IF YOU'RE UP NOW TURN ON MSNBC with Steve Kornaki.
Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2014, 10:02 AM - Edit history (2)
This stuff about Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken, NJ is combustible.
She's provided them with a diary that she recorded last year when David Sampson and others were pressuring her to push through a redevelopment plan for property owned by the Rockefellers. She was told that if she pushed it through, she'd get Hurricane Sandy money. Otherwise, she wouldn't. (The city planning board had already had a vote against giving the Rockefeller group a better property designation than the adjoining owners. Christie wanted to help the Rockefeller group, for reasons the Mayor doesn't understand.)
From the Hurricane Sandy funds, she ended up getting about enough to pay for one generator and one study -- out of billions that the Federal government made available for NJ. The rest was contingent on her pushing through the Rockefeller project -- which she won't do. She says she can't give a windfall to one property owner and not to the others in the area, and that she'd be completely "exposed" if she did.
Kornaki explained in the beginning of the hour that the previous Mayor of Hoboken lost his job when he was convicted of "expediting" property approvals for in exchange for campaign money. So now she's being asked to do essentially the same thing in exchange for Hurricane Sandy money.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mayor-christie-camp-held-sandy-money-hostage
In this account – supported by email, public records and Zimmer’s own diary entries – Christie’s inner circle was willing to cut off devastated constituents, muscle a friendly mayor and arrange public funds to finance a study for a project the governor supported.In a news conference last week, Christie rejected the notion that his administration engages in retribution or seeks political payback. Zimmer’s account paints a different portrait.
Zimmer claims they leaned on her twice to get their way. By the second encounter, Zimmer said – this time with Constable – the 45-year-old mayor and mother of two young children was despondent, according to her own notes.
“I was emotional about governor Christie,” she wrote in a diary entry she provided that is dated May 17, 2013. “I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something very different. This week I found out he’s cut from the same corrupt cloth that I have been fighting for the last four years.”
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napkinz 
what state would you like to see up next?
That would be great--Kornacki going from state to state to expose corruption. Can you imagine the shudders when he would roll into town?
It would be like 60 Minutes used to be--when they would run and hide in the closet to avoid the reporter.
We could invent a new verb: The State of NJ has been Kornackied."
Thank you thank you thank you to the OP and everyone who posted additional info.
Cher
but upon thinking about this just a second, one reason Kornacki has done so well is that he worked on a political website in NJ. He has contacts that run deep. Might be a lot more time-consuming in another state.
[IMG]
[/IMG]running out of my eyes. That's a hilarious graphic!
Cher
Reveal searches for non-extradictable countries with "white rich people speaking English". 
It always takes time for these things to sink into the public consciousness.
We at DU are exceptionally informed. I go to meetings around the state (NJ) where I have to interact with people who are peripherally involved in this thing. They are not even as well-informed as many of us here!
Read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point to understand how this has to work itself across the public consciousness.
When I hear polls saying people think Christie is just great, it doesn't bother me in the least because as a mass communicator, I know what and how long it takes for this type of change to occur.
Cher
not at ALL 
and by the way, PUPPET is spelled with one 't'
They can take that quid pro quo and put it where the sun wont go!
this journalist is uniquely qualified to cover this scandal.
You no doubt know his background, so I'll say no more.
I say let him run with it and do what you did if you're from another area--fast forward through the parts that don't interest you.
See my post above--wouldn't you like him to come expose corruption in your state, too?
Cher
This late-riser is watching.
Praise be to the internets.
Cher
Just the "fatty" part and I'm not making a joke about Christie's corpulence.
As a matter of fact, I took a break from watching the Kornacki segments to work on a household project and while working, I thought about how everyone must think our whole state is a cesspool of corruption.
In fact, it is not. Dawn Zimmer herself is an example of that.
Our Lt. Gov., despite the fact that she told Zimmer she had to go ahead with the Rockefeller project, at least stated she knew it was wrong. That is no excuse, but there is a little sign there that people get caught up in the system and do not necessarily do the right thing.
While I was working on my project, I thought about a friend of mine in government who controls a budget of several hundred million dollars, and that's conservative (the budget, not my friend). I was thinking of writing a post about his person because they have been around for a long time and have not been corrupted. In fact, this person is actively working to eliminate corruption.
So there are good people who work for our state. They, however, do not get the headlines.
Cher
Those are meant towards Holder and his pathetic job performance, not you. I think I agree with all of your sentiments from what I remember of your posts.
