CHRISTIE PRESIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT A PRELUDE TO JULY 4th FIREWORKS

By Louis Manzo / June 25, 2015

     In all likelihood, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will make known his intention to seek the GOP’s nomination for President of the United States in the days leading up to July 4^th.

     It would be optimum timing for such an announcement. Given the furious pace of candidates [13 as of this writing] who have made known their intentions to compete in the Republican field. The days preceding and over a holiday weekend are typically slow news cycles and it would give such an announcement a greater shot at grabbing and maintaining a presence in news headlines before, during, and after the holiday break.

     Such a timeline [as I had predicted during the course of numerous radio, TV, and web interviews the past year regarding my book, Ruthless Ambition], would fit Christie’s style of attempting to mimic his hero of convenience, Ronald Reagan. To borrow from former Democratic Vice-presidential nominee, Lloyd Bentsen: Trust me, Chris Christie is no Ronald Reagan! (more…)

CHRISTIE PUTS A TIGER IN HIS TANK

By Louis Manzo / March 13, 2015

    The latest Chris Christie caper centers on the Christie Administration’s just announced settlement agreement with ExxonMobil, amounting to $225M, for an environmental damages lawsuit initiated under the administration of former NJ Governor James McGreevey. The lawsuit went after the corporate giant for pollution damages resulting from their refinery operations in Union County and elsewhere in New Jersey. Anyone who has traveled the New Jersey Turnpike in the vicinity of Exit 13 and whiffed the putrid rotten egg smell there will catch the drift of the lawsuit right away.

    The original lawsuit brought by the State sought $8.9B for damages and another $2.6B in remediation costs. After years of legal battling, the State’s legal team won significant court victories establishing ExxonMobil’s guilt. The company was on the ropes. Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for the Christie Administration. Enter the Governor’s Chief Counsel, Christopher Porrino—a genuine legal eagle…with an apparent broken wing and dry beak—who inserted himself in the process and meddled with the successful legal team. (more…)

OREGON GOVERNOR LACKED THE RESUME OF A FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY: A TALE OF TWO GOVERNORS

By Louis Manzo / February 16, 2015

     This past week, serious New Jersey journalists and other media sleuths—at least those with an attention span greater than the mayfly’s lifecycle—may have been scratching their heads when the news broke that the just resigned Oregon Governor, John Kitzhaber, was under Federal investigation.

     Kitzhaber is in meltdown mode over a deepening influence-peddling scandal surrounding his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes. Allegedly, Hayes pocketed $118,000 in previously undisclosed consulting fees in 2011 and 2012 from the Washington-based Clean Economy Development Center while also advising the governor on energy policy. The consulting fees were never revealed in annual disclosure filings. Kitzhaber is insisting that there is no conflict of interest. The United States Attorney for the District of Oregon, S. Amanda Marshall, has subpoenaed extensive personal and government documents and is now investigating. (more…)

********BULLETIN********LATEST CHRISTIE SCANDAL UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION WAS FEATURED IN “RUTHLESS AMBITION”

By Louis Manzo / February 8, 2015

     This past week, word leaked out of yet another scandal now under federal investigation concerning the checkered past of NJ Governor Chris Christie—a contender for the 2016 GOP nomination for President. In the very first chapter of “Ruthless Ambition” [the chapter can be read for free on the Amazon website], I wrote about this very incident.

     The matter involves the dismissal of a distinguished Hunterdon County Prosecutor for failing to drop criminal charges against a Christie for Governor Campaign supporter. The passage from the book reads as follows:

   … Unbelievably, at this very same time, Lieutenant Governor Guadagno was at the center of another political and potentially criminal scandal still brewing, the news and facts for which were still evolving as word of the Hoboken scandal broke. A veteran prosecutor ousted by Governor Christie’s administration accused the Governor’s regime of corruption in court documents. Bennett A. Barlyn, a once Assistant Prosecutor in the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office, was working an ironclad criminal case against the Hunterdon County Sheriff and two of her deputies in 2010. (more…)

CHRIS CHRISTIE: HIS HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS …AND FEDERAL PROSECUTORS

By Louis Manzo / January 8, 2015

     Living up to his reputation for shameless arrogance—a staple of his public service career that is well documented in the book “Ruthless Ambition” —Governor Chris Christie has made a mess of things again, this time by accepting gifts from Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones.

     Christie caught the nation’s attention by appearing in the owner’s booth with Jones during several of the team’s late season games on their drive to the NFL’s Eastern Division Championship, and then, most recently, during the Cowboys’ playoff victory over the Detroit Lions. During the spontaneous celebration of the victory, Christie was awkwardly left hanging for a high five and resorted to a very uncomfortable and un-presidential hugging of Jerry Jones—picture a dog in heat clinging to your leg. The travel accommodations and game perks—including the cost of flying Christie on Jones’ private jet—were taken care of by the Dallas Cowboys’ owner, which might also help to explain Christie’s excessive celebration. (more…)

THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS & CHRISTMAS HORS d’OEUVRES: A POTPOURRI OF HOLIDAY TRIMMINGS

By Louis Manzo / December 8, 2014

Schumer Supports Blog’s Election Analysis

     The reaction to my pre-midterm election blog—in which I had accurately predicted the results of the November 4, 2014 elections—resulted in a wave of requests for media interviews. Some of the radio interviews elaborating on the analysis can be listened to on the internet—the links are posted in the “PRESS” tag of the “In the News” webpage of this website.

Some radio hosts were disturbed by my commentary. Please don’t kill the messenger. I’m a Democrat and I merely related to readers what other deep-rooted Dems from Hudson County had told me. [See “The Party Is Over: Dems Face a Drubbing at the Polls With Long-Lasting Consequences” blog.] Other Dem media supporters who read the blog were likewise upset by my accurate predictions and my independent analysis. (more…)

THE PARTY IS OVER: DEMS FACE A DRUBBING AT THE POLLS WITH LONG-LASTING CONSEQUENCES

By Louis Manzo / October 29, 2014

An astonishing seventy percent of American’s are dissatisfied with the direction the country is headed in.

According to insiders from both major political party persuasions, along with a smattering of recent national polling, indications are that the Democratic Party stands ready to have their heads handed to them at the polls next Tuesday [November 4, 2014.] The only question that remains is how far down the ballot the blood from this massacre will flow? Can those Democrats running on the party line in local elections be spared the animus of ticked-off voters who are fed up with a party that they feel has stepped much too far to the left, and perhaps off a cliff? (more…)

Jersey Journal/NJ.COM POLL: Public Agrees With Conclusions of Ruthless Ambition

By Louis Manzo October 13, 2014

In a recent poll of its readers [reported on October 3, 2014], the Jersey Journal and NJ.COM asked if the Bid Rig III Sting and arrests were politically motivated. The book   Ruthless Ambition: The Rise and Fall of Chris Christie presented overwhelming evidence and documentation to support the conclusion that they were. An astounding amount of those polled—87.5% [424 participants]—agreed with the same conclusions reached in the book: the prosecutions were politically motivated.

The newspaper and website poll was taken in conjunction with a news story covering the sentencing of Lavern Webb-Washington. She was the last of those charged in the sting to have her final day in court. Ron Zeitlinger, the deputy managing editor who reported on the poll, points out the contrast of how prosecutors managed the media for the day of the arrests compared to how they managed Webb-Washington’s sentencing. “No showy press conference with construction board filled with mug shots after LaVern Webb-Washington of Jersey City was sentenced to 18 months probation for misspending campaign cash,” noted Zeitlinger. (more…)

U. S. Attorney Spokesperson on Bridgegate: Ignore Leaks of Our Intentions to Clear Christie

By Louis Manzo September 24, 2014

Governor Chris Christie gave the appearance of a cat who swallowed a canary as he chastised and taunted members of the legislative committee investigating him last Thursday [September 18, 2014]. “They’ve been irresponsible,” Christie charged. “These are people who are addicted to MSNBC and the front pages of your newspapers,” he further declared to a gallery full of media.

The Governor’s remarks mysteriously coincided with the song of another canary, this one chirping inside the offices of federal prosecutors in New Jersey, which later in the day let the cat out of the bag regarding information about the United States Attorney’s Office’s [USAO] supposedly surreptitious investigation of Bridgegate and other matters. The news that Christie would not be charged in the probe might be considered a sort of in-kind contribution to the Governor’s stealth presidential campaign from prosecutors in his former office. (more…)

Now Drunk With Power, Texas D.A. Indicts Governor Rick Perry

By Louis Manzo, August 19, 2014

The specious indictment of Texas Governor Rick Perry last week should send shivers down the spines of all American’s. It accentuates the point trumpeted in Ruthless Ambition: The Rise and Fall of Chris Christie—prosecutors on all levels need legitimate oversight, and our current system of Justice, especially at the federal level, is out of control, remaining an endangerment to the liberty of all Americans. (more…)