{"id":185988,"date":"2014-06-24T20:56:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T01:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/06\/24\/bummer-of-a-birthmark-chris\/"},"modified":"2014-06-24T20:56:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T01:56:00","slug":"bummer-of-a-birthmark-chris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/06\/24\/bummer-of-a-birthmark-chris\/","title":{"rendered":"Bummer of a Birthmark, Chris"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/hd41K.jpg\" rel=\"lytebox\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/hd41K.jpg\" style=\"cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;\" width=\"290\" \/><\/a>It looks like Jabba the Governor has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/06\/24\/nyregion\/2nd-bridge-inquiry-said-to-be-linked-to-christie.html?_r=0\">yet <b>another<\/b> bridge scandal<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie\u2019s 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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">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\u2019s purview, according to dozens of memos and emails reviewed by investigators and obtained by The New York Times.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">In bond documents describing the Skyway reconstruction and other repairs, the Port Authority has called the projects \u201cLincoln Tunnel Access Infrastructure Improvements.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Two veteran prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s 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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Someone has lost a lot of weight for nothing, because he will <b>never<\/b> be the Presidential nominee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,972,1019,1035],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-justice","category-schadenfreude","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}