Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

Christie used Port Authority to turn 9/11 wreckage into political gifts



Tue Mar 11, 2014 at 12:40 PM PDT
by Jed Lewi for Daily Kos

Just when you thought the list of things New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is now associated with couldn't get worse, it gets worse:

For a state that lost hundreds of lives on Sept. 11, the gifts were emotionally resonant: pieces of steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center. They were presented by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to 20 carefully chosen New Jersey mayors who sat atop a list of 100 whose endorsements Gov. Chris Christie hoped to win.

At photo opportunities around the mangled pieces of steel, Bill Baroni, Mr. Christie’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority, told audiences how many people wanted a similar remnant of the destroyed buildings, and how special these mayors were.

Can you imagine the scandal that would have erupted if President Obama had given pieces of the Pentagon rubble to Republicans he was trying to woo in his re-election battle? The outrage from the right would be so fierce that Darrell Issa wouldn't be able to work in a word edgewise about the IRS or Benghazi. Yet when Christie does it, not a peep.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/11/1283894/-Christie-used-Port-Authority-to-turn-9-11-wreckage-into-political-gifts

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Even Before Fort Lee Lane Closings, Port Authority Was a Christie Tool

By KATE ZERNIKE and MATT FLEGENHEIMERMARCH 11, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/nyregion/even-before-fort-lee-lane-closings-port-authority-was-a-christie-tool.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&utm_content=bufferd640e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer