'King of Israel,' Ariel Sharon, Dead at 85

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Ariel Sharon —  the military hero and prime minister who was among the most controversial figures in the history of Israel — has died, eight years after the massive stroke that left him comatose. He was 85.

He died Saturday at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, outside of Tel Aviv, where he has been cared for since 2006.

Over his long career Sharon served as Israel's 11th prime minister, headed several ministries including Defense, and rose to the rank of general in the Israeli army, seeing action in all four of Israel's major wars.

Reviled by Arabs over his hardline policies and viewed with a mixture of respect and suspicion by many Israelis, Sharon had been on life support at the hospital far from the public gaze.

A state funeral is planned.

Sharon was born on Feb. 26, 1928, in Kfar Malal, then in the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents had emigrated from Russia.

"I was born on a farm," he said many year later. "My strength has nothing to do with political apparatus. I get my strength from nature, from flowers."

In 1942, at the age of 14, Sharon joined the Gadna, a paramilitary youth battalion, and later the Haganah, an underground paramilitary force.

He was a platoon commander in the Israeli military at the outset of the 1948 War of Independence, and rose swiftly up the ranks during the war.

In the 1956 Suez War, Sharon commanded a paratrooper brigade, and he headed Israel's most powerful armored division as a major general in the 1967 Six-Day War. His actions on the Sinai front brought Sharon international commendation by military strategists.

Sharon retired from military service in 1973, but was called back to active duty at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in October of that year.

Sharon's bold maneuver in crossing the Suez Canal and encircling Egypt's Third Army was considered the key to Israel's ultimate victory and led the Israeli public to nickname him "The King of Israel" and "The Lion of God."

Crowds swarmed the streets singing a revised old Hebrew Song — "David: King of Israel" — replacing David with Sharon's nickname, "Arik: King of Israel."

Sharon, who received a law degree from the Tel Aviv branch of the Hebrew University, served as a special aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the mid-1970s, then as Secretary of Agriculture.

He used his position to encourage Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, doubling the number of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip during his tenure.

Following the 1981 elections, he was appointed Minister of Defense, the post he held during the 1982 Lebanon War.

In 1983, an Israeli state inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for the killing of hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children at Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

The slaughter took place after the Israeli army, which invaded Lebanon in 1982, allowed Israeli-backed Christian Phalangist militiamen to enter the camps. Sharon was forced to resign his post.

From 1983 to 1999, he served in successive governments as a Minister without Portfolio, Minister for Trade and Industry, Minister of Housing Construction, Minister of National Infrastructure, and Foreign Minister.

On Sept. 28, 2000, Sharon — then head of the Likud Party — led more than 1,000 Israeli police officers to the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem, a Jewish holy site that also includes two of Islam's holiest sites, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. He declared that the complex would remain under perpetual Israeli control.

The provocative move torpedoed ongoing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and led to the Palestinian uprising known as the intifada. But Sharon and his supporters claimed that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority had planned the uprising months before Sharon's visit.

Sharon was elected prime minister in February 2001. Two years later, he announced his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state in the future.

"It is not in our interest to govern you," he told the Palestinians. "We would like you to govern yourselves in your own country.

"Abandon the path of terror and let us together stop the bloodshed," he pleaded. "Let us move forward together towards peace."

He ordered the unilateral withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, expelling nearly 10,000 settlers from 21 settlements in August 2005. Israeli soldiers formally left Gaza in September.

Critics of the withdrawal point to the territory's seizure two years later by Hamas Islamists opposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and to intensive rocket fire from Gaza.

The withdrawal decision sparked bitter protests from members of the Likud Party. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quit the Cabinet in protest.

"Netanyahu is pressured easily, gets into a panic and loses his senses," said Sharon. "To run a country like Israel a leader needs to have reason and judgment and nerves of steel, two traits he does not have."

In November 2005, Sharon resigned as head of Likud to form a new party, Kadima, and his rival Netanyahu took over as leader of Likud.

Sharon was a fierce defender of Israel and the Jewish people.

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no-one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial," he said.

But he recognized that Israel had to improve relations with its Arab neighbors.

"If we are to reach a situation of true peace, real peace, peace for generations, we will have to make painful concessions. Not in exchange for promises, but rather in exchange for peace," he said in 2003.

"If it turns out that we have someone to talk to, that they understand that peace is neither terrorism nor subversion against Israel, then I would definitely say that we will have to take steps that are painful for every Jew and painful for me personally," Sharon said.

Not everyone believed his conciliatory words. Ronald Reagan, in his autobiography, "An American Life," called Sharon "a bellicose man, who seemed to be chomping at the bit to start a war."

During his time as prime minister, Sharon piled on weight, causing doctors to warn him that he was putting his health at risk. His official car was said to be stacked with snacks, caviar, and vodka.

"I love life. I love all of it, and in fact I love food," he said.

He even joked about his weight, which ballooned to 250 pounds, although he was only 5 feet, 7 inches. When asked about fears for his safety, he shot back "There is no bullet-proof vest in my size."

Polls in November 2005 indicated that Sharon was likely to beat Netanyahu at the polls, but on Dec. 18, he suffered a mild stroke while heading to his ranch in the Negev Desert.

He left the hospital after two days, but on Jan. 4, 2006, suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage that left him comatose and on life support. His deputy Ehud Olmert formally succeeded him as prime minister in April.

Within months, Sharon was transferred to a long-term care unit at Sheba. Medical experts said his cognitive abilities were destroyed by the stroke and he was in a persistent vegetative state with little chance of regaining consciousness, though family members refused to allow them to turn off his life support.

"When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to," his son Gilad said in 2011. "He lies in bed, looking like the lord of the manor, sleeping tranquilly. Large, strong, self assured. His cheeks are a healthy shade of red. When he's awake, he looks out with a penetrating stare. He hasn't lost a single pound; on the contrary, he's gained some."

When Sharon suffered from renal failure on New Year's Day, Israeli media reported that doctors were unlikely to take drastic measures to keep him alive.

In the end, he died peacefully. Raanan Gissin, a former senior aide to Sharon, said: "It's a very sad moment for people in Israel because Ariel Sharon was an icon in Israel."

Sharon was widowed twice. His first wife Margalit, with whom he had a son, Gur, died in a car accident in 1962, and Gur died in 1967 after a friend accidentally shot him with a rifle.

After Margalit's death, Sharon wed her younger sister Lily, and they had two sons, Omri and Gilad. Lily died in 2000.

Escaping the Rat Maze of the Welfare State

Jonah Goldberg / Townhall Columnist

 

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty," and as the joke goes, "Poverty won." Five decades after a blizzard of programs began descending on the American people, the poverty rate remains essentially unchanged.

That's a little unfair. What counts as poverty today would not have seemed so impoverished 50 years ago, when many of the poor lived without electricity and were no strangers to hunger. Today, the biggest health problems of the poor are more likely to stem from obesity than anything approaching starvation. Defenders of the war on poverty -- and the massive bureaucracy that has built up around it -- insist that underfunding is to blame.

That's a tough sell. The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector estimates that we've spent $20 trillion on these programs -- not counting Medicare and Social Security. We spend $1 trillion to $2 trillion more every year, depending on how you do the math. But apparently for liberals, that's still too stingy. Perhaps the problem isn't how much we're spending, but how we're spending it.

If you drew a Venn diagram of where the hard left and the libertarian right agreed, the overlapping shaded part would include a bunch of social issues -- gay marriage, drug legalization, etc. -- but almost no economic issues. Save one: the Universal Basic Income.

The UBI is a pretty simple idea. Everyone gets a check from the government. (Actually, it's a little more complicated than that depending on how you implement it, but you get the idea.)

Charles Murray, my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute and a legendary libertarian social scientist, wrote a wonderful book a few years ago, "In Our Hands," in which he proposed an annual grant from the federal government of $10,000 for every American over 21 who stayed out of jail and still had a pulse. He was building on arguments made by two titans of libertarianism, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, who also supported some version of a UBI.

On the left, the idea has been popular for generations as a way to instantaneously alleviate poverty and to defeat the ol' devil of income inequality.

So what's the catch? Why aren't we getting a fat check from Uncle Sam every month? Some cite the cost, which obviously would be hefty. But that's a secondary problem. The real sticking point is that the libertarian argument is largely an either/or proposition, while the left-wing version is a both/and deal. The libertarians want to liquidate much of the welfare state and convert it into cash payments.

The left's version is that the money would, for the most part, augment the welfare state.

New York University professor Lawrence Mead identified the chief flaw with both the libertarian and left-wing approaches to fighting poverty, either through existing welfare programs or through a UBI: the "competence assumption." This is the presumption that the intended beneficiaries of government anti-poverty programs always "behave rationally enough to advance their own self-interest." We all know enough people in our own lives (never mind what we know about ourselves) to realize this isn't always the case. Lots of folks are determined to do things that aren't in their long-term self-interest.

The problems afflicting many poor people are often of their own making, at least in part. Having children before getting married, dropping out of high school, etc., are transparently bad choices that millions of people make. (Also, some anti-poverty programs create incentives that make bad decisions seem rational.) But many poor people have just had rotten luck. There's good reason to believe that, with a little help, they can work their way up the economic ladder. And for countless others, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

For 50 years, we've run a massive experiment around one approach: that bureaucrats and social planners can fix the lives of others by telling them how to live. For some it's worked, for others it's been an abject failure. But few can claim it's all been a smashing success.

Perhaps a compromise can be worked out. Why not give poor people a choice? They can stay within the rat maze of the current welfare state, or they can cash out. According to Rector, 100 million Americans receive aid from the government at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. Surely some of them are equipped to spend that money better than the government. Why not give them a shot at proving it? If they fail, they can always switch back to the old system. If they succeed, well, that'd be a real victory in the war on poverty.

Beware the Left-Wing-Funded "Main Street" Republicans

Michelle Malkin / Townhall Columnist

 

What do George Soros, labor unions and money-grubbing former GOP Rep. Steven LaTourette all have in common? They're control freaks. They're power hounds. They're united against tea party conservatives. And they all have operated under the umbrella of D.C. groups masquerading as "Main Street" Republicans. 

LaTourette heads up the so-called "Main Street Partnership," which claims to represent "thoughtful," "pragmatic," "common sense" and "centrist" Republican leadership.

Reality check: The pro-bailout, pro-debt, pro-amnesty, anti-drilling group founded by former liberal New York GOP Congressman Amory Houghton includes three liberal Senate Republicans (John McCain, Mark Kirk and Susan Collins) and 52 center-left House Republicans. LaTourette himself is a self-serving Beltway barnacle who held office for nearly two decades. Now he's leveraging his new tea party-bashing platform to benefit a family-operated lobbying business.

The New York Times shed light on LaTourette's tangled web of GOP establishment outfits last week.

But that story just scratched the surface. As the paper reported, the Main Street Partnership is a nonprofit group that charges members up to $25,000 per year to rub elbows with Washington's rich and powerful. The Main Street Advocacy Fund and the Defending Main Street SuperPAC are political satellites planning to amass $8 million to bolster Republican liberals and moderates facing tea party challengers in 2014. McDonald Hopkins Government Strategies is LaTourette's lobbying firm.

The Times notes that "corporations and lobbyists" fund the Main Street Partnership. But far-left donors provided seed money for these affiliated K Street fronts. Who's behind the Defending Main Street SuperPAC? Big Labor. National Journal's Scott Bland reported last month that "two labor organizations, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Laborers' International Union of North America, directed a combined $400,000 to the Republican group in September and October.

Main Street says it has raised roughly $2 million total between its super PAC and an affiliated nonprofit group so far -- and that means labor has supplied at least 20 percent of those funds."

Along with the anti-tea party U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the "Main Street" fat cats and union leaders have banded together to help President Obama push through illegal alien amnesty. The payoff: cheap labor for big business, cheap votes for the Democratic Party.

Main Street Partnership's chief operating and financial officer is Sarah Chamberlain Resnick. She also serves on the partnership's board of directors and previously served as an officer of the soft-money-raising Main Street Individual Fund. The MSIF is yet another spinoff group that received $50,000 from progressive billionaire George Soros in 2002 soon after it was created. Soros also dangled a "seven-figure contribution" in front of the Main Street Partnership, but Resnick said the group declined that one. The MSIF accepted a separate $50,000 Soros donation during the 2004 election cycle. It was mysteriously returned in November 2005 after I called attention to it.

These various groups are legally independent entities on paper, but have shared staff and legal resources. When I reported on the "Main Street" farce eight years ago, the partnership's counsel sent me a threatening letter baselessly claiming I had made "libelous" statements about its network. My sin? Exposing the radical environmental funders of "Main Street" Republicans who had sabotaged House conservative efforts to open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The "Main Street" Republicans back then gloated over their successful campaign to force squishy GOP leaders in D.C. to cave in to the left. There's nothing principled about their agenda. It's not about "common sense." It's about the Benjamins. These statists in populist clothing are running a Washington incumbency protection racket. Same as it ever was.

Pamela Geller in Breitbart News: The Islamization of America in 2013

Since I wrote my book Stop the Islamization of America and established the Stop Islamization of America initiative of my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), we have seen increasing accommodation and submission to Islam in the United States. This past year was a particularly good year for Islamic supremacists, who are working furiously in this country to impose Sharia (Islamic law) -- and in particular, the blasphemy laws under the Sharia.

The Islamic supremacist approach is stealthier here in the States than it is in Europe, where we see no-go zones, mass car burnings, etc., because Europe currently has a much bigger Muslim population than the U.S. does. More on Muslim immigration here.

That kind of aggression is in our future, for nothing is being done to prevent its coming here. The few of us who dare to speak against Sharia and jihad are blacklisted from the mainstream media’s major newspaper and broadcast outlets. Trimmers (those who soften the message about Islam or speak of “Islamism,” an artificial word making a distinction without a difference) and Islamic apologists are dusted off and trotted out to make some inane comment whenever the mainstream media cannot avoid covering a jihad news story (such as the Boston Marathon jihad bombing). But the effective true voices against Islamization, such as myself, Robert Spencer, Wafa Sultan, and Ibn Warraq are rarely seen these days.

It’s never been as bad as it is now, and we have never been proven so right as we were in 2013. In the U.S., in a survey released at the end of 2012, almost half of the Muslims in America said that they thought parodies of Muhammad should be subject to criminal prosecution. One in eight thought that insulting Islam should be a death penalty offense. Forty percent said that they shouldn’t have to obey U.S. laws, but should be subject only to Islamic law.

These findings should have come as no surprise; they weren’t much different from those of a May 2013 survey of Muslims worldwide. The survey showed that the harshest Sharia punishments enjoy broad support among Muslims the world over: “72% of Indonesian Muslims, 84% of Pakistani Muslims, 82% of Bengladeshi Muslims, 74% of Egyptian Muslims, and 71% of Nigerian Muslims supported making Sharia the official state law of their respective societies.” 85% of Muslims in Pakistan, 81% in Afghanistan, and 70% in Egypt supported the most brutal aspects of Sharia, such as amputating the hands of thieves. 86% of Muslims in Pakistan, 84% in Afghanistan, and 80% in Egypt supported stoning for adultery. 75% in Pakistan, 79% in Afghanistan, and 88% in Egypt favored executing those who leave Islam. “91% of Iraqi Muslims and 99% of Afghan Muslims supported making Sharia the official state law of their respective societies.”

And in America, wherever Islamic law and American law conflict, it is increasingly American law that gives way. Islam is even taught in public schools, according to a report at The Blaze:

An elementary school teacher in Chesapeake, Va. has been charged with simple assault after a parent claimed her daughter’s hand was cut open as a result of the teacher yanking her arm aggressively while trying to teach students an "Islamic hand sign."

In November 2012, a Muslim mother went on trial for beating her teenage daughter after the girl refused an arranged marriage and was seen at school talking to a boy who was not her planned husband. Her devout Muslim father stabbed his daughter in the neck, leaving a wound an inch and a half long, and admitted that he tried to kill her. This couple was freed: the mother got two years of probation.

This was Arizona. Not Yemen, not Iran, but Phoenix. This is the Sharia in America, for honor violence is not merely sanctioned in Islam, it is encouraged. And honor murder of the offspring is sanctioned under Islam: according to Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring” (o1.1-2).

The following month, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which has now been declared a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government, spoke at a mosque in Brooklyn. The NYPD enforced the Sharia there as well, arresting a man who came to protest against Brotherhood atrocities in Egypt. One must not criticize Islam or its self-appointed representatives – even in Brooklyn.

In another Sharia ruling that same month, a federal judge ruled against a Tulsa police captain who had exercised his First Amendment rights and refused to force some of his subordinates to attend a dawah (Islamic proselytizing) event at a Tulsa mosque. If these police officers had been required to go to a church, they’d have won their case.

In Minnesota in November 2013, the YMCA and the St. Paul Police Department organized a Muslim swim, restricted to Muslim women only, with taxpayer dollars. The police department is providing transportation for the Muslimas to segregated Sharia swim at the YMCA. There are thousands of Islamic centers across the country -- Sharia swim belongs there, not in our public pools. If it is so crucial that these Muslims live under Sharia, why move here? Why not live in a Sharia state?

Instead, Sharia is coming here. In June 2013, it was revealed that the San Francisco Airport used public money to construct a foot-washing station for Muslims. Harvard University in January 2013 posted a Qur’anic verse at the entrance of its faculty of law, describing the verse as one of the greatest expressions for justice in history, heedless of the fact that Sharia law is the antithesis of America law.

The Constitution is the great shining moment of Western civilization, based on individual rights, the premise of which is the opposite of Islamic law.

In Minnesota, a Catholic university, the University of St. Thomas, in January 2013 installed mini-mosques and Islamic foot baths for Muslims. Where are the cathedrals and pews in the madrassas? There is no reciprocity in Islam. Non-Muslims cannot pray in mosques. Non-Muslims are only permitted into mosques for dawah (proselytizing). Islamic outreach goes only one way: to Islam.

But this is a Catholic university turning itself over to the very ideology that inspires the mass slaughter of Christians across the world. It is astonishing and horrifying in the same breath.

Public schools in Florida are teaching that Muhammad is “God’s messenger.” In Indiana, a Muslim family went from classroom to classroom in a public school, handing out material proselytizing for Islam. Texas public school students were made to wear burqas. In January 2013 in Maryland, Muslim high school students demanded prayer accommodations in a public school.

In August 2013, a Tennessee elementary school banned pork to avoid offending Muslims. Children are drawing the five pillars of Islam in Tennessee public schools. The Nashville, Tennessee public school system is teaching dangerous lies in an Islamic lesson plan written by Islamic dissemblers and rife with grammatical errors and poor English. Where are the children’s drawings of Christ on the cross? Where are the teachings of the Rashi? Where is the Chumash?

This isn’t public education. This is dawah. And it is happening all over, but patriots are fighting back: in September 2013, an Ohio mom got an Islamic proselytizing video removed from her child’s seventh-grade history class. In November 2013, hundreds of parents protested against pro-Islam indoctrination contained in a public school textbook.

There is much, much more. Read it all.

Op-ed: 
'BridgeGate'...it's NOT what you think 
By: Diane Sori

"I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or execution." - New Jersey Governor Christie

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had the first of his many sure to come photo-op moments last Thursday when he spoke on national television for almost two hours...more airtime than the media has given to Hillary and her role in Benghazi...about what has now become known as 'BridgeGate.'

Apologizing...groveling actually...in an effort to save his 2016 presidential aspirations...Christie admitted that some on his staff and some of his appointees to the Port Authority were involved...that in fact, they orchestrated the September lane closures on the George Washington Bridge that caused massive traffic delays for those going to work in New York, for school buses, and for police and emergency vehicles within the Fort Lee area. And the text messages made public led us to believe the closures were done as political payback against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for NOT supporting Christie, the very man who touted bi-partnership when running for re-election and who had a good working and relationship with many Democratic state legislators including State Senate President Stephen Sweeney.

But was political payback against the mayor the true motive...I don't think so for a traffic jam has NO real bearing on the mayor of the city the jam was in.

Gridlocking Fort Lee for four days...encasing it in exhaust fumes...this now come back to haunt Christie nightmare started on August 13th when Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's Deputy Chief of Staff e-mailed David Wildstein, the Director of Interstate Capital Projects for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey the following words, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" and Wildstein e-mailed back, "Got it."

Less than one month later on Wildstein's orders, two of the three access lanes connecting Fort Lee to the bridge were closed forcing all traffic to merge into one lane, thus creating hours-long traffic jams on the first day of the new school year. And after NOT answering Mayor Sokolich's texts, including one stating that "Presently we have four very busy traffic lanes merging into only one toll booth...The bigger problem is getting kids to school. Help please. It's maddening," and NOT returning phone calls even after a message was left saying, "urgent matter of public safety in Fort Lee" Wildstein did NOTHING to address the situation except to text a still unidentified person, "Is it wrong that I am smiling? I feel badly about the kids I guess..they are the children of Buono voters." Barbara Buono was Christie's challenger for governor.

Nice huh...now fast forward to mid-September when the four day lane closures ended on orders of Patrick Foye, Executive Director of the Port Authority. Wildstein then texted Kelly, "The New York side gave Fort Lee back all three lanes this morning. We are appropriately going nuts. Samson helping us to retaliate." The last line refers to David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority Board. Kelly texted back, "What??" Wildstein responded, "Yes, unreal. Fixed now."

On September 16th, The Port Authority issued a statement saying that the lanes were closed for a traffic study...has anybody seen said study yet I wonder...and after Christie easily won re-election Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni testified before the Assembly Transportation Committee that the lane closures were indeed part of a traffic study that Wildstein himself had ordered.

Stinks doesn't it but NOT in ways you might think.

Now here I must interject something on a personal level...when I was in college I interned at Prentice-Hall in Englewood Cliffs, the town next up from Fort Lee, and every day I drove across the GW Bridge in rush hour...at the same time of day this 'supposed' traffic study was being done. And one thing I can tell you...legitimate traffic studies that involve lane closures are NEVER done at the height of rush hour nor are lanes closed except in an emergency or for repair. So lanes being closed at the busiest time of the day for a traffic study is pure nonsense.

And while Christie had to know about the closures as they went on for four days while his office was being flooded with calls from angry commuters and from parents whose children were stuck on school buses with NO food or bathrooms for all those hours..saying this was done for political payback because he did NOT get the endorsement of one Democratic mayor makes NO sense for how does tying up a bridge hurt the mayor...it simply does NOT...it hurts those having to wait for hours to cross the bridge that took them minutes to do so the day before.

So after thinking this all through I believe this entire event involves money and none other than good old Hilary 'What does it matter' Clinton herself.

Remember, politics is a fickle game where loyalties come and go and can easily be bought and sold. And while I am NOT a fan of RINO extraordinaire Chris Christie and would have to hold my nose to pull the lever for him, the facts are he has been a successful governor and is well-liked by both bodies political in New Jersey, and he is being forced down our throats by the media as the only man that can beat Hilary in 2016. But just imagine that maybe this time the media has it right and that Hillary knows it and is hopping mad, after all she lost the nomination to Obama in 2008 and ambitious b*tch that she is she sure as hell does NOT want to lose the presidency to Christie. And so for a price Bridget Anne Kelly and David Wildstein were bought. See where I'm going with this.

And with all the e-mails and texts showing that these people had indeed planned the traffic nightmare...the only errors on everybody's part has been to the why. Well, for a price I believe these two individuals sold their souls to the she-devil to ruin the Republican frontrunner's reputation and derail his run for the presidency. Makes sense when one puts two and two together...closing the bridge would NOT hurt the mayor as the bridge is NOT under his auspices but is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and to pay back a mayor for NOT endorsing him really makes NO sense as Christie was a shoe-in to win re-election right from the beginning.

But still Christie is in trouble for a sitting governor is responsible for the actions of his staff NO matter the circumstances involved...unless we find Kelly and Wildstein suddenly living the high life for Christie remains adamant that he is NOT involved and may very well be telling the truth.

“I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge,” Christie said in a prepared statement. “This behavior is not representative of me or my administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.”

So even though when this story first broke Christie called the entire matter "not that big a deal," and even though he in bad taste joked to the press about moving the traffic cones himself, it is NOT out of the whelm of possibilities that this man has been set-up to fall by the very woman who would do any and everything to sit in the Oval Office and finish the destruction of America that Barack HUSSEIN Obama started.

Just something to think about but it makes more sense than an act of political payback that would be anything but.