Chris Christie said he invented the Internet!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2013

Lawrence then and now: Over the summer, Chris Christie announced, then executed, a $12 million scam.

The larceny occurred in bright sunlight. Everybody say ho-hum and continued on their way.

Today, a range of players are involved in creating a scandal around Christie. Below, you see something we the rubes were told by Lawrence last night.

Lawrence spoke with Hunter Walker, who he agreed to describe as “national affairs reporter for Talking Points Memo:”
O’DONNELL (12/18/13): OK. And here is some more maybe fire in the smoke, OK?

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that New Jersey governor Chris Christie called New York governor Andrew Cuomo to complain that Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was pressing too hard how to get off to the bottom of why the number of toll lanes on the bridge was cut from three to one in early September.

Hunter Walker, I got to say, the thing that is amazing here is, it is such a stupid idea, if it is a politically motivated idea, breathtakingly stupid. But everything Christie World is doing makes it look like they were up to something.

WALKER: Well, and you know, Andrew Cuomo was asked if he believed Chris Christie’s explanation of this, the traffic study story, and he just paused for six seconds and he kind of said, “Well, if Chris Christie said it, it must be true.” And you know, it was one of those sort of wonderful Cuomo koans where it was a little bit of a riddle to figure out what he actually meant. But it was hardly a heartfelt endorsement.

O’DONNELL: David, very quickly before we go, what does this do to Christie?
What Lawrence said was accurate. Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal did report that Christie made that phone call.

Here’s what Lawrence didn’t say. Neither did Walker, who clowned about koans instead:

Last Friday, Christie categorically denied the Wall Street Journal’s claim—and Cuomo spokesman Matt Wing vouched for Christie’s statement. You even got to hear that fact on Rachel’s program that night.

Rachel spoke with Ted Mann, the Wall Street Journal reporter:
MADDOW (12/13/13): Ted, let me ask you about one specific thing that you reported that really seemed to get Governor Christie very excited today and not in a good way. And that was your reporting that Governor Christie, as he’s been joking about this and making light of it in public before today, had earlier this week called New York Governor Andrew Cuomo essentially to say, “Listen, your appointees, your New York appointees on this are pushing too hard for answers. Why don’t you get them to lay off.”

Governor Christie is now denying that that call ever took place.

MANN: Right. And Governor Cuomo’s spokesman did too. We stand by that story. That story is right.
We have no idea which report Mann was standing by; Rachel didn’t ask. But Mann noted that Cuomo’s spokesman had supported what Christie said.

Last night, you weren’t told that. Instead, Josh’s man gave you a song and dance about Cuomo’s koan.

(Go ahead. Look it up.)

This is the way Lawrence played you last year, when he spent several months inventing and asserting bogus facts about the killing of Trayvon Martin.

What happened with the George Washington Bridge? Like all the hacks who are playing you, we have no way of knowing.

We do understand how this game is played. In effect, this is what you’re being told in the current hullabaloo of group narrative:

Chris Christie said he invented the Internet!

Here’s what we mean by that:

If a wide range of media powers agree to tell you a story; if they agree to keep repeating it night after night after night; if there is no powerful interest willing to push back hard against their story; there is no way a politician can make the magpies stop.

In this instance, Democratic entities are playing the fool, pushing the Bridgegate/Sopranos narrative. People like Lawrence will play you for months on end.

(Lawrence was still trying to take out Candidate Gore in mid-October 2000. In the end, he and the others succeeded. People are dead all over the world because of what Lawrence did. Today, Lawrence is a pseudo-lib god. It’s the way we pseudos roll.)

Presumably, some Republican and conservative entities want to take Christie out, just like the DNC does. (Could the Wall Street Journal be part of that crowd?) If these entities all agree to keep talking about the way “Christie World” is displaying “their” guilt, there is no way Christie, or anyone else, can make these entities stop.

Last summer, Christie stole $12 million from New Jersey taxpayers. He committed this act of theft in broad daylight.

People like Lawrence just diddled themselves. To our ear, the Dorchester puppy has started to play you again.

How fake is Rachel Maddow: On Tuesday night, Rachel told you a story. She said Politico had finally reported about the bridge.

Yesterday, we noted that this statement wasn’t true.
As you know, Rachel tends to be like that.

We linked to Politico's original report about the bridge, a report from December 12. We just noticed this other report from December 16, in which Politico reported the fact that Governor Cuomo had supported Christie’s statement about that phone call.

This report appeared on Monday afternoon. Tuesday night, Maddow linked to a different, later report, saying it was Politico’s first.

Maybe Rachel didn’t know. How much are you willing to bet?

28 comments:

  1. Is there any issue here that someone has actually been trying to sell the bridge to some poor sucker?

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  2. We have

    War on Gore

    War on Zimmerman

    General Scoundreliness of Librulz

    All in one post. Thats three obsessions right there.

    Missing is

    outrage at librulz making money.

    We have to see if obsessing on Maddow's body fluids would become a regular feature.

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  3. I still don't understand Bob's issue with how Maddow is reporting the story. Can someone translate Bob's prose poetry and 'splain to me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's like asking what House Republicans issue is with any random Obama initiative. It's Obama, therefore they oppose it, even if they supported it last year when it was their idea.

      It's Maddow, so it's got to be cheap and shallow and crappy and bad-- whatever it is. I think Maddow could do a segment about the earth revolving around the sun and Bob would find it insufferable.

      P.S. I don't like Maddow, either, but not every single thing she does is crappy and unfair and unjustified. This bridge thing is a moderately big story all over political media. If anything, Maddow's sin was in spending time on it before it became such a big thing.

      And btw, she did the same thing with Bob McDonnell's financial/ethical troubles in Virginia, and Bob did the same thing and excoriated her for it. Guess how that turned out?

      Delete
    2. Agree. I LIKE that she was all over this before it became big, that's sort of her job. Who cares if we like her or not?

      I loathed Andrew Breibart, but he did all us NYers a favor by pushing the Wiener story, as that lunatic could have been mayor.

      Delete
    3. "And btw, she did the same thing with Bob McDonnell's financial/ethical troubles in Virginia, and Bob did the same thing and excoriated her for it. Guess how that turned out?"

      I'm glad you mentioned that because I was about to. It's interesting how these things fall down TDH's memory hole.

      Do you think some of the problems Bob worries about might be more related to corruption of our elected representatives rather than cable tv hosts?

      Delete
    4. Yep. In the world according to Somerby, the whole McDonnell thing was nothing but Maddow playing fast and loose with the truth against a "pol" she didn't like.

      Nothing to see there. Move along.

      Just who is playing whom for fools?

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    5. A lot of projection going on here.

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    6. 11:37, who is projecting what exactly?

      Delete
  4. Bob said: "Presumably, some Republican and conservative entities want to take Christie out, just like the DNC does. (Could the Wall Street Journal be part of that crowd?) If these entities all agree to keep talking about the way 'Christie World”;is displaying 'their' guilt, there is no way Christie, or anyone else, can make these entities stop."

    Who's "clowning" now? Bob implies it's a conspiracy and asked if a Wall St Jnl reporter is involved. Oh dear god...

    Bob says we have no way of know what happened with the Bridge. Well, actually we do. Christie's appointee order the lanes shut down, without following proper procedures, causing chaos in Ft Lee. When asked why he did that he said it was part of a study. That's a lie. he has since resigned, as has his boss.

    We have not yet been given a reason why it was closed.

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  5. Wow, yeah. The Wall St Journal reporter is part of a conspiracy with the DNC to take down Christie. Is Bob off his meds?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly.

      Back in the day when he used to write clearly and concisely, Bob would only blame press laziness and their fondness for "scripts" and "narratives" and personal bias (they just didn't like the guy) for the War on Gore. He also noted how easy it was for McCain to charm the press with a box of donuts, then sit down and chat with them on the bus to feed the "straight-talking maverick" narrative.

      Now he has jumped the shark all the way to a full-blown, orchestrated conspiracy involving MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the DNC and "Republican and conservative entities."

      Care to provide some smoking gun evidence of that, Bob? Or to name names? Or is that something you simply demand of others?

      Delete
  6. Party loyalists hate Somerby. Independent-minded liberals love him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Talk about canned narratives. I hope our comment was ironic.

      Delete
  7. "As you know, Rachel tends to be like that." I dunno, bob. I think it's called journalism, rather than history, for a reason. Assuming you're right that she made a mistake on this point (and I have no faith in your judgment, but for the sake of argument...), so what? As you nitpick your way through denying there's any possible story here (ignoring the forest for the trees -- any tree that stands apart from the forest), you go at MSNBC while ignoring not just WSJ and NYT but the informed, true-blue, good-old-time NJ journalists on this story. So what's your agenda?

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, I'm challenging you. Go after those NJ sources. Just do it. Just try it. And suddenly you'll be back in Baltimore in the real old days, where life was complicated. Actually and truly complicated.

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    2. And that "yeah" was a NJ "yeah." A marker. A line in the sand, even after these nearly 40 years in Massachusetts. (It's not as if I don't appreciate a certain aspect of Christie, his combativeness.)

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    3. But was she sweating?

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  8. "The larceny occurred in bright sunlight. Everybody say ho-hum and continued on their way."

    The "larceny" was the special election Christie held to replace Lautenberg instead of holding in November.

    This time the blogger has lied outright.

    A search for

    "why did Christie hold a special election" throws up lots of criticism of the decision,

    Kool Aid drinkers, apart from being drooling-insane, your god lies also.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, lordy! Even the MSNBC hosts that Somerby so loathes in knee-jerk fashion hammered the "special election" decision for months.

      And they always brought up two things: A special election with low voter turnout enhanced the Republican chances of picking up the Senate seat, and Christie did not want to play second banana to Cory Booker on the same ballot.

      Yes, this time, Somerby told an outright lie.


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    2. By the way, here is a link to Rachel Maddow excorciating Christie on THE VERY DAY that he announced the special election:

      http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maddow-taunts-christie-over-special-election-theres-an-outbreak-of-chicken-in-the-governors-office/

      Delete
    3. But was she sweating?

      Delete
  9. Thanks for the translation, i wasn't sure exactly what he was writing about.

    I'm in NYC, that was big news and sleazy, but honestly it was just some hardball political strategy. It's nothing compared to political appointees shutting down a city four mornings in a row for the most petty political retribution. At the least, it shows Christie has poor judgement for appointing those buffoons.

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  10. For those of you who dismiss the cries of shame and call for troll banishment from Anonymous, I encourage you to follow Bob's first link back to his glorious post about the press ignoring Chritie's $12 million scam. There you will see what glory can be found in a troll free commentary thread where people are not afraid to participate because of ugly, slimy and embarrassing trolls. There are a dozen gems for you to peruse.

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    Replies
    1. What on earth are you talking about? Jesus, it's like Bob's prose poem writing is contagious.

      Delete
    2. Now I know you are being sarcastic, 10:23.

      This brilliant "troll free commentary thread" included four comments about Bob saying at the end that he "admired" Al Sharpton in the past including two repeated comments, two about Issa and the supposed IRS targeting Tea Party scam that blew up in the Issa's face, three advertising spams, once comment taking about Somerby's "New Hersey" typo, and one from David in Cal saying how a friend in New Jersey was saying what a scam this was.

      Meanwhile, Bob's assertion that the press went "ho-hum and continued on its merry way" wasn't true then and it isn't true now.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous @10:34 you are a vicious troll and should be banned. Respectable blogs do it all the time. This blogger allows terrorist language and thus embarasses me with my friends.

      Anonymous @10:40 I neither agree or disagree with your
      suggestion. I do compliment you on being as capable of counting comments as the blooger here is when reading the blogs of others.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete