TOAST,...TOAST,...TOAST,...TOAST............ .... ......




Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., knew about the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge as they were happening, the former Port Authority official who oversaw the closings said Friday, adding that he has the evidence to prove it, the New York Times reports.



David Wildstein, who was appointed by Christie to the Port Authority and later resigned after the scandal broke, said in a letter released by his lawyer that "evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference." “Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” the letter added, according to the Times.



Christie explicitly said during the Jan. 9 news conference that he had "no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution" and said he didn't know that anyone on his staff was involved in the closings until the day before.


What seemed to be a poorly planned lane closure to conduct a traffic study exploded into a full-blown scandal earlier this month after a series of communications between a Christie aide and two of his political appointees to the Port Authority became public. The email and text messages suggested that Bridget Anne Kelly, one of Christie’s three deputy chiefs of staff, ordered the lane closures.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Kelly wrote in an Aug. 13 message to Wildstein, a top executive at the Port Authority who was appointed by Christie. "Got it," replied Wildstein, who later resigned as a result of the outburst of anger surrounding the lane closings.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chris-christie-knew-about-bridge-closings-ex-official-says-report/

President has called you weasels out by saying:

" Well, I don’t think that’s very serious.....I am not particularly worried about it..."

Your move punks.........



During his CNN interview President Obama not only shrugged off Republican claims of an imperial presidency, but he appeared to challenge the Republicans who are talking lawsuits and impeachment to bring it on.

I guess this shouldn't surprise anyone. It looks like members of Congress are tired of allowing the rest of us to know just how much they receive in farm subsidies. The Environmental Working Group reported that "15 members of Congress or their spouses benefitted from a total of $237,921 in taxpayer-funded farm subsidy payments last year." Thanks to a provision slipped quietly into the new farm bill, we won't have access to that information. Heaven forbid someone might use the information to criticize them for taking their corporate welfare while at the same time being more than willing to cut food stamps for those living in poverty.



Lawmakers won’t have to disclose the farm subsidies they receive:





Taxpayers for Common Sense who spotted the change has more analysis of the bill here: TCS Analysis of the Farm Bill Conference Report. And they released this statement: TCS Statement on House Passage of the 2014 Farm Bill Conference Report:







cont'

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/provision-requiring-lawmakers-disclose

Stand back!!.............................




Thanks to the emails pried loose over the George Washington Bridge scandal, the world knows what has been clear to us working stiffs at the Star-Ledger for a long time: The governor's people hate us. They use the F-word. Ouch. So in an odd way it is gratifying to learn that Christie treats all media with the same disdain. We have company, as described in excruciating detail by WNYC's Matt Katz. To be clear: We will somehow survive the blow of being excluded from the big guy's circle of friends.



The problem is that he withholds public information he is legally required to reveal. He keeps secrets when the law says he must let the sunshine in. No New Jersey governor has ever been so secretive, and so disdainful of the need for open discussion in a democracy. Hurricane Sandy victims are getting the stiff-arm as well. Christie's top people in charge of the recovery simply refused to attend legislative hearings at the Shore that drew hundreds of irate residents who have gotten no help and no answers.



Richard Constable, head of the Department of Community Affairs, fired the main contractor hired to help disperse the aid, a tacit acknowledgement that all those people had valid complaints. Constable didn't tell anyone when he cut them loose, keeping it secret even when legislators asked him for progress reports. Still, he won't say why the firm was fired. Marc Ferzan, the Sandy "czar," has flat-out refused to talk about the recovery effort. He peeked his nose out of his hole for the first time a few weeks ago, only to offer a deceptive defense of the administration's treatment of Hoboken. He slithered away after only a handful of questions, and is now back in his bunker.



The governor himself hasn't spoken about any of this for the past three weeks. And these days, his press office is basically on lock-down. Last week, it would not even provide information about scheduled pension payments.





cont'


http://blog.nj.com/njv_tom_moran/2014/01/chris_christies_fortress_of_se.html

All simpletons prepare to bow down & kneel before the bleached boob Queen of Mittensville.....

She has emerged riding atop her car-port elevator to enlighten our nimble minds........





Ann Romney has a message for the country that rejected her husband: Your loss, America! The Romney family postmortem/movie promotion continued Friday with Ann reflecting on Mitt's defeat in the 2012 presidential election.



"I really believe this, you know, we lost, but truly the country lost by not having Mitt as president," Ann said during an interview on Fox News. She said she comes across people all the time who are "still really sad" that President Obama won re-election.


The Romneys have had a ubiquitous media presence lately promoting "Mitt," the Netflix documentary that chronicles the former Massachusetts governor's two presidential campaigns. Mitt said earlier this week that his biggest problem in 2012 "was me and my campaign."



"We made enough mistakes that we take responsibility, I take responsibility for those mistakes, and I wish we could go back and make it better, but time moves on," he said.



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ann-romney-country-lost-mitt-obama

HARRISON — Gov. Chris Christie's brother was part of a group that bought properties near the Harrison PATH station before a $256 million renovation of the facility was publicly approved, according to a report on NorthJersey.com. Todd Christie and his partners then renovated and flipped the lots for almost triple their purchase price after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey gave its OK to the project, the report said.



One of Todd Christie's partners in West Hudson Properties LLC owns Ferreira Construction, which has gotten "tens of millions of dollars" in work from state agencies since the governor took office in 2010, NorthJersey.com reported. Port Authority chairman David Samson has also been linked to land around the PATH station. Sampson's law firm, Wolf & Samson, has a client that wants to build luxury apartments where a warehouse stands.



Commissioner David Steiner also voted for renovation, four months after he purchased the rights to build an apartment complex on land along the Passaic River, just blocks from the train station. The renovated PATH station is slated to open in 2017. Chris Christie has been a major proponent of building up the Hudson County town.




http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/christies-brother-profited-sale-harrison


.

FUGETABOUTIT!!!.............HELL NO!!..........

In a profile published by The New Yorker magazine, President Barack Obama acknowledged the fact that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol for the consumer. Yet federal law classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, a category the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers "the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules." It’s time for that to change.


The Controlled Substances Act gives the executive branch, led by President Obama, the legal authority to remove marijuana from the DEA's schedule of drugs. That authority should be exercised immediately. The president clearly recognizes that marijuana is safer than alcohol — which is not a scheduled drug — so he should do everything he can to ensure our federal laws reflect that fact.


Please sign our petition calling on President Obama to remove marijuana from the DEA's schedule of drugs. Marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol, and it is time for our government to start treating it that way.







http://www.change.org/petitions/president-barack-obama-if-marijuana-is-safer-than-alcohol-remove-it-from-the-dea-s-schedule-of-drugs

PAAAAR-TEH...........SNIIIIIIFFFFFF..........



Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) will resign from Congress on Monday, according to multiple sources.

Radel, 37, was caught buying cocaine in November from an undercover federal agent in Washington and spent nearly a month in a rehabilitation facility. He returned to Congress after the winter recess.

The first-term Republican plans to send a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Monday, sources said.

It’s up to Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott to schedule a special election for Radel’s seat. His southwest Florida district is solidly Republican — Mitt Romney won the district with 61 percent of the vote.



http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/trey-radel-resignation-102642.html?hp=t1

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s comments attacking the idea of mandatory contraception coverage in insurance have come under fire, particularly for the statement that Democrats believe women “are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government.”



Bloggers from the Campaign for America’s Future, a progressive public policy group, discovered that Huckabee himself signed legislation in 2005 that required contraception coverage in Arkansas insurance policies … including policies for church-affiliated organizations such as hospitals and universities. Huffington Post described Huckabee’s change in position as an “epic flip-flop,” noting that Huckabee defended his view at the time, saying that “Religious employers are not required to comply with this policy. My position is, and always has been, that religious entities shouldn’t be forced to pay for contraception.”



Abortifacients were exempted in the Arkansas legislation, the Arkansas Times noted, but the law appears even more comprehensive than the ACA, mandating coverage under health policies issued by institutions with religious affiliations if they don’t exist primarily for that purpose and don’t primarily employ people of that religion, a standard most religiously-affiliated hospitals and schools do not meet.



Notably, Huckabee’s current position calls for a ban on mandatory contraception coverage for any employer for whom contraception presents a moral conflict, going as far as promoting a Hobby Lobby day on his website to support the company’s Supreme Court case challenging the contraception coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act.



http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/26/huckabee-was-for-mandatory-contraception-coverage-before-he-was-against-it/