Last Call For Bridge Trolls

Gov. Chris Christie, please pick up the white courtesy phone.  Your last shot at the White House 2016 is calling and may be a bit delayed in arrival.

The Port Authority official who oversaw the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge said he informed Gov. Chris Christie about it at a Sept. 11 memorial while the closings were occurring, according to the findings of an internal investigation released by lawyers for the governor on Thursday.

The official, David Wildstein, told Mr. Christie’s press secretary, Michael Drewniak, of the Sept. 11 conversation at a dinner in December just before his resignation from the Port Authority, according to the report.

The report said that Mr. Christie did not recall any such conversation, and it found no evidence that he was involved in the scheme, which snarled traffic for thousands of commuters in Fort Lee, N.J., from Sept. 9 through the morning of Sept. 12.

In other words, Christie is now dumping everything on his aides and playing dumb as his official position.  Oh and his own investigation says he's innocent.  Sure he is.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said today that former aides were "inexplicably stupid" when they allegedly shut down lanes of busy George Washington Bridge and flooded a New Jersey town with traffic.

The exclusive interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer was his first television interview since his January press conference on the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal.

"When things were first reported, I said: 'This can't possibly be true. Because who would do something like that?'" Christie told Sawyer. "Sometimes, people do inexplicably stupid things."

Good luck sticking with that story, Chris.  You're going to need it.

I'm Surprised It Took This Long

Tommy Christopher points out this ugly steamrolling of Chris Hayes by Koch Brothers goon Jennifer Stefano.  She's all smiles at the beginning, and Chris Hayes of course tries his earnest best to be above the fray as the topic is Obamacare.  Five minutes later, Hayes is visibly stunned by the amount of pure bullshit Stefano has spewed on his show and he's clearly not sure what to do about it.



By the end Stefano is all but calling Hayes a woman-hating criminal.  He's had Stefano on his show before, but he's shocked that Stefano is ripping into him personally.  I'm sure he saw her as a friend up until this point, because the whole purpose of Chris Hayes's show is to have a decent discussion on the topics of the day's news.

The poor naive little lamb.

News flash, Chris:  Conservatives from Americans for Prosperity are not there to be your friend.  They are there to kick you in the head and spout as many lies per minute as they can about President Obama and his policies.  They are there to do exactly what Stefano did to you, that is use you like a punching bag and pummel you on your own show.  They are daring you to devolve into a screaming match, because lord knows if your goal is to try to inform your viewers about the Affordable Care Act, her job is to stop you from doing that, and she did exactly that.

The lesson you're supposed to draw from this is that conservatives from think tanks are not your friends, Chris.  They are your tormentors.

Maybe you should stop inviting them on your show?

Meanwhile, In Ukraine...

Russian troops continue to mass on the border with Eastern Ukraine as there appears to be no diplomatic solution in sight to Crimea.

U.S. and European security agencies estimate Russia has deployed military and militia units totaling more than 30,000 people along its border with eastern Ukraine, according to U.S. and European sources familiar with official reporting.

The current estimates represent what officials on both sides of the Atlantic describe as a continuing influx of Russian forces along the Ukraine frontier, the sources said.

The 30,000 figure represents a significant increase from a figure of 20,000 Russian troops along the border that was widely reported in U.S. and European media last week.

But U.S. and European security sources noted that these estimates are imprecise. Some estimates put current troop levels as high as 35,000 while others still suggest a level of 25,000, the sources said.

That's not the bad part.  The bad part is we don't know what they are up to, thanks to that sudden NSA blind spot of ours that developed in the last month or so.

U.S. officials said that what Russian President Vladimir Putin actually plans to do with his forces deployed on the Ukraine border is unknown. Some officials say intelligence information available to policymakers regarding what Putin is thinking, and what he is saying to his advisors and military commanders, is fragmentary to non-existent.

But the portents are potentially ominous. "No one's ruling out the possibility of additional Russian military aggression," one U.S. official said.

Crimea is one thing, but Eastern Ukraine is another.  Putin is playing with fire, and we're lacking the intel resources to see where he's going with this insanity.  An actual shooting war in Ukraine is not going to be good for anyone on Earth.

StupidiNews!

• In a major ruling the National Labor Relation Board has ruled that Northwestern University's football players are employees and can choose to form a union.
• Two Boston firefighters were killed and 17 people were injured in a nine-alarm apartment building fire in the Back Bay neighborhood.
• Bank of America will pay $9.3 billion to settle mortgage bond issues stemming from the financial crisis of 2008.
• Ukraine is on the verge of finalizing a deal with the International Monetary Fund for $15-$20 billion in aid loans.
• Sen. Joe Manchin is backing off his former stance to create legislation to ban Bitcoin as criticism of the plan has been harsh from both Silicon Valley and the IRS.