Discussion for article #224276
Yeah so there is zero chance of this guy being president
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This one is better because Christie’s bank records will be looked over by the FBI. They ought to find something in there.
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To get the full flavor of Christie’s shenanigans, read the complete account in the NYT.
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Christie in a nutshell: I had lots of accomplices; therefore, no crime was commited.
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I don’t love Christie. I don’t think he’s necessarily innocent. But most New York City residents think of the Pulaski Skyway as a connector to the Lincoln Tunnel.
The Skyway belongs to the state of New Jersey, and is outside the geographical limits of the Port Authority.
Christie is in major trouble over this—charges could include securities fraud because PA bonds are involved.
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I never thought I would look back and say that Christie Whitman wasn’t so bad. And, isn’t it time for Chrispy Creme to break a leg? Don’t all Jersey governors do that while in office?
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It’s like playing whack-a-mole with this guy. Everywhere you turn, there’s an illegal gambit of sorts going on. Maybe the better question is: Are there any legal dealings in which Christie participated?
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But officially its not. According to the article in the NYT the bridge does not fall under the authority of the Port Authority until they came up with a bullshit way to make that happen. The emails and the back and forth explicitly with Christie’s folks initially spell that out. He wouldn’t take NO for an answer however. Christie had it well planned that he was going to cancel the tunnel project that had already been approved and divert money that didn’t even belong to NJ for that skyway. It doesn’t matter what the people of NJ or NY believe. That money was diverted to pay for something that wasn’t even allowed until a few arms got twisted. Now the SEC is involved because bondholders are at risk having backed a project that shouldn’t have been authorized. That’s what I got out of the NYT article.
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Fat Boy is toast.
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I actually think this is a bigger deal than the original Bridgegate scandal. Not only is Christie toast…He’s burnt, smoldering and charcoaled-flamed toast.
I wouldn’t be surprised if another one of his pet projects was to figure out a way to change the State boundaries between NY and NJ, just so he could get his hands on more of that filthy lucre to pay for more of his shady double-dealings.
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Damn, I’m trying to recall – never used Pulaski much – and I surely ain’t no Christie fan – but seems to me I always considered it a route to NYC.
From Wikipedia:
Design began in 1919 for the Holland Tunnel, the first fixed roadway connection between New Jersey and New York
City; construction began in 1922, and the tunnel opened in late 1927.[30] To provide for a continuous highway connection on the New Jersey side, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill in 1922 authorizing the extension of Route 1 from its end at Elizabeth through Newark and Jersey City to the proposed tunnel.[31] It was conceived as the nation’s first “super-highway”.[32][33]
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It’s a feeder route for the Holland Tunnel, not the Lincoln Tunnel. According to the NYT account, the Christie administration first proposed using the PA money on the pretext that they were maintaining an access route to the Holland Tunnel. When they discovered that they could not do this, since the Holland Tunnel predates the PA and thus it was ineligible for the funds, they changed their rationale and said that they were using the funds to ease access to the Lincoln Tunnel, by reasoning that what helps the Holland Tunnel also helps the Lincoln Tunnel.
The key thing here is that Christie shut down the ARC tunnel project early in his first term, doing so (in my opinion) to burnish his credentials with Republican primary voters. He then decided to use the funds allocated for ARC to do regular road maintenance so that he could keep NJ gas taxes low, thus checking off the “no raised taxes” box for the Republican primary voters. He rammed through his plan by disregarding PA regulations and the counsel of its lawyers. He’s made of mess of NJ’s finances all in order to further his own national ambitions, and I hope that it’s this abuse of power that brings him down.
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How many lawyers approved it and which side of the river they belong to are not at all relevant in this case. The case is "who owns the SKYWAY. If the skyway is the property of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, it will have one impact. If it is owned by SOME OTHER AUTHORITY, then surely the meaning and implication will be altogether different. May we know, who actually owns the Pulaski Skyway? One cannot repair other’s property, and that too with taxpayer’s dollars!
Have an even more cynical view - Christie will never, never miss an opportunity to “monetize” for himself - or convert to clout - any major project that he handles / controls - - the contract for the ARC tunnel had already been set - there wasn’t any “opportunity” to capitalize on for Christie - so he killed it - so he could then redeploy the funds on projects - where he could control how gets the work & who is then in-debt to him. Christie is pretty cagey about how he works it all out - communicated through intermediaries - but fundamentally he does operate like an organized crime godfather.
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Seems to me there were lots of lawyers who signed off on the Enron scams too. Fat man is toast.
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Exactly. On top of that, the ARC tunnel was and is really needed. He killed a good project because of politics.
Lawyers AND accountants at BIG firms “assisted” Andy Fastow in the Enron dealings. 16 people went to federal prison at Enron and three more at other companies.
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I’m sure NYers consider the Lincoln Tunnel a mere connector to the Pulaski Hwy, since it is “only” 2 miles distant, but to outsiders (and the Port Authority) the only thing the Pulaski Hwy connects to is the Holland tunnel.