Free Republic

When the news came that John McCain was poised to nominate a maverick female with executive experience in local government and as a governor to be his vice presidential running mate, I was hopeful. I knew and worked for such a woman: a county freeholder, then president of the State Board of Public Utilities, then a two-term governor of a major state, then a presidential cabinet member. More executive experience than anyone in the race. By a long stretch. I knew her to be tough, fair-minded, extremely independent, and courageous. I had seen her make the difficult, character-defining decisions only...

He's frustrated with Washington gridlock and has money to burn - and next week, Mayor Bloomberg will meet with well-connected Democrats and Republicans who could help launch him as an independent presidential candidate. The Jan. 7 meeting at the University of Oklahoma will include an array of current and former politicians who aren't considering a run on their own but who just might get behind someone with the clout and cash to join the fray at this late date.

In the week after 9/11, Christie Whitman, the former head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, assured New Yorkers that "their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink." Today, Whitman will finally face tough questions about those fateful words at a congressional hearing headed by U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan). We now know the collapse of the twin towers and the fires which burned for months at Ground Zero triggered the worst toxic release our nation has seen: thousands of tons of asbestos, lead, chromium, benzene, PCBs, dioxins, highly-caustic cement dust and hundreds of other...

Former Environmental Protection Agency boss Christie Whitman says she urged Ground Zero workers to wear respirators, but then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani blocked her efforts. She also said city officials didn't want EPA workers wearing haz-mat suits because they "didn't want this image of a city falling apart." In an interview scheduled to run the day before Whitman testifies in front of Congress on Monday, she told WNBC-TV she warned the city of the risks almost every day. And she said she believes illnesses killing first responders can be blamed on the city's lack of action. "I'm not a scientist ... but...

Former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman wants to destroy the Republican Party. You think I’m exaggerating? Think again. The liberal media’s favorite Republican is up to her old tricks. Whitman, writing on her new “blog” at MyPartyToo.com, says little of substance, but implies a great deal. Frustrated by the lack of progress on immigration reform and the budget, she wants everyone to kiss and make up. But what Whitman really wants is for conservatives to stop putting up a fight for the bedrock principles voters sent them to Washington to uphold—an enforcement-first immigration bill and a budget bill that doesn’t...

Disclosure reports: Corzine gave cash gifts to top aides The Associated Press Published: Saturday, May 6, 2006 Updated: Saturday, May 6, 2006 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey's multimillionaire governor dipped into his personal fortune to give nearly $100,000 cash gifts to top aides late last year, just weeks before his Jan. 17 swearing in, according to recently released financial disclosure reports. Officials in Gov. Jon S. Corzine's administration acknowledged that each gift was kept under $11,000 so that neither the staffers or Corzine would have to pay taxes. "A gift is just that, and a number of Jon Corzine's...

Corzine Ready To Lower Tax Boom On N.J. CBS 2 Speaks To Upset Residents, Many Hint At Leaving Image Marcia Kramer Reporting (CBS) BERGENFIELD New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine unveils his belt tightening new budget on Tuesday. But even before the announcement, New Jersey taxpayers were expecting the worst. When Corzine voted for himself to become governor of New Jersey he knew that one day he would have to make some difficult and unpopular budget decisions. That day is Tuesday. And already people are lining up to oppose his expected tax hikes. ”It’s utterly ridiculous we have to have the...

Christie Whitman, when she led the Environmental Protection Agency, made "misleading statements of safety" about the air quality near the World Trade Center in the days after the Sept. 11 attack and may have put the public in danger, a federal judge found yesterday. The pointed criticism of Mrs. Whitman came in a ruling by the judge, Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court in Manhattan, in a 2004 class action lawsuit on behalf of residents and schoolchildren from downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn who say they were exposed to air contamination inside buildings near the trade center. The suit, against...

Corey Davis was a good role model. At least that's what the state Department of Human Services thought when it paid him and his company, We Mentor Inc., nearly $700,000 to counsel some 300 troubled boys and girls between 2001 and 2004. In reality, the budding entrepreneur had a felony drug conviction and owed thousands of dollars in child support to two women. Some of the people he employed also had criminal backgrounds. But the state blindly nurtured Davis until learning one of his mentors had cracked up a car last summer, injuring a 6-year-old boy. The resulting collapse of...

About Us: Our vision is a Republican Party that is unified by the basic tenets of fiscal responsibility and personal freedom, but that allows for diverse opinions on social issues by its members. IMP-PAC is chaired by Christie Todd Whitman, a lifelong and loyal Republican and a leader of the party’s moderate wing, who served in the Bush cabinet as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from January 2001 to May 2003. Prior to that, she was the first female elected governor of New Jersey, serving two terms from 1993 to 2000. Advisory Board: Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) Susan...

Christie Whitman emerged from her first meeting with President-elect George Bush in 2000 full of optimism and convinced of his determination to build a positive environmental "legacy" - a belief reinforced moments later when Karl Rove took her aside and confided, flatteringly, that as the boss of the Environmental Protection Agency, she would be one of just three cabinet-level officers who would help determine whether the president would be re-elected in 2004. This she took to mean that "the work I would do in building a strong record on the environment would help the president build on his base by...

Whitman: Let's Get Moderate WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2005 This story was written by Linda Feldmann. It was a vision of big-tent Republicanism: At a panel discussion held around the GOP convention last summer, Christine Todd Whitman sat comfortably near Newt Gingrich - a standard-bearer of the middle engaging in measured discourse with a standard-bearer of conservatism. When asked about the GOP's longstanding drift rightward, Ms. Whitman was polite. The former New Jersey governor and EPA administrator stressed the breadth of the Republican coalition and noted that some of the biggest names to address the convention in prime time - Arnold...

Eric Fettmann's article accusing Christie Whitman of being a "party pooper" ["Christie Whitman: (GOP) Party Pooper," Opinion, Jan. 14] is totally off-base. As that rarity of rarities — a young Jewish Republican Manhattanite — I find it ridiculous to criticize Whitman for pointing out the serious flaws in the Republican Party. Like many mainstream Republicans, I think the far-right, pro-life religious wing of the party is dangerous. I call myself a Giuliani Republican because I believe in the party's core beliefs while totally disagreeing with the party's stance on many social issues. You can be a Republican and still be...

STARVED for attention after a dismal stint as President Bush's Envi ronmental Protection Administrator — which itself followed a mediocre six years as governor of New Jersey — Christine Todd Whitman has penned a manifesto to radically remake the Republican Party and send it hurtling leftward. Predictably, the national press can't get enough of it: Newsweek featured a lengthy excerpt from the still-unpublished book, presumptiously titled, "It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America." Just as predictably, conservative Republicans — who don't think the future of their country, let alone their...

The Republican Party is being "dictated to by a coalition of ideological extremists," a former Bush administration Cabinet official says in a new book that blames President Bush and his top political strategist for failing to bring more "blue states" into the Republican column in November.     Christie Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who resigned her post as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in May 2003, says Mr. Bush and adviser Karl Rove were wrong in their strategy of boosting turnout among the party's voting base of political "extremists" on the right, including evangelical Christians. In...

Former governor and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman and four of her former aides launched a consulting firm yesterday that will be based in New Jersey and have international reach, Whitman said. The Somerset County-based firm, Whitman Strategy Group, will specialize in environmental issues, but is prepared to advise corporations and countries on everything from energy to international negotiations to homeland security. "We're interested in trying to use our knowledge, experience and contacts to help businesses and governments do the right thing," Whitman said in a phone interview. Her partners are Jane Kenny, Jessica Furey, Eileen McGinnis and Susan...

Whitman says in new book that catering to GOP's far-right wing will hurt party Friday December 17, 2004 By DONNA DE LA CRUZ Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman writes in her upcoming book that if the far-right wing of the Republican Party continues to be a major influence with the GOP, the party will be seriously harmed. Whitman, who served as Environmental Protection Agency administrator for President Bush from 2001 until May 2003, also says in the book that she was often at odds with the White House on issues such as setting caps...

New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is the embodiment of a new reality, in which homosexuality is the last refuge of scoundrels. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey has managed to snatch martyrdom from the jaws of damnation. He would have the public believe that he didn't resign his governorship on August 12 because of the scandals that sprouted from his administration like crabgrass, but because he was the victim of a homophobic society. Since August 12, the socialist, mainstream media have worked their butts off, painting sympathetic portraits of McGreevey, who in spite of having resigned, refuses to leave office. McGreevey...

<p>Former Gov. Christie Whitman was cut out of the decision-making process when President Bush bluntly rejected her efforts as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency director to reach a compromise that would allow the United States to be part of the Global Warming Treaty.</p>

OLDWICK, N.J. -- On May 5, 1996, when I was halfway through my first term as governor of New Jersey, there was a picture of me on the cover of the Sunday magazine of The New York Times, accompanied by the headline "It's My Party, Too." I liked that message so much, I had it framed and hung it in my office in Trenton and, later, Washington, D.C. To moderate Republicans like me, that headline proclaimed our belief that there was still room for us in the party of Lincoln. Now, almost eight years later, many moderate Republicans feel even...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The state Attorney General's office is reviewing allegations that a high-ranking state police official and a former state senator tried to use confidential records to discredit former Gov. Christie Whitman and other Republican leaders. Vincent Bellaran, a former state police lieutenant, claims Lt. Col. Cajetan "Tommy" DeFeo recruited him to retrieve internal documents on racial profiling in the state police between 1999 and early 2002. Bellaran said the goal was to create an impression of chaos that would lead to the Republican administration's defeat in the 2001 elections. Bellaran said DeFeo also hoped to use the...

A deal that was supposed to offer cleaner air through tougher auto emissions tests has become a "mammoth boondoggle" that will cost New Jersey taxpayers millions of dollars more than earlier estimates, a new state report says. The report, released Wednesday, claims the process that awarded the contract to test car emissions benefited politicians, lobbyists, bureaucrats and the corporation that was the sole bidder for the work. "The investigation revealed an ill-conceived state process undermined by mismanagement from within and tainted by manipulation from without," the State Commission of Investigation report said. The computerized vehicle emissions test system will have...

On its own, Christie Whitman's departure from the national political stage is a minor event. Her tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency will soon be forgotten, and her once limitless future is now decidedly in the past. What is momentous is how quickly Whitman went from rising star to Washington burnout. The story of how it happened is bad news for socially progressive Republicans everywhere. Talk about potential: Whitman burst onto the political radar in 1990 when, in challenging Sen. Bill Bradley from New Jersey, she nearly pulled off an upset. She was elected governor three years later and quickly...

Whitman's legacy is one of potential unfulfilled Thursday, May 22, 2003 By MIKE KELLYRECORD COLUMNIST Christie Whitman is leaving Washington now the same way she left Trenton 28 months ago - with barely a whimper. How sad. Only 10 years ago, Whitman was considered a big-bang Republican leader, one of those can't-miss prospects who seemed to walk easily across a wide political spectrum. "Tom Kean in pearls," a GOP analyst said of Whitman. Wow. WHITMAN RESIGNS Whitman resigns as chief of EPATo state GOP, Whitman is a mixed blessingMIKE KELLY:Whitman's legacy is one of potential unfulfilled EDITORIAL:Whitman's EPA record was...

June 27, has often been at odds with the White House over environmental issues. In a letter to President Bush, she said she was leaving to spend time with her family. "As rewarding as the past two-and-a-half years have been for me professionally, it is time to return to my home and husband in New Jersey, which I love just as you do your home state of Texas," she wrote Bush. Whitman had been the administration's point person in rolling back environmental protections initiated by previous administrations. As his re-election campaign gears up, Bush's senior staff and advisers consider the...

April 22, 2003 | Last Updated 5:26 p.m. (EDT) EPA Administrator Christie Whitman to Host "Ask the White House" Tonight EPA Administrator Christie Whitman will host an Earth Day online discussion on the White House web site tonight at 6pm ....... You can submit questions now.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Average fuel economy for the galaxy of shiny new 2003 model cars and passenger trucks headed for showrooms is 20.8 miles per gallon, about 6 percent below the high point set 15 years ago. It's a trend reflected in consumers like Russel Fyock, recently in the market for a compact or mid-sized car. "I buy a car for what I need it for and fuel is just a thing to go along with it," said Fyock, 64, of Falls Church, Va. "Compared to inflation, gas has remained pretty cheap since the 1950s." Among the highest achievers, the...

<p>IMAGINE...</p> <p>In the words of the John Lennon song, Imagine....</p> <p>Imagine that Christie Whitman had declined President George W. Bush's offer to lead the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and instead had opted to complete the last year of her term as Governor.  I have little doubt that the following scenario would have ensued......</p>

<p>Every year is an election year in New Jersey, and this November all of New Jersey’s 13 U.S. House seats are up for grabs.  But the biggest prize is the U.S. Senate seat being defended by first-term Democratic incumbent Bob Torricelli.</p>

MUSKEGON, Mich. -- Christie Whitman, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, visited this Lake Michigan city on Tuesday to announce a Bush administration plan to clean up and restore the Great Lakes. She said the plan addresses the most serious problems facing the five lakes, including sediment contamination, the proliferation of non-native species, loss of habitat and the production of fish unsafe for eating. The plan sets specific goals for the cleanup and calls on the federal government to work more closely with state and local governments. It includes monitoring contaminants in fish, requiring factories that discharge into the lakes...

"I used to be somebody,” said Environmental Protection Agency Director Christie Todd Whitman, explaining that she was once among a handful of pro-choice Republicans considered for vice president. “Ironically, none of us made it past the first trimester.” The crack drew laughs from the politicians and journalists at Washington’s annual Gridiron Dinner. Whitman was just warming up. Referring to her rumored lack of clout in an administration headed by two oilmen, she revealed the location of Vice President Cheney’s hideaway: “It’s where no one would think to look for him—the EPA.” Whitman said she gets to attend cabinet meetings. “I...