Bridgegate

[Channel72]

Giving him the benefit of the the doubt "merely" shows him to be completely incompetent to govern. There is no positive spin that can be put on this; he's either inept or a liar. This has effectively ended any chance of him running for President in 2016.

Yeah right, this will probably be forgotten by next week. Politicians have recovered from way worse.

[Simon_Jester]

This is about a thousand times less significant than the Fast and Furiou deal and I don't think anyone here believes Obama knew or should have known about that. Responsible for it in the grand sense? Sure, but acutely accountable? Absolutely not. Subordinates have deligated power and they will do screwed up things.

The difference here is that the aides were doing this because they were trying to get back at Christie's enemy. Not because they were bunglers or because they had a program they thought they could control and failed. Because they were engaged in political revenge on their boss's behalf.

With Fast-and-Furious a president overseeing an agency that does something poorly thought out that causes major blowback. That's different from a president overseeing a group of people who do something actively illegal like shut down major thoroughfares as part of a private vendetta.

This is similar to the difference between Iran-Contra (a medium sized scandal) and Watergate (a huge one that sunk a presidency). With Iran-Contra, the National Security Council was very clearly doing something wrong, but it wasn't a direct attack on the political structure or an attempt to subvert the organs of government for political ends. Whereas with Watergate, the president's attempt to break the law was clearly aimed at putting his political opposition out of action.

Likewise here, Christie (and/or his aides) are accused not just of acting unethically and stupidly. They are accused of using government power for personal political gain- the very definition of corruption.

Well, as I understand it doesn't that still give them the option of contempt as he's still under subpoena? It's not like a criminal court where the defendant has to willingly take the stand and open himself up to the questioning as such is it? He'd just rather take the contempt than risk said charges further down the road.

Just because you're under subpoena doesn't mean he loses his fifth amendment rights not to self incriminate.

So if a court subpoenas, say, your bank records as part of an ongoing investigation/court case... you can plead the fifth?

I didn't think it worked that way.

Giving him the benefit of the the doubt "merely" shows him to be completely incompetent to govern. There is no positive spin that can be put on this; he's either inept or a liar. This has effectively ended any chance of him running for President in 2016.

Yeah right, this will probably be forgotten by next week. Politicians have recovered from way worse.

However, they don't always. In this case, it ties into the easiest way to undermine Christie in the presidential elections, which is to portray him as a vindictive blowhard, a bullying jackass. It gives his enemies a powerful piece of ammunition, and it's making national news to an extent such that it won't get completely forgotten. If Christie goes to the Iowa caucuses in early 2016, that's only two years from now, and if people say "hey, remember Bridgegate, that time when..." a lot of people will say "oh yeah, I remember that" and glare at Christie.

Plus, this case has a dead little old lady involved, which makes things harder.

[Flagg]

The court can't subpoena you for your bank records. They have to subpoena the bank.

[Maraxus]

Giving him the benefit of the the doubt "merely" shows him to be completely incompetent to govern. There is no positive spin that can be put on this; he's either inept or a liar. This has effectively ended any chance of him running for President in 2016.

Yeah right, this will probably be forgotten by next week. Politicians have recovered from way worse.

However, they don't always. In this case, it ties into the easiest way to undermine Christie in the presidential elections, which is to portray him as a vindictive blowhard, a bullying jackass. It gives his enemies a powerful piece of ammunition, and it's making national news to an extent such that it won't get completely forgotten. If Christie goes to the Iowa caucuses in early 2016, that's only two years from now, and if people say "hey, remember Bridgegate, that time when..." a lot of people will say "oh yeah, I remember that" and glare at Christie.

Plus, this case has a dead little old lady involved, which makes things harder.

Feh. This doesn't look like an issue that the GOP base cares too much about. If you saw any of the usual suspects twitter feeds, they boiled down to: a. Christie isn't a real conservative so whatever and, b. Barack Hussein Obama is terrible so whatever. The GOP primary is Christie's biggest hurdle in his epic death march to the White House. I don't think the electoral calculus has changed very much. He's still going to have a hell of a time wooing the people who thought Herman Cain was a fabulous choice for the nomination. This time around he won't even have the benefit of running against a bunch of obviously unelectable wankers.

[Pelranius]

If Christie lied in any way today, his goose is cooked. I imagine he could recover from incompetence, taking today at face value, for the 2016 primaries though.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Feh. This doesn't look like an issue that the GOP base cares too much about. If you saw any of the usual suspects twitter feeds, they boiled down to: a. Christie isn't a real conservative so whatever and, b. Barack Hussein Obama is terrible so whatever.

I know it isn't news to anyone that the American right wing is out of touch and insane, but it still surprises me every time I see something like that (referring to the tweets in that link). I just cannot comprehend how a group of people can collectively be so monumentally petty and spiteful (just like Christie himself, ironically). I mean, there is one tweet there that is a potshot at Ted Kennedy, whose been dead for 4 years, for an incident that happened in 1969. There are others that are muttering about abortion, Benghazi, and one utterly baffling comment that "But nobody thinks Hillary [Clinton]'s dead". Just what the fuck is wrong with these assholes?

[Simon_Jester]

I think Bridgegate won't automatically torpedo a Christie campaign. But... put this way. In the process of pushing through the long, punishing primary season he's probably going to have to shift to the right on a number of issues. Romney is a prototype here- remember, he too started out pointing to his experience as governor as his main qualification for office.

Now, in a saner world, Mitt "universal health care in my state" Romney could probably have run in the general election as a moderate Republican. On that platform, he still would have had trouble against an incumbent Obama. But he'd have had a pretty good chance against [insert 2016 Democratic candidate here].

But Romney couldn't do that, couldn't truly run as a moderate, because he had to win the primary first, and had to pander to the far right. Which left him on the record as having said too many far-right things to fully disown; he couldn't just shake the Etch-a-Sketch and start over from scratch as a moderate after winning the primary.

Then, to make matters worse, Romney had to overcome more than just the consequences of his run to the right. He also had to deal with his "rich jerk corporate raider" public image, which left him in a very weak position to win the general election.

Christie will have the same problem in the primary- to win at all he will have to say and do things that compromise his credentials as a moderate. And then, on top of that, he's got the "vindictive bullying blowhard" public image to overcome.

It's not a foregone conclusion that he'll lose, but it leaves him with a tough struggle to win.

The court can't subpoena you for your bank records. They have to subpoena the bank.

Sorry. Brain got disorganized. Let me try to ask a different question aimed at clearing up the question I have now:

He was subpoenaed to speak, but can still plead the Fifth in his testimony- fine. But can you plead the Fifth when answering questions that are matters of public record like "do you work for the governor of New Jersey?" I could easily see the answer being "no," because at that point, you're tap-dancing on the line between protecting yourself from criminal charges and willful obstruction of the investigation.

[Maraxus]

I know it isn't news to anyone that the American right wing is out of touch and insane, but it still surprises me every time I see something like that (referring to the tweets in that link). I just cannot comprehend how a group of people can collectively be so monumentally petty and spiteful (just like Christie himself, ironically). I mean, there is one tweet there that is a potshot at Ted Kennedy, whose been dead for 4 years, for an incident that happened in 1969. There are others that are muttering about abortion, Benghazi, and one utterly baffling comment that "But nobody thinks Hillary [Clinton]'s dead". Just what the fuck is wrong with these assholes?

Here's something that might help a bit. It's a survey by James Carville's organization, so take it with a mountain of salt if you need to. TL;DR is that more than half of self-identified GOP members truly and sincerely believe that Obama is out to destroy the country. They truly and sincerely believe that the America they once knew is dying and is being replaced with something scary/Marxist/multicultural/gay/whatever. Add in the right-wing echo chamber that reinforces certain talking points (see Benghazi), a healthy dose of distrust from the "mainstream media," and a persecution complex, and those tweets seem pretty rational.

[Channel72]

Bridgegate is useless. It only affected a bunch of people in Bergen County, NJ. The fucking Cross Bronx Expressway and GW bridge is basically always a constant traffic jam... with our without Christie's vindictive shenanigans. I doubt anyone even noticed a difference. If you take the GW bridge at any time that's NOT 3am in the morning, you basically expect to be stuck in traffic. There's simply just not enough outrage here to generate a significant political setback for Christie. People are more likely to remember how he cooperated with Obama during Sandy than some traffic jam, even if it was a particularly bad one.

That said, I doubt Christie is capable of winning a general election. The Democrats basically own 2016.

[bilateralrope]

He was subpoenaed to speak, but can still plead the Fifth in his testimony- fine. But can you plead the Fifth when answering questions that are matters of public record like "do you work for the governor of New Jersey?" I could easily see the answer being "no," because at that point, you're tap-dancing on the line between protecting yourself from criminal charges and willful obstruction of the investigation.

How are the interest of justice served by compelling someone to answer a question relating to matters of public record ?
The answer to the question is already available. So I can't see how it matters if they answer or not.

But, if someone can be compelled to answer such questions despite pleading the Fifth, I can see a potential angle for abuse: Asking questions about information that can't be obtained elsewhere, but the judge thinks it is. Maybe the records were destroyed, maybe someone is manipulating the judge.

It seems like it's better to let someone being questioned stay silent on everything if they plead the Fifth. If the information is available elsewhere it doesn't matter if they talk or not.

[Simon_Jester]

You may well be right. The main thing that occurs to me then is that it seems... counterintuitive that the right to plead the Fifth is absolute, because very few other constitutional rights are.

So I can sort of see how you might get a contempt charge given an inappropriate use of the Fifth, under circumstances where you're withholding some of the narrow categories of information the court can ask you for. An obvious example (although one that probably wouldn't arise in a court hearing) would be something like "what is your name;" I doubt you can reasonably claim a right not to identify yourself in court.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Now, in a saner world, Mitt "universal health care in my state" Romney could probably have run in the general election as a moderate Republican. On that platform, he still would have had trouble against an incumbent Obama. But he'd have had a pretty good chance against [insert 2016 Democratic candidate here].

But Romney couldn't do that, couldn't truly run as a moderate, because he had to win the primary first, and had to pander to the far right. Which left him on the record as having said too many far-right things to fully disown; he couldn't just shake the Etch-a-Sketch and start over from scratch as a moderate after winning the primary.

Then, to make matters worse, Romney had to overcome more than just the consequences of his run to the right. He also had to deal with his "rich jerk corporate raider" public image, which left him in a very weak position to win the general election.

Christie will have the same problem in the primary- to win at all he will have to say and do things that compromise his credentials as a moderate. And then, on top of that, he's got the "vindictive bullying blowhard" public image to overcome.

Something I have been saying for a while...

Because of the Right constantly shifting to the extreme plus the slow move of the over all electorate shifting to the Left (sat least on many social issues)
Any GOP candidate that is able to get the party nomination, will by DEFAULT be seen as too extreme to win the general election.
I predicted that, perhaps for the next 20 years or the GOP may find it impossible to win the presidential election. Since it is the ONE election in which the WHOLE country votes, it is the one chance that is able to overcome (somewhat) the horrific amount of gerrymandering that currently cripples most elections.

So yeah, Christie will NEVER have a chance to win as a GOP contender no matter what he does.
If he is too moderate, he won't get the nomination. And in order TOO get the nomination, he will have to 'Out Crazy' the crazies that will inevitably run for the GOP race, which will leave him crippled for a general election. The edge of the "Etch-a-Sketch" reset button is something that is really no longer possible in todays internet age, where EVERYTHING you say is recorded for posterity.

Here's something that might help a bit. It's a survey by James Carville's organization, so take it with a mountain of salt if you need to. TL;DR is that more than half of self-identified GOP members truly and sincerely believe that Obama is out to destroy the country. They truly and sincerely believe that the America they once knew is dying and is being replaced with something scary/Marxist/multicultural/gay/whatever. Add in the right-wing echo chamber that reinforces certain talking points (see Benghazi), a healthy dose of distrust from the "mainstream media," and a persecution complex, and those tweets seem pretty rational.

That has been true of the GOP for about the past 20years, ever since Clinton one re-election the idea that the Left Wing's TRUE purpose isn't just to control America, but destroy it's very foundation!

I can easily find a dozen or so columns or blogs talking about how the Democrats won't be happy till America is left a smoking burnt out husk of a country. And these people are not speaking metaphorically. They TRUELY Believe that Obama and the Left wish to actively destroy America, cripple it, weak it, plunge it into chaos, so that they may rebuild as a Communist/Muslim/Homosexual/Dictatorship (take your pick). And they think this (IMHO) because deep down, they WANT it to be true, they WANT to have an "Enemy" that is so wicked and so evil that the can think of them as inhuman.

In my darkest days of the bush administration, when I could watch before my eyes how he was fucking over the country, not for one moment did I think he was doing it "On purpose" When he slashed Billions upon billions in taxes, sent us into a needless war, gutted regulations that led to an economic collapse, I never once thought "He WANTS to destroy America!"
I never thought Bush was EVIL, just stupid...

[Ziggy Stardust]

I doubt anyone even noticed a difference. If you take the GW bridge at any time that's NOT 3am in the morning, you basically expect to be stuck in traffic.

I am not disputing your point vis-a-vis the election, but clearly SOMEBODY noticed a difference, otherwise this scandal never would have come to light. It's not like these e-mails were accidentally leaked; they came out because the traffic was so outrageously bad that officials launched an investigation to figure out what the hell was going on.

I never thought Bush was EVIL, just stupid...

Not to go off on a tangent, and not to open up the can of worms that would be a discussion on GW, but my impression of Bush was always that he was overly trusting/reliant on his network of "good ol' boys". That is, I don't think he was as blatantly stupid (or as "evil") as some people seem to think. I think a good number of the problems in his administration were caused by his unnecessary catering of the personalities in his inner circle (Rove, Cheney, et al), and his general inability to reign them in or lead without them.

[Pelranius]

Apparently the little jam cost $400 million to $1.3 billion, if one takes at at face value the claim that commute times were doubled to quadrupled (and that most commuters were going to work).

Christie’s Traffic Jam May Have Cost Upwards of $1.3 Billion

A rough estimate
By Christopher Matthews

Read more: Chris Christie Traffic Jam: the Economic Effects | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2014/01/10/chr ... z2q14iCuiF

January 10, 2014

Ongoing revelations that a staffer for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie instigated a massive, four-day traffic jam in the area surrounding the George Washington Bridge is costing him politically. But what about the economic effects of the incident?

Economists have been studying the cost of traffic for years, and one of the most definitive looks comes from Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute. Each year, the institute releases its “Urban Mobility Report,” which gauges the economic effects of congestion on the American economy. The group found that the average commuter wastes 38 hours in traffic each year, and that this costs the economy $818 per commuter in wasted time and fuel. That means a wasted hour in traffic costs roughly $22.

A few more data points:

According to INRIX, a traffic information and services group, commuters in the New York metropolitan area spend on average 34.5 minutes getting to work each day.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says 102 million vehicles per year cross the George Washington Bridge, which comes to 279,000 vehicles per day. Assuming half of those are traveling from New Jersey into New York, that means 139,500 vehicles were caught in Christie’s traffic jam per day. Multiply that by the four days traffic was slowed and you have a total of 558,000 affected vehicles.
Anecdotal evidence says that workers spent anywhere from 2 to 4 times as much time commuting to work each day than they did without the lane closures.

Therefore we can estimate that commuters spend 19,251,000 hours going from New Jersey to New York over the bridge during a normal four-day stretch. If we assume the traffic jam doubled that time, the total cost of the jam would be $423.5 million. If we assume that it quadrupled commuters time on the road it could have cost as much as $1.3 billion!

Obviously this is just a rough, back-of-the envelope estimate of costs, but given that 1) traffic problems in Ft. Lee due to lane closures likely effected more drivers than those crossing the bridge, and 2) the median salary of workers in the New York metropolitan area is 19% higher than the country overall, this calculation could be an underestimate.

Read more: Chris Christie Traffic Jam: the Economic Effects | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2014/01/10/chr ... z2q14cWq8b

I'm still taking the estimate with quite a bit of salt though.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This is about a thousand times less significant than the Fast and Furiou deal and I don't think anyone here believes Obama knew or should have known about that. Responsible for it in the grand sense? Sure, but acutely accountable? Absolutely not. Subordinates have deligated power and they will do screwed up things.

No. Just... no.

On the one hand, there is the F&F scandal, in which a long-term operation started under a prior administration exploded before the new administration could possibly get up to speed on the operations of an agency that has a great many operations, nestled inside a government with many many agencies.

On the other hand, there is Bridgegate, in which a sitting governor's personal staff was up to shady shit motivated by a desire for retribution on behalf of their boss/friend.

The two are completely different and completely non-comparable.

[Pelranius]

Who was the redacted person that Wildstein was communicating with in that text message exchange of the "screw them, they're Buono voters' kids" line?

[Thanas]

Not to go off on a tangent, and not to open up the can of worms that would be a discussion on GW, but my impression of Bush was always that he was overly trusting/reliant on his network of "good ol' boys". That is, I don't think he was as blatantly stupid (or as "evil") as some people seem to think. I think a good number of the problems in his administration were caused by his unnecessary catering of the personalities in his inner circle (Rove, Cheney, et al), and his general inability to reign them in or lead without them.

I disagree vehemently as that smacks too much of the good old "the king was not bad, he just had bad counsel" apologia that has been there since there were kings.

[Rogue 9]

Who was the redacted person that Wildstein was communicating with in that text message exchange of the "screw them, they're Buono voters' kids" line?

We don't know; it was redacted. Unless someone's gotten an unaltered version.

[Replicant]

The NJ legislature is wrong. Unless he gets blanket immunity he doesn't have to say shit. If it turns out that old woman would have lived if EMS got there sooner they could be looking at homicide charges. It's a stretch but weirder shit has happened.

I could be wrong but I believe that the guy who ordered the closing has already committed a felony. Of course adding a negligent homicide would certainly make it worse, but acts of blatant political revenge are illegal.

[Replicant]

Anyone that thinks Christie has any chance running for President in 2016 is a delusional fool anyway. Christie has very little support among most Republicans and what he does have would get quickly squashed by a nice run of ads showing him being all buddy buddy and mugging for the camera with Obama after the Hurricane.

[Replicant]

This is about a thousand times less significant than the Fast and Furiou deal and I don't think anyone here believes Obama knew or should have known about that. Responsible for it in the grand sense? Sure, but acutely accountable? Absolutely not. Subordinates have deligated power and they will do screwed up things.

No. Just... no.

On the one hand, there is the F&F scandal, in which a long-term operation started under a prior administration exploded before the new administration could possibly get up to speed on the operations of an agency that has a great many operations, nestled inside a government with many many agencies.

On the other hand, there is Bridgegate, in which a sitting governor's personal staff was up to shady shit motivated by a desire for retribution on behalf of their boss/friend.

The two are completely different and completely non-comparable.

Both are comparable in that both of them are ten times worse for the repeated attempts by those involved to lie and cover up the whole incident and their knowledge of it.

[Pelranius]

Who was the redacted person that Wildstein was communicating with in that text message exchange of the "screw them, they're Buono voters' kids" line?

We don't know; it was redacted. Unless someone's gotten an unaltered version.

There's a whole bunch of speculation, some of the more out there guesses say that it was either Ms. Christie or Christie using his wife's number to try to circumvent public official record keeping (though I don't think Ms. Christie is in on the loop that much).

My guess that if it's not Kelly, then it's probably Chief of Staff Kevin O'Dowd.

[Kitsune]

Anyone that thinks Christie has any chance running for President in 2016 is a delusional fool anyway. Christie has very little support among most Republicans and what he does have would get quickly squashed by a nice run of ads showing him being all buddy buddy and mugging for the camera with Obama after the Hurricane.

From the military board I am on, the conservatives seem glad of this scandal. They want some hyper conservative candidate to run.

I asm cautious about the American voters however. . . . Would Obama have won without the 90%+ black vote with a heavy turn out of black voters? We cannot count on that in the next election.

[SCRawl]

Bridgegate is useless. It only affected a bunch of people in Bergen County, NJ. The fucking Cross Bronx Expressway and GW bridge is basically always a constant traffic jam... with our without Christie's vindictive shenanigans. I doubt anyone even noticed a difference. If you take the GW bridge at any time that's NOT 3am in the morning, you basically expect to be stuck in traffic. There's simply just not enough outrage here to generate a significant political setback for Christie. People are more likely to remember how he cooperated with Obama during Sandy than some traffic jam, even if it was a particularly bad one.

That said, I doubt Christie is capable of winning a general election. The Democrats basically own 2016.

With respect to the quality of the traffic disruption caused, it was apparently quite crippling to Fort Lee. I would imagine that the amount of traffic going across the bridge was unchanged, but those cars trying to enter the bridge -- see here for an image -- the backup would have been enormous.

With respect to this not being sufficiently significant to sink Christie's chances at the GOP nomination, remember that it wasn't Clinton getting his honourable member serviced that got him served with articles of impeachment. It was the lying about it. If Christie is lying about this, even if he didn't orchestrate it himself, but is covering up for some of his staff, he's poisoned.

[Crossroads Inc.]

From the military board I am on, the conservatives seem glad of this scandal. They want some hyper conservative candidate to run.

I asm cautious about the American voters however. . . . Would Obama have won without the 90%+ black vote with a heavy turn out of black voters? We cannot count on that in the next election.

Read my post earlier about how The GOP have made it impossible for a moderate to wing their parties nomination...
The comments you describe on the other forum reinforce my point!

Also, why would you think the Black Vote WON'T go democratic again in 2016?
I'm not taking their votes for granted, just saying its a safe bet.