Category: Politics As Usual

Everybody’s lawyered up

~ susie

Secretary Michael Chertoff\

And Skeletor’s back! I thought he was an arms dealer now, but apparently not. I think everyone expects collateral damage in this one:

Port Authority chairman David Samson, a Christie ally now embroiled in two controversies, has hired former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to represent him in a widening investigation into lane closures at the George Washington Bridge.

Samson was one of 18 people to be issued a subpoena for documents Friday from a legislative panel investigating the politically motivated closures, which were carried out by two Christie executives at the Port Authority in September.

Those two executives have resigned, but Samson, a close adviser to the governor, said last week that he had no immediate plans to step down as speculation swirled about his plans. Samson was alerted to concerns over the closures in September, but in the months afterward, appeared to be concerned with internal information about the closures being leaked to the media, documents show.

On Saturday, a new controversy emerged — this time involving a real estate developer represented by Samson’s politically connected law firm, Wolff & Samson. Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said that last year she was pressured by two Christie Cabinet members to fast track the development. She said they told her expediting the private development would result in more Superstorm Sandy rebuilding money.

Samson, who has referred to Chertoff as a friend, has not responded to requests for comment.

A spokesman for Assemblyman John S. Wisniewski, the chairman of the special Assembly committee investigating the lane closures, said Sunday that Wisniewski had received a letter saying Chertoff was representing Samson.

Records show Chertoff’s consulting firm, The Chertoff Group, received a no-bid contract worth at least $1.2 million from the Port Authority to review the agency’s security and provide recommendations. The results of the study, conducted in 2011 and 2012, while Samson was chairman of the agency have not been released publicly.

New Warren bill could save billions

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.

Mother Jones:

Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced a bill with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that aims to make government settlements with corporations more transparent and fair. It could end up saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

When banks and other corporations are accused of breaking the law, the government often settles cases instead of going to trial. In the wake of the financial crisis, for example, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and government banking watchdogs have settled cases against banks that helped tank the economy. Regulatory agencies have argued that settlements are adequate tools to enforce the law, but Warren has protested. She notes that many settlements are tax-deductible. Other deals are confidential, meaning the public has no idea whether the terms of the agreement are fair.

Warren’s bill would discourage tax-deductible settlements by forcing federal agencies to explain why certain settlements are confidential, and to publicly disclose the terms of nonconfidential agreements so that taxpayers can see how much settlement tax-deductibility is costing them.

Read on for details.

This month’s national guinea pigs in W. Virginia

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Site of Charleston, WV Spill

One of the things Deborah Blum doesn’t mention in her story is the effect of 35 years of further cutting government spending and gutting government regulatory agencies. Yes, I know she’s a science writer. But she’s railing against the government’s refusal to do its job and these things in W. Virginia didn’t happen in a vacuum:

Oh and one other thing. The limited data used by CDC? It wasn’t government research on the compound because as we all know that doesn’t exist. It wasn’t based on independent testing. No, the government relied  on the 15-year-old studies done by Eastman Chemical. Or to be precise one of the studies, a kind of superficial analysis  that infuriated environmental advocacy groups like the Environmental Defense Fund. In fact – again as reported by the Gazette – the agency had so depended on that one study, which was done with “pure MCHM” that its own river testing looked only for that and ignored the six other chemicals found in the messier “crude MCHM” that actually spilled into the river.

Still, those of us desperate for information will accept any data, any data at all. To that end, let’s look at the Eastman studies, shall we?

The first thing you’ll notice is that there is no human toxicity data. These are studies in species ranging from fathead minnows to rabbits. The study that the CDC used to calculate the safe level of MCHM –this one, in fact – involved 95 rats (45 male, 50 female) force-fed pure MCHM in corn oil for four weeks. The poison concentrations ranged from the 200 to 800 milligram/kilogram level. This is considered roughly equivalent to an exposure in the 200 to 800 part per million range but to be consistent about what these tests say, I’m going to mostly stick with mg/kg. In the mid-range (400 mg/kg) the scientists found a small but consistent pattern of liver and kidney damage, which appeared to be slightly worse in females. They calculated at one-fourth the dose, they would see no effect at all – and its this calculation of zero-effect of 100 mg/kg or 100 ppm in rats that CDC used to set a far more conservative level of zero-effect in humans at 1 ppm. But what the CDC advisory doesn’t tell you is that Eastman made at least one important assumption in this study. It assumed that the damage was transient – “the effects were most likely reversible” to quote from the abstract – and it didn’t track the animals long enough to find out.

To be fair, the Eastman chemists were just trying to figure out how poisonous the compound was. They’d run another more lethal experiment using 30 rats (half male, half female) looking at a higher doses. In that study, they divided the animals into three test groups and three doses. Ten  of the rats received oil containing  2000 mg/kg of the compound. All were dead in a day. At half that dose, 3 of the 5 male rats and 4 of the 5 female rats died in less than 24 hours. At half that dose (500 mg/kg) the survival rate went up dramatically – just one female had to be euthanized on the second day. Another study at the 500 ppm level recorded zero mortality. The Eastman researchers calculated that the LD50 (Lethal Dose- 50 percent,  a standard toxicity measure of the dose that will kill half of a test population) should be set at 825 mg/kg.
Continue reading “This month’s national guinea pigs in W. Virginia” →

Contagious

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

G2746-D1393
Seems like medical marijuana is all the rage these days!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) came out in favor of medical marijuana Thursday in a Las Vegas Sun interview, becoming one of the highest elected officials in the U.S. government to give his support.

“If you’d asked me this question a dozen years ago, it would have been easy to answer — I would have said no, because [marijuana] leads to other stuff,” Reid was quoted as saying. “But I can’t say that anymore.”

“I think we need to take a real close look at this,” he added. “I think that there’s some medical reasons for marijuana.”

Although it remains illegal under federal law, polls show that most Americans support medical marijuana. And Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August that the Department of Justice would not interfere, at least at first, as states that have legalized weed for adults create their regulatory regimes — a dramatic policy shift from federal authorities’ targeting of medical marijuana dispensaries that were legal under state law.

Oopsy daisy

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

AFP-Getty_461557241

Yeah, I’m getting tired of this, too. But this is the guy Christie hardly knew, remember:

(CNN) — Give him a position at the top of the agency; he’s a good friend of the governor.

That’s how David Wildstein was introduced to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2010, according to a former employee with extensive knowledge of the agency’s hiring practices.

Soon after, Wildstein was named the director of Interstate Capital Projects, a title that previously had not existed at the bi-state agency, setting in motion a career that would eventually place the former political blogger at the center of the lane closures controversy at the George Washington Bridge.

Wildstein catapulted into the national spotlight with his response to the infamous e-mail from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s aide: “Time for some traffic problems in Ft. Lee,” Bridget Kelly wrote. Wildstein responded, “Got it.”

A former Port Authority employee told CNN that agency officials were told in 2010 they had to find a place for WIldstein at the executive level and the directive was coming from Christie’s office.

Soon after, the position was created specifically for WIldstein. When Wildstein started, Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, Christie’s top appointee at the agency, introduced him to people as a good friend of the governor.

CNN examined documents from the Port Authority showing the names, titles and salaries of nearly 7,000 employees. The reports show that prior to Christie’s first term in office there were four people working in the deputy executive director’s office, the highest position on the New Jersey side of the agency. When Christie came into office the number increased to six. The documents show that Wildstein’s position was created in May 2010.

Sources, including several current and former employees at various levels of the Port Authority who did not want their names used, told CNN it was assumed that when David Wildstein was involved in any discussions at the agency, the information was being passed back to Christie’s office.

Feinstein touches the third rail

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Feinstein

I’m kind of shocked that Feinstein is saying no, but good for her!

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein faced criticism Wednesday for comments that some thought implied a new Iran sanctions bill could put Israel in charge of U.S. foreign policy.

Feinstein objected to moving forward on a new Iran sanctions bill sponsored by 59 senators, including 16 Democrats, and co-authored by Sen Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL). The California senator said the bill could imperil ongoing negotiations between Iran and the West, harm U.S. diplomatic credibility, break up the current international sanctions coalition, and allow Tehran to argue “we are interested in regime change.”

“Candidly, in my view, it is a march toward war,” she said, echoing the White House argument that senators who support the Iran sanctions bill have a secret pro-war agenda.

Feinstein took direct aim at a provision in the new bill that states, “If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence”

Feinstein worried that this language might hamstring American foreign policy decision makers as a result.

“While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the United States goes to war,” she said. “By stating that the United States should provide military support to Israel in a formal resolution should it attack Iran, I fear that is how this bill is going to be interpreted.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) issued a statement Wednesday objecting to Feinstein’s remarks and demanding a retraction and an apology.

Why Chris Christie killed NJ’s PBS station

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Republican Gov. Chris Christie - A Bridge Too Far and impassable

I keep telling people: Yes, he really IS that petty:

In August 2009, Zack Fink, currently the statehouse reporter for NY1 but then a reporter for New Jersey Network, the PBS channel in New Jersey, developed a source who told him about a $46,000 loan that Christie had given Michele Brown, a subordinate that he’d promoted in the U.S. Attorney’s office, to pay her mortgage. This raised questions immediately about Christie’s ties to the U.S. Attorney’s office while he was running for governor, and was followed by a string of terrible press for Christie, including a story in the New York Times that said he didn’t report the income from the loan on his personal financial disclosure forms. (Brown was eventually forced to resigned, though Christie rehired her when he became governor — something that is perceived as a middle finger to those who revealed their relationship.)

“When Zack Fink broke the story about the undisclosed loan that Christie had made to Michele Brown, it was without a doubt the most important story of the 2009 race,” says Lis Smith, who was a press secretary for Corzine during the campaign. “Corzine was down double digits in the polls then. None of our campaign’s attacks were gaining any traction. Once Zack wrote that story it opened the floodgate to a whole new range of stories that hadn’t been out there before — how Christie ran the U.S. Attorney’s office, how Michele was using the attorney’s office to benefit Christie’s campaign, even a traffic incident with Christie and Brown where Christie acted in an abusive and vindictive manner.”

In 2011, Christie announced in his budget address that he was going to shut down NJN. He wasn’t the first person to suggest ending a publicly funded entity like state TV: Corzine had suggested making it a nonprofit, much as Giuliani did with WNYC, which now has a good endowment and is a model across the nation. But “the conventional wisdom when Christie pulled the plug was he’d done it because they had done the toughest reporting on him during the 2009 campaign,” says Smith. “Had NJN not blown the story open with the story about undisclosed loans, many other stories could very well have never come out — stories that illustrated what we known now, which is Christie is someone who has always used the power of his office to vindictive ends and has played fast and loose for years.”

At the time, it sounded far-fetched that a governor would care so much about being burned by state television that he’d shut it down. But then again, with the news last week, anything seems possible. “Whether it’s reporters or local leaders, Christie does not fly at 35,000 feet — he is a bare-knuckled street brawler in the trenches, and no fight is too small,” says a reporter who has covered Christie. Says Fink, “He put 150 long-time state employees out of work, in a way that was nasty and just like, ‘Forget it, good-bye.’ It didn’t need to be like that.”