Free Republic

Longtime readers here may recall that yours truly and others have written about liberties New York Times reporter Kate Zernike has taken with the truth, especially in her reporting on the Tea Party movement. Her penchant for inventing baseless stories about alleged racism in the movement once caused the late Andrew Breitbart to label her "a despicable human being." Breitbart might well have the same reaction to the hours-later revision made at Zernike's Times story Friday about Chris Christie. Several alert bloggers and tweeters noted that her story about Christie's knowledge of shut lanes on the George Washington Bridge conveniently...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's former campaign manager will plead the Fifth Amendment when he is asked about his role in an apparent plot to create a traffic jam in Fort Lee, N.J., according to a filing from his lawyer. The campaign manager, Bill Stepien, was one of two people disciplined for his actions related to the access lane closures, shortly after the apparent scheme was disclosed in a series of e-mails and text messages...

The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge in the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening, and that he had the evidence to prove it. In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the...

Chris Matthews really doesn’t listen when he speaks.  On every program since Chris Christie’s bridge scandal broke on January 8, the MSNBC anchor has smeared the Republican governor as just like Richard Nixon in Watergate. Matthews has done this for nine straight shows, including the January 20 edition. However, on the same program, with no sense of self awareness, a thought occurred to the anchor.  He announced that if “it is discovered that Governor Christie did not encourage political revenge, did not signal that this is the way he wanted political business conducted, then he will be exonerated before the...

First came bridge-gate. Now the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., has accused Gov. Chris Christie's administration of withholding Superstorm Sandy relief when she refused to OK a redevelopment project — with links to the agency at the heart of the bridge scandal — the governor favored.

Another politico is claiming that he got “Christied.” This time it’s Jersey City mayor, Steven Fulop, who said that after he declined to endorse the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, meetings with the governor were cancelled and money for hurricane relief dried up. I guess in this Alice-in-TV-Land world we live in, this counts as news. This comes on the heels of a federal investigation into Christie’s use of federal hurricane relief funds, which Obama is sure were used for nefarious purposes; presumably that means purposes that didn’t include electing Democrats. While Barack Obama didn’t invent the “Christie”...

A prosecutor who was sacked after attempting to indict Chris Christie's political cronies for corruption told MailOnline today about his ordeal at the hands of the New Jersey Governor's 'mafia.' Bennett Barlyn, a prosecutor for 18 years in New Jersey’s Hunterdon County, has spoken out following the revelations over the Bridgegate scandal to reveal his firsthand account of being fired and shamed at the hands of Christie and his political henchmen. He said there were parallels between a criminal case he tried to prosecute – before, he says, it was unlawfully dismissed – and the Bridgegate scandal, where Christie’s staff...

1. So just how bad is this George Washington Bridge traffic incident? It's bad. Pretty bad. Super bad, even. Chief executives just don't use the power of government to exact revenge on ordinary citizens for what they take to be political insubordination. To put this in context, imagine what it would be like for a presidential administration to(close down national parks) in order to intentionally inflict pain on people trying to visit them. Or if some other administration (had the IRS target individuals and groups from the opposing side. Thankfully, things like that never, ever happen.)2) Wait a minute, I...

What a bizarre spectacle. Assuming he did not lie during his marathon news conference last week, the feeding frenzy surrounding New Jersey governor Chris Christie will be remembered as one of those incredibly odd moments of elite journalistic hysteria that are difficult to explain to people who weren’t there or didn’t get it. I’m not referring to the scandal itself; that’s easy enough to understand. What Christie’s team did was outrageous and deserves as much foofaraw and brouhaha as the New Jersey media can muster. What’s harder to grok is the hysteria at the national level. For starters, there have...

I don't understand something about the Chris Cristy/bridge thing. The lanes were closed supposedly to get revenge on the mayor of the small town for not endorsing Cristy. But HOW was that supposed to hurt him? Was it believed that the citizens of that town would blame the mayor for the traffic mess? One would assume that they knew that highway problems would not be his fault. It seems like vandalizing your next door neighbor's car to get revenge on the man across the street. What am I missing here?

Documents released Monday indicate that meetings arranged between top commissioners to Gov. Chris Christie and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop were abruptly canceled without reason last year—providing evidence of Mr. Fulop's claim that he was cut off after he decided not to endorse the governor. The documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal through a public records request showed communications between Mr. Fulop and Christie administration staff members arranging the meetings in June and July, until the commissioners all canceled one meeting after another. The documents don't indicate why the meetings were scrapped, but Mr. Fulop has said that he...

[Christie appointee David Wildstein] had told someone (in writing) not to worry about the children that the resulting traffic jams were keeping away from school, “They are the children of Buono voters.” Well, turns out he was probably wrong....

Hold me now It's hard for me to say I'm sorry I just want you to stay After all that you've been through I will make it up to you I promise to... -Chicago Well, Chris Christie proved he can say, 'I'm sorry,' with the best of them. (It's clear the governor has come home with chocolates and flowers at least once in his married life.) Of course the question now isn't his performance, but what did he know, and when did he know it? In the era of finger-pointing and excuses, scapegoats are often thrown under the bus quickly....

TRENTON, New Jersey (Reuters) - Documents related to the bridge closure scandal engulfing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie revealed on Friday that authorities were deeply divided about the shutdown, with one warning it was illegal and risking people's lives.

It’s the skinny half of this duo. Nice of the media to hold Christie accountable for causing traffic problems, but the guy in a clinch with him shut down the road to Mount Rushmore, barricaded multiple memorials, forcibly shut down private parks and even private restaurants at gunpoint.

Perfectly rational in one sense, deeply surprising in another. And not just for the obvious “RINO versus RINO” reasons. How the heck did Rand Paul lose the “bash Christie” sweepstakes to Lindsey Graham? “It seems to me that this whole bridge thing reinforces a narrative that’s troublesome about the guy, he’s kind of a bully,” Graham told NBC News on Thursday on Capitol Hill, referring to the scandal over land closures on the George Washington Bridge that’s engulfed Christie over the past two days… “If anybody in my office had done such a thing, they knew what their fate would...

In less than 24 hours, the big three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they've allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama's Internal Revenue Service controversy. Since the story broke on Wednesday that aides to the New Jersey governor punished a local mayor's lack of endorsement with a massive traffic jam, ABC, CBS and NBC have responded with 34 minutes and 28 seconds of coverage. Since July 1, these same networks managed a scant two minutes and eight seconds for the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. In contrast,...

CNN Host Grills Wasserman Schultz About Thinking Christie’s Hiding Something While Obama Always Claims to Be in the Dark Bridget Johnson CNN host Don Lemon grilled Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on how it’s OK to assume Chris Christie is hiding something while assuming that President Obama is always forthcoming. Wasserman Schultz was eager to spread the message that the New Jersey governor had committed wrongdoing, a news drop that conveniently steered attention away from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ revelations a day earlier about Hillary Clinton. “I think the investigation that is ongoing is going to —...

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner says he believes Chris Christie remains a serious contender for the Republican 2016 presidential nomination, despite the traffic jam scandal engulfing the New Jersey governor. Reporters asked Boehner about Christie's problems on Thursday, even as the governor was holding a news conference in Trenton, N.J.

Update: “I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue – in it’s planning or execution.” Steve Doocy ✔@sdoocy Follow .@GovChristie just did what Barack Obama has not done, and that is hold somebody accountable for a big screwup #IRS, DOJ, ACA, Benghazi 11:23 AM - 9 Jan 2014 Erick Erickson ✔@EWErickson Follow The contrast between Barack Obama and Chris Christie in terms of owning a mess and fixing it is now pretty stark. 11:20 AM - 9 Jan 2014 141 Retweets 55 favorites Ezra Klein ✔@ezraklein Follow There’s something to this! RT @BuzzFeedBen: The GOP line on Christie today:...