Posts

NJ Mayor: Christie Withheld Sandy Funds as Political Payback

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The mayor of Hoboken, N.J., is accusing Gov. Chris Christie’s administration of withholding Superstorm Sandy relief money from her city after she refused to approve a redevelopment project he favored.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer, appearing Saturday on MSNBC’s “Up With Steve Kornacki,” said Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, Christie’s community affairs commissioner, delivered messages from the governor early last year to warn her that the relief money would be blocked if the project wasn’t approved.

Zimmer, a Democrat who has been supportive of Republican Christie, did not approve the project.

And when she requested $127 million in hurricane relief to help in Hoboken’s rebuilding efforts in the wake of Sandy, which left the city 80 percent under water in October 2012, the city got a mere $142,000 to cover a backup generator and $200,000 in recovery grants.

“The bottom line is, it’s not fair for the governor to hold Sandy funds hostage for the city of Hoboken because he wants me to give back to one private developer,” Zimmer said Saturday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Investigate Christie’s Use of Sandy Relief Funds (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Just days after dismissing two top advisers for their roles in the George Washington Bridge scandal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faced questions over the use of Superstorm Sandy relief funds.

CNN has learned that federal officials are investigating whether Christie improperly used some of that money to produce tourism ads that starred him and his family.

The news couldn’t come at a worse time for the embattled Republican, who is facing two probes in New Jersey of whether his staff orchestrated traffic gridlock near the country’s busiest bridge to punish a Democratic mayor who refused to endorse his re-election.

If the Sandy inquiry by a watchdog finds any wrongdoing, it could prove even more damaging to Christie’s national ambitions. He’s considered a possible presidential candidate in 2016.

Read more from this story HERE.

_______________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Media slam Christie, but ignore Obama

By Bob Unruh.

Forget the fact that the Obamacare Spanish-language website apparently was written in “Spanglish,” or that the Oregon state site is, ahem, not quite operational.

And you can overlook the issue that the IRS, revealed to have been targeting conservative organizations, has proposed rules to make that the regular practice. And Fast & Furious, and Benghazi, and NSA spying, and Solyndra, and on, and on.

What appears to be important is that a Republican is involved in a scandal. No. Two scandals!

The Media Research Center reported late last week just after the news broke that aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a presumptive front-runner for the 2016 GOP nomination for president, apparently were involved in a traffic scandal, there had been 17 times more coverage on that issue than in the last half year over the IRS misbehavior.

The organization reported that the story broke Wednesday and accused the governor’s aides of punishing a mayor with a huge traffic jam after he refused to endorse Christie.

Read more from this story HERE.

Union Bosses Threaten Hurricane Sandy Cleanup Contractors, Their Families

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Unionized local employees repeatedly harassed and intimidated non-union workers of a private disaster cleanup firm that won a government contract to restore Long Island, New York, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

The vice president of the union even made threats against the wife and kids of one of the workers. That worker felt it necessary to call the police and pursue other security measures to protect his family, a source told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

After Hurricane Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey shoreline in late October, Looks Great Services (LGS) won a bid to haul away debris, clear roads and remove damaged trees. New York’s Nassau County hired the company to complete $70 million worth of repairs.

Soon thereafter, representatives of Local 138, a union representing heavy equipment operators, began visiting construction sites, demanding that the company hire unionized employees to help with the job.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Revolt Against FEMA: Sandy Victims Criticize FEMA Flood Maps, Slow Progress

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Some New Jersey hurricane victims are complaining that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is doing more harm than Superstorm Sandy did when it hit over four months ago and washed away their homes and businesses.

“FEMA has caused more damage to the shore than Sandy did,” said George Kasimos, a flood victim from Toms River, N.J.

He is the founder of the growing grassroots group, Stop FEMA Now. The group feels FEMA is responsible for suffering and uncertainty for many Sandy victims who cannot start to rebuild.

FEMA issued Advisory Base Flood Elevation Maps as a provision of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, which was signed by President Barack Obama last July. That act expands flood zones, doubles flood insurance premiums, and requires those in certain flood zones to elevate their homes.

Stop FEMA Now is calling on Congress to revise the Biggert-Waters Act and curb FEMA’s power. “We need answers,” Kasimos said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sandy Aid Shows, Irish Sit In The Back Of The Democrat Party Bus

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Irish CentralPresident Obama cobbled together a new coalition of special interests that he was able to win a 2nd term with. Minorities, single women, gays, union members, government employees, etc., helped put him over the top.

The Irish American coalition used to have great sway in the Democrat party. But some high profile Irish Americans weren’t even invited to a traditional St Patricks special event dinner in Obamas 1st term.

If Irish Americans had clout in the Democrat Party, the Sandy devastation in the Rockaway’s would have been dealt with swiftly and surely.

Democrat luminaries were falling all over themselves for photo ops right after the storm. Wearing hard hats and making promises to the cameras, they scored big in the PR dept.

But today, months after the storm, many residents still have no homes to move into and no power for their homes, if they still have one standing.

These neighborhoods are slowly being relegated to back page status in the media and when that happens, it is as if the problem isn’t there anymore. But it is there.

Federal aid has been slow. Democrats blame the Republicans for holding up an appropriations bill. But Republicans say the reason for the delay is that the bill put forth by Harry Reid and the Democrats, was loaded with billions in pork that had nothing to do with Sandy relief.

If Democrats were serious about protecting and aiding their constituency, they wouldn’t have played political games. Evidently they felt, after the media storm died down, they could relegate Sandy to politics and special interests without fear of media or political blowback.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the din from the media was ear splitting. News teams were on the ground at all times. The damaged city was kept front and center throughout the entire Bush term, as billions upon billions were poured on the city and its residents.

But this disaster in New York is different. The leader in the White house is a Democrat and so are most of those officeholders in this damaged area.

President Bush was blamed incessantly for acting slowly to respond to the disaster that hurricane Katrina caused. But the truth was ineptness by Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, both Democrats that caused the lack of preparedness and response to Katrina.

Mayor Nagins “chocolate city” as he referred to it, was showered with billions in federal tax dollars to show the media and the rest of America we cared.

The media microscope was kept focused on New Orleans recovery efforts and any delay in aid was headline news. Charges of racism were raised by civil rights leaders for any perceived lack of aid, real or imagined.

As a side note Mayor Nagin is facing criminal corruption charges for misappropriating federal funds destined for the repair of his city. Did you read that in the headline news?

But President Obama & Democrat leaders are held to a different standard. New York’s Rockaway’s are still a disaster area and federal feet are dragging. The quiet desperation of American citizens needing aid from their government is being ignored in the media.

Democrat Irish Americans should take note of the shabby treatment they are getting from the very politicians they help put in office. Notice what it is like to be relegated to old news by the lap dog media.

Read more from this story HERE.

NYPD: Metal Thieves Plundering Areas Hardest Hit By Hurricane Sandy (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

NEW YORK— Those who live in the Breezy Point section of Queens are picking through their burned out homes one more time, before the city takes a major step in the area’s recovery.

Mari Ellen Mack was moved to tears Friday after finding her late father’s framed NYPD badge in what’s left of her home.

“To think of my father right now, now that’s upsetting, but it’s crazy at the same time. It’s still intact,” Mack told CBS 2’s Wendy Gillette.

She said she’s trying to find anything she can before next week.

The city will bulldoze what’s left of the homes that burned after the New Year. That’s why Mack went to the home again to see if she could find any mementos.

Read more from this story HERE.

FEMA Teams Told to ‘Sightsee’ as Sandy Victims Suffered

/5 Comments/in , /by

Hurry up and wait.

That’s what first responders were left to do after being deployed by FEMA to assist in the storm-ravaged areas in the initial days after superstorm Sandy, FoxNews.com has learned. A FEMA worker who spoke to FoxNews.com described a chaotic scene at New Jersey’s Fort Dix, where emergency workers arrived as the storm bore down on the Atlantic Coast. The worker said officials at the staging area were unprepared and told the incoming responders there was nothing for them to do for nearly four days.

“They told us to hurry, hurry, hurry,” the worker, who works at the agency’s headquarters in Washington and volunteered to deploy for the storm recovery effort. “We rushed to Fort Dix, only to find out that our liaison didn’t even know we were coming.”

“The regional coordinator even said to us, ‘I don’t know why you were rushed here because we don’t need you,’” said the worker, who spoke out of frustration with the lack of planning and coordination following the devastating storm.

‘I worked in Katrina and Katrina was run better than Sandy.’

Read more from this story HERE.

While New Jersey Residents Suffer, Governor Christie Goes on Saturday Night Live

/2 Comments/in , /by

Tens of thousands of New Jersey residents are without power. Many have lost homes and everything else that they have. Some don’t have enough to eat and others are struggling to stay warm.

This is not the time for a responsible leader to go do his self-promoting shtick on Saturday Night Live. But Christie seems so tone deaf that he puts his self-promotion ahead of anything else.

Yes Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live a few weeks after September 11, but that wasn’t a series of gags, it was a serious tribute to those who died in the attacks. It had very little in common with Christie showing off the same routine that he does every time he’s in the vicinity of a video camera. And at a time when New Jersey residents still need help, why is their Governor spending time on a comedy show cracking jokes about what people have been going through?

We’ve got people from Louisiana and North Carolina coming in to help New Jersey, while Christie hops from one photo op to another. Sandy, like everything else, has turned out to be all about the monumental ego of a big man who wants to be an even bigger man.

Read more from this story HERE.

Former Gov. Barbour/RNC Chair: Hurricane Sandy Broke Romney’s Momentum

/0 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: Leading AuthoritiesFormer Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) said Sunday that Hurricane Sandy stopped Mitt Romney’s momentum in the presidential race after the candidates temporarily left the trail and the media focused on the superstorm.

“The hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum,” Barbour said on CNN’s “State of the Union.

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” he added. “Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficit and debt, ‘ObamaCare’ and energy, is a good day for Barack Obama.”

Other Republican lawmakers and pundits were less forceful in their assessments of Sandy’s impact on the presidential race, but several said it likely would have some impact.

President Obama has received a favorable reception from the public for his response to Sandy. Obama also received high praise from Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), a prominent Romney surrogate, for his handling of the storm, and the two toured the New Jersey coastline together on Wednesday.

Read more from this story HERE.