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Middleboro Review 2

NEW CONTENT MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW 2

Toyota

Since the Dilly, Dally, Delay & Stall Law Firms are adding their billable hours, the Toyota U.S.A. and Route 44 Toyota posts have been separated here:

Route 44 Toyota Sold Me A Lemon



Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Christie Facing Fresh Investigations et al



New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks about his knowledge of a traffic study that snarled traffic at the George Washington Bridge during a news conference on January 9, 2014 at the Statehouse in Trenton, New Jersey. (photo: Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks about his knowledge of a traffic study that snarled traffic at the George Washington Bridge during a news conference on January 9, 2014 at the Statehouse in Trenton, New Jersey. (photo: Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

Christie Facing Fresh Investigations

By Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
14 January 14

  • State committee formed to investigate 'Bridgegate' scandal

  • Christie also faces investigation into use of Sandy relief funds

hris Christie, the New Jersey governor, was facing two powerful new investigations on Monday that could further erode his standing as he tries to save his 2016 presidential bid from being derailed by the George Washington bridge scandal.

On Monday, Christie's nemesis, John Wisniewski, the Democratic state assemblyman who has been leading the inquiry into whether Christie's aides conspired to cause traffic chaos at the bridge in an act of partisan revenge, announced the formation of a new super-committee of the legislature that will pursue the investigation "wherever the facts may lead us". The new body will have the assistance of full legal counsel.
 
The second investigation disclosed by CNN on Monday involves the federal department of housing and urban development that is looking at whether the New Jersey governor misused relief funds for superstorm Sandy to advance his public profile as he stood for re-election. That investigation is particularly sensitive for him, as much of his appeal as a possible Republican presidential candidate is founded upon the favourable impression he made nationally in his handling of the October 2012 storm.
 
The launch of the investigations comes at an inauspicious moment for Christie. On Tuesday he delivers his "state of the state" speech in which he will unveil his aspirations for New Jersey over the coming year.
 
The new super-committee of the Democratic-dominated New Jersey assembly is likely to be granted subpoena powers at a special session of the state assembly on Thursday. Wisniewski said the first subpoenas are likely to be handed down on that day, with an initial target being Bridget Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff who issued the now infamous instruction last August: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee".
 
Christie sacked Kelly last week, insisting he had been deceived by her into thinking that his office had had nothing to do with four days of traffic mayhem last September inflicted on Fort Lee, the town that sits beneath the George Washington bridge. The town's Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, had previously refused to endorse Christie for re-election – thus apparently incurring the wrath of some members of the governor's inner circle.
 
Wisniewski told reporters on Monday that it was premature to discuss calling Christie himself to testify before the new super-committee. But he added that "our concern is that there was apparently a massive abuse of power and an attempt to conceal that abuse of power." He promised a "dramatic overhaul" of the Port Authority, whose board members are divided between appointees of the governors of New York and New Jersey.
 
The "Bridgegate" scandal is throwing an ever-wider net across key members of Christie's team. Almost 2,000 pages of documents released by the assembly on Friday contain the names of several people close to the governor who were informed of the traffic problems caused in Fort Lee early on yet apparently failed to inform him of the furor.
 
They include Regine Egea, Christie's current chief of staff, who on 13 September was forwarded an irate email from the New York official Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, in which he called the unannounced closure of access to the bridge from Fort Lee "abusive" and a threat to public safety. Another senior official now in the spotlight is David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority and a Christie appointee, who last week was referred to in one email exchange between the governor's team as "helping us to retaliate" against Foye's decision to reopen the closed lanes.
 
"When you have so many people in the governor's inner circle who received information about the fall-out, the traffic jams and the efforts to spin them, it strains credibility that all these people whose job it is to keep the governor informed did absolutely nothing," Wisniewski said.
 
The HUD investigation into Sandy concerns the spending of $25m of federal relief money designed to help the recovery of the battered New Jersey shore by attracting tourism back. Federal auditors will explore whether the funds were directed towards a TV advertising campaign that benefited Christie in his re-election campaign by featuring him and members of his family.
 
Representative Frank Pallone, the New Jersey Democrat who initially asked HUD to investigate the spending of the relief fund, told CNN that the successful TV ad campaign featuring the Christies had cost $4.7m while another proposed series of TV commercials that did not put the governor and his family on screen would have cost just $2.5m. "This was money that could have directly been used for Sandy recovery," he said.

The rest from RSN:

Edward Snowden's Smaller Crime
Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker
Talbot reports: "On March 8, 1971, burglars broke into an F.B.I. field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole hundreds of the agency's files. Nearly forty-three years later, several of them owned up to what they'd done, first in 'The Burglary,' a new book by Betty Medsger, a former Washington Post reporter, and then in interviews with the Times."
READ MORE

Supreme Court Skeptical of Obama Recess Appointments
Mark Sherman, Associated Press
Sherman reports: "The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on President Barack Obama's use of a provision of the Constitution to make temporary appointments to high-level positions over the objection of Senate Republicans."
READ MORE

Older Pool of Health Care Enrollees Stirs Fears on Costs
Michael D. Shear and Robert Pear, The New York Times
Shear and Pear report: "People signing up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act's federal and state marketplaces tend to be older and potentially less healthy, officials said Monday, a demographic mix that could threaten the law's economic underpinnings..."
READ MORE

The Supreme Court Won't Stop Monsanto From Suing Farmers
Lindsay Abrams, Salon
Abrams reports: "Leaving intact a federal appeals court decision, the justices threw out a lawsuit filed by farmers and seed companies that sought to prevent the biotech giant from suing them in the case that their fields became inadvertently contaminated with its patented line of crops."
READ MORE

How the Rise of Women in Labor Could Save the Movement
Bryce Covert, The Nation
Covert writes: "These women are bringing new ideas and strategies to labor organizing, many of which are borrowed from the women's movement - like making the connection between what workers face on the job and what they're dealing with at home."
READ MORE


FOCUS: Robert Parry | Israel's Hand in Guatemala's Genocide

Ariel Sharon during his tenure as Prime Minister of Israel in 2002. (photo: Nir Elias/Reuters)
Robert Parry, Consortium News

Parry writes: "Ben-Menashe traced the Israeli arms sales to Guatemala back to a private network established in the 1970s by Gen. Ariel Sharon during a gap when Sharon was out of the government."
READ MORE


WE HAVE TO TURN ALL OF OUR ATTENTION TO FINISHING THE FUNDRAISER: There is no way we will finish the January funding-drive at this pace. With a very small percentage of you donating we would finish quickly. Meeting the organization’s obligations now becomes priority number one. Who can help out with a contribution? / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News




FOCUS: Elizabeth Warren | This Is Just Wrong
Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (photo: Boston Herald)
Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News

Warren writes: "Millions of families are hanging on by their fingernails to their place in the middle class - and the United States Senate just voted to let them fall."
READ MORE
 
 
 
 
 

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