Tag Archives: service

Chris Christie Needs to Talk to Bridget Anne Kelly Pronto

by Raisacjayv Posted on January 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Recent political scandals have given us a whole new set of colorful euphemisms for dodgy behavior. Wide stance. Walking the Appalachian trail. Drunken stupor. And now, We’re doing a traffic study.

More MoJo coverage of Chris Christie’s bridge scandal


Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal, Explained


Chris Christie: I Am “Heartbroken” And “Embarrassed” About Bridge Scandalâ&#128;&#148;But Not Guilty


Christie Administration’s Bridge Lane Closure Slowed Search for Missing 4-Year-Old, Says Official


Here Are the Chris Christie Emails Everyone Is Talking About


9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge


VIDEO: David Corn on What Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal Means for 2016


5 Unanswered Questions About Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal


Bridgegate Edges Closer and Closer to Chris Christie Himself

And speaking of Bridgegate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie held an epic press conference today about it. Actually, “held” is the wrong word. As I write this, it’s still going on. He’s apologized repeatedly, denied that he’s a bully, claimed that he’s embarrassed and humiliated, and fired a couple of his close aides. He’s doing pretty well, and if he’s telling the truth that he knew nothing about any of this before it happened, then he might be able to put it all behind him eventually. Still, I was struck by this:

Q: I’m wondering what your staff said to you about why they lied to you. Why would they do that? What was their explanation? And what about Mr. Samson? What role did he play in this?

GOV. CHRISTIE: I have — I have not had any conversation with Bridget Kelly since the email came out. And so she was not given the opportunity to explain to me why she lied because it was so obvious that she had. And I’m, quite frankly, not interested in the explanation at the moment.

Bridget Anne Kelly was one of Christie’s top aides, and very clearly someone who was rather gleefully involved in planning the pre-election lane closures on the George Washington Bridge as retribution against the mayor of Ft. Lee. But Christie wasn’t interested in talking to her directly to find out what was going on? Really? That sounds like a guy who either (a) already knows what she’d tell him, or (b) is afraid of what she might tell him.

A friend of mine also emails with this:

Here’s something I haven’t heard yet, and it seems kinda obvious to me:

Bridget Anne Kelly: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

David Wildstein: “Got it.”

Does this exchange sound like it’s between two people who are suggesting a new and novel way to screw their political opponents, or between two people who have clearly done this before?

If I’m working in the governor’s office1 and someone sends me an email saying “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee!” I’d probably email back something like, “What are you talking about?” or “What happened in Fort Lee that’s causing all the traffic?” Instead, Wildstein knows what she’s getting at right away, and what he’s supposed to do. Then he does it.

It would surprise me less if this turns out to be the only time they’ve done this than if we discover two or three more incidents of politically inspired “traffic problems.”

Maybe that’s what Christie is afraid to find out?

1Actually, Wildstein worked at the Port Authority. But you get the idea anyway. “Wildstein was known as the Governor’s eyes and ears inside this massive agency,” says one reporter, and he’s a longtime friend and confidante of Christie’s.

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Chris Christie Needs to Talk to Bridget Anne Kelly Pronto

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Shadowy Wisconsin Group That Helped Scott Walker Win His Recall Was Backed by the Koch Network

by DeenaBumg Posted on January 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Days before Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s June 2012 recall election, two TV ads ran on stations statewide. Paid for by a group called the Coalition for American Values (CAV), the ads attacked the very notion of holding a recall election (even though it’s in the state constitution) and featured supposed Wisconsin citizens speaking out against the recall. “I didn’t vote for Scott Walker, but I’m definitely against the recall,” one man says. In another ad, the narrator says, “Recall isn’t the Wisconsin way…End the recall madness. Vote for Scott Walker June 5th.”

CAV put $400,000 behind those ads, which stoked a sense of unease about the recall among Wisconsin voters. Walker coasted to a seven-point victory. Exit polls strongly suggested that CAV’s ads played a part in the governor’s win. Yet the mystery surrounding the Coalition for American Values persisted. The group never disclosed how much it spent, how much it raised, or who funded it.

Until now. As first reported by the left-leaning Center for Media and Democracy, new tax filings reveal that the main source of CAV’s funding was the Center to Protect Patient Rights, an Arizona nonprofit that gave CAV $510,000 in 2012. CPPR is a linchpin in a network of nonprofit groups Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists, use to shuffle money around the country while keeping donors anonymous. California’s Fair Political Practices Commission identified the group as “the key nonprofit in the Koch Brothers’ dark money network of nonprofit corporations,” and hit the group and a related nonprofit with a $1 million fine for failing to disclose donations made during the 2012 election season. All told, CPPR doled out $156 million in dark money in 2011 and 2012, a sizable chunk of the $407 million moved by the Kochs’ network of nonprofit groups.

Run by a onetime Koch operative named Sean Noble, CPPR is expected to play less of a role in the Koch network going forward. The California investigation—which revealed the identities of hundreds of previously secret donors and private marketing material used by Republican operatives—brought unwanted scrutiny to the Kochs and their conservative and libertarian allies. An October 2012 Huffington Post story reported that Noble, the former “the wizard behind the screen” for the Kochs, had fallen out of favor. “Noble has had his wings clipped,” one Republican operative told HuffPost.

The Center for Media and Democracy says it has filed a formal complaint with Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board alleging that the Coalition for American Values violated state campaign finance laws by not disclosing its CPPR funding. A message left at the phone number listed on CAV’s website was not returned.

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Shadowy Wisconsin Group That Helped Scott Walker Win His Recall Was Backed by the Koch Network

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9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge

by 0xde2zx Posted on January 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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UPDATE: On Thursday, Christie said, “I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge.”

On Wednesday morning, news outlets released emails that strongly imply that in September a top aide to New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie planned a dangerous traffic jam near the George Washington Bridge to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee. After over seven hours of silence, Christie—a possible presidential candidate in 2016—released a statement denying he had knowledge of the aide’s actions. Up until then, Christie and his aides made numerous statements claiming his office had no involvement in the scandal. Here’s the evolution of how Christie responsed to the scandal, dating back to September:

“Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the Christie campaign, said that any notion that Mr. Sokolich faced retribution for not endorsing the governor was ‘crazy.'” –The Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2013
â&#128;&#139; “A spokesman for Christie, Michael Drewniak, said the governor had nothing to do with the lane closures: ‘The governor of the state of New Jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies,’ Drewniak said.” –The Star-Ledger (November 13, 2013)
“I was the guy out there, in overalls and a hat. I actually was the guy working the cones out there. You really are not serious with that question.”â&#128;&#139; -Christie to WYNC (December 2, 2013)
“Mr. Christie also said he believed Mr. Baroni’s his top executive appointee at the Port Authority explanation that the purpose of the closures was a traffic study. ‘I don’t think that Senator Baroni would not tell the truth,’ Mr. Christie said.” –The Wall Street Journal (December 13, 2013)
“Christie said Friday the political drama surrounding the issue was ‘created and manufactured,’ further characterizing it as ‘a whole lot of hullabaloo.'” –CNN (December 13, 2013)
“I don’t have any recollection of ever having met the mayor of Fort Lee in my four years…He was not somebody that was on my radar screen in any way–politically, professionally, or in any other way” –CNN (December 13, 2013)
“When asked about that claims that the closures were ordered for political retribution, Christie said ‘absolutely, unequivocally not.'” Politico (December 13, 2013)
“I know you guys are obsessed with this, I’m not. I’m really not. It’s just not that big a deal.” -Christie to Talking Points Memo (December 19, 2013)

And, finally, Wednesday:

“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.”â&#128;&#139; –Statement, January 8, 2013

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9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge

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Check Out This Shocking Map of California’s Drought

by nension Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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â&#128;&#139;

NASA GRACE Data Assimilation. Click to embiggen.

While the country’s appetite for extreme weather news was filled (to the brim) this week by the polar vortex, spare a thought for sunny California, where exceptionally dry weather is provoking fears of a long, tough summer ahead.

The state is facing what could be its worst drought in four decades. The chart above, released by the National Drought Mitigation Center on Monday, shows just how dry the soil is compared to the historical average: the lighter the color, the more “normal” the current wetness of the soil; the darker the color, the rarer. You can see large swathes of California are bone dry.

Nearly 90 percent of the state is suffering from severe or extreme drought. A statewide survey shows the current snowpack hovering below 20 percent of the average for this time of year. The AP is reporting that if the current trend holds, state water managers will only be able to deliver 5 percent of the water needed for more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of farmland.

A study published in Nature Climate Change at the end of last year found that droughts will probably set in more quickly and become more intense as climate change takes hold.

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Check Out This Shocking Map of California’s Drought

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NSA’s Harshest Critics Meeting With White House Officials Tomorrow

by celicjusz Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Thursday, a number of civil liberties groups that have harshly criticized the NSA surveillance practices disclosed by Edward Snowden, are meeting with President Obama’s top lawyer, Kathy Ruemmler. This White House session is one of several this week with lawmakers, tech groups, and members of the intelligence community that will help the President soon decide whether to keep the controversial surveillance programs intact.

Among groups that are reportedly attending the meeting are the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and the Federation of American Scientists. According to Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the White House, the purpose of the meeting with Ruemmler “is to have a broad discussion regarding privacy and civil liberties protections and transparency initiatives.” According to a source with knowledge of the meeting, the meeting is likely the “next phase” of the Obama Administration’s attempt to decide “exactly how much of the Surveillance Review Group’s fairly radical recommendations they’re going to get behind.”

In December, this independent panel took a hard look at NSA snooping and issued 46 recommendations for reform, such as having phone carriers store domestic telephone records, rather than the NSA. Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of EPIC, tells Mother Jones that, “We support many of the recommendations contained in the report of the Review Group, particularly the proposal to end the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone records….But we think the President needs to do more.” He adds, “Privacy protection is not simply about NSA reform. We also need strong consumer safeguards.”

On Wednesday, President Obama is meeting with “leaders of the Intelligence community” and members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency that advises the President, according to Hayden. He will also meet with members of the House and Senate on Thursday to discuss surveillance issues. The Associated Press reports that he is expected to issue a final decision on NSA surveillance programs as early as next week.

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NSA’s Harshest Critics Meeting With White House Officials Tomorrow

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Utah Just Decided It Isn’t Going to Recognize the 1,300 Same-Sex Marriages It Already Certified

by Georgiana32J Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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More than 1,300 same-sex couples got married in Utah in the two weeks between December 20, when a district judge ruled the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, and Monday, when the Supreme Court stayed the decision pending the state’s appeal. But Gary Herbert, Utah’s Republican governor, just decided the state won’t recognize those marriages as valid.

Derek Miller, Herbert’s chief of staff, sent state agencies the following email Tuesday night:

Dear Cabinet,

I’m sure you are all aware of the issuance of the stay regarding same-sex marriage in Utah from the United States Supreme Court yesterday. This stay effectively puts a hold on the decision of the district court, which found state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in Utah to be unconstitutional.

After the district court decision was issued on Friday, December 20th, some same-sex couples availed themselves of the opportunity to marry and to the status granted by the state to married persons. This office sent an email to each of you soon after the district court decision, directing compliance.

With the district court injunction now stayed, the original laws governing marriage in Utah return to effect pending final resolution by the courts. It is important to understand that those laws include not only a prohibition of performing same-sex marriages but also recognizing same-sex marriages.

Based on counsel from the Attorney General’s Office regarding the Supreme Court decision, state recognition of same-sex marital status is ON HOLD until further notice. Please understand this position is not intended to comment on the legal status of those same-sex marriages – that is for the courts to decide. The intent of this communication is to direct state agency compliance with current laws that prohibit the state from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Wherever individuals are in the process of availing themselves of state services related to same-sex marital status, that process is on hold and will stay exactly in that position until a final court decision is issued. For example, if a same-sex married couple previously changed their names on new drivers licenses, those licenses should not be revoked. If a same-sex couple seeks to change their names on drivers licenses now, the law does not allow the state agency to recognize the marriage therefore the new drivers licenses cannot be issued.

We appreciate your patience and diligence in this matter. We recognize that different state agencies have specific questions and circumstances that will need to be worked through. Please do so with the Assistant Attorney General assigned to your respective agency in coordination with the Governor’s General Counsel. We also recognize that these changes affect real people’s lives. Let us carefully and considerately ensure that we, and our employees throughout the state, continue to treat all people with respect and understanding as we assist them.

Regards,

Derek B. Miller

Chief of Staff

Governor’s Office State of Utah

So, that’s awful. Happy Wednesday.

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Utah Just Decided It Isn’t Going to Recognize the 1,300 Same-Sex Marriages It Already Certified

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Christie Administration’s Bridge Lane Closure Slowed Search for Missing 4-Year-Old, Says Official

by EdWampleriipwu Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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Private messages released on Wednesday strongly suggest that a top adviser to Republican Gov. Chris Christie orchestrated a massive traffic jam in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as political retaliation against the city’s Democratic mayor.

READ MORE: Gov. Christie’s bridge scandal, explained. Future-Image/ZUMA

Calling the messages “astonishing” and “unconscionable,” members of the Fort Lee borough council described the mid-September traffic disaster, caused when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey unexpectedly closed two of the town’s access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, as having dire consequences.

“There was a missing child that day. The police had trouble conducting that search because they were tied up directing traffic,” says Jan Goldberg, a Fort Lee councilman who works with local emergency personnel. Police found the missing child, a four-year-old. “But with the streets in the condition they were, I would venture to say that the search took longer,” Goldberg says.

Ila Kasofsky, a Fort Lee councilwoman, tells Mother Jones that ambulances and other emergency vehicles could not get through the gridlock. In the aftermath of the lane closures, Kasofsky says she spoke with a Fort Lee resident who couldn’t get over the bridge to support her husband through major surgery. Another Fort Lee woman was unable to pick up her son after his dialysis session.

Police Chief Keith Bendul cited these problems when he spoke to New Jersey press in September. “On Monday, while all this was going on, we had to contend with a missing four-year-old, a cardiac arrest requiring an ambulance, and a car running up against a building,” he said. “What would happen if there was a very serious accident?”

Christie aides appear to have considered the potential public safety ramifications of the traffic jam. In one exchange released on Wednesday, Port Authority appointee David Wildstein waved away complaints from the Fort Lee mayor that school buses filled with children were stuck in traffic. “Bottom line is he didn’t say safety,” Wildstein wrote.

Goldberg called the messages revealed on Wednesday “outrageous,” saying, “It’s unimaginable that they could stoop to that level.”

“I was furious,” adds Kasofsky. “To affect the lives of thousands and thousands of people, their safety, their basic quality of life—how could anybody do such a horrible thing?”

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Christie Administration’s Bridge Lane Closure Slowed Search for Missing 4-Year-Old, Says Official

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Here Are the Chris Christie Emails Everyone Is Talking About

by DomingaHooley Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, news outlets released emails indicating that top aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blocked lanes on a major bridge last year in retaliation against a political opponent.

Last September, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey abruptly closed two lanes on the George Washington Bridge, causing a massive traffic jam that clogged the streets of Fort Lee, N.J. News outlets and New Jersey Democrats began to look into the circumstances surrounding the bridge closure, suspecting that the Port Authority closed the bridge lanes in an act of political retaliation against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who backed Gov. Chris Christie’s opponent in the 2013 gubernatorial campaign. The emails released today suggest that was indeed the case:

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Christie administration traffic jam correspondence (PDF)

Christie administration traffic jam correspondence (Text)

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Here Are the Chris Christie Emails Everyone Is Talking About

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Brrrr: Incredible Photos of the Polar Vortex

by BernardoWinstea Posted on January 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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UPDATE 4:35pm EST: Scott Harrison gave us the nod to publish his terrific photo of throwing boiling water into minus 14 degree air in the early hours of Monday morning, in Wicker Park, Chicago. If you have polar vortex photos you want to share with us, send us a note on Twitter: @MotherJones.

Scott Harrison/Flickr

The polar vortex sweeping across the country has pulled 187 million Americans into the grips of crazy cold weather, snarled travel, forced an early orange harvest, and heated up the climate debate. It is also producing some amazing photography, from professionals and amateurs alike. Here are a few that have come to our attention in the last two days.

Hank Cain, via Shawn Reynolds/Twitter.

This picture was taken by pilot Hank Cain, over a frozen Chicago, and first tweeted by his friend Shawn Reynolds from the Weather Channel. Chicago reported a low of minus 16 degrees on Monday.

Nancy Stone/MCT/ZUMA

Teresa Wooldridge has her work cut out for her, pictured here trying to clear a path on the Northwest Side of Chicago.

@ChicagosMayor, The Office of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The office of the Chicago Mayor tweeted this image of steaming rooftops yesterday morning. Four people reportedly died while shoveling snow in the city across the weekend.

NOAA/NASA GOES Project

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tweeted this picture showing the extent of the weather event—”a whirling and persistent large area of low pressure”—over the US. The image was captured by satellite Monday morning.

Ernest Coleman/ZUMA

Warmer temperatures in the Ohio River than the surrounding air created this eerie mist outside downtown Cincinnati on Monday. According to the National Weather Service, the city tied its record-low temperature for that date, at minus 7, set in 1924. Desperate times call for desperate measures: maintenance crews are treating roads with beet juice, apparently, because it can help melt ice at temperatures as low as minus 25; it’s also said to be better for the environment than regular deicers. Factoid of the day!

@TeriMatthewson/Twitter

“I’d rather have my frozen berries in my smoothie, then on my front lawn,” is the caption to this photo taken by Teri Matthewson, from Toronto, of the fruit tree in her front lawn. In Canada, the vortex has earned the nickname “polar pig” in some quarters, for its shape on the metrological map.

And the Chicago Tribune is reporting that 500 passengers were stranded on two trains last night west of the city because of the snow and ice.

Separately, Van Jones, co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, this morning tweeted this pic of what he says is inside an Amtrak train:

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Brrrr: Incredible Photos of the Polar Vortex

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Why I’m Still Skeptical of GMOs

by Isela Harris Posted on January 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over the weekend, listservs, blogs, and Twitter feeds lit up with reactions to Amy Harmon’s New York Times deep dive into the politics behind a partial ban on growing genetically modified crops on Hawaii’s main island. The fuss obscured a much more significant development that occurred with little fanfare (and no Times attention) on Friday, when the US Department of Agriculture took a giant step toward approving a controversial new crop promoted by Dow Agrosciences, that could significantly ramp up the chemical war on weeds being waged in the Midwest’s corn and soybean fields. Since the ’90s, the widespread use of corn and soy crops genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide Roundup has led more weeds to resist that chemical. Farmers have responded by using even more chemicals, as this Food and Water Watch chart shows.

Food and Water Watch

Dow’s new product promises to fix that problem. The company is peddling corn and soy seeds engineered to withstand not just Roundup, but also an older and much more toxic herbicide called 2,4-D. In a Jan. 3 press release, the company noted that “an astonishing 86 percent of corn, soybean and cotton growers in the South have herbicide-resistant or hard-to-control weeds on their farms,” as do more than 61 percent of farms in the Midwest. “Growers need new tools now to address this challenge,” Dow insisted.

Use of 2,4-D—the less toxic half of the infamous Vietnam-era defoliant Agent Orange—had been dwindling for years, but the rise of Roundup-resistant superweeds has revived it.

Food and Water Watch

Farmers have been using it to “burn down” superweed-ridden fields before the spring planting of corn and soybeans. But if Dow gets its way, they’ll be able to resort to it even after the crops emerge. Dow has downplayed the concern that the new products will lead weeds to develop resistance to 2,4-D. But in a 2011 paper (abstract here), weed experts from Penn State—hardly a hotbed of anti-GMO activism—concluded that chances are “actually quite high” that Dow’s new product will unleash a new plague of super-duperweeds that resist both Roundup and 2,4-D. (I laid out the details of their argument in this post.) Here’s their model for how the new product would affect herbicide application rates on soybeans. Note how they project that glyphosate (Roundup) use will hold steady, but that “other herbicides,” mostly 2,4-D, will spike—meaning a windfall for Dow but nothing good for the environment.

From “Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management,” by David A. Mortensen, et all, in Bioscience, January 2012.

The USDA, which oversees the introduction of new GMO crops, appeared set to green-light Dow’s new wonderseeds at the end of 2012. But in May of last year, after a firestorm of criticism from environmental groups, the department slowed down the process, announcing in a press release it had decided that release of the novel products “may significantly affect the quality of the human environment,” and that a thorough environmental impact statement (EIS) was necessary before such a decision could be made.

Then on Friday, the USDA reversed itself—it released the draft of the promised EIS, and in it, the department recommended that Dow’s 2,4-D-ready crops be unleashed upon the land. Once the draft is published in the Federal Register on Jan. 10, there will be a 45-day public comment period, after which the USDA will make its final decision. At this point, approval seems imminent—probably in time for the 2015 growing season, as Dow suggested in its press release reacting to the news.

Why did the USDA switch from “may significantly affect the quality of the human environment” to a meek call for deregulation? As the USDA itself admits in its Friday press release, the department ultimately assesses new GMO crops through an extremely narrow lens: whether or not they act as a “pest” to other plants—that is, they’ll withhold approval only if the crops themselves, and not the herbicide tsunami and upsurge in resistant weeds they seem set to bring forth, pose a threat to other plants. And Dow’s new corn and soy crops don’t cross that line, the USDA claims. I explained the tortured history and logic behind the USDA’s “plant pest” test in this 2011 post. Long story short: it’s an antiquated, fictional standard that doesn’t allow for much actual regulation.

US farmers planted about 170 million acres of corn and soy in 2013—a combined land mass roughly equal to the footprint of Texas. Every year, upwards of 80 percent of it is now engineered to resist Monsanto’s Roundup. It’s chilling to imagine that Dow’s 2,4-D-ready products might soon enjoy a similar range.

Given the USDA’s regulatory impotence in the face of such a specter, perhaps the Hawaiian activists who pushed for that ban aren’t quite as daft as The New York Times portrayed them in its recent piece. The big biotech companies don’t operate on the island that imposed the partial ban on GMOs. But as another New York Times piece, this one from 2011, shows, they do operate on other islands within the state—using them as a testing ground for novel crops and a place to grow out GMO seeds, taking advantage of the warm climate that allows several crops per year. According to The Times, GMO seeds are now bigger business in Hawaii than tropical stapes like coffee, sugar cane, and pineapples—and the GMO/agrichemical giants have “have stepped into the leading, and sometimes domineering role, once played by the islands’ sugar barons.” As for Dow, it cops to having field-tested its 2,4-D-ready corn there.

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Why I’m Still Skeptical of GMOs

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