Chris Christie: A gift that keeps on giving

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, R-N.J., loves to give New Jersey bloggers somethin' to talk about.

This time, it's because he may be getting gifts -- tickets to Bruce Springsteen concerts in London and in Paris, and plane fares and hotels for six, count 'em six. The Star-Ledger's Auditor column says Christie "scored the tickets courtesy of Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg, whose late father was an assistant U.S. attorney before Christie took over the office in 2002."

Christie, the federal prosecutor who earned the seal of approval from disgraced ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, told The Auditor the source of funds for his vacations is none of our damned business:

"Your readers should not be concerned about who paid for the concerts or my vacation."

Take that, constituents!

But, wuh? Since when is a federal political appointee not required to report gifts? Apparently all this wasn't on Christie's personal tab, or he would have just said that a week ago and averted speculation.

I guess since George Bush started making the laws in his kingdom of America, the "unitary executive theory" now extends to every Republican who can get away with similar arrogance.

Thank you, Blue Jersey, for being the only media in New Jersey to care about the news rather than the fiction about crusading corruption-buster (only Democrats need worry) Christie. Another fine job by huntsu:

" ... We now have, in just a month, Christie twice responding to media inquiries with the equivalent of a slimy used car salesman saying, 'Trust me.'

"So I am pretty sure this is more of Christie's arrogant, egotistical indignancy, the same personality trait that caused him to lose his Freeholder seat in a Republican primary.

"But the other reading, that there is something a little off happening here, is also a reasonable one. Christie opened the door himself by admitting he received a personal favor from the son of a former assistant US Attorney and then hiding the source of funding for his trip. ..."

Defensive Voting 101

If we ever get secondary schools to renew teaching civics, they should include "How to Avoid being Duped as Voters" in the curriculum.

Allen Raymond, one of the Republicans who went to jail for phone jamming on election night 2002 in New Hampshire to block the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort, while the Republicans conducted their GOTV, is publishing a confession book, "How to Rig an Election."

Figures Raymond would be proud of smacking democracy in the face. He's miffed the GOP "threw me under the bus," but, really, when you sleep with snakes you have to figure you're going to get bit, no? So, Raymond seems to be dishing some dirt that includes duping New Jersey voters, too. Jamestown Associates employed Raymond to use phone dirty tricks in the barely failed attempt to get Dick Zimmer into the House seat Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., won.

"Back in 2002," he writes, "just about every Republican operative was so dizzy with power that if you could find two of us who could still tell the difference between politics and crime, you could probably have rubbed us together for fire as well."

It has hit my radar a time or two that former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's daughter, Kate, who now has put her hat in the political ring, was the communications director for the N.H. GOP at the time the phone-jamming crime took place. And I remember Mamma's campaign director Ed Rollins paid black ministers to supress minority voters who typically vote for Democrats to win her squeaker '93 election.

Paul Kiel put pieces together in a 2006 post at TPMcafe. It's time to revisit some of that, particularly how the matrix moves around Raymond's work for the convicted U.S. Senate candidate James Treffinger, the only big GOP kill wannabe caped crusader U.S. Attorney Chris Christie wants to give himself credit for even though it most likely was a done deal before he and brother Todd bought Christie's job to boost his own political career.

(Flickr photo, right, by kelldar)

Chris Christie as media magician

Debbie Holtz at Politicker NJ put together a nice timeline on the fortuitous "leaks" -- again -- from U.S. attorney Chris Christie's office this week that bumped his class-action scandal to lesser news holes.

On Monday, 11/19, a spokesman for former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft responds to the Star Ledger's questions about the no-bid federal monitoring deal. By Monday evening, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie provides comments to the Ledger.


Monday, 11/19, Star Ledger, Internet, 10:01pm: $52M-plus payday for Christie's old boss


Tuesday, 11/20, Star Ledger, Print Edition: 52M-plus payday for Christie's old boss


Sometime before 9:00 am on Tuesday, an exclusive leak to The Record reveals an ongoing search being conducted at both the office and home of state Senator Joseph Coniglio. The Record arrives at both locations with a reporter, photographers and videographer to capture live footage of the raid.


Tuesday, 11/20, The Record: Federal agents search Coniglio's home


Tuesday, The Record, Live Video Feed of the event on 11/20: Feds seize documents from Coniglio's home and office

Smooth move, future guv'na

I can't get over how starved people are for a political rock star that most of the public and the media don't see U.S. Attorney Chris Christie for the ever-so-partisan politician he is. He's smart, sure enough, but deceptive.

Last night, the Star-Ledger broke a peek at reality by reporting how Christie is using the $311 million settlement he got against the four biggest companies in the knee/hip replacement industry to kick back a record $52 million to his old boss, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who could go on the campaign trail himself again in his home state of Missouri just as Christie is expected to be the Republican savior for the 2009 gubernatorial ticket here.

And Ashcroft's is one of several law firms the settlement is employing, which seems to leave little of that $311 left to compensate the actual victims.

The complexity of how this money gets laundered (my opinion, not a legal judgment) from the corporations to Ashcroft's bank account -- $750,000 of it literally -- is quite fascinating. I can't help but imagine this might have been a point of discussion in Christie's legal negotiations. Because of confidentiality of lawyers and investigators, I'm guessing we'll never know exactly how this deal went down, even though it was our tax money.

Watch for these companies and their top dogs as contributors to Ashcroft's or Christie's political campaigns down the road: Stryker Orthopedics of Mahwah; the Biomet division of Johnson & Johnson; Zimmer Holdings of Indiana; and Smith & Nephew, a British company operating here from Memphis, Tenn.

Oh, the irony of this settlement being to end "a probe into kickbacks" by these companies. The best place to hide something really is right under someone's nose.

Let's see how much each actual victim receives in the end. If it's like consumers in many class-action "settlements," it'll be pennies -- and will be paid only after the victim signs a convoluted indemnity contracts promising never to get wise and sue the companies on their own.

Hat tip and discussion over at Blue Jersey. Flickr photo by Steve Lubetkin.

Can't be a little bit pregnant

And New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, a Bush Pioneer eyeing Drumthwacket, can't be a little bit partisan.

His office issued three press releases yesterday about indictments against Democrats around the state but failed to mention the FBI caught a pretty big Republican fish.

Frank Barbera, the former Treasurer of the Atlantic County Republican Party and a political ally of County Executive Dennis Levinson, was arrested by FBI agents this week on bribery charges ... Barbera is accused of offering a $5,000 bribe to Craig Callaway in 2005, while Callaway was serving as the Atlantic City Council President. Callaway is now serving a 40-month sentence following his own bribery conviction.

Catching up

Brookdale Community College decides U.S. Attorney Chris Christie is too politically partisan to televise an interview he did with pal state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Monmouth.

An Arizona tourist blogs on his disgust Rep. Jim Saxton, R-Ocean, recycles all letters, literally a ream 3 inches deep, unread that constituents send him daily on immigration.

She (staffer) explained that this really wasn’t the Congressman’s issue and that he was focused more on the interests of his district in New Jersey.

Not interested in illegal immigration? Does Saxton ever come up from his rabbit hole?

Start the dirges for the day we won't be able to buy all this crap we do so cheaply. China has passed sweeping laws to protect its laborers, "rejecting pleas from foreign investors who argued that the measure would reduce China’s appeal as a low-wage, business-friendly industrial base." Gee, ya think? Maybe Chinese workers who are treated nicely won't slip poison into cat food and toothpaste additives they ship over here. I'd rather pay $5 for an umbrella than $1 -- or get wet -- than be on kidney dialysis, or dead, because American companies exploit unregulated Chinese suppliers.

Another one bites the dust. Rachel Brand, one of few left in Alberto Gonzalez' ranking army, resigned the Justice Department yesterday. Let me guess. The AAG for legal policy has been subpoenaed? That's seven directly under Gonzo who presumably can't justify their own "Justice" actions according to that little nuisance called "law." UpdateThe Next Hurrah reports interim USA Scott Schools also bailed on Gonzo this week. (Do they go out of their way to pick people with nouns for last names?)

Speaking of which, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo updates the case of ex-Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who may be Karl Rove's biggest success so far in politicizing the Justice Department. We wrote about it initially on June 1.

"Rupert Murdoch is no saint," says Moyers of the Fox News owner. "He is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power, he's carnivorous, all appetite and no taste. He'll eat anything in his path."

In this Hardball clip, do you find yourself hoping, as I do, the little girl in the back will just smack Ann Coulter upside the head? I can't tell if the kid is laughing at or with her.

Friday this and that

More bombs found on Surf City beaches: What else?

First, the bees, now, the birds are disappearing.

Interesting discussion over at Blue Jersey about U.S. Attorney Chris Christie's latest gaffe in his charade as a nonpartisan lawman. More in Saturday's NYT:

And in an unusual and oddly partisan attack, the United States attorney for New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, who was Mr. Rabner's boss for a number of years, sharply criticized legislators and Mr. Corzine for not adequately defending Mr. Rabner.

Only, we don't think it's unusual at all for Christie to show his partisan stripes. He just did it without the usual masquerade. Then we have Christie's buddy at the Department of Justice, Michael Elston, the latest rat jumping off the sinking USS Alberto Gonzales.

U.S. Senate Democrats need just one more vote to break a Republican filibuster (there's that word again) on a bill that would require utilities nationwide to buy some renewable energy. New Jersey already requires them to buy "green tags." Our friends with solar panels love the cash their extra power brings them at online auction, and the utilities get comparatively cheap energy. It's a win-win, for everyone but Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Nuke. Meanwhile, our senators did manage to block a measure that would have allowed oil drilling off of Virginia's coast, 100 miles from New Jersey.

The right-wing bar star U.S. solicitor general George W. Bush appointed is helping Wall Street screw Enron's pensioned employees again, along with small investors, and works to make defrauding investors standard business for all corporations. Must read.

Home foreclosures in the U.S. hit 50=year high.

DoJ made political hay

The U.S. Department of Justice shouldn't, but does, operate as an extension of the Republican National Committee, through or around Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The RNC pulling DoJ strings to turn Alabama's gubernatorial race last fall demonstrates it.

And what's this got to do with New Jersey, Molly, you ask? Bear with me, please.

It looks like a former Democratic governor there would have won -- despite Karl Rove to the rescue to ensure a criminal investigation of him -- if it weren't for a single polling district's electronic black box that Republicans alone "recounted" and found Bob Riley narrowly won. Fancy that. But that's another story. Time magazine this week reported about that "federal investigation" (deja vu yet?):

William Canary reassured others on the conference call ... that he had the help of a powerful pal in Washington. Canary said "not to worry — that he had already gotten it worked out with Karl and Karl had spoken with the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice was already pursuing (former Gov. and Dem candidate) Don Siegelman (portrait at left), the (Dana Jill) Simpson affidavit says. Both U.S. attorney offices subsequently indicted Siegelman on a variety of charges, although Leura Canary (Canary's wife and U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama) recused herself from dealing with the case in May 2002. A federal judge dismissed the Northern District case before it could be tried, but Siegelman was convicted in the Middle District on bribery and conspiracy charges last June. ...

Siegelman was convicted of appointing (former HealthSouth CEO Richard) Scrushy to a hospital regulatory board (egad! how unqualified!) in exchange for a $500,000 contribution to a campaign for a state lottery to fund education (to fund education? the cad!). Defense lawyers have argued that Siegelman drew no personal financial benefit from Scrushy's donation to the lottery campaign, and they note that Scrushy had served on the hospital regulatory board under three previous governors, before Siegelman reappointed him (REappointed?). The reappointment, they have argued, offered little of value to Scrushy except more work.

Funny that, according to Simpson, one of the men in the conference call said, "Siegelman's just like a cockroach, he'll never die, what are we going to do?" (creeeeepy!) before offering reassurance Rove was having the DoJ take care of the governor's race. Canary is the one who seems kinda "cockroachy":

Canary was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to serve in the White House as special assistant for intergovernmental affairs, and then named chief of staff of the Republican National Committee. Later in the 1990's he also worked closely with Karl Rove in a successful series of campaigns to get Republicans elected to Alabama's state courts.

So, what about New Jersey?

The New Jersey Republican State Committee seems to insist on beating a dead horse until it can squeeze nothing into something to political benefit from Gov. Corzine's personal emails with Carla Katz, one of the state labor unions' presidents who had a two-year romantic relationship with Corzine ending in 2004. An independent ethics panel of ex-judges, after reading the ex-couple's emails from personal, nongovernment computers, reported they did not collude in labor negotiations. Now the RSC wants a judge to order Corzine and Katz to hand their personal emails over to the GOP.

How long do you think it'll be before the RSC insists U.S. Attorney Chris Christie join its salacious voyeurism? I don't see Christie resisting too hard, given he created the fodder for the RSC's fibs about Robert Menendez being "under federal investigation" in last fall's Senate race here. But maybe Christie sees the unsinkable USS Karl Rove going down like the Titanic.

And, really, is any of this any more corrupt than the investigation into New Jersey State GOP Chairman Tom Wilson's lobby company receiving $2.5 million from Burlington County Bridge Commission? People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Update, more glass in Wilson's house: Seems the RSC and legislative campaign committees paid Wilson's wife, Lysa Israel, more than $550,000 for "fundraising" in the past 30 months while her husband was state GOP chairman, a bit of a conflict. In all, about $850,000 of New Jersey GOP donors' money has gone straight into the Wilson family's bank accounts, NJpolitics.com says is shown in reports filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission and the Federal Election Commission.

That's not including Wilson's salary, which the RNC refuses to divulge. He wants every aspect of Corzine's and Katz's personal lives on public record, but he's not so keen on his own being out there. Hmmm. The report says it appears to be more than $150,000 a year, though. GOP donors probably thought their money would go to candidates.

Christie must have gloating rights

New Jersey's U.S. attorney Christopher Christie must be saying, "I told you so," today in his inner circle, perhaps especially to Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck.

Tim Griffin, the GOP oppo research guy who got Arkansas in the "U.S. attorney replacement program," has hightailed as U.S. attorney there in reaction to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers obtaining the BBC reporter's evidence of Griffin's role in voter caging -- illegal -- in the 2004 general election. Griffin had replaced H.E. "Bud" Cummins III, who failed to comply with White House orders to file "voter fraud" charges against Democrats regardless of lack of evidence any Dems voted fraudulently. Conyers came out last night and finally said what most of us already had put together: that he thought it unlikely Griffin could carry out this massive "caging" operation without at least the knowledge of Karl Rove. Again, illegal.

Christie didn't dutifully accuse "voter fraud" of Democrats in 2005, so Beck (left) did that dirty work in September 2005 and implied in her press release that Christie was missing his cue, er, slacking on the job. No surprise, then, that Christie ended up on the firing list in January 2006, but he proved his Bushie loyalty in other ways in the Menedez scheme and came off the list in November 2006. Our posts on those are here and here and here. Phew, that was a close call, Mr. Christie, but you can gloat to Beck now, by golly.

The last proved voter scandal I remember in New Jersey was the race that won Gov. Christine Todd Whitman her first term in 1992. Remember her campaign mastermind, Ed Rollins, paying bribes to black ministers to discourage (caging) congregants from voting? I think that would be an early application of the RNC's now keystone path to office: voter suppression and the abra cadabra magic act of turning Democratic votes into Republican wins on electronic voting machines. Rollins' last job was with U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., who was key to the 2000 election frauds and other controversies there.

Extra credit: Slate answers, "What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?"

Doin' the voter fraud shuffle

I did a double-take on Monica Goodling's testimony in Congress on Gonzogate Thursday.

"I believe the deputy (Paul McNulty) was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin (former RNC research director) as the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the department's internal assessment of the Parsky commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote caging during his work on the president's 2004 campaign."

I was shocked no one on the House Judiciary Committee seemed to ask her anything about Griffin "caging." Caging is illegal. It's a.k.a. voter suppression, preventing targeted groups, usually black people, from voting. Caging was one of the tricks the Republican National Committee used in both 2000 and 2004 to succeed in overturning the true elections of Al Gore and John Kerry for president. Caging is reportedly the reason the White House snuck a clause into the Patriot Act renewal to bypass Senate confirmation on U.S. attorneys, because they couldn't risk Griffin being asked about his '04 caging.

BBC reporter Greg Palast, as always was on top of this, has his well-written report at Bradblog. Lawyers at Balkinization have a good post, too. The day after: Palast blasts both barrels at a troll making Internet mileage criticizing his research.

Griffin’s sending this email to Goodling while he’s a sitting US prosecutor. How dumb can you get? This dumb: He adds, “The Republican State Parties wanted to show that thousands of fraudulent voter registrations had been completed. They ultimately did.”

Oh, no they didn’t. And that brings us full circle: to the prosecutor firings. None of the honest US Attorneys found a single “fraudulent voter” in the hundreds of thousands that were challenged as a result of ‘caging.’

See, what Griffin's caging crew "found" was that they prevented registered voters -- targting black populations -- from voting, which does not mean those votes wouldn't have been valid. None of those who didn't vote, or whose vote is among more than 100,000 in Ohio alone still sitting uncounted from the '04 presidential election, has been proved to be an illegal vote, which is what "voter fraud" would be. Indeed, the New York Times has reported that despite the DOJ's 2002 attorney training specifically to nail "voter fraud," virtually no voter fraud was found, try as they might.

Griffin's activities described in his own emails should have him now sitting charged with federal felonies, but instead he's sitting as Arkansas' top federal law enforcement official. This is just nuts, and evidence neither party in Washington is representing "we the people." If corporate sugar daddies could be denied a vote, we'd see fists up.

Flashback to our post on New Jersey "voter fraud."

Curious that New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie was on the firing list from January to November 2006. In September 2005, then-candidate Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck did Rove's dirty work crying Democratic foul on the enigmatic "voter fraud" claim. It's no wonder Christie was put on the firing list in January 2006. It's not really hard to speculate what got him off the list in November, either, with that political ploy in what appears -- at least until he comes up with an indictment and conviction in this now stale case -- to be abuse of his power to undermine now-Sen. Bob Menendez's campaign.
It all seems so strategic, doesn't it?

Think about it: If Christie's "Menendez under federal investigation" stunt had worked, Republicans would have the majority in the Senate today and would control every piece of legislation in committee. This wouldn't be investigated in a Sen. Arlen Specter's Senate Judiciary Committee.

Extra credit: Are they going to steal the '08 election? They already did, Palast says.

Asking the wrong question

U.S. Attorney Chris Christie keeps saying Alberto Gonzales never asked him to do anything partisan, but why aren't the journalists asking the obvious folo question: Did he talk with anyone else in DoJ or the White House, like, say, Monica Goodling, who at 33 had experience only at the RNC with her degree from Pat Robertson's Tier 4 law school before becoming Christie's boss. She admits attorneys were used in partisan plots.

We learned yesterday those nine attorneys weren't "fired," according to Goodling. They were just part of the DoJ's "attorney replacement program." Dontcha just love newspeak?

Why aren't reporters interested in this story, and, moreover, why does MSM seem to need to continue to go out of their way to deceive readers about the fact Christie was on the firing list from January to November 2006, not just put on and off it in November?

Don't miss the post on yesterday's testimony at Bradblog.

Chris Christie's spin

What will it take to get U.S. Attorney Chris Christie's groupies off Cloud 9?

Christie has been pretty adroit in spinning the media throughout Gonzogate, but now I've seen everything. He has Newark Star-Ledger columnist Tom Morantwisting the latest news so illogically in favor of Christie that it makes me wonder if Moran isn't on Christie's exploratory campaign '08 staff. Moran's awe-shucks piece Friday on Thursday's Washington Post scoop concludes it should prove saintliness that Christie was on the Jan. 1, 2006, list to be fired. He glosses right over the fact that Christie made the partisan grade to be removed from the chopping block in November, after an U.S. Senate campaign in which it's looking as if Christie started a nonsense investigation to swing subpeonas that would include remote landlord records in now Sen. Robert Menendez' office:

As for Christie, he was never given an explanation for any of this, even when he pressed Elston, the man who put his name on the list.

But given what we now know about the breathtaking incompetence of Gonzales and his senior staff, no reasonable person can hold this against Christie. If this crew didn't like him, that's probably a good sign.

Has Moran paid no attention to the fact that virtually every known Christie political investigation since January 2006 has been a Democrat? Did he notice Christie waited until after the statute of limitations ran out to open his Christmas tree investigation on pork barreling that some of us remember the Republicans abusing for a decade, too?

Where are the journalists who scrutinize the powerful, free of fear or favor?

We all want someone to rescue New Jersey politics from rampant corruption. But I'll be blunt: Christie isn't that savior.

If he continues to be left unchecked, we are in serious danger of creating a supermonster of corruption in a few years within the N.J. Republican Party. Christie is taking down the Democrats while letting the corrupt Republicans off the hook and covering their stink with cologne.

Could it be the reason an unusually large number of Republicans are not running for re-election is to take eyes off their corrupt histories? At the same time Christie is prosecuting almost exclusively Democrats, he's stumping for Republicans by giving his "corruption-buster" seal of approval by officiating Republican swearing-ins and speaking to Republican groups about the importance of "voting out the crooks." His mouth says he's not singling out Democrats, but his deeds say the opposite.

And consider another overlooked tidbit in this report: Michael Elston. Christie only now, mid-May, admits Elston called him two months ago about his being on this list, even though Christie has denied knowing anything about the list during that time. Not exactly honest for an adored "corruption buster."

But, who is Elston and what is Christie's true relationship to him, I wonder. Christie implies he's a pal, but then again, isn't Elston now the last man standing behind Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? He put the names on the list after talking to people, so there will be more to this story on Christie when we find out who were those people who said Christie was not being a good partisan boy before January 2006.

WaPo reported:

"We don't know how he got on and off that list," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney, reiterating Christie's point to the Post. "It's a complete mystery to us. ...We're clueless as to why he was chosen. This U.S. Attorney's Office has always received the highest marks."

And I'd like to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn.

What a surprise (not)

So, the Washington Post reported New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Chris Christie was on one of the early firing lists, after all. He has said he knew nothing. I guess the timing is just coincidental that his "performance" after being on that list became more partisan and more acceptable to the Bush hacks to strike him from that list.

Hmmmmm.

Let's see, updating my timeline a bit. Those lists started in February 2005 and were discovered after eight to 10 were fired or forced to resign by December 2006.

I'm short on time now, but catch up here today with clammyc at BlueJersey.com and scroll through Blue Jersey's huntu's many diaries on Christie, including the table of Christie's political corruption cases that show he virtually stopped looking at Republicans as of January 2006.

Dix Six: Is "stupid" a crime?

I keep hearing people refer to the six men charged with cooking up a lame scheme for "jihad" at Fort Dix as "terrorists." Yet, none is convicted, let alone even charged, with committing acts of terrorism.

Fact is, these men didn't actually do anything but talk, and I for one didn't feel terrorized until caped crusader U.S. Attorney Chris Christie made hay announcing indictments based on the FBI investigation.

Now, it looks like there could be a snag in the prosecutor's plan. The smartest of the wannabe jihadists, the seeming idea man, was an FBI informant. I can't see how entrapment wouldn't be an issue here, except that media hysteria feeds good old American bigotry. The worst of the alleged suspicious behavior seems to have come from the FBI informant. And, curious:

Also, one of the men, Tatar, called a Philadelphia police officer in November, saying that he had been approached by someone who was pressuring him to obtain a map of Fort Dix, and that he feared the incident was terrorist-related, according to court documents.

The fact they were arrested on conspiracy charges while "on their way" to buy assault weapons from an FBI operative who offered them reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report," where future America imprisoned people for what psychics saw them doing in the future.

The story looks more and more like one of those illusions that's either a chalise or two faces, depending on how long you stare at it. Still, this Christie quote in the Asbury Park Press follow story made me ponder:

The investigation into a potential attack at Fort Dix began more than a year ago when an unidentified clerk at a Circuit City electronics store tipped off authorities to a video showing 10 men shooting weapons at a firing range and calling for jihad, prosecutors said. ...

While Christie credited the tip for spurring the investigation, he said Wednesday that it seemed unremarkable at the time.

"There was nothing different about it," (seriously?) he said. "We didn't know if there was a case here or not. Did a light bulb go off over my head when I saw this? No."

Then, what would it take to make a light bulb go off over Christie's head, I wonder, if not 10 New Jersey residents shouting "jihad" while shooting guns, as is his scary story today on this? If the terror threat story is true, then it would seem also true it was bloody hard last year to divert Christie's focus from politics to risks his constituents would be killed. Last year, Christie's boss Alberto Gonzales and the White House were firing his colleagues who refused to play partisan games with our U.S. Justice offices.

Christie now claims these men are oh-so dangerous, yet it took more than a year for Christie's "light bulb" to go off. Wuh? Was he too busy plotting his own future political candidacy by creating his version of "imminent threat" hysteria on white-collar political corruptions? And what about the other four men playing jihadist with paint guns in the tape? I don't assume the two informants are upstanding citizens -- the FBI usually taps them because they need absolution from some other crime -- but that still leaves two others unarrested. Are we not supposed to wonder who they are?

This just in: Cannonfire blog expresses similar suspicion and adds, "... maybe the Dix six were hauled in precisely because they lacked the testicles to play their assigned roles. Consider: These guys could have been dragged off at any time. They were working illegally. They drove without licenses, and they received citations frequently during the "planning" period. I couldn't get away with that kind of behavior and neither could you, but these guys had a stay-out-of-jail card."

That is odd that none of the local authorities who presumably (typically) are not in on a federal sting but who knew of immigration and DMV violations for perhaps years didn't raise the red "terror" flag. The rest is a bit of "conspiracy theory," yes, but I do stop to wonder for a minute, what if? Christie doesn't head the FBI, nor anymore does his boss, still for the time being the embattled Gonzales. Robert Mueller is head of the FBI, which as of 2004 answers to and is directed by the White House through the Director of National Intelligence, not the Attorney General. Details in comments) I'm not saying I think this is the case -- in fact, I doubt it -- but what if it was a setup of some type to create some violence on the homefront to make us fear Muslims? It's not as if plots (bay of pigs) haven't been hatched by renegade intel before. Would Christie necessarily be in on such a plan under the new accountability structure?

It's sad to say, but haven't we learned we can't believe anything that comes out of this White House? The boy cried wolf one too many times.

Help me here, please. There was a similar "Muslim terrorist" scare about six months ago, somewhere I can't remember, that within days looked more like the would-be "terrorists" actions were just misinterpretted acts of stupidity. Anyone remember this story?

Thanks, Blue Jersey's huntsu.

There's the repeated political use of terror alerts which suspiciously stopped right after the 2004 election.

There's the "home grown" Florida terrorists who the government claimed wanted to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago but had no plan, no weapons and the only contact they had with al Qaeda was with the FBI informants.

I wonder what money and perks the FBI paid the two Dix informants.

MoJo Blog adds Lackawanna Six, John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla to the list of FBI and DoJ screwups.

Can you hear me now, Mr. Christie?

Waking the beast? We can hope. Finally a mainstream newspaper chain has picked up the real voter fraud story that has long been reported in investigative blogs but was swept under a rug by Big Media, perhaps because the Goebbelsean spin machine told dutiful Big Media reporters to look the other way. Most of this was old news:

Accusations about voter fraud seemed to fly from every direction in Missouri before last fall's elections. State and national Republicans leaders fretted that dead people might vote or that some live people might vote more than once.

The threat to the integrity of the election was seen as so grave that Bradley Schlozman, the acting chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and later the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, twice wielded the power of the federal government to try to protect the balloting. The Republican-controlled Missouri General Assembly also stepped into action.

Now, six months after freshman Missouri Sen. Jim Talent's defeat handed Democrats control of the U.S. Senate, disclosures in the wake of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys show that that Republican campaign to protect the balloting was not as it appeared. No significant voter fraud was ever proved.

The preoccupation with ballot fraud in Missouri was part of a wider national effort that critics charge was aimed at protecting the Republican majority in Congress by dampening Democratic turnout. That effort included stiffer voter-identification requirements, wholesale purges of names from lists of registered voters and tight policing of liberal get-out-the-vote drives.

Bush administration officials deny those claims. But they've gotten traction in recent weeks because three of the U.S. attorneys ousted by the Justice Department charge that they lost their jobs because they failed to prove Republican allegations of voter fraud. They say their inquiries found little evidence to support the claims.

So, where are those indictments resulting from the "Bob Menendez under investigation" leak from New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie's office in September 2006 as the Democrat was running a close and ultimately successful U.S. Senate campaign against Christie's party favorite Thomas Kean Jr.?

Mr. Christie, did your call get "dropped" on that "investigation"? After eight months without indictment, let alone conviction, can you blame us for thinking your wild election-time subpoena was a partisan ploy?

Is Christie on this "short leash"?

ABC News revealed the content of one of the newly released Department of Justice e-mails written by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, himself. The June 2006 communique describes his plot to create a chain of events to fire California's U.S. attorney Carol Lam after she prosecuted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and was continuing to follow leads on related crooked pols.

The story says:

Gonzales supported the idea of first having "a heart to heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement" and of working with her "to develop a plan for addressing the problem." Sampson said another alternative would be to "put her on a very short leash."

So, now we know the DoJ has a leash for prosecutors who pursue Republican crooks instead of putting all their attention on matters orchestrated by the White House's political whims.

New Jersey's U.S. attorney, Chris Christie, used to pursue both Republican and Democratic crooks in New Jersey. Is it a stretch to wonder if that "short leash" is why Christie has investigated almost exclusively Democrats and dropped proofs gathered against Republicans since January 2006, when election strategists were gearing up for the important 2006 elections that ended in historic GOP defeat, losing control of both the House and the Senate?

So much "voter fraud," so little time

In blogs nationally, I'm seeing lots of talk about Karl Rove's obsession with getting U.S. attorneys to make "voter fraud" claims against Dems at election time. This Atlantic story is just one source.

Does anyone remember stories written hot off the fax machines from press releases from now-Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck and failed candidate Declan O'Scanlon in September 2005 asking New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Chris Christie to investigate Monmouth County "voter fraud"? It was right about the time Christie's office dutifully "leaked" subpoenas on records Menendez held as landlord to a subject of a later-turned-out-fruitless (surprise) investigation. The GOP had that twisted into campaign ads "Menendez under federal investigation" faster than the little birdies whispered that scoop into reporters' telephones.

Here's one version of the story on that Beck/O'Scanlon press release, plucked from the memory hole.

"The Attorney General has been handed clear evidence of voter fraud and has done nothing. It’s time for US Attorney Christie to take over (or start) the investigation. We hope our opponents will join us in trying to root out voter fraud in Monmouth County.”

What's interesting, given the latest in Gonzogate, is the press release didn't give details even to a clue of verifiable facts, and I haven't seen anything more about it since.

Anyone else know what came of the Monmouth County "voter fraud" claim?

I dare say that no evidence of any voter fraud in Monmouth County -- let alone fraud exclusive to Democrats -- has come foreward in these two years, has it?

Todd Christie and Goldman Sachs

Call me obsessed. My mind keeps trying to wrap around New Jersey's position on Gonzales' hit list in the U.S. attorney scandal, but stuff we presume to be partisan just doesn't add up. I'm trying to put together a timeline.

So, take a seat. This is a long one, but bear with me and I think you'll find it worthwhile. Help me out if you can, and please correct me if you think I'm wrong on any of it.

In January 2002, Christopher J. Christie had to stop his Bush Pioneer campaign fundraising when he was sworn in as Bush's appointee for New Jersey's federal attorney. Like U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his boss, Christie was criticized for never having tried a criminal case in his life, according to the Bayshore Journalista. Christie reportedly knew of his selection in September 2001.

In 2002, Chris Christie's younger brother, Todd, had tons of money to boost his own Bush contributions from a mere $12,000 to $400,000.

Todd Christie says not to worry our pretty little heads. It's simple. He got rich in fall 2000, just as the U.S. Supreme Court named George Bush president, because Goldman Sachs bought his Wall Street firm, Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, for $100 million. He continued at Spear Leeds as its CEO. (Indeed, Todd paid $3.8 million in 2001 to buy a Mendham home from a Fox executive -- a home he kept only a few months and that ended up sold back to another Fox executive, all with million-dollar price hikes at each change of hands.)

Goldman Sachs, you may remember, is the firm that made now Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, a very rich man when he was its CEO and took the investment firm from private to public.

Todd Christie resigned from Spears Leeds in 2003 when he found out the federal Securities Exchange Commission was probing him in a stock fraud scandal. More on exactly what kind of service Spears Leeds provided is here.

At the end of 2004, after Gov. James McGreevey's sudden resignation, brother Chris was widely seen as a shoe-in for the Republican nominee the next November for McGreevey's job.

Then April 2005 comes. Todd Christie is among 20 stock traders accused in a fraud case. The SEC alleges he committed more than 1,000 improper trades over four years when he managed trades on the NYSE floor as co-CEO of Spear Leeds. A New York Times editorial April 16, 2005, pointed out that even though Todd Christie got the fourth largest payout of the group, he faced only civil penalties while the three above him and the next 11 on the list all were indicted on criminal charges.

Keep in mind: The stock fraud case is out of a federal SEC probe under the Bush administration. Although U.S. lawyers and investigators are not supposed to be party-loyalist jobs, we learned in the past two weeks as the Gonzales Eight scandal unfolds that this has not been the approach for this White House.

In December 2004, then-U.S. Sen. Corzine announced his run for McGreevey's old job. In November 2005, Corzine trounced former Gov. Thomas Kean's son, Tom Kean Jr., a Republican.

Corzine is ostensibly a Democrat, but it's curious that he is considering some fiscal ideas that had been the hallmark of Republicans, such as privatizing government services. Gov. Christie Whitman in the '90s sold management of the DMV to Parsons, a traditional military contractor that at the time was on the brink of bankruptcy thanks to President Clinton's aversion to war.

Now, Mother Jones magazine reports Goldman Sachs, Corzine's old boss, stands to win big if New Jersey under Corzine opts to lease the management of our toll roads similar to how Whitman, who holds an MBA from Wharton, sold management of our DMV to one of her favorite corporate "charities."

Let's start an ongoing list of Chris Christie's targets, shall we?

* May 2003, Christie widely credited for "first big kill" -- former Essex County Executive James Treffinger, a Republican who was top contender for the party's candidate for U.S. Senate -- but that investigation began in 2000 and Treffinger was, well, fingered long before Christie showed up. Besides, in the end, none of Treffinger's Republican associates got jail time.

* Summer 2004, major Dem fund-raiser Charles Kushner, pleaded guilty to tax violations and witness tampering in an incident involving a prostitute in a blackmail scheme. Much ballyhooed, but Christie's best plea deal was either so minor or so politically charged that he did not require Kushner to cooperate with investigators to nail corrupt politicians.

* February 2005, arrests in Operation Bid Rig International Trucks bribery investigation, also begun at least a year before Christie appeared on the scene. Eight Republican and three Democrats were charged. But who can forget GOP ex-Keyport Mayor John Merla's cat-that-ate-the-canary grin at sentencing to Club Fed? What does he, and possibly Christie, know that the rest of us don't that makes him so pleased with his situation?

* Later in 2005, a few more Monmouth County officials nailed, including former Middletown Township Committeeman Raymond J. O'Grady, a Republican, eventually given 43 months in federal prison at Fort Dix for a corruption and bribes in an FBI sting.

* September 2006, sudden investigation into a nonprofit that leased property from then-state Sen. Robert Menendez, who was running for Corzine's U.S. Senate seat. The timely news "leaks" from Christie's office about records related to that nonprofit being subpoenaed from Mendendez' office -- within hours translated from GOP Talking Points right into media echo chambers as "Menendez under investigation" -- was just a little too fortuitous for the GOP for anyone but the most naive not to suspect partisan gamesmanship. Further, it has been pointed out that at the same time Christie went after this fish that now seems lost from his hook, he ignored suspect dealings recently convicted Dem fundraiser John Lynch has with GOP boss Jack Morris and Christie family friend state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Monmouth, involving Aberdeen-Matawan and Keyport properties.

* January 2007, ex-Brick Mayor Joseph Scarpelli pleads guilty to taking a bribe from a yet unknown source. Talk on the street is a second Dem fish is on Christie's hook from the Lynch fishing trip, but still no explanation why no bait reserved to look at Morris' and Kyrillos' dealings with Lynch (or, maybe, just a fortuitous lack of news leaks in the case of Republicans under investigation?).

There are supposedly 100 notches in Christie's belt, according to Bob Ingle at Gannett's Statehouse Bureau. Can you help me find them?

Hat tips here to Bayshore Journalista's Jackie Corley and NJpolitics.com. Their previous posts put together a few different, pertinent puzzle pieces.

Campaign finance records from the state Election Law Enforcement Commission reveal that in all the years before 2001, Chris Christie made two contributions totaling just $800 to the state Republican Committee. But from 2001 to 2004, Christie and his family donated at least $144,000, a lot of it in May and June 2001, the time when state Republicans were mulling who they'd recommend to Bush as his U.S. attorney here.

The Christie brothers' business associates, including Kyrillos, also donated generously to the state Republicans during that critical time Chris was being considered for recommendation. Does one hand wash another? Employees of Todd's New York company then donated $14,000 to Kyrillos' campaign in October 2001. In the three years Kyrillos held a committee chairmanship, the Christies and their associates gave the Kyrillos campaign $30,850.

What's the definition of pay-to-play? Both the Dems and the GOP in this state talk a lot about banning it, but they seem to point fingers at each other for the holdup. No wonder.

The Gonzales Eight

Raise of hands: Who thought no one could be worse than John "anointed in Crisco" Ashcroft as the head of the U.S. Department of Justice?

By jove, I think we found a worse attorney general in Alberto Gonzales. If you haven't been watching the past week, as the news unfolds about his purge of U.S. attorneys who are doing their jobs prosecuting crooks, of whom some are -- oops, Republicans -- TPMmuckraker seems to be doing the best and most timely blogging on this.

What makes the overreach even more remarkable is that all eight fired federal attorneys are Republicans, just not the brownshirt type, to their credit but to George Bush's chagrin, apparently.

And that's not all. Joe Conason over at Salon.com details "Alberto Gonzales' coup d'etat." Seems Gonzales had the true brownshirts in Congress sneak into the Patriot Act, on its recent renewal, a little clause that gives George Bush new power to replace them without oversight. I say George Bush and not "the president" because no doubt its unconstitutionality will be resolved by the next un-George term. Like the SCOTUS decision in Gore v. Bush, it is for the benefit only of George Bush.

Now, the kicker.

Next raise of hands: Is anyone besides me wondering if there's anything to the pattern of prosecution from our New Jersey U.S. attorney, Christopher Christie, over the past year or two? He started out sweeping lots of very crooked Republicans and one lone, run-of-the-mill Asbury Park scammer, and then seems no longer to be interested in Republicans. He's issuing subpoena after subpoena going after Democrat in the statehouse and governor's office.

Not that there aren't plenty of crooks in both parties to keep any federal attorney plenty busy in New Jersey. Certainly, there are. But do you notice a pattern here? Who can help but wonder if Christie was prodded similarly to the tactics Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson are reported to have used in New Mexico.

Do you think it's complete coincidence federal prosecutors in New York indicted Christie's brother in a stock fraud sweep just before everyone was expecting Christie to announce candidacy in the GOP primary for New Jersey's governor's seat? What games are going on behind the Justice Department doors?

* BlueJersey.com is asking New Jersey's Republican congressmen to go on record as to whether they made phone calls to Christie about whom he should prosecute.

* Paul Krugman at the New York Times raised the same point about Christie's suspicious pattern of prosecution: (snip)"(T)he growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media. The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing ..." And, now post-election, seem to have all been about nothing. Did these people never hear the tale of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"? They're playing a dangerous game, but it's all of our democracy and not just the GOP that stand to get eaten by the fox when no one believes legal watchdogs anymore.

Expect to see more about Christie in relation to the Gonzales Eight scandal.