The “what” is pretty well known by now: members of the Christie administration endangered lives and property by shutting down most of a major bridge, thus crippling the town of Fort Lee, NJ.

The “Who” is becoming clearer: four heads are rolling down the boardwalk thus far, and the Guv is trying to keep his noggin from joining theirs.

The question has been “Why”: on the face of it, the assumption that it was done to f*** over the Mayor of Fort Lee makes no sense. Indeed, that insensibility is a large part of Guv Christie’s defense.

So it took Rachel Maddow to make sense of this nonsense. Short version: it was Christie taking revenge on Fort Lee; but it wasn’t about the Mayor and any sort of endorsement. No, it was about Christie trying to stack the State Supreme Court, and a state Senator from that town who stood in the Governor’s way.

You really need to click the link and read the whole article, but here is a pertinent bit that connects most of the dots:

No governor had ever failed to reappoint a sitting state Supreme Court justice, but Christie had suddenly done it twice – once for the court’s only African-American jurist, infuriating Democrats, and then again for a justice he actually liked. The governor, enraged, held a press conference to tell reporters, “I was not going to let her loose to the animals.”

The “animals,” in this case, were the Democrats in the state Senate.

Christie said that on the afternoon of Aug. 12, 2013.

On the morning of Aug. 13, 2013, Christie’s deputy chief of staff told the governor’s guy at the Port Authority, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

The leader of the Senate Democrats at the time was a senator from … Fort Lee.

Timing? Check. Motivation? Check. Proof? Check.

Governor Christie DID have a reason (in his mind, anyway) to exact vengeance on Fort Lee. And he did it.

Gentlemen and ladies in law enforcement, keep those handcuffs oiled. Hopefully, you’ll be arresting that murderous motherf***er soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky