This is going to be big. Anemic Sandy aid had been noted was cause of concern for a while.
Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2014, 10:20 PM - Edit history (1)
You may have already seen Mayor Zimmer in the news this week. Hoboken received only 1% of the aid they had requested for Hurricane Sandy relief and planning funds even though it was one of the hardest-hit communities in the state during the storm. At one point, 80% of the 50,000 person city was flooded. If you remember the footage of water gushing through an underground subway station, that was in Hoboken; it has, in fact, the highest per-capita use of public transit of any city in America. Yet so far the state of New Jersey has given the city about $350,000 from the billions of dollars in federal disaster relief and planning aid that it is charged with administering. That’s about $6 per resident. It has been enough to pay for one major planning study and to buy one backup generator for an $18 million emergency storm water pump.
50,000 people. 80% flooded. $6 a head.
News outlets and the mayor have both wondered if the anemic aid was a punishment for Zimmer not endorsing the governor’s reelection bid. Mayors in Jersey City, Elizabeth, and other New Jersey municipalities have been asking the same question since Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich raised the possibility that his refusal to endorse Christie led to the lane closures on GWB and the four-day-long traffic nightmare in that town.
This Hoboken story and the Fort Lee/GWB story might seem like separate tales. But they’re not. Moreover, these latest revelations put to rest the notion that Hoboken’s Sandy aid or the Fort Lee/GWB story have anything to do with local Democratic officials’ endorsement of the governor during his reelection campaign. Forget about the endorsements. It never really added up anyway.
The subpoenaed documents in Bridgegate show that the Christie administration used the Port Authority as an extension of their political operation, although we do not yet know to what end.
And the Hoboken story clearly demonstrates the Christie administration took steps to aid the material interest of a client of the chairman of that agency.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/hoboken-mayor-christie-team-shook-us-down-for-sandy-relief
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2014, 08:54 PM - Edit history (1)
this "in-yer-face" (read: Bravado! Balls! Guts! Mas Macho! What a MAN! "Nobody tells ME what to do!" - You TELL 'em, guv! Tell 'em who's boss! Put those pipsqueaks in their place!"
.
Anybody remember that other GWB and his aircraft carrier strut? Remember how Chris Matthews was practically drooling? Remember how he carried on like a lovesick school girl - "now there's a real GUY! We gotta GUY for president! America wants a GUYYYYYYY for president!" (Slobber slobber, drool drool.) It was just shameful. Embarrassing to watch - and I'm not talking about just dubya's swaggering around with his stuffed-crotch flight suit. I'm talking about the utterly embarrassing way Chris Matthews - a presumably grown man - was carrying on about it. "America wants a GUYYYYYYYYY for president"? Well, I don't, necessarily. I don't have any John Wayne-lust informing my vote for any leader. MY idea of a great governor was, and is, a guy like Jerry Brown. Doesn't have to flex any physical muscles because he's got muscles galore where it really matters (at least to me): BRAINS. But then again, as a kid, I also was much hotter for the mostly-passive, cerebral Mr. Spock than I was for the brash macho bravado of Captain Kirk.
But unfortunately, somehow, too much of America, inexplicably, does. Or at least thinks it does. Maybe it's some big misplaced father complex. Maybe it's a John Wayne complex or a Marshall Dillon complex or a Steven Seagal complex or hell, I dunno what. Maybe it's a self-weenie complex yearning for the big bruiser to come along and save you and kick sand in the other asshole's face or something? A lot of people I notice do have a hard-on for the lone gunslinger or cowboy at the OK Corral - I notice both dubya and rick perry even stand and walk that way. With a swagger and a slight bow-legged thing going on and their arms hanging down at their sides - dubya always looked like he was just itchin' to grab his little pretend gun from his little pretend thigh holster and "DRAW!" They both behave as though they're setting up for some Main Street shoot-out shot in a movie - where the camera zooms in on the opponent standing a few dozen yards away - from a vantage point behind and between the "hero's" legs. And inevitably they're halfway dressed in their little cowboy costumes - at least with their cute little cowboy boots sticking out from under the trouser hems of their city-slicker Brooks Brothers suits. Sheesh. These are supposedly grown men. STILL playing "Cowboys and Indians" when they're 50+ years old??? I sort of understand it - from a distance, but in other ways, I just don't. For me, it just doesn't compute. And maybe this is a bent part of me. Certainly a cynical part. I don't want a governor in costume, whether it's a dude trying hard to get in touch with his inner cowboy or his inner Don Corleone as chris christie seems to have been doing for years now.
I'm just so disgusted! Watching Alex Witt this morning and how everybody piled on that Mayor Zimmer for not coming forward earlier and how somehow it's HER motives that should be questioned?????? WTF????? Do NONE of them remember Barbara Buono going ON MSNBC confronting the question "why didn't you say something?" and saying, repeatedly - "hey, we DID. We TRIED! We TRIED!!!! And nobody wanted to listen!" Doesn't anybody remember that? Isn't anybody paying attention to the growing collection of testimony and anecdotal evidence that ALL backs this up? The bridge scandal isn't just some rare isolated incident by - HOW MANY people in the governor's office have just been going rogue all this time and poor innocent chris christie is just such a victim who didn't know nuthin' about nuthin' and all these mean scheming aides and deputies were ALL lying and ALL going rogue and he would NEVER do such a thing or encourage it?
DAMN!!!! It just pisses me off!!!!
Here's what I posted on Alex Witt's Facebook page:
Alex - I seriously wish you would do a little more connecting the dots about the whole Chris Christie mess! I can't believe all of you piled on Mayor Zimmer like it's somehow HER motivations that are suspicious! Do NONE of you remember how Barbara Buono actually sat there on MSNBC, confronting the "why didn't you say something?" questions with "We DID. We TRIED! And nobody wanted to listen"? NONE of the press was listening or paying attention because everybody was so in love with the perceived macho of Chris Christie.
Doesn't it arouse your suspicion when these stories keep coming up? Well, now that we're finally getting a truer picture of Chris Christie other than the embroidered rhapsody of love that the media has created around him, that is. Hey ALL these people can't be lying. ALL these people can't be going rogue. And poor victim Chris Christie is just being so unfairly targeted now - what utter baloney!!!
Ms. Witt - have you NEVER been in a situation where you're up against a bigger, stronger, bullying adversary who either has more money or more fame or more connections or more popularity - and it'll be your word against his, and nobody will believe you because he's holding all the high cards? Have you NEVER been in that situation, or known ANYONE who has? You've never heard of this before?
I'm stunned! And gravely disappointed in you this morning.
More of that, please! 
city would get further retaliation. Crispy had all these mayors scared. The first thing Mayor Sokolich asked CC when he came to see him was.. will there be "retribution". From what I've learned so far, flamingdem, it makes sense why she was afraid to complain. But, now feels free to come out.
First what do you mean by SOP? There are many versions. Second, I can't think of any other word for withholding aid from disaster victims for political gain than sociopathic.
I admit, if a Democratic Governor had done this stuff, it would be an extremely serious matter
resulting in court action, impeachment, career ruination and, if the Democrat had a Liberal-enough
record, possible imprisonment.
But Christie is a Corporate-Republican.
IOKIYACR.
So it's no problem.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.
especially coming from another Illinoisan. 
