If there’s such a thing as second most important lede it’s this:
Under the terms of Christie’s proposed budget, most of the funds arising from an environmental settlement with ExxonMobil will go into the state’s general funds – the pool of money the state government uses to fund everything it does. Only the first $50 million would go toward environmental remediation costs projected to cost several billion dollars.
Fatman’s going to balance the NJ budget and take care of the underfunded pension system and whatever else he needs to do to run the state by using this money.
Can someone explain to me how Tony Soprano got elected not once but twice as the governor of NJ?? I don’t feel sorry for the state- that’s who they elected and he’s just fuc*ing over the state and its citizens.
It’s a part of the Garden State that feels like it might as well have been assimilated by the Borg.
My kids have grown up in the most picturesque state–nothing but mountains, streams, and cows. One night when they were younger, we were driving to New Jersey. We emerged from the Lincoln tunnel and ran into the glow and smoke of brush fires in the swamps alongside the highway, mirrored by the towers of flame shooting skywards from the refineries.
As we passed Newark Airport, the front lights of planes would wink into existence though the miasma and descend almost on top of our car, the next plane appearing before the first one could roar past us on the runway.
From the back seat, my seven-year-old whispered, in awe, “That’s beautiful.”
In fairness, there’s under a dozen law-abiding straight-shooting effective governors now in place thru the nation, and of them less than half are progressive.
Plus, it’s obvious NOW to NJ voters how historically bad and corrupt and truly awful a person Christie actually is, but people don’t generally live their lives as historical figures and generally voters have understandable trouble seeing them that way until after they’re done and convicted.
His presidential aspirations have been toast for a while now, his VP aspirations are also toast. At what point is being a A list criminal going to stop working for him? Indict Samson and watch him throw Christie under the train. Stay tuned.
Schwarzenegger did the exact same thing in California, we had Enron and Duke and a couple other crooked firms dead to rights for like 9 billion and he settled for pennies. After they gave his campaign millions.
On behalf of myself and about another 840,000 registered NJ voters in 2013, would you also say “Why did they back GEORGE W. BUSH? Democrats had their chance… and the entire nation is getting just what it deserves. They are certainly getting what they asked for.”
I was wondering when TPM would get around to this story. It’s big news in the Tri-State area, at least in NY/NJ part of it. Christie had his lawyers intervene to rescue Exxon and get 3 cents back on the dollar for a previously negotiated settlement of $8.9 billion to pay for the cleanup of a century worth of environmental rape and murder. If New Jersey voters don’t throw this corrupt POS out on his big butt, then they deserve every smelly, decrepit acre that covers that state.
Residents already know these places: factories, some abandoned, some still in operation, line I-95 near Newark Airport. You’ve seen this landscape in the opening credits of “The Sopranos”: forests of steel towers carrying high-tension power lines, squat round tanks labeled “Drive Safely” and four separate arteries of highway with jets just overhead taking off and on final approach. It’s a part of the Garden State that feels like it might as well have been assimilated by the Borg.
The stinkiest place in New Jersey suddenly got a whole lot stinkier. This dwarfs Bridgegate, and unfortunately for Christie, it’s equally easy to understand, especially if you’ve ever driven past Exit 13 on the Turnpike. Today his people finally responded, and their defense is basically “250 mil…great job by us!” Bridgegate may have been the moment when the teflon wore off. This could be the one that sinks him for good. It’s very, very serious.
