I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling like what the elephant in today’s cartoon did, so this Open Thread will deal with just one issue. I bet you can guess which one it is.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:04 (average 4:54). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: All lanes of traffic on the George Washington Bridge were blocked this afternoon by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s ego, traffic reports said.
Aerial images of the bridge showed traffic snarling for miles as Mr. Christie’s massive self-regard shut down all lanes on the upper and lower roadways. Tracy Klugian, a frustrated motorist attempting to head back to his home in Montclair, New Jersey, echoed the feelings of many drivers whose passage was blocked by the gargantuan ego: “First the polar vortex, and now this.”
A spokesman for the New York City Department of Transportation advised motorists to avoid the Governor’s ego by using the Lincoln and Holland tunnels “before Chris Christie remembers they’re there.”
Bridgeghazi!
From NY Times:
The mystery of who closed two lanes onto the George Washington Bridge — turning the borough of Fort Lee, N.J., into a parking lot for four days in September — exploded into a full-bore political scandal for Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday. Emails and texts revealed that a top aide had ordered the closings to punish the town’s mayor after he did not endorse the governor for re-election.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, emailed David Wildstein, a high school friend of the governor who worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge.
Later text messages mocked concerns that school buses filled with students were stuck in gridlock: “They are the children of Buono voters,” Mr. Wildstein wrote, referring to Mr. Christie’s opponent Barbara Buono.
The emails are striking in their political maneuvering, showing Christie aides gleeful about some of the chaos that resulted. Emergency vehicles were delayed in responding to three people with heart problems and a missing toddler, and commuters were left fuming. One of the governor’s associates refers to the mayor of Fort Lee as “this little Serbian,” and Ms. Kelly exchanges messages about the plan while she is in line to pay her respects at a wake.
Bridgeghazi!!
From YouTube and YouTube: ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES 1/8/14. PART I
PART II
Bridgeghazi!!!
H/T and kudos to SoINeedsAName (aka Nameless) for the term Bridgeghazi. 🙂
Cartoon:
15 Responses to “Open Thread–1/10/2014”
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Comparing the two is spot on. Both cases are pre-emptive "scandals" used by the other party against possible future presidental candidates.
My thoughts gleaned from reading a number of sites and papers:
When a major bridge – in fact the busiest bridge in the world – in your state of which you’re the Governor get shuts down for four days on YOUR watch, and …
Your friends you handpicked to be your aides tell you it was because of a “traffic study”, but …
The Executive Director of the Port Authority controlling the bridge tells you that no such “traffic study” exists, then …
Your first response, if you are any sort of Chief Executive, should be to find out which one is lying to you, and why the debacle happened in the first place
But if you’re Christie, you don’t care about it and try to avoid doing just that because you already KNOW the answers to those questions.
So firing someone four months AFTER the fact, when you’ve spent those four months …
1) Doing everything you can to make the scandal go away instead of doing what a former Federal prosecutor like Christie – a US Attorney – would be expected of doing: asking the hard questions to get to the bottom of it
2) Trying to bully people into shutting down investigations – even going so far as to call the governor of NY asking him to shut them down
3) Characterizing it as a witch hunt orchestrated by Democrats even as your political appointees “resign”
All this is little more than an attempt to CYA once the fit hits the shan.
I'll give Chrisie credit for doing a pretty good job with his presser yesterday. But he's got some major problems if 1) Anything develops that contradicts his absolute denial today … Or …2) Any new example of petty vindictiveness comes out
This has legs. It's something average Americans can easily understand and relate to.. It's not some arcane money-laundering or legalese mumbo-jumbo. It was an intentionally manufactured traffic jam that caused a wide range of problems – possibly even the death of a 91 y/o woman – for average Americans.
So for those wingnuts who say (or hope) that Christie closed the file on Bridgegate w/ his presser, well … It’s being investigated by the NJ Assembly, the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, the Port Authority IG, and the US Senate looks like is about to get involved. Not to mention the good folks from Bergen County who just filed a class action lawsuit. This ain't going away anytime soon.
He is either guilty of ordering it, or he is guilty of gross mismanagement in not knowing anything about it. Either way, this incident just adds to the long list of why he should not be president.
Yep. The choices boil down to two:
[1] He’s lying
[2] He appointed and hired a bunch of callous, petty vindictive goons who never tell him anything … and HE never bothers to ask.
HUMOR: A funny tweet I saw:
What do you call someone who dies because of a petty, political-payback bridge traffic jam?
A "corpus Christie"
I think Sen. Buono is right, he will probably not finish his term. He either lied, or is too imcompetent to be governor. Love "Bridgeghazi" Wish I were that witty.
4:54 I read they are better for you when cooked, but of course that takes a while.
Still waiting for photos of Christie showing a foot-long nose. The jerk. Mother Jones had this:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/01/chris-christie-bullying-videos
So, either he has some arcane, far-out definition of what constitures a bully (and wouldn't you like to see that), or else he believes you can only be a bully if you are a Democrat. Yes. The cartoon says it.
3:35 How do you like them tomatoes?
Christie seems like the Ideal RepubliCON – loud, vindictive, a bully, and either willfully stupid or incompetent – a sure fire Presidential Candidate!
Puzzle — 4:45 I haven't been doing them at all and my hands are very cold! I have no heat in the house but the new furnace should be installed late next week. My computer will be moved to where I am staying for now so hopefully I'll be able to check in a little more often, maybe.
If Bridgeghazi ever showed up on the federal radar (as in Congress), I'll bet that Issa would run the other way from an investigatiion. He's yell conspiracy etc. Having listened to or read several accounts of all this, I think Christie very well knew what was going on. I think that Christie dealt with it the way he did because the election was coming and such a scandal might very well have buried him. But now, since the election is over, Christie can try to play the big man.
The cartoon is so appropriate to this story!
I think you are soooo right, Lynn.
Love Andy. We all ready knew Christie had a gigantic ego, we just didn't know it could stop traffic.
I think he will be shown to have lied, and am curious what benefits were awarded to the four people he fired. Sacrificial goats?
The cartoon says it all.
I hope you feel better soon.
Thanks everyone. Still feeling horrid. Hugs to all.
5:21 How about some IRS audits on Tea Party – Got it..!
Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee. – Got it…!
"What I've seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I mislead by a member of my staff, but this inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge."
Bull-$hit.
Bull-$hit
Bull-$hit