{"id":14821,"date":"2015-03-01T12:17:22","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T20:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14821"},"modified":"2015-03-01T12:17:22","modified_gmt":"2015-03-01T20:17:22","slug":"turning-out-to-be-a-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/01\/turning-out-to-be-a-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Out To Be a Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">On Friday evening, Rachel Maddow covered a story about how NJ Republican Governor Chris Christie, aka PIGnocchio, settles a lawsuit of many years standing against ExxonMobil for polluting the area under and around a refinery in that state for no apparent reason.&#160; Rachel said that that if the people of NJ were getting screwed for political considerations, it could turn out to be a scandal.&#160; First, here\u2019s Rachel\u2019s segment.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"500\" src=\"http:\/\/player.theplatform.com\/p\/7wvmTC\/MSNBCEmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_maddow_bblock_150227_495877\" width=\"635\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Now we\u2019re learning why PIGnocchio would settal that suit for a mere three cents on the dollar.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0301PIGnocchio\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0301PIGnocchio\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/0301PIGnocchio.jpg\" width=\"360\" align=\"left\" height=\"245\" \/>Before Gov. Chris Christie\u2019s administration abruptly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/28\/nyregion\/exxon-mobil-settles-with-new-jersey-over-environmental-damage.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&amp;smid=nytcore-iphone-share&amp;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">settled<\/a> long-running state environmental litigation against ExxonMobil for far less than originally expected, the oil behemoth donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Republican group that Christie ran and that financed his election campaigns. Additionally, <strong>the Christie administration office that engineered the settlement had been run by a <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nj.gov\/oag\/oag\/ag_2010-2012_dow_bio.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>former Exxon lawyer<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>When the case was initiated in 2004, when Democrat James McGreevey was governor, New Jersey sought $8.9 billion in damages in a suit alleging that ExxonMobil damaged more than 1,500 acres of waterfront and meadows. Yet, according to documents reported on by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/28\/nyregion\/exxon-mobil-settles-with-new-jersey-over-environmental-damage.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&amp;smid=nytcore-iphone-share&amp;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a> on Friday, the Christie administration is settling the suit for just $250 million. Based on ExxonMobil&#8217;s 2014 revenue of $411.9 billion, it will take the company roughly 5 hours to generate the sales to pay out the settlement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Federal records show that the reduction, which represents a huge gift to ExxonMobil, follows a wave of campaign cash from the company to the Christie-run Republican Governors Association<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>Since Christie&#8217;s first run for governor in 2009, ExxonMobil has donated more than $1.9 million to the group, according to data compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine.com. That includes $79,000 during Christie\u2019s 2009 campaign and $200,000 during his re-election campaign in 2013. It also includes $500,000 when he chaired the organization during the 2014 election cycle. <\/p>\n<p>ExxonMobil was one of the top contributors to the RGA during that election cycle, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/527s\/527cmtedetail_contribs.php?cycle=2014&amp;ein=113655877\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Responsive Politics<\/a>\u2026 [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/chris-christie-settles-exxonmobil-case-after-oil-giant-gave-rga-big-cash-1830752#.VPIJHFR7N1M.twitter\" target=\"_blank\">IB Times<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Click through.&#160; There\u2019s more.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">We have the smoking gun.&#160; I\u2019d say it\u2019s turning out to be a scandal.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday evening, Rachel Maddow covered a story about how NJ Republican Governor Chris Christie, aka PIGnocchio, settles a lawsuit of many years standing against ExxonMobil for polluting the area under and around a refinery in that state for no apparent reason.&#160; Rachel said that that if the people of NJ were getting screwed for <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/01\/turning-out-to-be-a-scandal\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}