Pay attention. A government by deh Goombahs, of deh goombahs and for the goombahs...will not...hey whataya, whatayah? You know what I'm sayin...fuggedabout it....
You know they are all in up to their necks. The wagon train closed ranks over the weekend defending the big Goombah, Chris Christie. You heard it all, Benghazi, Benghazi, the fantasy of the Obama enabling culture of corruption...Of course things "hotted up" a bit after the mayor of Hoboken piped in with her accusation of Christie's use of Hurricane Sandy relief funds as political blackmail to promote one of his crony's development projects.
I have been following Christie for a few years now and am fascinated with the attraction this guy seems to have for the disorganized and demoralized Republicans as their Great White Hope (or Whale) for the 2016 Presidential race. I kind of hoped he would be nominated, because for many reasons, he is an ultimately doomed and fatally flawed candidate. But, in American politics, well, you can never say never. Christie is Wall Street’s top choice in 2016, and also the top choice of our ironically named national security state. Chris Hedges has been documenting Christie for quite a while now. Here's a link to the piece he published on January 13.
Here's a few salient quotes from that piece:
Wall Street and the security and surveillance apparatus want a real son of a bitch in power, someone with the moral compass of Al Capone, in order to ruthlessly silence and crush those of us who are working to overthrow the corporate state. They have had enough of what they perceive to be Barack Obama’s softness. Christie fits the profile and he is drooling for the opportunity.
The “moral compass of Al Capone” — “ruthlessly crush those of us working to overthrow the corporate state” — “Christie … is drooling for the opportunity.” Oh boy. No wonder that one of us (me) called Christie “the most dangerous man in politics today.”
If you want to click back to that piece, you’ll see why the Emperor Nero comes to mind.
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| A little love from Emperor Christie |
Hedges quotes Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” on Christie (this quote is from the book via Hedges):
There was the fact that Christie worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Securities Industry Association at a time when Bernie Madoff was a senior SIA official—and sought an exemption from New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act. …
There was Christie’s decision to steer hefty government contracts to donors and political allies such as former attorney general John Ashcroft, which sparked a congressional hearing.
There was a defamation lawsuit brought against Christie, arising out of his successful 1994 run to oust an incumbent in a local Garden State race.
Then there was Todd Christie [the governor’s brother], who in 2008 agreed to a settlement of civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he acknowledged making ‘hundreds of trades in which customers had been systematically overcharged.’ (Todd also oversaw a family foundation whose activities and purpose raised eyebrows among the vetters.) And all of that was on top of a litany of glaring matters that sparked concern on [the Romney] team: Christie’s other lobbying clients; his investments overseas; the YouTube clips that helped make him a star but might call into doubt his presidential temperament; and the status of his health.
This in itself is a tawdry fat slug slime trail of scandals, but it goes back further earlier than 2011:
A veritable torrent of scandals was revealed as he was first rumored to be running for the 2012 race , as early as 2011 and before, stories like these emerged in a flood, prompting myself and a number of others to suggest that higher office would in fact be a death-trap for Christie’s career. His organization spent a lot of time and money covering these up and spit shining his PR Image. Here's just a sampling of the scum on his little Jersey Swamp ;that he thinks has been forgotten and they’re not pretty — not surprising, but not pretty. From TPM2012 (h/t Cate Long via Twitter):
Chris Christie didn’t become governor of New Jersey the easy way. He first had to overcome a gauntlet of scandals in which he was accused of crony capitalism, big spending, and using his government title to get himself out of legal trouble.
One of the most persistent stories that dogged Christie in his 2009 campaign was his unusual financial relationship with a top aide at his federal prosecutor office, Michele Brown. Christie lent Brown some $46,000, which he says was to help a family friend through a rough patch.But critics argued that the move was an improper conflict of interest heading into a gubernatorial campaign since Brown was in a position to help Christie in a variety of ways. Her job included handling FOIA requests, including those from Governor Corzine’s campaign, for example. And in one instance, she argued to colleagues in favor of wrapping up a major corruption probe before July 1, when Christie’s successor took over the US Attorney position, a move that ensured credit for the case would clearly flow to Christie. Brown resigned shortly after news of the loan broke and, according to the New York Times, she paid off Christie’s loan in October 2010.
It wasn’t the only allegation of conflict of interest that Christie fought off. The then-US Attorney testified before Congress on a series of no-bid monitoring contracts worth millions that he awarded to various law firms. One contract, worth up to $52 million, went to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Christie’s old mentor. Another former US Attorney chosen for a monitoring contract, David Kelley, had previously investigated Christie’s brother in a stock fraud case in 2005 — he was not indicted while fifteen others were.
So just in these two stories, Christie loans an aide in his US Attorney’s office almost $50,000 — and she appears to returns the favor by helping to wrap up prosecutions early so Christie can get lots of tough-daddy cred for the convictions; she’s also the point person on FOIA requests from Christie’s 2009 election opponent, then Gov. Corzine, among others.
And that doesn’t begin to cover the sweetheart contracts. They went to many more people than John Ashcroft, he of the anointed-by-Crisco incorruptibility. (Sometimes I think if it weren’t for God’s blessing, we wouldn’t know who the good guys are.)
There’s much more in the TPM article, and also more here (and here and here). There's a lot of ammunition here and Christie is a pretty big target.
No wonder Christie in 2012 was trying hard not to run for president. It would have been uphill all the way. Now with the curse of the short attention span of the American public, he has been able to polish his image. He appeals to the insecurity and racism of middle class America. He's a lovable Goombah but it’s still uphill all the way. Will Christie succeed in landing his seat in the Oval Office and delivering hard goods to the sociopaths who run Wall Street and our so-called “security” state?
There are no done deals in American politics and the utter unwieldiness of the American Republic makes it even more precarious and unpredictable. It's up to us to upset his game board, but we can do it. Is Chris Christie the most dangerous politician in America today? Not if he topples and falls. But he won’t fall on his own. When he goes down it could create a tsumani, it will be ugly, but it will be well worth it!
1 comment:
Here's hoping to be able to at least hear the splash from Johnsonville ...
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