Midnight Meme, Special Edition: The 12 Days Of Christimemes #4

-by Noah

Unbeknownst to most fans of the tale of Gilligan's Island, there was an eighth castaway on the island named Chris. However, in the pilot episode, seven of the castaways got so tired of the arrogance and bullying of Chris that they-

A) Sacrificed him to the island's volcano god.

B) Built a strong raft and set him adrift with the outgoing tide, on his beach chair, of course.

C) Buried him up to his neck in the sand on the other side of the island at low tide.

D) Roasted him on a luau spit and ate well for days.

Should NJ's Big Rat Bastard Gummer Krispy quit now or wait till he's indicted for murder?

Read the NYT report here. (Click to enlarge the above image.)


"It was an excellent railroad and running quite well until the last seven years, and it has been in constant decline."

-- Martin E. Robins, former NJ Transit deputy
executive director, quoted in the NYT report

"Midway through Mr. Christie’s first year as governor, New Jersey Transit was spending about $1.35 billion on projects to maintain and improve service. By the middle of last year, that figure had fallen to about $600 million. The average age of the agency’s train fleet — nearly a quarter of which was flooded during Hurricane Sandy — is 16 years, compared with less than 13 years for the Long Island Rail Road."

-- from the NYT report

"The railroad’s falling reputation, some fear, could push people out of the state and turn others off from living there."

-- from the NYT report

by Ken

For me, the teaching moment -- as I've written before -- was the Challenger disaster, or rather its aftermath. That was a moment that for those of us who lived through it was as indelible as the JFK assassination or 9/11; I at least have never forgotten where I was and how I felt the moment I heard of the rocket explosion that decimated everyone inside. It wasn't just the horror, but the shock of such an unthinkable, unimaginable moment.

Except that it turned out that such a moment had not only been thought and imagined, but warned about by at least one engineer who knew that such a thing could happen. Under circumstances very like the cold weather of the Challenger disaster, it was quite likely that the O-rings would fail, and bam! As I recall that engineer wasn't entirely alone, but those who understood the potential for disaster were made to feel utterly alone, and subversive, as they tried to raise some kind of alarm up the bureaucracies of the contractor, Morton Thiokol, and NASA. Nobody wanted to hear about it, or know about it, or certainly do anything about it, responding with phony assurance that escalated to bullying threats. The response was, essentially, "Shut the fuck up -- or else."

I've often tried to imagine the special horror that engineer felt when he heard the news. I expect it was no comfort at all to know that he tried to warn them about it. That the rest of us were let in on the "secret" in relatively short order is owing to the presence on the commission of inquiry of the great physicist Richard Feynman, a man with a notoriously low tolerance level for bullshit.

As I've heard the story, it was his already-ex-wife who persuaded him to accept the proffered appointment to the Rogers Commission, on the ground that without Feynman, there would be 12 people (or however people many there were to be on the commission) being led by the nose from briefing to briefing, swallowing whatever bilge they were fed, whereas with Feynman there would be 11 commissioners doing that plus one contrarian wandering off on his own, asking inconvenient questions to find out what actually happened and why. And once he started poking and prodding, it didn't take him long to discover not just that there was a problem with the O-rings but that the problem had been fully known to all concerned, and was not only ignored but suppressed.

RICHARD FEYNMAN AND THE ROGERS COMMISSION

One of the commission's members was theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman, who was then seriously ill with cancer, was reluctant to undertake the job. He did so to find the root cause of the disaster, and to speak plainly to the public about his findings.[57] During a televised hearing, he demonstrated how the O-rings became less resilient and subject to seal failures at ice-cold temperatures by immersing a sample of the material in a glass of ice water. During the investigation, Sally Ride had told Feynman that the O-rings were not tested at temperatures below 10 °C (50 °F).[citation needed] Feynman was critical of flaws in NASA's "safety culture", so much so that he threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on the reliability of the shuttle, which appeared as Appendix F.[58] In the appendix, he argued that the estimates of reliability offered by NASA management were wildly unrealistic, differing as much as a thousandfold from the estimates of working engineers. "For a successful technology," he concluded, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."[59] Feynman wrote that while other members of the Commission met with NASA and supplier top management, he sought out the engineers and technicians, which is how he became aware of the O-ring problem.

-- from Wikipedia (notes onsite)

Since then, I've always been suspicious of out-of-nowhere calamities that strike in wholly "inexplicable" fashion. And I've rarely been surprised -- the event almost always turns out to have an explanation that is not only not mysterious but was known beforehand. Which brings us to Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Patrick McGeehan's NYT report, "New Jersey Transit, a Cautionary Tale of Neglect." It begins:

In the 1990s, New Jersey Transit was riding high.

Its ridership was increasing, and its trains were new and running on time. It won a coveted award for outstanding public transportation three times. In the years ahead, faster routes to Manhattan and double-decker trains would put it at the forefront of the nation’s commuter railroads. Even as recently as 2007, it won a leadership award from New York University.

That all seems like a very long time ago.

Today, New Jersey Transit is in crisis. Its aging tracks and trains need billions of dollars in improvements. Delays and fares are rising along with ridership, with passenger cars packed to the breaking point. The century-old tunnel that carries its trains to New York is crumbling. And the agency has gone nearly a year without a permanent leader.

“It was an excellent railroad and running quite well until the last seven years, and it has been in constant decline,” said Martin E. Robins, a former deputy executive director of the agency.

Under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, the state subsidy for the agency has plunged by more than 90 percent. Gaping holes in the agency’s past two budgets were filled by fare increases and service reductions or other cuts. Plans for a new tunnel under the Hudson River — one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the country — were torpedoed by Mr. Christie, who pushed for some of the money to be diverted to road-building projects.

The result can be felt by commuters daily. So far this year, the railroad has racked up at least 125 major train delays, about one every two days. Its record for punctuality is declining, and its trains are breaking down more often — evidence that maintenance is suffering.

Now, New Jersey Transit is facing its most high-profile test: A train slammed into a station in Hoboken last month, killing a young mother, injuring more than 100 other people and raising concerns about whether the railroad’s financial and leadership problems are creating an unsafe system. Even before the crash, the Federal Railroad Administration had taken the unusual step of opening an investigation into the agency after a spike in safety violations.

The story of how the nation’s third-busiest commuter railroad declined so rapidly is a tale of neglect and mismanagement that represents an ominous symbol of the challenges facing mass transit systems across the United States in an era when governments are loath to raise taxes.

HUH? THE KRISPYMAN DOESN'T CARE ABOUT NJ COMMUTERS?



Well, apparently no, he doesn't, at least not if they're traveling by means other than cars or limos. If we think back to the first act of his that really got him big-time attention, the unilateral canceling of that under-the-Hudson tunnel which had already gone through the enormously complex, not to say prohibitive, planning process, including having federal funds in place for it, and was actually ready to be built. It enabled him to pass himself off as an avatar of fiscal prudence, but nothing about his administration has been fiscally prudent; it's all a matter of where, for his own personal and ideological reasons, he chooses to let money flow -- including, for example, all the money he's looted from the NY-NJ Port Authority.

At the time the Krispyman's so heroically aborted the tunnel, a lot of us doubted that fiscal prudence anything to do with his motives. Now, however, it may be easier for one and all to see that no, he doesn't give a damn about NJ's interstate commuters -- at least not the ones who ride the rails or buses -- or, for that matter, intrastate travelere either, if they depend on NJ Transit's trains, buses, and/or light-rail system. He inherited a transportation network that had been growing to really serve the needs of a significant portion of the state's population, and for assorted reasons ideological and personal he chose to starve it.

The NYT reporters quote Stephen Burkert ("a rail union leader and longtime conductor who joined New Jersey Transit in 1989") saying of the governor, "Had he taken buses or trains he would have seen -- no, it's not just people going to Wall Street. It's the blue-collar worker holding two or three jobs who doesn't have money for a car, and they need that train." Well, really, would anyone expect the Krispyman to give a hoot about the likes of them? Or, of course, to be listening to a rail union leader? Union people aren't his people.

NJ Transit is overrun with delays and outages, even as fares soar upward, which are demoralizing riders. As well, the abusive and neglectful way the state government (meaning you-know-who) has dealt with NJ Transit has driven more and more of its good people out of the state and made it harder and harder to attract top-quality talent. If the governor gives a damn, he has a mighty funny way of showing it.

As the NYT report documents, Governor Krispy's occasional concessions to the desperate mass-transit needs have been occasioned by the pressure of events, like on-the-ground disasters, or snooping by outsiders:

In June, federal inspectors swarmed New Jersey Transit’s rail operations, part of a “deep audit” by the Federal Railroad Administration prompted by an increase in safety violations and a lack of leadership at the railroad. The federal agency fined the railroad for several violations and warned officials of the problems it had uncovered.

The railroad administration, which has not made its audit public, examined New Jersey Transit’s operations, including whether crews were following safety rules. The agency is weighing additional enforcement steps against the railroad.

A TRANS-HUDSON TUNNEL AFTER ALL?

It's hard to know whether the buttwipe governor who singlehandedly wiped out all the planning for the tunnel that was ready to be built, and was scheduled to be operational in 2018, didn't understand why it was so desperately needed (he does seem to be profoundly and broadly ignorant), or just didn't care (as he doesn't seem to care about many of the most basic functions of decent government). Either way, he can proudly take credit for intensifying to a stupefying degree the building crisis in travel between the states of New Jersey and New York.

Many delays are a product of aging infrastructure that includes not just the Hudson tunnel but also the Portal Bridge, a century-old swing bridge over the Hackensack River. It is difficult to imagine better service without a huge overhaul of the entire corridor leading to New York City — a project that Amtrak, which controls the corridor, says could cost more than $20 billion.

Both Amtrak and New Jersey Transit rely on a single, two-track tunnel under the Hudson that was severely damaged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. There was little effort to jump-start plans for a new tunnel until a series of paralyzing delays last summer led to a scolding from the federal transportation secretary, Anthony Foxx, who called the neglect “almost criminal.”

Now a plan for a new tunnel is finally progressing. But federal officials worry that Amtrak may have to close one or both of the existing tunnel’s tubes for major repairs before a new one opens in a decade, a prospect that would be devastating to travel across the Northeast.

OBVIOUSLY, WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT
EXACTLY CAUSED THE HOBOKEN DISASTER

The NTSB is working on that, and clearly its findings will have an impact. But once you read the NYT report, you'll have a good picture of who's responsible for the conditions that made a disaster like the Hoboken crash increasingly likely.

I don't suggest that the Big Rat Bastard Gummer of NJ deliberately set out to kill Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, the 34-year-old single mother who had the misfortune to be standing on the Hoboken platform at the time debris fell on her. Any more than the bureaucrats at Morton Thiokol and NASA intended to kill Christa McAuliffe or her fellow passengers on Challenger. It's important, though, to point a finger in his direction and keep it pointed -- because there's zero chance that the Big Rat Bastard will accept any responsibility on his own, given his Trump-like pathological inability to acknowledge responsibility for anything remotely blameworthy. (In breaking blame-game news, see Dartagnan's DailyKos post last night, "At Long Last, Trump Blames The Jews For His Failed Campaign.") In the BRBGNJ telling, nothing bad that has ever happened around him has ever been in any way his fault.

I don't know what sort of provision New Jersey murder statutes make for "depraved indifference," but boy, does that describe the BRBGNJ. His poll numbers suggest that NJ voters have finally been coming around to the truth of the sort of beast they installed in their statehouse, and then reelected. It all seemed pretty transparent to me, and to a lot of other people, at the time(s). But as bills for parts of his crime-boss approach to state-government leadership begin to fall due, it would be nice if he were held in at least some fashion accountable.

I was just looking again at the Wikipedia note on Richard Feynman's participation on the Rogers Commission inquiry into the Challenger disaster, and noticed this sentence he put in his report in the appendix:

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

This is a standard to which politicians aren't always, or often, held. We're feeling this a lot in the angry mood of the American electorate in this campaign season. Not surprisingly, the lessons learned are almost entirely wrong, not least the notion that the Billion-Dollar Loser, who has spent his entire career working to be part of the problem, could hold any part of the solution. A bit of genuine accountability would be all the more welcome.

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No, There Was Nothing In Last Night's GOP Debate That Indicated Christie Is Qualified For The Presidency

Is this fat cream puff (in the video above) a serious candidate? Not for any normal person. And, fortunately, most Republican voters agree. Chris Christie is a sleazy, self-serving backroom deal-making hack, not a statesman and not an especially intelligent person. His one contribution to last night's debate was that he did give Rand Paul a good platform to explain why he's utterly unfit for public office, though. So that was good. You may have noticed that to make up for his lack of qualifications for the job, he tried to claim he was the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey during 9/11. (He said he was a federal prosecutor 5 times.) That's just a lie that he tells all the time-- which doesn't make it any less false. PolitiFact:

"I was appointed U.S. attorney by President Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, and the world changed enormously the next day, and that happened in my state," he said.

He said that meant he had unique experience as "the only person on this stage who's actually filed applications under the PATRIOT Act" as well as having "prosecuted and investigated and jailed terrorists in this country after Sept. 11."

His comment started a back-and-forth with Paul, who spent more than 10 hours on the Senate floor in May protesting the PATRIOT Act. Christie characterized Paul’s experience as: "sitting in a subcommittee, just blowing hot air about this...."

Christie’s line about becoming the U.S attorney for New Jersey the day before 9/11 is similar to statements he’s made while campaigning in New Hampshire. We wondered: Is it true?

A few of our PolitiFact readers were quick to point out a report published in the New York Times on Dec. 8, 2001, which said that on the day before-- nearly four months after the terrorist attacks-- President George Bush announced he would nominate Christie as the next U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

The article notes, however, that the nomination had been "expected for months."

Others pointed to a White House press release dated Dec. 7, 2001, saying the president "intends to nominate" Christie as the next U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

That doesn’t appear to jibe with Christie’s claim that he was "appointed" on Sept. 10.

...Christie was officially confirmed by the U.S. senate on Dec. 20, 2001, and sworn into office on Jan. 17, 2002.

Christie unequivocally stated twice that he was appointed on Sept. 10. Given free rein to choose his closing remarks, he circled back to the same story.

"I was appointed United States attorney on September 10, 2001. And I spent the next seven years of my career fighting terrorism and putting terrorists in jail," he said.

As Christie stood on stage, he gave the impression that he took the job as U.S. attorney the day before the terrorist attacks and then he "prosecuted and investigated and jailed terrorists in this country after Sept. 11."

...[W]e rate the statement Mostly False.

This morning, the Drudge readers were pretty unimpressed with New Jersey Pig-Man. He did manage to beat Carly Fiorina by a few votes, but just before sunrise only 6,877 Drudge voters thought Christie had won the debate (2.54%), considerably less than anyone in the first or second tier of candidates. (By way of comparison, Herr Trumpf had 120,147 votes, 44.45% and #2, Cruz, had 71,296 votes, 26.38%.) The Far Man's Jackie Gleason impersonation, apparently only works when he has a woman school teacher to smack around. Maybe it's time for him to stop shirking his job as governor and go back to work in Trenton.

Recent polls, don't show Christie making any headway either. This week's Monmouth poll of national Republican voters shows Christie in a 4-way tie with Fiorina, Huckabee, and Rand Paul with 2%, which is below the margin-of-error so is essentially meaningless. He was down one point (a third of his support) from Monmouth's October poll. And the PPP Iowa Republican survey, released Monday, indicates he's stuck in 6th place-- tied with the other joke-candidates-- at 3%. The Fox poll released for South Carolina last week shows Republicans there aren't buying his line of bullshit either. He's tied with a bunch of other non-entities at 2%. He leads many of the non-entities in one respect, though. When asked who they would never vote for no matter what, Christie, at 9%, is more disliked than Santorum, Gilmore, Pataki, Huckabee and even Fiorina! How about other states with less of a media spotlight?

• Oklahoma- 0%
• Louisiana- 2%
• Michigan- 1%
• Florida- 0%
• Missouri- 1%
• Ohio- 1%
• Nevada- 1%

But Pig Man and his SuperPACs have spent all their money in one state, New Hampshire, where they're making their big play. By primary day they will have spent well over $10,000,000 in New Hampshire. And last week, when CNN released it's latest New Hampshire poll, the Jersey slob had made some headway, up one point to 9%, still not in double digits and still not a serious contender to even compete with Marco Rubio (14%), let alone Herr Trumpf (32%).

He should end this deranged fantasy and go back to work for the people of New Jersey, who pay for all those donuts he's always stuffing into his face. The New York Times clearly had him in mind when they critiqued last night's debate by declaring that, when it came to the Middle East, the candidates' efforts "to demonstrate their skills at analysis and leadership, the politics and history of the region often eluded them... Some candidates had trouble keeping the players straight. Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor, said he would bring reluctant Arab allies into the fight against the Islamic State. 'When I stand across from King Hussein of Jordan, I say to him, "You have a friend again, sir, who will stand with you to fight this fight," he’ll change his mind,' Mr. Christie said. It might be a tough conversation: King Hussein died in 1999; Mr. Christie would be talking with his eldest son, King Abdullah II. He also struggled with the question of how some of the biggest players in the Syrian war got there. 'What’s reckless is inviting Russia into Syria,' he said at one point, apparently referring to Mr. Obama’s observation that if the Russians wanted to get stuck in a quagmire by bombing rebel groups, they should go right ahead. But Russia has been in Syria a lot longer than the United States-- it leased its major military port there, the only one outside of Russian territory, in 1971."

Say it ain't so! It begins to look as if NJ Guv Kris "The Athlete" Krispy may (gasp!) have fibbed about Bridgegate!

Governor Krispy is flanked by two members of the crackerjack Krispyteam he installed as New Jersey's half of the leadership team of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey: now-former Deputy Exec Director Bill Baroni (left) and the Krispyman's high school chum David Wildstein, uh, some other fat guy who just went to the same high school at the same time as the governor.

"Let me just clear something up, okay? About my 'childhood friend' David Wildstein. We didn't travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president, and an athlete. I don't know what David was doing."

-- NJ Guv Kris "The Athlete" Krispy, at the famous January
2014 "Lies! Lies! And more lies!" press conference

WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reports on the team's findings today on Morning Edition.

by Ken

It was almost like Camelot, the dynamic, visionary team that NJ Guv Kris Krispy sent to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is staffed half and half by the governors of New York and New Jersey. Of course the Krispyteam is all gone now, its shining lights having one by one hastily packed their stuff and vamoosed a step ahead of the law.

It was a bold gamble the Krispyman took that day in January 2014 when he held the marathon press conference at which he laid to rest all those scurrilous things vicious people (like "the press") had been saying about his presumed knowledge of and participation in the punitive closing off of crucial Fort Lee access to the George Washington Bridge -- aka Bridgegate. His Krispiness was gambling that, even with all the incriminating e-mails that had already surfaced to and from members of his inner circles showing them to be up to their ears in the payback against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for failing to endorse the Krispyman's reelection bid. nobody could disprove the bold lies he decided to tell.

One piece of business was obviously crucial to the scheme: distancing his rotund self from that low-down weasel David Wildstein, whom the Fatman had appointed as PANYNJ's $150K "director of Interstate capital projects" because of . . . well, just because. Certainly not because this guy7 what's-his-name was an old school crony of the governor.

Incredibly, the brazen Krispyscheme sort of worked. While it's possible that some residue of the Bridgegate mess, not to mention the plague of scandals also attached to the Krispy admnistration, had something to do with the deflating of the Krispyblimp the governor hoped would float to the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, that's hard to pin down. Certainly all of the scandals, along with the guy's basic lordly-punk demeanor, had something to do with it. And the governor's tanking poll numbers in his own state suggest that the jig, while perhaps not quite up, isn't up and dancing.

Still, Krispy has yet to be unmasked as the liar, bully, and extortionist he clearly is. And let us not forget Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's utterly plausible accusation of a gangland-style hit by the governor's team, threatening to withhold the Sandy relief funds passing through their sticky fingers en route to beleaguered Hobokenites. After all, if you take away the Krispy bluster and bullying, what do you have left? Ladies and germs, I give you Gov.Kris "The Athlete" Krispy.

For a bluff of this magnitude, I'd say that's pretty darned good -- say, maybe, 8 on a scale of 10. Not bad at all for a guy who should have had to resign in his job in disgrace, the way all his PANYNJ appointees did, and then sweat out the wait for the appropriate state and federal indictments.

Given the general silence surrounding the ongoing investigations, it's not hard to forget that there are ongoing investigations. In a way it's a shame the presidential Krispyblimp has deflated. It would have been more fun if the fallout to come fell out on a GOP presidential front-runner or even actual nominee.

I don't begin to suggest that the Krispyman is ever going to be held to account for more than a tiny fraction of even his illegal activities, and forget the merely unethical ones. Still, there's still a chance that some of the more egregious lies will unravel. I'm sure, for example, that it hasn't been lost in the Krispy Inner Circle, either the pre- or post-Bridgegate version, that what's-his-name, the $150K PANYNJ guy -- that's right, Wildstein -- is singing to the federal prosecutors in an effort to save some of his oversize carcass.

And now a team of Public Radio reporters from New York's WNYC and New Jersey Public Radio have had the effrontery to go rummaging around among, you know, the facts. Right-wingers, as we know, hate facts, which are merely left-wing conspiracies against honest patriots. And based on "examination of calendars maintained by David Wildstein during his four years at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with a review of more than 1,000 photographs provided by the Port Authority and thousands of pages of documents released by the governor’s own legal team and the New Jersey Legislature," NJPR's Matt Katz and WNYC'S Andrea Bernstein are claiming: "The political operative who helped mastermind the notorious lane closures at the George Washington Bridge -- and is now cooperating with a federal investigation of the Bridgegate scandal -- had more extensive contact with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's inner circle than the governor has acknowledged."

It can't be!

No direct link yet to the Krispyman himself, except insofar as reasonable observers might be led to conclude that he has been, er, fibbing pretty steadily in his indignant public denails of involvement. And the larger danger to Krispyworld is that once prosecutors and voters accept the pattern -- that Governor Krispy lies freely, baldy, and remorselessly whenever it suits him -- all sorts of other dark alleyways of his administration may be up for review with considerable prejudice.

Here's just an upfront chunk of Matt Katz and Andrea Bernstein's report. The kind of vast sifting operation undertaken here yields up tiny bits of incriminating detail scattered across the tainted landscape, so by all means check out the rest.

Christie has insisted he had little to do with Wildstein, his former $150,000-a-year appointee at the Port Authority with whom he attended Livingston High School in the 1970s.

“I don’t even remember in the last four years even having a meeting in my office with David Wildstein,” Christie said at his marathon two-hour press conference in January 2014, after the legislature released Bridgegate records including the now infamous email to Wildstein declaring, “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Christie told reporters:  “I may have, but I don’t remember it.”

But the documents, corroborated by current and former Port Authority and Trenton staffers who requested anonymity because of the ongoing federal investigation, paint a new picture of Wildstein’s role in the Christie Administration. That view chips away at Christie’s and his lawyers’ portrayal of Wildstein as a rogue employee largely isolated from the governor who acted with one staffer in closing lanes and causing epic traffic jams on the roadways of Fort Lee for four morning commutes in September 2013.

The records and interviews indicate that during his tenure at the Port Authority, Wildstein met at least twice with Christie and others in the governor's office, joined Christie at seven public events and had regular meetings with Christie's closest confidantes. On the day after a news report revealed that Wildstein was involved in the mysterious lane closures, his calendar had one 14-hour entry: Trenton.

Wildstein’s schedules list seven meetings at the statehouse, but his calendars are sometimes inconsistent with records maintained by the Christie Administration, and WNYC was not able to independently confirm the five other meetings took place.

The digital calendar entries were posted on an obscure section of the Port Authority’s website. Wildstein did not return repeated emails and his attorney, Alan Zegas, would not comment.

The difficulty of corroborating events in the calendars can be shown by examining one entry on a Sunday in November 2013 as the Bridgegate scandal was unfolding. Wildstein listed a 1 p.m. meeting with “CC” —the governor’s initials — at the Black Horse Tavern in Mendham, down the road from the governor’s house and across the street from his family’s church. "There was no meeting with the governor," said Kevin Roberts, a Christie spokesman.

Many governors make their meeting schedules public. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo posts his on the internet. But when WNYC requested Christie’s own meeting schedules under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act, the request was denied. WNYC sued to obtain the documents; a judge ruled against the request.

WNYC’s reporting shows extensive contact between Wildstein and Christie’s top staff, notably the people involved with the governor's political career. Wildstein’s schedules – in entries verified by interviews — show almost monthly meetings with Bill Stepien, Christie’s top political aide at the statehouse and the manager of Christie’s two campaigns. Through his attorney, Stepien has said that he had nothing to do with the lane closures. Stepien and Wildstein had been friends since working together on a campaign in 2000.

“I was well aware he was going down to Trenton and briefing Stepien regularly,” said one former official who didn’t want his name used for fear of reprisals. The official said Wildstein spoke of traveling to “Trenton to deal with the politics” of Port Authority decisions.

The calendars also show lunches and dinners with Christie’s top outside strategist, Mike DuHaime of Mercury Public Affairs.

WNYC’s reexamination of Wildstein’s role in the Christie Administration comes as the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, Paul Fishman, enters the 15th month of his Bridgegate probe. The federal investigation began after the legislature released an email showing a Christie deputy chief of staff telling Wildstein: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”  When the email became public, Christie distanced himself from Wildstein.

“I could probably count on one hand the number of conversations I had with David Wildstein since he worked at the Port Authority,” the governor said during a news conference at the statehouse.

Yet official photos released by the Port Authority show Wildstein among an inner circle of agency officials who attended five public events with the governor. Photos show Wildstein speaking with Christie during at least two of them: A June 2013 ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the raising of the Bayonne Bridge and at the World Trade Center memorial ceremony on Sept. 11, 2013, which took place during the lane closures. . . .

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What Do Politicians Eat-- Aside From Bribes From Food Conglomerates?

On his MSNBC show Friday, Chris Hayes, talked with socially conscious celebrity chef Tom Colicchio about the new food guidelines from the U.S.D.A. (above). Does anyone care what the U.S.D.A. suggests? Or, is there a way to implement their guidelines as part of social policy? As a society, for example, we eat way too much sugar. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died every year because over sugar over-consumption. Diabetes and cancer are rampant. As many as two-thirds of Americans are obese now. Social policy is based on bribes to corrupt politicians-- both parties, like Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- who make sure the multibillion dollar sugar empire of their benefactors are subsidized with taxpayer funds and protected from competition from cheap foreign-grown sugar. It seems like poor social policy that we spend $180 billion annually in healthcare costs related to bad diet. But the lobbyists are working this full-time and the politicians are lined up to line their pockets and fill their campaign war chests with their bribes.

Some local governments are trying soda taxes, the idea being to make the worst carrier of sugary death, more expensive. Not easy to do. Over 5 million people have watched this sugar documentary by Dr. Robert Lustig, Sugar: The Bitter Truth. How much impact will it have in changing public policy?



Yesterday, Steve Kornacki, also on MSNBC, interviewed another celebrity chef, Rocco DiSpirito, to talk about how some of our politicians eat. They focuses on two especially obese GOP fatties-- Jeb Bush and Chris Christie-- who decided they had to lose some serious poundage in order to run for president. DiSpirito: "I think you can draw an inference from how the candidates conduct themselves in their diet to how they lead. I don't think it's unfair to say that a candidate who's thinking and actually conscious about what he consumes is more likely to be conscious about other things... How well you preserve yourself is an indication of how well you might try to preserve our nation."