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Time for some TRAFFIC!

Olowkow said:
Fox News, which has been ignoring the developments, now admits, or at least one guy does, that this Christie story is a "scandal".



I didn't quite follow the reasoning behind the Helen Hoen judgeship story by Rachel Maddow.
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Basically, as I may have said before "attack a small city and nearly everyone in it because their democratic mayor didn't endorse the GOP governor" angle is odd at best, and Christie's apparently telling the truth that he didn't care much about the endorsement.

And "attack a small city in an obvious way, on a lark" makes no sense at all.

But Helen Hoens is both a friend of Christie's, and the wife of a member of his administration, and she was up for a lifetime appointment, up until Christie withdrew the nomination, and gave an angry press conference blaming the senate democrats roughly 12 hours before the attack order went out. And the fact that they were attacking the home district of the leader of the senate democrats is the key to it, it's basic "you hurt my guys, I'll hurt yours" bickering, taken to a rather wild level.

That doesn't mean he's at the center of it, of course, but if it's correct then it certainly pulls other people into the mix, such as Hoens' husband.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
Perhaps he could have investigated, but he believed what his people were telling him and didn't see the need. I think he assumed this road closing was done for a legitimate reason and had no idea his people orchestrated it as a political vendetta. ....
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As hcg noted in post #159, it's not credible.

This happened in September. Are we to believe Christie was so sure there was no there there that he didn't even bother to verify if a real study, even one that was fabricated as part of the plot, was done?

And during his news conference he tried to hold that faux thread up, still trying to emphasize that the issue was his staff lying to him, and downplay as much as possible that the reason for the closure was political retribution.
 
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Foolmewunz said:
Oh, there could be legitimate reasons for such a study. ...
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You don't need to close lanes when you can just count cars. They were stupid not to make the closure about some trumped up emergency inspection. You can close a lane to make an inspection.
 
eeyore1954 said:
I didn't get that. He started with apologizing for what was done.
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You didn't get the tap dance? Look closer.

Apologize - check
Take the imaginary 'buck stops here' no consequence blame for the bridge closure - check
Claim you didn't know - check
Blame the staff for your failure to know - check
Deny political retribution could have possibly been the motive - check
Slight of hand, switch the discussion about motive for the action by alluding to the unknown status if a study was actually the reason for the lane closure - check

It was a very carefully orchestrated tap dance.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
You don't need to close lanes when you can just count cars. They were stupid not to make the closure about some trumped up emergency inspection. You can close a lane to make an inspection.
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That's another part - if they'd thought it out, they could have possibly closed one lane. Closing two out of three was just greedy.

And that's why I agree on Christie - at the *bare* minimum, he absolutely failed to get out in front an obvious scandal that could be seen coming a mile away. And you're expecting to win a national election? And the worse, and IMO more likely, explanation is that he's simply lying through his teeth, and knew all about it.
 
Mumbles said:
...
And that's why I agree on Christie - at the *bare* minimum, he absolutely failed to get out in front an obvious scandal that could be seen coming a mile away. And you're expecting to win a national election? And the worse, and IMO more likely, explanation is that he's simply lying through his teeth, and knew all about it.
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This brought an interesting thought to mind. For 5 years Darrell Issa and his ilk have been trying to create outrage, drum up scandal, contrive corruption and nothing has stuck, because nothing was there.

When something is there, it sticks all by itself.
 
Mumbles said:
Basically, as I may have said before "attack a small city and nearly everyone in it because their democratic mayor didn't endorse the GOP governor" angle is odd at best, and Christie's apparently telling the truth that he didn't care much about the endorsement.

And "attack a small city in an obvious way, on a lark" makes no sense at all.

But Helen Hoens is both a friend of Christie's, and the wife of a member of his administration, and she was up for a lifetime appointment, up until Christie withdrew the nomination, and gave an angry press conference blaming the senate democrats roughly 12 hours before the attack order went out. And the fact that they were attacking the home district of the leader of the senate democrats is the key to it, it's basic "you hurt my guys, I'll hurt yours" bickering, taken to a rather wild level.

That doesn't mean he's at the center of it, of course, but if it's correct then it certainly pulls other people into the mix, such as Hoens' husband.
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I understand the story as Maddow told it, but what I don't understand is why the nomination was withdrawn at all. Supposedly, he didn't want his friend's wife to undergo nasty questioning or something. Like she was so fragile. His reasoning didn't make sense to me. It made me wonder whether perhaps she knows something about him that he didn't want to come out under oath, and possibly one of the democrats told him they were going to nail him through her, because they were pissed at him....or something.:confused:

ETA: Another question is what did the police do when all these folks were calling to complain? Why could they not merely remove the barricades and use their authority under the theory of preventing a catastrophe? They could sort out the details later. Were the police in Christie's pocket too?
 
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A note of seriousness: B-flat

On another note, how is the mayor of a city on one side of a bridge being punished in this fashion? Local businesses? Sure. Motorists? Natch. What, does the mayor collect a little "convenience fee" for each bridge access and so misses out on his daily take?

Aw hell, now I gotta go back for a ******* fulla dimes!

Edited by jhunter1163: 
Edited for Rule 10.
 
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thaiboxerken said:
I don't know if you're keeping up with the news, but there was no study.
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Actually, I'm not willing to say that. It's quite possible that they did put together a study of some kind - in Engineering, that's pretty easy to do.

What I will say is that any study was nothing but a fig leaf for their actual purpose - The stuff already released makes that clear.
 
More to the story. It looks like it was payback to the mayor after all. The Port Authority police were telling angry commuters that the whole thing came from Sokolich.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/blame-the-mayor

Where would they have gotten that, if not from Christie's people? And if so, then this closes the circle a little. They caused the traffic, then told the PA that Sokolich was behind it all so he'd get the blame for what they did. At least WHY they did this is coming into focus.
 
Regnad Kcin said:
A note of seriousness: B-flat

On another note, how is the mayor of a city on one side of a bridge being punished in this fashion? Local businesses? Sure. Motorists? Natch. What, does the mayor collect a little "convenience fee" for each bridge access and so misses out on his daily take?

Aw hell, now I gotta go back for a ******* fulla dimes!

Edited by jhunter1163: 
Moderated content removed.
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People don't know that, or at least not always. Plus, if traffic really backs out, it could hit the city and tie the whole place up. And of kids are on school buses for four hours...well, quote a few of them could attend private schools in NYC...I guess...

There's just one problem with this - that story isn't going to last very long under any circumstance, and the town mayor was elected in 2011, to a 4 year term. But then, this whole thing still sounds like pure vindictiveness than anything calculated in any case, so...
 
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Olowkow said:
I understand the story as Maddow told it, but what I don't understand is why the nomination was withdrawn at all. Supposedly, he didn't want his friend's wife to undergo nasty questioning or something. Like she was so fragile. His reasoning didn't make sense to me. It made me wonder whether perhaps she knows something about him that he didn't want to come out under oath, and possibly one of the democrats told him they were going to nail him through her, because they were pissed at him....or something.:confused:
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Yeah, I don't get that particular part, either, but without evidence, I can't say. Maddow's theory offers a more plausible timeline, and a more obvious reason, for him or someone in his office to lash out, than the idea that it was just for fun, or Christie's own non-theory, so that's the one I'll go with for the moment.

Unabogie - I suspect the cops blamed the mayor was because the mayor was the easiest local target to pin the clotures on, regardless of who told them to say so. Kinda like how they insulted him, but then they also insulted school children, and did both in emails they stored..
 
Unabogie said:
More to the story. It looks like it was payback to the mayor after all. The Port Authority police were telling angry commuters that the whole thing came from Sokolich.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/blame-the-mayor

Where would they have gotten that, if not from Christie's people? And if so, then this closes the circle a little. They caused the traffic, then told the PA that Sokolich was behind it all so he'd get the blame for what they did. At least WHY they did this is coming into focus.
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And more on this. Was this PA cop promoted after spreading the word that Sokolich was behind the traffic snafu?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bridge-police-promotion
 
hgc said:
I'll briefly answer here what I said to your post in the other thread: If Christie had anything to do with this, he will be out of office and his political career over. Even if he didn't, I can't imagine him making it past New Hampshire in 2016.
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I recal Denver mayor Pena ( a Democrat, although Denver mayor is a "Non-partisan" office) got a favorite ballot initiative of his defeated (about schools) by SW Denver voters.
2 weeks later, every major E-W route in Denver was under construction...

Obama didn't get raked over the coals for the IRS as badly as Christie has over this, nor is there any buzz about this, either

Republicans are the only ones who use retribution. Obviously
 
Mike! said:
And linking this to Christie is an indisputable truth? :rolleyes:
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Once there are commands coming from your office, it's linked to you.

Also, we've long known that the IRS targeted groups with liberal/progressive keywords as well, which takes a lot out of that "scandal", and into "routine administration of unclear tax codes"...
 
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