Steve #Kornacki program #UP (#MSNBC) this morning was a big winner.
He hosted #Dawn Zimmer, current Mayor of Hoboken N.J., as a leading guest. She
came across as being extremely honest and everything she said was verifiable; #Governor
Christie used the power of his office to prevent her from doing her job. He withheld
Sandy relief money from her city for not approving a development. As mayor, she
stood to benefit politically from having a large sum of money directed to her
city. The development Christie is forcing down her throat would not be in the
best interest of the city; it would cause tremendous traffic problems, which is
an interesting association when put in the context of the unrelated bridge
closure in Fort Lee N.J..
An obvious part of the story is missing. Dawn Zimmer is an influential
Democrat and has been a big supporter of Chris Christie, a Republican. A big
attraction of Christie as a future presidential candidate is that he “works
across the aisle”, which is the standard cliché for working in a bipartisan way,
a known deficit among Washington D.C. Republican politicians. If the Governor
worked with Zimmer, it would be a big political plus for him. If voter rich city
of Hoboken received the Sandy relief money, it would benefit Zimmer who the voters
would reward for working for the people and shoe would benefit Christie with
her continued support by moving democratic voters to his side of the aisle. Had he done that the expression win-win
would say it all; however, he did not do that! A huge red flag, should have
been raised by that incongruity but wasn’t until another scandal—the George
Washington Bridge fiasco—caused it to be exposed.
Christie did the
opposite of what good politics would demand. When a politician uses the power
of his office to do something that would so blatantly hurt him politically as the
Governor did by denying the relief money to Zimmer, he did it for a reason. The
reason he would take a tremendous chance and commit a criminal act should be
obvious to everyone; it is some how personally profitable for him to have done
so. Although no one said that, it is
highly probable that the development company involved is bribing him through their
attorney’s office. Any time you see the terms ‘development’ and ‘government
official or agency’ juxtaposed, suspect bribery. Everyone knows that; consequently,
the parties involved in such schemes, work extensively to prevent detection. Woodward
and Bernstein had the right formula; follow the money. Having said that, something much more important
from the political philosophy point of view was mentioned but not talked about
this morning.
One of the guests in the discussion group was #Michael Avon
for NJTV. He said that the entire story #Dawn Zimmer bought to the front was not
worth pursuing because it was about “political juice”, implying that what Christie
did to Zimmer is so commonplace that it does not deserve mention. He implied
that the story, as such, would fall below the radar in a tone of voice that
suggested he thought that is what should happen. The objective of this article
is to make the point that we have a sincere politician trying to do a good job
as mayor of significant city, which would result in her reelection and/or
advance here political career; honest politics that deserves to be reward. On
the other hand, we have Chris Christie, like so many in Washington D.C., using their
“juice” to collect money they did not earn. If we look at the increase in personal wealth of congressional representatives
and governors over their terms of office, we see all the evidence we need to
prove that point. We have the rare ones like Zimmer and then we have the Chris
Christies.
URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com
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