Judge won’t let ex-Christie aides out of GWB trial

Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni lose attempt to have ‘bridgegate’ case charges dismissed 

A federal judge has rejected arguments made by two former allies of Governor Christie seeking dismissal of charges related to their alleged roles in the politically-motivated closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.

An in-depth look at the scandal over the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and related aftershocks. Click here to launch.

Paul Berger reports in The Record:

Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, and his former top executive appointee at the Port Authority, Bill Baroni, were indicted last year on charges of conspiracy, fraud and civil rights violations related to the bridge lane closures.

The pair were accused of creating massive traffic jams in Fort Lee over four mornings in September 2013 to punish the town’s mayor for not endorsing the Governor’s re-election.


Their attorneys claimed that prosecutors twisted and stretched federal laws to build a high-profile case. They said that the pair could not have known that their actions would ever be construed as illegal.

In a ruling published Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton dismissed the defendants’ claims.

“If true, the facts do not allege a mistake or a misunderstanding of policies or rules,” Wigenton wrote, “but rather an intentional desire to subvert existing policies and/or practices in order to achieve an improper end.”

Wigenton also dismissed claims made by Baroni’s attorney that Baroni’s testimony before a state legislative committee was improperly used by prosecutors.

“Because Baroni was not under oath when he appeared before the Committee, his testimony is not immunized,” Wigenton wrote.

The trial is due to begin in Newark on Sept. 12.

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Enviros rally in Harrisburg today for clean energy

The following story was provided by Public News Service 


Hundreds traveled to Harrisburg today to rally for clean energy and climate action. 

Calling themselves Clean Power PA, the broad coalition of environmental advocates, health professionals, business interests and concerned citizens came from across the Commonwealth.

Adam Garber, field director for PennEnvironment, says members of the General Assembly are out of step with their constituents.

“While they’re attacking everything from the Clean Power Plan to new protections from fracking, citizens are coming to demand their legislators do something positive to reduce the climate pollution that’s driving extreme weather and asthma attacks in our communities,” says Garber.

Legislators have introduced bills they claim will save jobs and protect the energy industry from excessive federal and state rules. But according to Garber, those bills would undermine critical environmental programs.

In particular, he’s concerned about Senate Bill 1195.

“Which would hamper the state’s ability to come up with a strong Clean Power Plan to move us towards clean energy and an energy-efficient economy while slashing climate pollution,” says Garber.

The federal Clean Power Plan, requiring states to meet goals for reducing carbon emission from power plants, has been put on hold by the U.S. Supreme Court as it is being challenged by several states.

Garber notes the Supreme Court has ruled several times that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate carbon emissions from a variety of sources.

“And we would be better off as a society if polluters recognize that reality and helped come up with a plan that moved us towards a clean energy future, rather than trying to delay any action,” says Garber.

The advocates are also urging the General Assembly to reject bills that would loosen gas and oil drilling standards, or allow legislators to block implementation of environmental standards.


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ISIS must love Pennsylvania’s gun laws, such as they are

A gun violence memorial marking each fatality in the city in 2012.

It’s perfectly legal to buy an assault weapon in Pennsylvania with a high capacity magazine so you can blast off multiple rounds in seconds. No registration or permit is required.

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, is this likely to change? Don’t count on it. The only gun-related bill that Pennsylvania lawmakers are poised to consider is one that would weaken the state’s law governing background checks. 


ISIS must love this. They are no longer encouraging their deranged followers around the globe to travel to the middle east to sign up for jihad but, rather, to stay at home and conduct bloody attacks–not on military targets– but on crowded civilian locations.  

Ironic,isn’t it? All the flag-wavers at the National Rifle Association are now helping ISIS by blocking laws that would prevent nut jobs from arming themselves to the teeth with assault rifles and ammo.

Billy Penn has an informative rundown today on Pennsylvania’s gun laws and why Philadelphia, which suffers the greatest from gun violence, can’t do anything to tighten them. Read it here 


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Plan to cut N.J. forest land splits environmentalists

A plan to help endangered birds by cutting down dozens of acres of state forest on Sparta Mountain represents a radically different approach to land management for New Jersey — and has bitterly divided New Jersey’s major environmental groups.

James M. O’Neill reports in The Record:

The plan, developed by the New Jersey Audubon Society for the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, would clear-cut small patches of forest totaling up to 210 acres to simulate a young-growth forest in the 3,500-acre Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Sussex and Morris counties. An additional 185 to 465 acres would be subject to less aggressive, selective tree removal to open the forest canopy and allow more sunlight to spur quicker growth of mature trees to imitate an old-growth forest.

John Cecil, vice president for stewardship with New Jersey Audubon, showing a stand of trees near Sparta Mountain that has been cleared to help develop some younger growth forest.

TOM STEPHENSON
The tiny golden-winged warbler is losing habitat in New Jersey.

Cutting down trees to help wildlife may sound counter-intuitive, especially after decades of activism to save the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest by protecting swaths of forest from logging.

But the point is to create more young forest with low, shrubby growth surrounded by large, mature trees — the landscape that certain at-risk species, such as the golden-winged warbler, prefer as breeding habitat.

It’s a relatively new form of public land management being used by many northern states, including New Jersey. For instance, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation worked recently with Passaic County to develop a small area of young forest for golden-winged warblers in Tranquility Ridge County Park on the Ringwood-West Milford border.

“People think we’re killing off nature, but we’re bringing life back by reinvigorating the forest,” said Sharon Petzinger, a senior zoologist with the Division of Fish and Wildlife.

John Cecil, New Jersey Audubon’s vice president for stewardship, agreed. “By diversifying the age of the forest, it will help make it more resilient to pests and disease and provide more resources for wildlife,” he said. “It’s low intensity — nothing like what a big timber company would do.”

Critics, however, say the plan has many flaws, and that using logging equipment on Sparta Mountain could harm one of the most healthy, mature forests in New Jersey. They say the trucks would compact the soil, and that the clear-cuts would cause erosion, kill off rare plant species and allow invasive species to spread.

They say it is no way to treat a vital swath of forest bought by the state in the 1990s with public Green Acres money for the purpose of preserving it. The state purchased the area in part because it is in the Highlands, a key source of drinking water for millions of New Jersey residents.

Read the full story here

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I’ll ‘I’ll f—ing kill you!’ A NJ senator’s chilling account

Both houses of N.J.+Legislature vote on a state budget
Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R-Essex) speaks during a voting session in Trenton on June, 25, 2015. (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Star-Ledger editor and columnist Tom Moran writes today:

When you hear about death threats, the backdrop is usually a power struggle in the mob, or a really bad marriage.
As of this week, add New Jersey politics to that list.
“Did I fear my life? You bet I did,” says Sen. Kevin O’Toole. “Look, politics is a rough business. And we use colorful language in Essex County. But this really struck home.”
Pull up a chair, please. Because in nearly 30 years of covering New Jersey politics, this is the darkest story I’ve ever heard.
It was first reported by Matt Friedman at Politico Thursday morning, and is here flushed out with ugly details and quotes from all the key parties.
O’Toole (R-Essex) says the threat was made in 2005 by Paul DiGaetano, then a leading Republican assemblyman dreaming about a long-shot bid for governor. 
3 TRPAUL18 YEPELLOFormer Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano in a 2004 Star-Ledger photo. 
“He calls me in March and says ‘I’ve got see you immediately,'” O’Toole says. “He said, ‘I need the line in Essex. If I get that, I can really win this thing.”
The “line” is the endorsement of the county organization, which gets a candidate the best ballot position and a decisive advantage.
But O’Toole never liked DiGaetano. They were rivals fighting over the same sandbox. So O’Toole, sitting in his law office in Nutley, shot down DiGaetano hard, on the spot. No way.
Here’s O’Toole’s version of what happened next. Needless to say, DiGaetano denies every scrap of it:
DiGaetano, furious, made an explicit and terrifying threat.
 “You know me,” he said. “I will f…ing kill you if I don’t get this.”
“Excuse me?” O’Toole said.
“I’m going to kill you. You know the people I hang out with. You hear me? I want the f…ing line!”
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Deadline nears on NY bill to help Hoosick Falls victims

PFOA in Hoosick Falls drinking water has been traced to two local factories. (Daniel Case/Wikimedia Commons)

PFOA in Hoosick Falls drinking water has been traced to
two local factories. (Daniel Case/Wikimedia Commons)


ALBANY, N.Y. – Environmentalists are asking the state Legislature to extend the time limit facing those made ill by contaminants in the water at Hoosick Falls.

Rare and aggressive forms of cancer and thyroid disease are unusually common in Hoosick Falls. Tests have identified more than 2,000 people with high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in their blood. The chemical, used in local factories owned by Saint-Gobain and Honeywell International, is in the town’s drinking water.

Under current law, said Liz Moran, water and natural resources associate for Environmental Advocates of New York, those victims have only three years from the time they became sick to file a claim for damages.

This
story was provided by Public
News Service – NY

“They discovered that they were sick maybe many years before they even knew that their water was polluted with this contaminant that was likely causing their illnesses,” Moran said.

A bill to extend the deadline for filing a claim passed in the state Assembly by an overwhelming majority, but has stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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According to Moran, the bill, if passed, would establish a time limit to sue those responsible for the contamination that’s based on the identification of the environmental hazard rather than on the date of a medical diagnosis.

“It extends the statute of limitations for three years past designation of a Superfund site,” she said. “So those people, who now know what may have caused their personal injury, can go after Saint-Gobain and Honeywell.”

However, with the current legislative session scheduled to end next week, time to pass the bill this year is running out. Although the bill was written specifically to address the situation in Hoosick Falls, Moran said there are federal and state Superfund sites across the state.

“What this bill does is allow communities recently designated as Superfund sites, they have the opportunity to sue the polluter for personal injury,” she said.

Since the contamination was identified in Hoosick Falls, PFOA has been found in water systems in another nearby town, as well as towns in southern Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Details of the legislation, Assembly Bill A.9568A, are online at nysenate.gov.


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