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You are here: Home / Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

by DougJ|  February 13, 201411:24 am| 47 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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There’s a great New Republic article on the rise of Chris Christie. Executive summary: he did start off bucking the (corrupt) system but he got his big break by raising beaucoup de bucks for Bush and getting a US Attorney gig in return.

Update. The story of his brother escaping prosecution sure is fishy.

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Reader Interactions

47Comments

  1. 1.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 11:27 am

    Christie is toast.

  2. 2.

    Cacti

    February 13, 2014 at 11:30 am

    All I need to know about the ethics of Chris Christie:

    He survived the Bush U.S. Attorney purge of 2006.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    February 13, 2014 at 11:35 am

    I just finished reading the article and especially enjoyed the section on his brother. This is good news for the state of Illinois.

  4. 4.

    Fuzzy

    February 13, 2014 at 11:36 am

    The Outlaw Jersey Whale has been crooked and working the law his entire life. Just a typical %!#@in’ lawyer turned politician. Useless piece of money grubbing crap who thinks his doesn’t stink. Plain enough.

  5. 5.

    shelly

    February 13, 2014 at 11:36 am

    Swamps in Jersey? I wish. Right now, everything is just one massive frozen lump.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    February 13, 2014 at 11:38 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    All he has to do is lose some weight, and he can run on how he’ll shrink the federal government too. The Village will eat that up.

  7. 7.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 11:40 am

    The more crazy among the GOP think that Christie is a RINO, but how does he stack up on economic issue?

  8. 8.

    IowaOldLady

    February 13, 2014 at 11:41 am

    @shelly: Hey, if Bruce says there are swamps, there are swamps!

    Hope the weather isn’t socking you too hard.

  9. 9.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 11:42 am

    <a href="https://balloon-juice.com/2014/02/13/somewhere-in-the-swamps-of-jersey/">DougJ@top
    Did you read Bobo’s latest where misses the elephant in the room while discussing declining mobility.

  10. 10.

    raven

    February 13, 2014 at 11:43 am

    I’m watching curling and I can see the snow melting off the limbs outside the window. The snow melt has more action!

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 13, 2014 at 11:44 am

    The fact that Christie survived the Kkkarl Rove purge of US Attorneys tells you everything you need to know about him.

    On edit: Cacti beat me to it. /shakefist Cacti.

    It’s good that he’s toast. His political career is over. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  12. 12.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 11:46 am

    deleted

  13. 13.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 11:47 am

    DougJ@top
    Did you read Bobo’s latest where hemisses the elephant in the room while discussing declining mobility.

  14. 14.

    Alex S.

    February 13, 2014 at 11:50 am

    It turns out that he’s just a skilled old-school machine politician. But even such an ordinary figure is/was towering above the rest of the GOP. They have nobody else…

  15. 15.

    Mike in NC

    February 13, 2014 at 11:50 am

    Chris Christie sold his soul to the Jersey Devil in exchange for a charmed career in politics.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 13, 2014 at 11:50 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Bobo is a mouthpiece for the parasite vermin of the 1%. Fuck him with Ted Nugent’s diseased dick.

  17. 17.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    February 13, 2014 at 11:52 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Nice blog post. At long last, Bobo has decided to blame the victims. “Things would be fine if those serfs just weren’t so lazy.” Lamentably, that idea has every chance of catching on.

  18. 18.

    gubbler chechenova

    February 13, 2014 at 11:53 am

    Though Christie is a Republican, all the big city machines were created bt Democrats. That’s why conservative left for the suburbs.

  19. 19.

    gubbler chechenova

    February 13, 2014 at 11:53 am

    Though Christie is a Republican, all the big city machines were created by Democrats. That’s why conservative left for the suburbs.

  20. 20.

    JPL

    February 13, 2014 at 11:59 am

    @Mike in NC: What soul?

  21. 21.

    some guy

    February 13, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    exciting news from Syria. Now that US taxpayers are funding Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, we are finally seeing some results:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/syrian-peace-talks-resume-acrimoniously-as-assad-regime-alleges-hama-massacre/2014/02/10/c571aa84-927c-11e3-b3f7-f5107432ca45_story.html

    bravo, brave jihadi’s. those women and children you massacred in Maan most likely had it coming!

  22. 22.

    burnspbesq

    February 13, 2014 at 12:04 pm

    @Fuzzy:

    Just a typical %!#@in’ lawyer turned politician

    Typical? No. And fuck you very much.

  23. 23.

    shelly

    February 13, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    Chris Christie sold his soul to the Jersey Devil in exchange

    I wonder what crossroads in the Pine Barrens he made the exchange?

  24. 24.

    Ellen

    February 13, 2014 at 12:11 pm

    Great article. And it barely scratches the surface of Christie’s corruption.

  25. 25.

    Loneoak

    February 13, 2014 at 12:11 pm

    The days after the scandal broke I tried to explain that he was toast to the old NorCal totebaggers at my gym and they weren’t having it. They were sure his press conference “sounded all the right notes.” I still can’t figure out how they came to that consensus so easily and wrongly.

  26. 26.

    Fuzzy

    February 13, 2014 at 12:15 pm

    @burnspbesq: Struck a nerve huh? Then I assume you are an atypical %!#@in’ lawyer turned politician and “nothing but the truth” actually means something. Congratulations.

  27. 27.

    catclub

    February 13, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    @Loneoak: “I still can’t figure out how they came to that consensus so easily and wrongly. ”

    Because they wanted to?

    Also I want to use “Somewhere [down] in the swamps of jersey” as the start of a song, to the tune of Dixie.

  28. 28.

    slippytoad

    February 13, 2014 at 12:19 pm

    @Loneoak:

    Fox told them what to think. So they didn’t try to do it themselves.

    Lazy thinkers.

  29. 29.

    Ash Can

    February 13, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Can’t be done. Ted Nugent has no dick.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    February 13, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    What he learned from the politicization of U.S. Attorney offices under that woebegone administration is that everything is fair game for being politicized.

    More Stuff Negative ‘Bout Christie may be fixated on the story, but the real point is that there is a story, and the onion of collusion is far, far from being unpeeled.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    February 13, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    (emphasis fixed from #27, and correction)

    What he learned from the politicization of U.S. Attorney offices under that woebegone administration is that everything is fair game for being politicized.

    More Stuff Negative ‘Bout Christie may be fixated on the story, but the real point is that there is a story, and the onion of collusion is far, far from being peeled.

  32. 32.

    MomSense

    February 13, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    That was a great piece and I also loved the kitteh–gorgeous eyes. Is it wrong that I wish the invisible hand would smack Bobo upside the head?

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    February 13, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    @Loneoak:

    They were sure his press conference “sounded all the right notes.”

    Because winning the next 24 hour news cycle is more important than having the facts on your side. I think Christie actually did about as good a job as is possible of simultaneously blaming a large group of his subordinates and appointees for his problems while looking like a take charge leader who’s completely on top of the situation. It’s only when they take a step back and consider things that people start to recognize the contradictions inherent in his position. It certainly doesn’t help that he’s tried to regain traction by throwing more people under the bus, e.g. by blaming badly supervised subordinates for the press release trashing Wildstein.

  34. 34.

    slippytoad

    February 13, 2014 at 12:51 pm

    Another thing as occurred to me. For five years, almost six now, the right has engaged in a political witch hunt to find some actual actionable dirt on the current President. Their failure to do so has unintentionally left history with a conclusion they will NOT like, that Obama is probably (given the level of scrutiny he’s endured) one of the cleanest Presidents we’ve ever had.

    That same level of scrutiny is now commonplace for all politicians, however. The desire to dig up ANY dirt on ANYONE has left our whole . . . apparatus in a mode of scandal-seeking. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that any candidate for POTUS with a dog on his roof or an intern in his bed, or whatever, can expect it to come out in this era of instant information.

    Just an interesting consequence, thinks I.

  35. 35.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 1:02 pm

    @MomSense: Thanks MomSense, I am glad you liked it.
    Bobo’s smug mug needs an upper cut to the jaw!

  36. 36.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 1:04 pm

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Thanks HBM I am glad you liked it. I just don’t get the totebagger love for Bobo.

  37. 37.

    Bill Arnold

    February 13, 2014 at 1:06 pm

    The New Republic article is really interesting. I had no clue that NJ politics is so corrupt, so driven by bosses, so friends-and-enemies style. It is sad that B. Buono couldn’t get people to donate above the reporting threshold. (Reportedly due to fear of retribution, and there is no other obvious explanation.)

  38. 38.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 13, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    @slippytoad: In a time of great inequality, corruption becomes more prevalent. Government corruption is up on all levels in the US. It’s distressing because most of us a remember a time when this was not so.

    Unless we fix the INEQUALITY, STUPID problem, shit like Chris Christie, Ray Nagin, etc will be the norm.

    Bush family is corrupt as hell but a lot of the worst stuff they did was 100% legal, ditto with Romney. That’s the most frightening part about all this.

  39. 39.

    Suffern ACE

    February 13, 2014 at 1:28 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Oh for crying out loud. I thought the conservative ideal was for these nice stable neighborhoods where the kids knew all the neighbors and could play outside. Anyway, of course people were moving more in 1950. There was a housing shortage that was ending. We had just gone through a kind of major event historically where lots of people had to move around to fight some kind of war and people were sorting themselves out after that. People had put off household formation for 10 years and were having babies. We had this new government program that made 30 year mortgages stable and were building houses in the suburbs. None of those things applies to our current situation.

  40. 40.

    Fuzzy

    February 13, 2014 at 1:39 pm

    @slippytoad: You mean FOX has been backfired upon.

  41. 41.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 13, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    @Suffern ACE: Bobo is not a scholar, he just has pretensions of being one. He is an ideologue who twists facts to suit his purpose.

    ETA: Your explanation of why more people were moving in the 1950s makes a lot of sense.

  42. 42.

    Lee

    February 13, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    I got a real laugh from this line:

    James’s successor, Cory Booker, is the first mayor of Newark not to be indicted since 1962.

  43. 43.

    Cervantes

    February 13, 2014 at 2:03 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    The New Republic article is really interesting.

    Alec MacGillis seems to be, generally, a good reporter — but I have some concerns about this article. For example:

    House Democrats in Washington would eventually call a hearing on Christie’s use of deferred-prosecution agreements, and Christie was asked whether there was a “perception of a quid pro quo” when Kelley was awarded a contract after having let Todd off the hook. “No, sir, because my brother committed no wrongdoing and was found not to have committed any wrongdoing, both by the Southern District of New York and the SEC,” he answered. The answer begged for a follow-up. The SEC had found wrongdoing, and it was precisely the Southern District’s finding of no wrongdoing in his instance that was at issue. But the lawmakers didn’t get a chance to press the matter, because moments later, Christie abruptly announced that he had to catch a train and walked out. “It was a strange hearing,” Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen told me. “He just got up and left.”

    1. That’s not at all what happened. Christie, citing pressing business in NJ, had informed the committee beforehand, in writing, that he would have to leave at 1:30p. (He’d been there from 11a). And even at 1:30, he didn’t just get up and leave. It was not that abrupt.

    2. The hearing was not “on Christie’s use of deferred-prosecution agreements.” It was more generally about “Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity In Corporate Deferred And Non-Prosecution Agreements.” Christie was one of seven witnesses.

    The above facts are readily available in the Congressional Record. Why does MacGillis not know them or not convey them to the reader? Is MacGillis consciously presenting a different narrative?

    3. I agree with MacGillis: Christie’s answer to the question definitely “begged for a follow-up” — so MacGillis ought to have asked the chair, Rep. Cohen (with whom, as we know, he spoke), or his boss, Rep. Conyers — both Democrats — whether there was any follow-up in writing. If MacGillis did ask, he has not told us.

    So … one ought to be concerned about the accuracy and completeness of the article.

    All that said, when it comes time for Christie’s political funeral, no one will be cheering louder than me.

  44. 44.

    Cermet

    February 13, 2014 at 2:36 pm

    @Cervantes: Interesting

  45. 45.

    Cervantes

    February 13, 2014 at 2:44 pm

    @Cermet: I meant to add that the article should not be dismissed out of hand. It raises important questions about Christie — but also a few questions about itself.

  46. 46.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 13, 2014 at 7:58 pm

    @gubbler chechenova:

    all the big city machines were created by Democrats. That’s why conservative left for the suburbs.

    Um, no. They left because of Brown.

  47. 47.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 13, 2014 at 8:00 pm

    @shelly: Ong’s Hat, maybe? The Barrens are a great place to go exploring, but you better have the right vehicle.

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