Holy Sh%$!

The FBI just raided Michael Cohen's office.

Michael Cohen is Donald Trump's long time consiglieri lawyer, and the fact that they have raided his office, and seized his files, including his communications with clients.

As a non-lawyer, I know that this is a huge deal, because, among other things, it means that Cohen is believed to have actively broken the law, typically by something like actively facilitating fraud, not merely having advised a criminal.

I'll summarize the comments of a lawyer Ken White:

• This warrant was secured by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the most prominent US Attorney's office in the nation outside of Washington, DC.
• They thought that they had enough evidence to apply for a warrant searching what is normally privileged communications.
• Getting a warrant to raid a lawyer's office involves MANY hoops to jump through.
• The court thought that the evidence was convincing enough to grant the warrant.

I am inclined to believe that this is about some sort of fraud, and not any sort of spy-craft involving the FSB or the GRU, particularly since Mueller has already used the "crime-fraud exception" to get some communications with Manafort's attorney.

This is a big f%$#ing deal.

Sauce for the Gander, I Guess

At Least, There is Symmetry

It turns out that we may have another dress figuring in a Presidential sex scandal:

I honestly thought Stormy Daniels' friend Alana Evans was just trolling CNN with this, but maybe there's something to it.

During a much longer interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto, Stormy's friend Alana Evans told him she was unaware of any texts, pictures or video but there was one thing. One little thing.

"All I know is that Stormy still has the dress that she wore rom that night," Evans told Sciutto.

Nonplussed, he asked, "And she kept that for what reason?"

As if everyone's mind didn't go to Monica Lewinsky's little blue dress. Please.

Of course, the Republicans are not going to do anything if this whole mess pans out, even if Trump were to, "Put half a dozen children on a spit and toast them at the flame that comes out of his mouth," as playwright Christopher Fry so colo(u)rfully put it many years ago, the Republican base would continue to support him.

Still, watching him squirm on a matter which won't have the effect of f%$#ing up the world for the next few decades amuses me.

People Are Saying That This Will Be the End of Facebook ………

The whole issue with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook is a big deal, and it appears that at the privacy violations that ensued were a deliberate artifact of Facebook's business model.

That this business model has been completely contemptuous of user privacy has been clear since Mark Zuckerberg was at Harvard.

While the consequences could be severe, literally involving penalties exceeding a trillion (yes, that is a "t") dollars in accordance with a consent degree that was agreed to a few years back, the chance of meaningful penalties, or meaningful legislation is near zero.

Given the hostility of the Republican Party to regulation and consumer protections, and the Neoliberal Obama/Clinton wing of the party is so enamored of internet firms as to take any promises from tech executives at face value, meaningful government action is as likely as Jeff Sessions joining Black Lives Matter.

I expect a small fine and some theatrics at Congressional hearings, but not much else.

Tweet of the Day

At least Trump finally paid one of his subcontractors. https://t.co/9cOmK0spZd

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) January 12, 2018

Report: Louisiana porn star Stormy Daniels paid $130K by Trump attorney in exchange for silence. https://t.co/MCLfwapC6I pic.twitter.com/0AjQWK0pR9

— New Orleans Advocate (@theadvocateno) January 12, 2018

This is a Pulitzer level of snark.

I See Nothing!

There is now A nude photograph of Congressman Joe Barton (R-Exxon) somewhere out on Twitter.

I really want to stop living in Bizarro World:

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, released a statement on Wednesday apologizing for a graphic nude photo of him that circulated on social media earlier this week.

"While separated from my second wife, prior to the divorce, I had sexual relationships with other mature adult women," he said. "Each was consensual. Those relationships have ended. I am sorry I did not use better judgment during those days. I am sorry that I let my constituents down."

It is still unclear how the photo got onto social media, who put it there, or whether its posting would constitute revenge porn, which is illegal under Texas law.

Barton, who announced his re-election bid earlier this month, is navigating in a political environment charged with emerging stories of sexual misbehavior in politics, in business and in the media. The photo, which appeared on an anonymous Twitter account, set off speculation within Texas GOP circles about his political future.

Seriously.  Don't.  Just don't.  Ever.

Now John Conyers

More allegations of sexual harassment, this time John Conyers (D-MI), and the allegations are pretty f%$#ing awful:

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”

Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sex acts, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.

Conyers confirmed he made the settlement in a statement Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was published, but said that he "vehemently denied" the claims of sexual harassment at the time and continues to do so.

This is seriously f%$#ed up.

Say It Ain't So, Al

Senator Al Franken has been accused of sexual harassment during a USO tour in 2006:

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) faced swift condemnation and bipartisan calls for an ethics investigation on Thursday after a Los Angeles radio broadcaster accused him of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2006.

Franken first issued a brief apology, saying his actions were intended to be funny and that he didn’t recall the incident the way Leeann Tweeden did. He later issued a longer apology: “There’s no excuse,” he said in a subsequent statement, adding that he would “gladly cooperate” with an ethics investigation.

That looks likely to happen. At least half a dozen Senate Democrats urged their chamber’s six-member, bipartisan ethics committee to investigate the allegations. Franken could face censureship or even expulsion from the Senate.

Copy editing note here, it's, "censure," not "censureship," you illiterate Saracen pig.

This sucks like 1000 Hoovers all going at once.

Pass the Popcorn

It appears that Robert Mueller has filed his first criminal charges in his investigation:

The first charges have been issued in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and possible collusion by members of the Trump campaign and arrests could be imminent, according to several reports.

CNN, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported that a grand jury has approved charges filed by investigators led by special counsel Robert Mueller against at least one person, and the indictment has been sealed by a federal judge, pending arrest. There was no information of the nature of the charges or their target. The reports suggested one or more arrests could take place as early as Monday.

That would take the broad investigation into Russia’s role in the election, which has hung over Donald Trump’s presidency since it began, to a new level, raising questions over how the White House and its allies would respond. Trump and his supporters have disparaged Mueller and tried to portray him as a sympathiser of Hillary Clinton and James Comey, the FBI chief fired by Trump.

My I've searched, and found nothing definitive on who will actually be on Muller's hit parade.

My money would be on it be either Paul Manafort or Roger Stone, but we should find out in the next couple of days

Oh, Snap

Remember the infamous "Trump Dossier", which alleged that Trump paid prostitutes in Moscow to pee on a bed used by Barack Obama a few years before?

It turns out that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the report.

So, it was opposition research, which isn't a big deal. This is what political campaigns, and party committees do.

Obviously, the source of the funding will influence what sort of direction that Fusion GPS gave to former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the author of the report, which would influence where he looked, and also the level of confirmation of any stories that he might come across.

Of course, the current leadership of the DNC has disavowed what the earlier leadership of the DNC did, but many in the Democratic party establishment, most notably the execrable Joy Reid, are saying that the source does not matter.

Apparently, the logic of the previous paragraph does not apply to the DNC email leaks, which have actually been confirmed as true, because ……… Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I guess.

I is confoozled.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Something odd is going on in New York.

For reasons that are not clear to me, people are starting to go after Governor Andrew Cuomo, and I have no clue as to why.

Case in point, the CEO of the Western New York Fair just revealed that a Cuomo staffer attempted to delay cleanup at the fair after a tornado, because Cuomo wanted a telegenic platform for Cuomo to give a speech:

Call it a collision of politics and good old Western New York can-do attitude.

The cleanup after the tornado that struck the Erie County Fairgrounds was well under way Thursday afternoon when an aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo asked that the cleanup be delayed -- until after the governor arrived, fair CEO Dennis Lang said.

"I said, 'You're kidding, right?'"

Lang said he told a Cuomo aide who asked him to keep debris in the area where the press conference would be held. "I just turned around and walked away."

Lang said he did not know the name of the man who asked for a delay.

"After the ceremonial service was over, I haven't seen any of them, nor do I expect to see any tomorrow and the day after tomorrow," Lang said of state officials and National Guard, who were at the governor's news conference.

Cuomo's office denied it requested the cleanup be delayed.

This sort of request is actually not that uncommon, but it is notable that someone is calling out the Cuomo administration about this.

We're also seeing the finger on the New York City Subway problems being pointed at him. (IMNSHO correctly) 

It's long overdue, but I am unclear as to why it is happening now.

If anyone among my reader(s) has some analysis, please contact me.

OK, This is Now Officially a Legitimate Sh%$ Storm

TheNew York Post states the obvious.^*

OK, so now we know that in June of last year, Donald Trump, Jr., aka "Fredo", was setting up a meeting with a Russian lawyer at the request of a publicist for a Russian to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. (Yes, this is profoundly weird and f%$#ed up)

This is now a big deal, not because this was necessarily a crime, I find the claims of a violation of Section 30121 of Title 52 to be a stretch in the world of Citizens United, but because we now have evidence of a conspiracy and a coverup.

It was a conspiracy to obstruct justice that took down Richard Nixon, after all.

I don't think that this is the most impeachable thing that Trump has done (that will be a later post), but this has a potential to hamstring the Trump administration, particularly if the Democrats take back the House and Senate in 2018.

The underlying crime here is still a violation of campaign finance law, not espionage, not treason^† or some similar heinous crimes.

From a political perspective, I do not think that this is a good thing for the Democratic Party.

This provides yet another opportunity for the Dems to miss the opportunity to reform, and ditch the incompetent and clueless deadwood that populate the party's professional consultant class.

As opposed to a movement toward some sort of ideological coherence, the national Democratic Party will remain in, "A noun, a verb, and Vladimir Putin," mode, which I do not believe will resonate with voters.

If hostility toward Russia were a political winner nationwide, Hillary Clinton would be President now.

My guess is that right now, Republicans will slow walk any investigation, saying that they need to wait for Special Prosecutor Muller's report.

I expect months of overwrought press coverage over this, because this is a classic example of catnip for reporters.

^*I cannot f%$#ing believe that I am f%$#ing citing the f%$#ing New York f%$#ing Post.
^†It was never treason. Treason is specifically defined in the US Constitution because of at least a millennia of abuse in Europe, and this does not meet that very specific definition.^‡
‡That being said, Nixon's sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968, and Reagan and Poppy Bush's deal with Iran to keep the hostages held in Iran in 1980 might meet the statutory requirements of Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution.

Pass the Popcorn

An "Alt-Right activist is threatening to out embarrassing details of leading Republicans personal lives if Steve Bannon gets canned:

A week after President Donald Trump began to publicly distance himself from White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, alt-right ringleader Mike Cernovich threatened to release a “motherlode” of stories that could “destroy marriages” if Bannon is formally let go from the administration.

Cernovich made the claims that he’d release a series of “scoops” if Bannon is officially pushed out of the White House on an eleven-minute, self-recorded Periscope Thursday night.

What would be uncovered?

“If they get rid of Bannon, you know what’s gonna happen? The motherlode. If Bannon is removed, there are gonna be divorces, because I know about the mistresses, the sugar babies, the drugs, the pill popping, the orgies. I know everything,” said Cernovich.

“If they go after Bannon, the mother of all stories is gonna drop, and we’re just gonna destroy marriages, relationships—it’s gonna get personal.”I so hope that there is an actual dossier, and that it sees the light of day.

I am so looking forward to a blowup.

Remember When I Said That Hillary's Secrecy Backfired?

Now the Wikileaks email releases detailing Hillary Clinton's speeches to the Wall Street banks have pissed off Bernie Sanders something fierce.

This was foreseeable, and it was a direct result of her unwillingness to get ahead of the story and release the transcripts over the last 2½ months.

I know that politicians are not inclined to admit failure and move on, but the cover-up is always worse than the original mistake:

Supporters of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday expressed anger and vindication over leaked comments made by Hillary Clinton to banks and big business that appeared to confirm their fears about her support for global trade and tendency to cozy up to Wall Street.

Clinton, who needs Sanders' coalition of young and left-leaning voters to propel her to the presidency, pushes for open trade and open borders in one of the speeches, and takes a conciliatory approach to Wall Street, both positions she later backed away from in an effort to capture the popular appeal of Sanders' attacks on trade deals and powerful banks.

The excerpts of remarks by the former secretary of state, made in 2013 and 2014 in closed-door meetings where audiences paid to attend, were published online on Friday by WikiLeaks, which sourced them to the email account of John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman.

………

"This is a very clear illustration of why there is a fundamental lack of trust from progressives for Hillary Clinton,” said Tobita Chow, chair of the People's Lobby in Chicago, which endorsed Sanders in the primary election.

………

“That is a big concern and this certainly doesn’t help,” said Larry Cohen, chair of the board of Our Revolution, a progressive organization formed in the wake of Sanders’ bid for the presidency, which aims to keep pushing the former candidate's ideas at a grassroots level. "It matters in terms of turnout, energy, volunteering, all those things."

Anyone with two brain cells, and a knowledge of the relationship between Wall Street and the Clintons (Bob Rubin anyone?) knew that this was the case, but Hillary Clinton has handled this in the absolutely worst possible way, and this is not the first time.

The past is prelude, and this does not bode well for a future Clinton administration.

She Should Have Released the Transcripts in July

It appears that someone hacked some of Clinton's emails, and included in these documents were excerpts of her obscenely remunerated speeches to Wall Street:

In lucrative paid speeches that Hillary Clinton delivered to elite financial firms but refused to disclose to the public, she displayed an easy comfort with titans of business, embraced unfettered international trade and praised a budget-balancing plan that would have required cuts to Social Security, according to documents posted online Friday by WikiLeaks.

The tone and language of the excerpts clash with the fiery liberal approach she used later in her bitter primary battle with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and could have undermined her candidacy had they become public.

Mrs. Clinton comes across less as a firebrand than as a technocrat at home with her powerful audience, willing to be critical of large financial institutions but more inclined to view them as partners in restoring the country’s economic health.

In the excerpts from her paid speeches to financial institutions and corporate audiences, Mrs. Clinton said she dreamed of “open trade and open borders” throughout the Western Hemisphere. Citing the back-room deal-making and arm-twisting used by Abraham Lincoln, she mused on the necessity of having “both a public and a private position” on politically contentious issues. Reflecting in 2014 on the rage against political and economic elites that swept the country after the 2008 financial crash, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that her family’s rising wealth had made her “kind of far removed” from the struggles of the middle class.

The passages were contained in an internal review of Mrs. Clinton’s paid speeches undertaken by her campaign, which was identifying potential land mines should the speeches become public. They offer a glimpse at one of the most sought-after troves of information in the 2016 presidential race — and an explanation, perhaps, for why Mrs. Clinton has steadfastly refused demands by Mr. Sanders and Donald J. Trump, her Republican rival, to release them.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign would not confirm the authenticity of the documents. They were released on Friday night by WikiLeaks, the hacker collective founded by the activist Julian Assange, saying that they had come from the email account of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman.

………

But Clinton officials did not deny that the email containing the excerpts was real.

The leaked email, dated Jan. 25, does not contain Mrs. Clinton’s full speeches to the financial firms, leaving it unclear what her overall message was to these audiences.

But in the excerpts, Ms. Clinton demonstrates her long and warm ties to some of Wall Street’s most powerful figures. In a discussion in the fall of 2013 with Lloyd Blankfein, a friend who is the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Mrs. Clinton said that the political climate had made it overly difficult for wealthy people to serve in government.

“There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives,” Mrs. Clinton said. The pressure on officials to sell or divest assets in order to serve, she added, had become “very onerous and unnecessary.”

We know the content of Hillary's speeches to Wall Street.

We know her history, we know her associates, we know what sort of support she has received from Wall Street, and we know that if she had actually talked tough to Wall Street, she would have released the speech transcripts at the beginning of the campaign, so the general shape of the contents of her speeches are known.

The contents are not a surprise, and so are not a hugely significant bit of news.

What is significant is that Clinton has had more than 2 months since the end of Democratic National Convention to release the contents on her own terms in a way that would minimize the impact on the campaign.

That she chose to continue sitting on this information IS significant though, because this sort of behavior amplifies the damage caused by the inevitable missteps that are an inevitable part of being a public figure.

While the recent Trump revelations might mitigate the impact of this particular incident, or any further outbreaks during the campaign, the furtive paranoia that characterizes Clinton's public life might very well prove disastrous as President.

As Richard Nixon proved, "It ain't the crime, it's the cover-up."

Be Still My Beating Heart

Testimony in the Bridgegate trial implicates Andrew Cuomo in the coverup of the political retaliation by the Christie administration:

A onetime top ally of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the governor and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo discussed releasing a false report to tamp down questions over the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal, the prosecution's key witness testified Tuesday.

David Wildstein, who pleaded guilty in the gridlock scheme and is cooperating with prosecutors, said former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Chairman David Samson told him the governors discussed the idea in October 2013. The report would have attributed the lane closures to a traffic study, covering up the true reason for the closures: political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee for failing to endorse Christie's 2013 re-election, Wildstein testified.

………
 

Baroni, who served as Christie's top appointed staff aide at the Port Authority, and Bridget Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, are on trial facing wire fraud and civil rights charges. They have pleaded not guilty.

………
 

"My understanding was that (Republican) Gov. Christie and (Democratic) Gov. Cuomo had discussed this," Wildstein said under cross-examination Tuesday, according to the Bergen Record, adding he was told the information by Samson. "My understanding at the time was that it would put an end to this issue."

Wildstein also testified Tuesday that Port Authority executive director Patrick Foye, a Cuomo appointee, was to "sign off" on the false report. Through an attorney, Foye declined to comment.

I so hope that this is true, and that additional supporting information could be down.


If Bridgegate were to take down that sh%$heel Cuomo as well as Christie, it would be delicious.

Quote of the Day

Man, to hell with this story. Even schadenfreude has some limits.

—Charlie Pierce, responding to allegations that Ted Cruz engaged in marital infidelity

I agree.  I want no part of any discussion that juxtaposes Ted Cruz and sex.

**shudder**

Hunter S. Thompson was a Prophet

In The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time, Hunter S. Thompson relates the following tale:

This is one of the oldest and most effective tricks in politics. Every hack in the business has used it in times of trouble, and it has even been elevated to the level of political mythology in a story about one of Lyndon Johnson’s early campaigns in Texas. The race was close and Johnson was getting worried. Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his own barnyard sows.

“Christ, we can’t get a way calling him a pig-f%$#er,” the campaign manager protested. “Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that.”

“I know,” Johnson replied. “But let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.”

Well, right now, the UK is transfixed by the tale of PM David Cameron and Piggate:

Late last night, the Daily Mail published an astounding excerpt of an unauthorized biography of UK Prime Minister David Cameron, alleging that he placed a “private part” of his body into the mouth of a dead pig’s head while at Oxford University.
He put his nob in a pig’s mouth. Popped his todger into the poor swine’s gob.
It’s crucial when dealing with such an important and weighty story to have all the facts, so please let this Brit guide you through the revolting tale of prime ministerial pig porkery.

It is claimed that there are pictures, but this could be a, "Make the sonofabitch deny it," moment.

In either case, this is a profoundly weird moment in politics.

We Already Knew that Hastert was Corrupt

I am not referring to Sibel Edmonds allegations that he took bribes from the Turks to quash Armenian Genocide legislation.

What you will notice in passing is that Hasterd made his money in real estate investments by earmarking money for a massive highway project that ran past his real estate investments, which jacked up the price of the land. (Prior Link)

Now though, we have allegations that Denny Hastert tried to evade the money laundering statutes and then lied to the FBI:

J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct.”

Hastert, who has been a high-paid lobbyist in Washington since his 2007 retirement from Congress, schemed to mask more than $950,000 in withdrawals from various ac­counts in violation of federal banking laws that require the disclosure of large cash transactions, according to a seven-page indictment delivered by a grand jury in Chicago.

The indictment did not spell out the exact nature of the “prior misconduct” by Hastert, but it noted that before entering state and federal politics in 1981, Has­tert served for more than a decade as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Illinois.

In 2010, confronted about the “prior misconduct,” the former speaker agreed to pay $3.5 million to the person “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A,” prosecutors alleged.

That person, whose identity was shielded by prosecutors, has known Hastert most of his or her life, growing up in Yorkville, the city next to Hastert’s home town of Plano, in the exurbs west of Chicago. Prosecutors said the actions “occurred years earlier” than the 2010 meeting that sparked the payments.

The investigation began in 2013, by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service, which cited “possible structuring of currency transactions to avoid the reporting requirements.”

First thing to be noted here, if law enforcement (particularly the FBI) wants to have an innocuous discussion with here, tell them no.

• They know what they are looking for, and you don't.
• They have a legal right to lie to you.
• Even the most innocuous misstatement can be characterized by law enforcement and prosecutors as a felony.
• If they can show inaccuracies in your statements, even honest ones, they can use this to impeach later testimony.

Politely let them know that you are asserting your constitutional rights, and will not talk without a lawyer.

It is important to specifically mention your constitutional rights.  Recent courses by the perfidious Roberts Court have allowed a person's silence against them in court unless they specifically invoke the 5^th amendment.

The second thing to be noted is that the prosecutors are being remarkably circuitous about the nature of  Hastert's "Prior misconduct" against "Individual A."

I'm not sure whether the prosecutor is giving Hastert a pass because he was House Speaker, or if the US Attorney will use that as a lever to get a guilty plea

The indictment provides some tantalizing clues though:

• Hastert and this person have known each other for most of Individual A's life, which implies that they are significantly younger than Hastert.
• Individual is a resident of Yorkville, Illinois.
• Before politics, Hastert was a teacher and coach at a school in Yorkville.

My guess is that he sexually abused a student when he was a teacher, but it's just a guess, based on the amount of the blackmail and the above facts.

The interesting thing here is that it is likely, though not certain (Republicans are a perverted bunch), that whatever you and I imagine is far worse than the reality of the situation.

In any case, it's nice to see Tom Delay's sock puppet going down.

OK, Now We Have a Smoking Gun

Bill Stepien, Chris Christie's former campaign manager has now officially stated that the Governor knew what were going on as it happened:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) told the press that no one on his senior staff had prior knowledge of the plan to close access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in September. But a lawyer representing Christie's former campaign manager Bill Stepien now says that was wrong.

The claim was included in a letter sent in early April -- and made public Wednesday -- by attorney Kevin Marino. The letter was sent to Randy Mastro, the high-priced defense attorney who led the governor's internal review of the scandal.

The letter demanded corrections to a report produced by Mastro and his team, which cleared Christie of any role in the scandal. Among Marino's demands: that Mastro retract the portion of the report claiming that Stepien had falsely assured Christie that he had no "prior knowledge of the [GWB] lane realignment."

"[T]he Report itself acknowledges -- albeit obliquely -- that Mr. Stepien advised Governor Christie on December 12, 2013, that he (Mr. Stepien) did have prior knowledge of the lane realignment," Marino wrote, later adding: "When the Governor asked Mr. Stepien directly whether he had prior knowledge of the lane closures, Mr. Stepien truthfully told the Governor that [former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive] David Wildstein had come to him with the idea, to which Mr. Stepien responded that Mr. Wildstein would have to run the idea by normal channels in Trenton (i.e. the Governor's Office)."

So I guess that it is going to be a Jeb Bush/Hillary Clinton race in 2016. **shudder**

Make it Stop!!!!

Crap. Monica Lewinsky is back, and Dick Cheney's wife is suggesting that it's some sort of Clinton plot.

Kill me.

Just kill me.