Category: Transportation

And Now the Cops are Ratting Out Christie’s Bridge Scandal

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Props to the The Bergen Record for their coverage of Bridgegate.

Today, they revealed that senior staff at the Port Authority Police were aiding the bridge closures, and the rank and file cops are talking:

On the second day of the George Washington Bridge lane closures last year, a Port Authority police officer stationed at a gridlocked intersection picked up the two-way radio in his patrol car. The closures were creating “hazardous conditions” on Fort Lee’s streets, he told fellow officers according to his own account, and the lanes needed to be reopened.

 “Shut up,” a Port Authority police supervisor at the bridge allegedly replied, instructing the officer not to discuss the apparently secret operation over an open radio channel.

 That exchange, as described by officer Steve Pisciotta and involving the highest-ranking officer at the bridge, Deputy Inspector Darcy Licorish, is included in a summary of the recollections of nearly a dozen rank-and-file police officers that was provided to lawmakers investigating the lane closures, according to documents obtained by The Record.

The accounts of 11 officers at the bridge during the week of the closures share common threads and provide vivid new details about how the operation was put into effect on a Monday morning nearly a year ago.

 ………

 The instructions about the new lane configuration, many of them said, were delivered at roll call before the morning rush hour on the first day by Police Lt. Thomas “Chip” Michaels, who grew up with Governor Christie in the town of Livingston. He told the officers not to touch the traffic cones choking the number of access lanes out of Fort Lee from three down to one, according to the officers.

Later that morning, officers said they saw Michaels driving David Wildstein — the Port Authority executive who ordered the closures and also grew up with Christie — around Fort Lee’s gridlocked streets.

………

 Several immediately heard gossip in a police break room that the closures were part of a dispute between Christie and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who had declined to endorse the governor for re-election. The officers described the resulting traffic as “horrible” and “horrific,” and at least one urged a reversal of the operation, only to get warnings that his remarks over the radio were “inappropriate,” according to his attorney. It’s the first indication that police charged with patrolling the bridge recognized and notified superiors of the chaos being caused by the lane closures.

The summary, written by the legislative panel’s attorney Michael W. Knoo and based on an interview with the officers’ attorney Dan Bibb, renews questions about the role of some Port Authority police officers in what appears to have been an exercise motivated partly by politics.

The Record also obtained separate summaries of informal interviews with the two police supervisors at the bridge at the time, Michaels and Licorish. Those interviews were conducted prior to the one given on behalf of the 11 rank-and-file officers and do not address some of the allegations regarding the instructions – and warnings – the officers say they received.

………

 Some of the 11 rank-and-file officers at the bridge, however, described the supervisors as ordering them not to voice opposition to the lane closures as they were happening.

 Perhaps the most explosive anecdote was provided on behalf of Pisciotta, a 12-year officer who is typically one of the first to arrive at the bridge before the morning rush hour, according to the summary. Pisciotta’s attorney said his client, who had worked at the bridge for over five years, recognized early on that the closures were causing traffic safety problems and aired his concern over the radio on the second day, according to the summary.

………

 Licorish “replied to Pisciotta by radio, telling him to ‘shut up’ and that there could be no further discussion of the lane closures over the air,” according to Pisciotta’s attorney.

Michaels and a police sergeant then “visited him in person at his post to tell him that his radio communication had been inappropriate,” the attorney said.

A second officer, Angela Tait, said she witnessed both exchanges, according to the summary.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, of Teaneck, who is co-chairwoman of the legislative panel, said the summaries indicate that “law enforcement was in on this whole thing.”

 “It was bad enough that it was the Port Authority and people close to the governor, but now you’ve got the people who are responsible for keeping us safe,” she said. “Any time you have law enforcement involved in a political operation, that’s very troubling.”

 Bibb, who is representing the 11 officers, also told the lawmakers’ attorney that many of the officers have already been interviewed by federal investigators, who are conducting a criminal probe. Bibb provided the legislative panel a summary of what the officers stationed at the bridge would say if subpoenaed to appear before the committee and testify under oath, according to the memo, dated Aug. 27.

Seriously, the lower level cops have both gone to the union, and gone public about this.

This is like peeling an onion, but someone is clearly making onion rings out of this, hopefully the US Attorney.

Stupid Uber Tricks

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It has been revealed that Uber has been mounting a sophisticated program of industrial sabotage against their rival Lyft:

Uber is arming teams of independent contractors with burner phones and credit cards as part of its sophisticated effort to undermine Lyft and other competitors. Interviews with current and former contractors, along with internal documents obtained by The Verge, outline the company’s evolving methods. Using contractors it calls “brand ambassadors,” Uber requests rides from Lyft and other competitors, recruits their drivers, and takes multiple precautions to avoid detection. The effort, which Uber appears to be rolling out nationally, has already resulted in thousands of canceled Lyft rides and made it more difficult for its rival to gain a foothold in new markets. Uber calls the program “SLOG,” and it’s a previously unreported aspect of the company’s ruthless efforts to undermine its competitors.

Together, the interviews and documents show the lengths to which Uber will go to halt its rivals’ momentum. The San Francisco startup has raised $1.5 billion in venture capital, giving it an enormous war chest with which to battle Lyft and others. While the company’s cutthroat nature is well documented, emails from Uber managers offer new insight into the shifting tactics it uses to siphon drivers away from competitors without getting caught. It also demonstrates the strong interest Uber has taken in crushing Lyft, its biggest rival in ridesharing, which is in the midst of a national expansion.

This kind of crap is why Uber, Lyft, and their ilk need to be required to actually have employees with hack licenses drive their cars.

What happens if Uber, a company that employs price gouging as a significant portion of its business model, actually becomes the 800 pound gorilla in the commercial personal transport market?

It won’t be pretty, it will make Comcast look like Mother Theresa.

Anyone Remember the Free PVTA Buses in the 1980s?

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For those of you did not go to UMass, Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, or Mount Holyoke, or did not live in the 5 College area at that time, may be unaware that the local bus service, the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA), specifically, the UMass Transit System, had free buses.

The free fares are a bit more limited now, probably because of the increasing tight budgets at UMass, but it continues.

There were a lot of students who didn’t own cars, and some of those students didn’t die, because of this service.

I started to think of the PVTA buses, when I read this essay suggesting that we should make mass transit free:

In March, when a cloud of particle pollution settled across Western Europe, Paris took a radical approach. The Ile-de-France region introduced alternate driving days (odd-number plates one day; evens the next) and eliminated fares on local trams, buses, trains and subways.

Traffic dropped by nearly 20 percent in Paris; congestion on the Périphérique ring road fell by 30 percent at rush hour; large-particle pollution fell by 6 percent. Measured by the impact on the roadways, the emergency measures worked as intended.

And on the rails? Unfortunately, the open-gate policy meant that the transportation authority didn’t count how many travelers boarded trains, subways, buses and trams during the fare-free days. The city performed a huge experiment in transportation policy, and nobody bothered to watch.

It doesn’t matter much in context. We can’t expect the traffic-choked French capital to make a habit of such initiatives. Alternate driving days are an intolerable hassle for car-dependent commuters; lost fares and the provision of supplementary service to the tune of 600,000 seats on the Métro, the tramway and suburban rail system cost the region nearly $3.5 million per day. Fares cover nearly half the operating costs of the RATP, the state-owned transit operator, so eliminating them would put a tremendous hole in the annual budget.

And yet, Paris would have been a valuable case study. The consequences of eliminating transit fares remain surprisingly obscure. Can a fare-free policy transform a regional transportation picture? Can it pay for itself? Or is it merely a publicity gimmick that inflicts needless financial woes on local transit agencies?

Many people reject the idea out of hand, saying free rides are a problem, not a solution. But “free” transit, of course, is only as free as public libraries, parks and highways, which is to say that the financial burden is merely transferred from individual riders to a municipal general fund, a sales tax or local businesses and property owners. A free ride policy represents the culmination of a long shift from thinking of transit as a business sector — one that was quite profitable in its heyday — to considering it an indispensable public service.

………

For bigger cities, the principal motivation for scrapping fares is not to save money but to increase ridership, and harvest the associated positive externalities: less traffic and pollution, more parking and mobility. In the handful of American cities where such programs have been tried on a short-term basis, the ridership surges have been huge. When Topeka made transit free for May of 1988, ridership rose 98 percent. When Austin made transit free for the fall of 1990, ridership increased by 75 percent. A similar experiment in Asheville, in 2006, recorded a passenger surge of 60 percent.

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of free fares, but I am kind of surprised that UMass Transit wasn’t mentioned.  It’s been going on for somewhere around 40 years.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Chris

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It looks like Jabba the Governor has yet another bridge scandal:

Investigations into the Christie administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in 2011, according to people briefed on the matter.

 While the inquiries were prompted by the apparently politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge last year, these investigations center on another crossing: the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City. They are being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressed the Port Authority to pay for extensive repairs to the Skyway and related road projects, diverting money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Mr. Christie canceled in October 2010.

 Again and again, Port Authority lawyers warned against the move: The Pulaski Skyway, they noted, is owned and operated by the state, putting it outside the agency’s purview, according to dozens of memos and emails reviewed by investigators and obtained by The New York Times.

 ………

 In bond documents describing the Skyway reconstruction and other repairs, the Port Authority has called the projects “Lincoln Tunnel Access Infrastructure Improvements.”

 The accuracy of this characterization is now a major focus of the investigations, according to several people briefed on the matter. Under a New York State law known as the Martin Act, prosecutors can bring felony charges for intentionally deceiving bond holders, without having to prove any intent to defraud or even establish that any fraud occurred.

 Two veteran prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office public corruption unit are working with two S.E.C. lawyers who are experts in such bond issues, one person briefed on the matter said, and another noted that while the agencies were each conducting separate parallel inquiries, they were working together.

 In addition to criminal charges under the Martin Act, the investigations could result in civil action under the Martin Act or by the S.E.C., under federal securities laws.

Someone has lost a lot of weight for nothing, because he will never be the Presidential nominee.

Maybe the Taxi Business Needs to be Changed, but Until Uber is Out of the Picture, It Won’t Happen

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There are a whole host of issues of regulation, liability, etc., but the Objectivist Randroids at Uber are the sort of people who should be kept out of the business, because they are corrupt to the core:

It’s been pretty widely publicized here in San Francisco that Uber has just moved into fancy new office space at 1455 Market.

………

In any case, what has attracted slightly less publicity is the fact — mentioned only in passing by Re/Code — that on the same day, Uber opened a second office, on Vermont Street in Potrero. According to Uber’s blog…

We’ve heard a lot from our Uber SF partners about wanting easier ways to reach our team including parking and streamlined access to the office. With a new dedicated driver center in Potrero Hill, we are aiming to better connect with our partners and help make getting started with Uber, attending office hours and safety education processes more seamless.

Euphemistically called a “driver center,” one Uber driver told us the second office is actually more of a decoy: allowing the company to fulfill its promise to be more accessible to drivers without, you know, actually having them make Uber’s real office look untidy.

So the way of dealing with issues with drivers, things like insurance, liability, and complaints, is to hide from them.

The way to deal with customers is price gouging, and explicitly violating the law.

The founder of Uber is big into Ayn Rand, a woman who wrote that the philosophy of a serial killer who strangled and dismembered a little girl, was an inspiration to her.

If a company founder demonstrates compete contempt for the very concept of business ethics, and the company is in a consumer centered business, regulatory easements are simply not justified.

OK, Now We Have a Smoking Gun

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Bill Stepien, Chris Christie’s former campaign manager has now officially stated that the Governor knew what were going on as it happened:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) told the press that no one on his senior staff had prior knowledge of the plan to close access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in September. But a lawyer representing Christie’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien now says that was wrong.

The claim was included in a letter sent in early April — and made public Wednesday — by attorney Kevin Marino. The letter was sent to Randy Mastro, the high-priced defense attorney who led the governor’s internal review of the scandal.

The letter demanded corrections to a report produced by Mastro and his team, which cleared Christie of any role in the scandal. Among Marino’s demands: that Mastro retract the portion of the report claiming that Stepien had falsely assured Christie that he had no “prior knowledge of the [GWB] lane realignment.”

“[T]he Report itself acknowledges — albeit obliquely — that Mr. Stepien advised Governor Christie on December 12, 2013, that he (Mr. Stepien) did have prior knowledge of the lane realignment,” Marino wrote, later adding: “When the Governor asked Mr. Stepien directly whether he had prior knowledge of the lane closures, Mr. Stepien truthfully told the Governor that [former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive] David Wildstein had come to him with the idea, to which Mr. Stepien responded that Mr. Wildstein would have to run the idea by normal channels in Trenton (i.e. the Governor’s Office).”

So I guess that it is going to be a Jeb Bush/Hillary Clinton race in 2016. **shudder**

What We Just Did Today

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2014 Grand Mediocre East Coast Champion, Art, People’s Choice, Marine Posse Favorite: Tick Tock the Croc

Natalie and Charlie participated into the 2014 Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race as members of the Lansdowne High School team.

Charlie and Natalie part of the support crew, and learned to ride a bike as a result (Natalie has still not mastered this skill).

It covers 14 miles over 8 hours, an obstacle course, and a short jaunt into Baltimore harbor.

The team won an award for most “epic” water entry (about 3:30 into the attached video, assuming that it is ever done processing on Youtube).

Much fun was had by all, though I think that Charlie might be a bit sore in the morning.

Apologies for the poor camera work, both on the vid, and the attached slide show.

The Stool Pigeon Sings

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Pass the Popcorn

It appears that former Chris Christie political operative David Wildstein is singing to a grand jury:

Bad news for Chris Christie — and very good news for the citizens of New Jersey: Esquire has learned from sources close to the investigation that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority operative who helped plan and execute the Great Fort Lee Clusterfk, is now cooperating with Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor investigating the soon-to-be-ex-governor and his minions for criminal conduct. Fishman has also increased the number of investigators at work on the case, and has begun presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury in Newark.

Wildstein was forced to quit his PA job in December, before Fort Lee’s corpses bobbed to the surface. Christie, who went to high school with Wildstein and put him at the PA as “director of interstate capital projects” — a job created just for him — helped edit the media statement thanking Wildstein “for his service to the people of New Jersey and the region.”

In January, Wildstein refused to testify before a New Jersey legislative committee investigating last September’s George Washington Bridge lane closures, citing his 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination. It was Wildstein’s cache of e-mails and texts, provided to the committee, that featured the instantly immortal exchange between Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly (“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”) and Wildstein (“Got it”).

No wonder the mainstream Republicans are looking at Jeb Bush for President now.

Christie may serve out his term, but he is not going to be the Republican nominee.

Drip, Drip, Drip

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Christie appointed Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, David Samson, has resigned as a result of scandals that came to light following the “Bridgegate” scandal:

Gov. Chris Christie on Friday announced the resignation of the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — the highest-ranking public official to step down during the scandal over lane closings at the George Washington Bridge — as he embarked on an aggressive campaign to re-establish himself on the national stage.

The chairman, David Samson, an éminence grise in New Jersey politics and a cherished adviser to Mr. Christie, had been under fire for his role in the lane closings since January, when emails suggested that he was more concerned about the political ramifications for Mr. Christie than drivers stuck in traffic. That was followed by a steady beat of accusations about conflicts of interest between his role at the Port Authority and his law practice.

With those conflicts under investigation by federal authorities, he had declined to cooperate with an internal investigation Mr. Christie had commissioned.

First, let me criticize the editor at the New York Times: When a reporter uses the term, “éminence grise,” (which means behind the scene power) even at the Gray Lady, it is the job of the editor to take out his red pen, and scrawl “BS” all over this.

“Éminence grise“, seriously?

On a slightly more serious note, while I do not know if Chris Christie will be frog marched out of the New Jersey’s Governor’s Mansion in handcuffs, his putative presidential campaign is done.

The fallout from “Bridgegate” and the subsequent developments are peeling his allies away from him like one would peel an onion.

Note also that the press’s man crush on Jabba the Governor has ended, which can be shown by the latest NY Times editorial, from the board, which leads with, “The only thing wrong with the resignation announcement on Friday of David Samson, Gov. Chris Christie’s top appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was that it took so long.”

What Does Chris Christie and the FBI Have in Common?

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They just both ran investigations of themselves which cleared them completely at taxpayer expense:

With his office suddenly engulfed in scandal over lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey two months ago summoned a pair of top defense lawyers from an elite law firm to the State House and asked them to undertake an extensive review of what had gone wrong.

Now, after 70 interviews and at least $1 million in legal fees to be paid by state taxpayers, that review is set to be released, and according to people with firsthand knowledge of the inquiry, it has uncovered no evidence that the governor was involved in the plotting or directing of the lane closings.

The review is the first of multiple inquiries into a scandal that has jeopardized Mr. Christie’s political future. It will be viewed with intense skepticism, not only because it was commissioned by the governor but also because the firm conducting it, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has close ties to the Christie administration and the firm’s lawyers were unable to interview three principal players in the shutdowns, including Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff.

But lawyers from the team who led the inquiry are prepared to vigorously defend their work, which they described as an unfettered look into the inner workings of an administration known to prize loyalty and privacy.

This is perhaps the only internal investigation with less credibility than the FBI, today, at least.

I Got One Explanation for this, and It Ain’t Good for Port Authority Chairman David Samson

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The US Attorney in New Jersey is investigating the collection of scandals involving the George Washing Bridge and misappropriation of Hurricane Sandy aid.

On Friday, something odd happened. The US Attorney for New York City issued a subpoena for Port Authority Chairman David Samson.

Technically, it might be in the New York US Attorney’s jurisdiction, since there are issues about votes that Samson took where he refused to recuse himself from issues that benefited the legal clients  at his firm.

The votes took place in New York City, so there are issue of whose case this might be.

Well today, the subpoena was rescinded:

A subpoena issued by the federal prosecutor from Manhattan to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey seeking documents related to Chairman David Samson was rescinded this afternoon, a source with knowledge of the subpoena said.

Samson has been under intense scrutiny by investigators and the media for several votes he has taken on Port Authority actions that may have benefited clients of his law firm, Wolff & Samson.

The subpoena was initially sent to Samson on Friday by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

However, the subpoena was withdrawn, according to the source, because of an overlapping investigation by Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

I understand why the subpoena was issued, but it is not clear why it was pulled back in 1 business day.

I can only think of one reason why a jurisdictional dispute would be resolved so quickly, and that is that the NJ USA called the NY USA, and explained that Samson is a primary target of their investigation.

I really cannot see any other scenario which would engender such a quick reversal.

The Joys of Mass Transit

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I’m taking the bus and Metro to work today.

I’m doing out to see how it goes.

If this works for me, our will  save some money, along with some wear and tear in my psyche.

There its a guy in the Metro car with me, and I cannot tell if he is having a conversation via a bluetooth equipped cell phone, our if he is mentally ill.

The joys of modem technology, neh?

[on edit]
No loss of signal underground, and the conversation continues, so, to paraphrase Cheap Trick, it’s those men inside his brain.

Posted via mobile.

I Wish that This Was True

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In response to Georgia’s issuing a vanity plate featuring the Klu Klux Klan Confederate Battle Flag, John Perr comes up with a parody that is pure genius.

The only thing that could make this better would be if this were true:

The state of Georgia this week began offering a new version of its vehicle license plate featuring the Confederate battle flag. Sponsored by the Georgia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (to whom a portion of the purchase price and annual registration fees will go), the revised design has many people inside the state and out howling mad.

In response to the outcry, Georgia SCV commander Jack Bridwell asked, “What’s the big deal?” Echoing Bridwell’s explanation that “the design is just people trying to show who they are and trying to be proud of their heritage,” Sons of Confederate Veterans spokesman Ray McBerry invited other groups to do the same:

“We believe that all people ought to be able to celebrate their history and their heritage, and that includes Southerners. We did anticipate that there could be some folks who would not like that, but we encourage them to go and make application for their own specialty plates.”

Now, a little known organization is taking him up on the offer. The group, calling itself The American People, is sponsoring a license plate to mark the 150th anniversary of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea.

After capturing the South’s vital manufacturing center and rail hub at Atlanta, Sherman’s troops marched southeast to Savannah leaving a swath of ruin in their wake. Between November 15th and December 21st, 1864, Sherman more than accomplished his objective to “create havoc and destruction of all resources that would be beneficial to the enemy.” Sherman’s brilliant campaign (or what the Sons of Confederate Veterans brand “atrocities and war crimes“) hastened the end of the Confederacy and with it the enslavement of four million Americans.

Read the rest, it’s brilliant, and if you know anyone in Georgia, have them petition for a vanity plate.

This is f%$3ing brilliant!

Not Enough Bullets………

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It appears that the hyper wealthy think that people not liking them or how they make money is just like the holocaust, “Seems like billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins is very, very afraid of progressives. In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, Perkins expressed his deep fear that fascist progressives were going to burn down the city.”

He actually invoked Kristallnacht:

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these “techno geeks” can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a “snob” despite the millions she has spent on our city’s homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is ludicrous.

BTW, San Francisco has a law against private vehicles blocking bus-stops, as the aforementioned Google buses do. It’s a $271 fine, and this means something north of $½ billion in fines have been ignored by the city by various tech firms, because big tech is above the law.

The idea that somehow or other, either criticism or legitimate law enforcement actions directed toward the extremely wealthy is somehow a fascist style persecution against the 0.01% is both pernicious and laughable.

Remember I Promised to Post Maddow’s Video of an Alternate Motive for the Bridge Rat F%$#ing?

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Kinda long, 17:51, but worth the watch

Well, here is the video.

We still don’t have a clue as to why the hell Christie aides, and possibly Christie himself, decided to make the George Washington Bridge the largest parking lot on the Hudson river, but what is presented here is certainly credible.

I really hope that someone rolls on their co-conspirators, because the justification for something this epically stupid will be fascinating.

Jon Stewart Thinks that Chris Christie’s Problem is that he is Caught Up In a Piss-Poor, 3rd Rate Quality of Corruption

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Part 1


Part Deux

Jon Stewart brought on The Daily Show‘s New Jersey correspondent ……… Jon Stewart, who excoriated Christie on the scandal:

I’m ashamed of the state I grew up. Political payback through traffic congestion? To see New Jersey sink to such a piss-poor, 3rd-rate quality of corruption… this is New Jersey. A state renowned for its piss-rich, first-rate quality of corruption!

Rather surprisingly, he is gentle about all this to Christie, by the standards of Jon Stewart, anyway.  (Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?)

Watch both vids.  They are some of his best work.

Of rather more interest is Rachael Maddow’s theory of motivation, which has nothing to do with endorsement for the Governor’s race.

Maddow suggests that the issue was actually driven by a conflict over appointing state Supreme Court Judges, and that this was not directed at the mayor, but rather at the Democratic leader of the New Jersey Senate, who represents Fort Lee, was the actual target.

The video is not available yet, but I will try to post it tomorrow.

Bridgegate

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The Chris Christie George Washington Bridge shutdown scandal has hit the big time, or times, specifically the New York Times, which is now writing about what only be called smoking gun emails: (You can peruse the emails here)

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.

First, it should be noted that the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, is not a Serb, he is of Croatian extraction, so I am pretty sure that the hizonner the mayor is even more pissed off now.

So, now Jabba the Governor is saying that he was misled by his staff, the last refuge of scoundrels:

What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. 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.

Yes, misled, that’s the ticket.

We also know that the traffic backup hindered emergency services, and may have resulted in the death of a 91 year old woman:

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.

 The woman later died, borough records show.

 In at least two of those instances, response time doubled, noted EMS coordinator Paul Favia, who documented those cases in a Sept. 10 letter to Mayor Mark Sokolich, which The Record obtained.

 On Sept. 9, the first day of the traffic paralysis, EMS crews took seven to nine minutes to arrive at the scene of a vehicle accident where four people were injured, when the response time should have been less than four minutes, he wrote.

 It also took EMS seven minutes to reach an unconscious 91-year-old woman who later died of cardiac arrest at a hospital. Although he did not say her death was directly caused by the delays, Favia noted that “paramedics were delayed due to heavy traffic on Fort Lee Road and had to meet the ambulance en-route to the hospital instead of on the scene.”

I think that the definitive word so far on all this comes from, of all places, the New York Daily News who started their article with:, “In the best possible light, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie built a top staff of lying thugs who threatened lives and safety to serve his political ends. If not, Christie is a lying thug himself.”

Whether he specifically knew or not, it is clear that Christie is a bully and a punk, and he surrounded himself with bullies and punks.