"Christie says his staff is like a family"

[ProSense]

<...>

8:14 AM PT: Christie says his staff is like a family, so "I am heartbroken" that someone "betrayed my trust." Most of his press conference is focused on his assertion that Kelly lied to him.

8:16 AM PT: Now Christie is withdrawing his support for his former campaign manager Bill Stepien as state GOP chair and as a consultant for the RGA, "because of the lack of judgment" that were shown in the emails.

8:19 AM PT: This press conference is really about Chris Christie trying to position himself as a victim of this scandal, which given that it was his staff at the highest levels who carried out the lane closure scheme really takes some chutzpah.

8:21 AM PT: Christie says "this is the exception" not the rule of what happens in his administration.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/09/1268327/-Chris-It-wasn-t-me-Christie-to-hold-press-conference-on-bridge-scandal#20140109081454

Barbara Buono:

<...>

“When I heard about it when it initially surfaced in September, I knew it was an act of political retribution,” Buono told the Daily Beast. “And to suggest that Christie wasn’t aware and didn’t direct it, I thought was ludicrous at the time.”

“This is a guy who runs a paramilitary operation,” she added. “His people don’t sneeze without checking with him first. But I think what really was the most damning was the cavalier attitude that these folks had about subjecting children and the public to public safety hazards. These are terrible people, and the ringleader is Chris Christie.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/buono_christie_paramilitary_operation

The Boldface LIE in Christie's statement (yesterday's)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/08/1268215/-The-Boldface-LIE-in-Christie-s-statement

[hobbit709]

1. a totally disfunctional family that is.

[Ikonoklast]

2. Gambino Family

[SummerSnow]

5. "never go against the family"

[flamingdem]

3. Family as in

"The Family"

[SummerSnow]

4. He also says he isnt angry yet...thats weird.

How could he not be angry when a woman died due to your staff?

[ProSense]

7. More:

Fallout continues from Christie bridge scandal

By Steve Benen

Revelations associated with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) bridge scandal continued to unfold overnight, but there was one story in particular that seemed to serve as a capstone to yesterday’s explosive news.

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.

The woman later died, borough records show.

For reasons that defy comprehension, Christie’s team decided to seek political retribution against the community of Fort Lee, and decided a crippling traffic jam was the way to do it. But what the governor’s top officials didn’t bother to consider was the real-world effect of their dangerous abuse of power....a delay for an EMS crew arriving at the scene of a vehicle accident where four people were injured, an hour-long delay for an EMS coordinator to reach someone who called 911 complaining of chest pains, and the elderly woman who died.

Making matters slightly worse, Molly Redden noted there was a missing four-year-old child in Fort Lee that morning and though the toddler was eventually found, local police were initially hampered from responding due to the traffic crisis imposed on the community for no reason.

By the reasoning of Christie aides, this may not have mattered since it might have been the child of “a Buono voter.”

Looking ahead, several state officials have raised the prospect of a criminal investigation, and as state Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D) said on the show last night, there’s an expectation that the matter would be directed to a federal prosecutor because New Jersey prosecutors are appointed by the governor.

- more -

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/fallout-continues-christie-scandal

[Lint Head]

6. Yeah. The Sopranos