Federal prosecutors have widened their investigation into the relationship between Governor Chris Christie’s office and his 2013 reelection campaign, according to a report at The Wall Street Journal.
WSJ reports that U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s office has subpoenaed documents related to government meetings that Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop claims were canceled after he declined to endorse Christie’s reelection.
Jim McGreevey is Governor Christie’s Ethical Compass?
Govenor Chris Christie at his Belmar Town Hall on July 31. Photo by Art Gallagher
In the summer of 2004, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie had Governor Jim McGreevey on the ropes. McGreevey was “State Official #1,” an unindicted co-conspirator in a pay for play scheme that nabbed Democratic fund-raiser David D’Amiano. A few weeks later McGreevey was resigning, purportedly because he was a “Gay American” who gave his boyfriend an important homeland security job that he wasn’t qualified to perform.
Yesterday, a decade later, Governor Christie is hanging his hat, and his orange sweater, on a McGreevey Executive Order that exempts the Governor from New Jersey’s ethics laws against accepting gifts.
Chris Christie marched into Trenton promising to turn the place upside down. Five years later McGreevey is Christie’s ethical compass. Not the man McGreevey has become over the last 10 years. Christie’s ethical compass is the man he investigated and probably could have indicted and convicted. To paraphrase Christie on the stump for Mitt Romney two years ago, something got turned upside down in Trenton, but it wasn’t the culture of government that Christie promised he would impact and overturn.
About the best thing we can say about Christie accepting gifts of travel on private jets and seats in owner’s boxes at NFL games is at least it was family friendly entertainment with the cameras running, unlike the alleged entertainment U.S. Senator Bob Menendez flew off to on a friend’s private jet.
Monmouth County Clerk M. Claire French will retire in March.
French told MMM in a phone interview that she will decide by the end of this week whether her retirement will be effective on March 1 or March 31.
Appointed to fill the vacancy created by Jane Clayton’s retirement in 1997, French was elected to four 5 year terms. Had she completed her current term she would have served the residents of Monmouth County through the end of 2017.
French, 77, started her career in public service as a member of the Wall Township Committee where she served two terms as Mayor. She has held either elected or appointed office for 35 years serving as at every level of New Jersey government. French was the first Chair of the Monmouth County Improvement Authority, was Vice Chair of the Local Finance Board and has served on various regional authorities. She is a Eucharistic Minister at Holy Innocents Church in Neptune City.
The Green Bay Packers will eliminate the Dallas Cowboys from Super Bowl contention with a victory in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs next Sunday.
Governor Chris Christie will announce that he is a candidate for President of the United States. Christie’s independent polling numbers will drop to the low 40’s in New Jersey, but his national popularity will rise.
Kim Guadagno will officially be the Governor of New Jersey on more days than Christie will be in 2015. Yet, Guadagno’s name recognition will not exceed 20% in independent polls.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman will announce 3-4 indictments in the George Washington Bridge/Port Authority fiasco. Christie will not be one of them. Neither will Acting Governor Guadagno.
A simmering feud within the Atlantic Highlands GOP boiled over into the public eye yesterday afternoon during the Borough’s reorganization meeting as three of the five Republican elected officials split with two of their newly reelected colleagues to elect a Democrat up for reelection this year as Council President.
Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno who was on hand to swear in veteran Councilmen Jack Archibald and Peter Doyle to their new terms was not pleased by the drama. “You’re killing me,” Guadagno said to Mayor Fred Rast, a Republican who supported the unorthodox move, according to a prominent county Republican who was present.
Republican Councilman Lou Fligor nominated Democrat Roy Dellosso to be Council President. Jacob “Jake” Hoffman, also a Republican, joined Fligor, Dellossa, and Democrat Robert Sutton in electing Dellosso to the largely ceremonial post. Archibald and Doyle voted no.
UPDATE: AsburyParkSun reports that if the Monmouth County Board of Elections decision to not count the disqualified Vote By Mail ballots is overturned, that a runoff election between Mayor John Moor and Remond Palmer could be triggered.
Asbury Park Mayor-elect John Moor told MMM that he was informed by City Attorney Fredrick Raffetto this afternoon that the City has been served with a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of both the municipal and Board of Education elections that were held on November 4, 2014. According to Moor’s recalculation, the plaintiffs are Remond Palmer, the “A-Team” candidate for mayor and Arva Council, an “A-Team” candidate for Board of Education.
Moor said that his understanding is that the plaintiffs are seeking to have the results of the election overturned and for the 353 Vote By Mail ballots disqualified by the Monmouth County Board of Election to be counted.
O’Scanlon and Co. have been relentless in monitoring the Red Light Camera Program and telling the truth about it. They have hired independent experts to investigate complaints and document fraud within the program. They have sorted through data that has regularly been obfuscated by the red light camera companies (and bureaucrats friendly to them) to reflect improved safety conditions at RCL intersections where in fact conditions had often worsened. They have worked hard in getting the word out about the program’s failure and corruption. They have countered expensive advertising campaigns by the red light camera companies and countered expensive lobbyists working the halls of the Statehouse, without the benefit of the profits the red light camera companies stole from the motoring public to fund their efforts.
In thwarting the Red Light Camera Program’s renewal, O’Scanlon has proved himself to be “the real deal”….a leader who fights for the right thing because it is the right thing. He is an example of what a “public servant” should be.
Christine Giordano Hanlon
Dubbed The Architect by Monmouth GOP Chairman Shaun Golden, Hanlon designed Golden’s defeat of John Bennett for leadership of the County Party, avenging her razor thin 3 vote defeat by Bennett in 2012. By building a coalition of previous regional rivals and splitting Bennett’s 2012 coalition, which he failed to nourish, Hanlon demonstrated strategic leadership without seeking the limelight or accolades.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo released and endorsed a report issued by the Bi-State Panel on the Future of the Port Authority which calls for reforms to the agency that the governors called “comprehensive and wholesale changes” in a joint statement this evening.
In accepting the report by the panel comprised of three current commissioners of the Port Authority and the chief counsels of each governor, Christie and Cuomo said they are reorganizing the overall operations, leadership and management of the multi-billion dollar organization. They said that the reorganization will “return the Port Authority fully to its original mission – developing and maintaining the world’s largest transportation system and infrastructure.”
Additionally, the governors each vetoed identical legislation approved by the New York and New Jersey Legislatures which calls for increased transparency of the Port Authority. The governors said they “accept and endorse the transparency legislation” “but with some sensible changes to eliminate confusion that would be caused by the bill as currently drafted.” The changes are included in Christie’s Conditional Veto message to the New Jersey Legislature. New York’s governor does not have conditional veto powers.
Texas Gov Rich Perry and Dwayne Horner. Oct 2014 via facebook
Dwayne Horner, campaign manager for Leigh-Anne Bellew’s 2013 Bayshore Tea Party backed primary campaign against State Senator Joe Kyrillos, received an early Christmas present earlier this month when he was admitted into the Pre-Trial Intervention (PTI) Program.
The 45 year old resident of Little Elm, Texas woke up thousands of Monmouth County voters with a 4 am robo call on June 4, 2013 the morning of the primary election. The call purported to be from the campaign of Kyrillos and his running mates Assembly members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon, informing Repbulican voters that the still had four hours to vote. The calls were caller ID spoofed to falsely indicate that they came from a phone number owned by the Monmouth County Republican Organization.
