Christie's reelection bid.
For weeks, Christie has been denying any involvement in the lane closures and refuting the idea that political retribution was at play. He has stood by his aides' explanations that the lanes were closed as part of a traffic study, even though Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, who was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), said he was never made aware of the study's existence.
But the new emails, provided by Wildstein in response to a subpoena from state lawmakers, bring Christie and his inner circle closer to the scandal.
The emails point to clear political motives for the closures, and the officials seem almost giddy at the problems they create.
At one point, Wildstein received a text message from an unknown sender -- the emails are partially redacted -- saying, "Is it wrong that I'm smiling."
"No," replied Wildstein. When the other person added, "I feel badly about the kids. I guess," Wildstein reminded them that their parents are probably Democrats anyway.
"They are the children of Buono voters," said Wildstein, referring to Democrat Barbara Buono, who unsuccessfully challenged Christie in the Nov. 5 gubernatorial election.
Wildstein also predicted political problems for Sokolich over the issue, writing in a Sept. 18 email, "It will be a tough November for this little Serbian."
The Port Authority's Foye was furious when he learned about the lane closures and ordered the lanes reopened on Sept. 13. Wildstein and Kelly were, in turn, furious at Foye for screwing with their plan.
"The New York side gave Fort Lee back all three lanes this morning," wrote Wildstein in an email to Kelly on Sept. 13. "We are appropriately going nuts. Samson helping us to retaliate."
"What??" replied Kelly.
"Yes, unreal," said Wildstein. "Fixing now."
David Samson, as The Record notes, is chairman of the Port Authority and a close adviser to Christie.
Christie's spokesman did not return a request for comment from The Huffington Post.
Christie, who is considered a possible 2016 presidential contender, has dismissed the controversy over the bridge closures and blamed it on Democrats trying to score political points against him.

 

Big deal. A traffic jam that can't be pinned on Christie. Why don't you focus on something like a former Defense Secretary who said Obama was "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy". Now, THAT'S news!


Gates' book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," has sent a small shock wave through Washington, with its candid critiques of the Obama administration and particularly of those at the top. Gates left little to the imagination in questioning President Obama's leadership style and commitment to the Afghanistan war. But he was unsparing in his assessment of Biden's contribution.

"I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," Gates wrote, according to The New York Times.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...nds-biden-as-ex-pentagon-chief-gates-unloads/

 

I have a better idea, if you can't bring yourself to admit that Christie is capable of doing something this despicable to the people of his own state and you prefer to talk about a guy trying to sell as many books as possible, then start your own thread and don't bother posting in this one. Hey win-win for you and I.

 

So what you are saying is that it will be the lesser of two bads - a traffic jam or Benghazi/Obamacare/lies. And yet for some reason you have a problem choosing between the two.

 

I have figured out a long time ago that responding negatively, positively, or just with indifference only encourages you to keep posting idiotic statements like this one. Soooooo.....

 

Right into the insults, huh?

 

Can we all just agree that everyone here calls people names, insults them, and is pretty much completely disrespectful to the people they disagree with so that no one has to feign indignation over these comments or faint with a severe case of the vapors? If I insult you and you've never insulted me, I apologize in advance but watching these hypocritical morons calling out everyone else that insults them when they do exactly the same thing just gets old. It really is a case of people thinking that their shit doesn't stink but everyone else's shit does. Here is a clue... Yours smells even worse.

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Well, just looking at this thread, there is just a single person here throwing insults. And I will bet I can find lots of other threads where the same person is the only one throwing insults. It would not be so bad if he would intersperse some facts, but his sole line seems to be insults.

 

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Now, let's talk about something that affects all of us like how Obama is complete moron when it comes to foreign policy (at least according to his former Defense Secretary).

 

So you think he'll throw his chief of staff under the bus?

OOPS! Looks like he just did exactly that....

WASHINGTON -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) denied any involvement in a political payback scheme carried out by some of his top aides on Wednesday, saying the whole thing was "inappropriate and unsanctioned."

"What I've seen today for the first time is unacceptable," Christie said in a statement. "I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge."

"One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions," he added.

 

So Obama tries to sweep Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, Syria, IRS, NAS, etc. under the rug so they can (and have) commit further idiocies.

 

I'm already bored with this non-story. See you in the other threads.

 

Of course you are. You can endlessly implicate and spew innuendo when it comes to Obama and level baseless claim after baseless claim but when it comes to one of your own and we have a smoking gun, you become bored. How convenient. Suddenly, it's a "non-story". Hack!

 

LOL. "Smoking gun". That's a good one. Is this all you have? Chris Christie may have started a traffic jam? ----- snore -----

 

Well, Benghazi and fast and furious both have dead bodies, but they did not come from Christie's smoking gun. Then the IRS and phone taps are not real dead bodies, but my guess is they are going to be the bigger problem.

 

Apparently that week long traffic jam delayed ambulances, firetrucks, school buses, and countless commuters purely for political retribution. Don't believe me, go to Breitbart and several other Right-wing sources. They are saying the same thing. Tell the 91-year old woman that waited 4 times as long for an ambulance and eventually died "snore". An actual political scandal doesn't interest you but making them up about our president is just fine.

 

It will be interesting when the Republicans take over and they audit all the college professors. planned parenthood, mediamatters, Soros, et al. When they start complaining, all we have to say is Obama did it!

 

The FBI is now getting involved. Try and hide your emails from them Gov. Christie.

 

These emails are pretty unbelievable.

WASHINGTON -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) deputy chief of staff was directly involved in a mean-spirited effort to create "traffic problems" for a mayor who declined to endorse the governor's reelection bid, according to newly released emails.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly wrote in an email on Aug. 13.

"Got it," replied David Wildstein, who was then one of Christie's top aides at the Port Authority, which is run jointly by New York and New Jersey.

A month later Wildstein did indeed create the traffic problems that Christie's office requested. He closed down two of Fort Lee's access lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge, the busiest bridge in the country. The closures came on Sept. 9, the first day of school in Fort Lee, leading to massive traffic jams as bridge traffic backed up into local streets. As a result, police and emergency vehicles were delayed in responding to reports of a missing child and a cardiac arrest.

The closures came just weeks after Fort Lee's mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, had appeared to decline to endorse Christie's reelection bid. Sokolich told The Huffington Post in an interview Wednesday morning that he never explicitly told Christie's team that he wouldn't endorse the governor.

"There were overtures that were made to the effect like, 'Is this something you would consider?' And I don't ever recall getting back and saying no," he said. "I think that was a conclusion that they, in the infinite wisdom of the folks in Trenton, must have reached the conclusion that I wasn't going to. But I never specifically said no."

On Sept. 12, Sokolich floated the possibility that Wildstein's actions were "punitive," although he later backed off that accusation. Since then, he has remained relatively silent as the controversy swirled around Christie, saying he didn't believe there was any benefit to his community in his speaking up.

But when reached on Wednesday, he was furious about the new revelations.

"My reaction wavers everywhere from comical to criminal," said Sokolich. "It is absolutely the most disheartening example of petty politics, which has gone so afoul, and to put the well-being of a community that has to deal with traffic issues every day to create a manmade set of circumstances that put all of us in harm's way."

"Since it would appear through these emails there was a level of intentionality, we demand an apology. We demand that somebody reach out to the folks that waited for ambulances, experiencing three to four longer response times than usual. They need to apologize to the thousands of families that couldn't get their kids to school on time on the first day of school. ... Somebody's got to cut Fort Lee back a reimbursement check for our overtime and all the other expenses that we incurred during those four days, because you have no idea what the mobilization effort around here is when something like that happens," he added.

For weeks, Christie has been denying any involvement in the lane closures and refuting the idea that political retribution was at play. He has stood by his aides' explanations that the lanes were closed as part of a traffic study, even though Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, who was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), said he was never made aware of the study's existence.

But the new emails, provided by Wildstein in response to a subpoena from state lawmakers, bring Christie and his inner circle closer to the scandal.

The emails point to clear political motives for the closures, and the officials seem almost giddy at the problems they create.

At one point, Wildstein received a text message from an unknown sender -- the emails are partially redacted -- saying, "Is it wrong that I'm smiling."

"No," replied Wildstein. When the other person added, "I feel badly about the kids. I guess," Wildstein reminded them that their parents are probably Democrats anyway.

"They are the children of Buono voters," said Wildstein, referring to Democrat Barbara Buono, who unsuccessfully challenged Christie in the Nov. 5 gubernatorial election.

On Wednesday, Buono told the Daily Beast that she believed all along the closures were "an act of political retribution" directed by the governor himself.

"This is a guy who runs a paramilitary operation,” Buono said of Christie. "His people don't sneeze without checking with him first. But I think what really was the most damning [revelation] was the cavalier attitude that these folks had about subjecting children and the public to public safety hazards. These are terrible people, and the ringleader is Chris Christie."

The majority of Fort Lee voters, incidentally, voted for Christie, not Buono.

Wildstein also predicted political problems for Sokolich over the issue, writing in a Sept. 18 email, "It will be a tough November for this little Serbian."

Sokolich said that for the record, he is Croatian.

"That slight is offensive to me, and it's offensive to me of everyone of Serbian background, I will tell you that," he said. "That to me, if I were Serbian, I would be absolutely, positively appalled by it."

The Port Authority's Foye was furious when he learned about the lane closures and ordered the lanes reopened on Sept. 13. Wildstein and Kelly were, in turn, furious at Foye for screwing with their plan.

"The New York side gave Fort Lee back all three lanes this morning," wrote Wildstein in an email to Kelly on Sept. 13. "We are appropriately going nuts. Samson helping us to retaliate."

"What??" replied Kelly.

"Yes, unreal," said Wildstein. "Fixing now."

David Samson, as The Record notes, is chairman of the Port Authority and a close adviser to Christie.

Christie's spokesman did not return a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

Christie, who is considered a possible 2016 presidential contender, has dismissed the controversy over the bridge closures and blamed it on Democrats trying to score political points against him.

"National Democrats will make an issue about everything about me. So get used to the new world, everybody," he said in a Dec. 13 press conference. "You know, we're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. That's the way it goes, so it's fine."

Since news of the closures broke, Wildstein has resigned, as has his boss Bill Baroni, who was deputy executive director of the Port Authority and a top Christie aide. Christie, however, has maintained that Baroni's resignation was planned before news of the controversy broke.

Sokolich said Wednesday he didn't know if Christie was directly involved in the lane closures, but he lamented what the whole controversy had done to New Jersey's reputation.

"And by the way, congratulations. You've now set New Jersey back 20 years and guaranteed us to be the brunt of political misconduct jokes that we've been hearing about all these years," he said. "Just when we thought we were moving in the right direction."

 

You'd rather talk about a traffic jam than Benghazi? Or Obama's lies? Or Fast and Furious? Or Solyndra, etc., etc., etc.? This is just fluff.