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Just days after dismissing two of his top aides over the bridge traffic scandal, NJ Gov Chris Christie has a second scandal on his hands. Federal investigators are looking into whether Christie used Hurricane Sandy relief funds to create New Jersey tourism ads that prominently displayed the whole Christie family — and thus be subtle campaign ads.

One thing that jumped out at me in looking over the stories of the newly released 900 pages of documents was this little nugget from Assemblyman Wisniewski, who is leading the investigation (emphasis mine):Secondly, the documents submitted by David Wildstein and his attorney are documents they deemed specifically related to the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge as per our subpoena request.

Emails and text messages released Wednesday link a top aide to Gov. Chris Christie to traffic jams in a New Jersey town in September that appear to have been engineered as political payback against its mayor. About a month after the emails were exchanged, a Port Authority appointee ordered closed two of three traffic lanes connecting Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York City, one of the world's busiest spans.

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Prominent Iowa Republicans with no ties to Chris Christie, and no family in Jersey, got some soft-sell promotional material cheery Christmas cards signed from the Christies last month. The cards have two big photos of the Christie family basking in the adulation of his victory night crowd, in case you were wondering if the Governor would be tempted to advertise the boffo victory some of Jersey's more cooperative Democrats helped him secure in November.

Many conservatives have invoked Holocaust comparisons - and claimed that if European Jews only had guns in the 1930's and 1940's there would have never been a Holocaust - when it comes to any effort to implement new gun control laws.  This time, the focus of their anger is Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, himself a grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

Mayor Fulop's offense is that he supports a measure which would require gun vendors that seek contracts with Jersey City to fill out

New Jersey residents on Tuesday approved raising the state's minimum wage by $1, to $8.25 an hour, and to provide for automatic cost-of-living increases as 10 other states already do.

Big business lobbies try to scare voters into believing that all business opposes increasing the minimum wage, and that it would cost jobs. But many small business owners actually support increasing the wage, because it would boost the economy by putting money into the pockets of workers who will turn around and spend it right away. Plus, it's the right thing to do.

Gov. Chris Christie has dropped his appeal to legalized same-sex marriages in New Jersey. In an email, the governor's office says it submitted a formal withdrawal to the state Supreme Court Monday morning.

A New Jersey judge has ruled that the state must allow same-sex couples to marry and that not doing so in New Jersey would violate the state constitution.

Yesterday, unapologetically liberal candidate Bill de Blasio clinched the New York City Mayoral primary and will likely go on to win the general election. If you had told the pundits six weeks ago that Bill de Blasio wouldn’t just win the primary but hit the magic 40 percent necessary to avoid a runoff, most would have laughed in your face. It’s a major win, and it has real implications for progressive activists on both sides of the Hudson.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie started September off with an anti-worker bang, taking two direct swipes at construction workers in his state. First, Christie vetoed a bill aimed at stopping employee misclassification in the drayage trucking industry and then he demanded "minor changes" to a jobs bill that will hurt those actually doing the work.

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As of Sunday, your drive to work or enjoyment of "The View" will no longer be marred by those annoyingly catchy "Strong than the Storm" ads. 

But with a gubernatorial campaign being increasingly waged on Christie's response to the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, it will be months before New Jerseyans are completely free of the entanglements of that anger-inducing jingle.