Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

He really is that stupid.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

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

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  2. 2.

    Cacti

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

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

  3. 3.

    JPL

    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

    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.

  10. 10.

    raven

    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

    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.

  14. 14.

    Alex S.

    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…

  17. 17.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @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

    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

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

  23. 23.

    shelly

    Chris Christie sold his soul to the Jersey Devil in exchange

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

  25. 25.

    Loneoak

    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

    @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

    @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.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    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

    (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.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @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

    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.

  37. 37.

    Bill Arnold

    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

    @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

    @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.

  42. 42.

    Lee

    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

    @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.

  45. 45.

    Cervantes

    @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.

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