I think Rachel's coverage of Bridgegate has been very fair. Just imagine if this were a Democratic Governor with full national exposure who has/had aspirations of running for president. Faux News would be all over this and the kids on Fox and Friends would be slobbering all over themselves to lie and demean the referenced governor to shame (in their eyes only).
Now we learn that Governor McCrory and his team and Duke Energy are being criminally investigated for the coal ash spill in North Carolina.
To both governors: I realize you are not convicted of anything yet. And, if you didn't do anything wrong, then great. Everyone goes on with their life. But don't lie about what has happened in your state. It only makes you seem like the scandal you are involved in is really something that we should be looking into. It's human nature to "judge" someone prior to the full investigation being finished. In this case, Christie has stuck his foot in his mouth way too many times. McCrory, I'm not so sure about. He has already made himself out to be a liar about what he will do for North Carolinians. So, I would imagine that he would be doing the same over this scandal. I just judged him based upon his past. It's probably unfair to do that, but so what. If the world is falling apart around you, in both cases, it's your own damn fault.
I copied the following from Unhappy Camper.
Federal prosecutors investigating Duke Energy’s 82,000-ton coal ash spill
By Reuters
Thursday, February 13, 2014 18:20 EST
By Colleen Jenkins
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors are investigating whether a crime was committed when thousands of tons of coal ash sludge spilled from a Duke Energy power plant in North Carolina in early February into a river that supplies drinking water for nearby towns.
Subpoenas were received this week by Duke Energy, which retired the coal-fired power plant in Eden in 2012, and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources regulator, spokesmen for the two entities said on Thursday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh ordered officials with the state agency to appear before a grand jury next month with documents related to the spill that began on February 2, according to a copy of the subpoena provided to Reuters by the department.
The spokesman for Duke, which installed a permanent plug at the site to stop releases from the ash basin on February 8, declined to share a copy of the company’s subpoena. He said the utility, the largest electric power provider in the United States, was cooperating with all state and federal investigations.
And, here's more:
Rachel Maddow: FEDERAL PROBE of NC Toxic Polluter Could Be Bad News For Gov. McCrory
May I suggest a new ' Going-To-Jail' or 'Jail Doors' smilely for DU.........We are going to need them!....
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on Thursday that a burgeoning federal investigation could spell trouble for not only the North Carolina company behind an 82,000-ton toxic spill, but also for former employee Gov. Pat McCrory (R). Maddow pointed out that, since McCrory took office, the state not only blocked at least two lawsuits challenging Duke Energy’s environmental practices, but has also stopped environmental activists from legal actions concerning any of the company’s 30 coal ash sites in North Carolina. “Now the state is going to have to answer for that to a federal grand jury — at least that’s what it looks like in this surprise development today in snowy, snowy, snowy North Carolina,” Maddow said.
Both Duke Energy and McCrory’s office have been subpoenaed by investigators. Some of the information they are seeking relates to two settlements the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reached with the company after invoking a loophole allowing state officials to nudge plaintiffs out of two separate lawsuits, and reach agreements totaling less than $100,000. In the wake of a third spill that broke out on Feb. 3, that spilled enough ash to fill nearly 32 Olympic-size swimming pools into the nearby Dan River in Virginia, however, the state opted to delay another settlement.
But, Maddow noted, the company itself is worth $50 billion, and has donated more than $1 million to McCrory’s election campaign, who worked at Duke for 28 years. “The state’s proposed settlement for contaminating the groundwater in Asheville and contaminating the groundwater in Charlotte was that Duke would have to ‘study the issue’ of how they were contaminating the groundwater in places like that,” Maddow said. “But they would not have to clean up any of the contamination that they had caused, and they would not have to stop contaminating the groundwater or do anything different at those sites.”
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