In the immediate aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Governor Chris Christie and Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa warned New Jersey businesses, gas stations, hardware stores, food stores, hotels and other retailers who had electricity and were able to sell life sustaining products and services to a vulnerable public against price gouging. By the end of November, one month after Sandy hit, Chiesa’s office was investigating thousands of gouging complaints and had filed at least 10 civil rights lawsuits against hotels and gas stations.
In the November 28 release announcing the lawsuits, Christie said,
“The last thing people put out of their homes in a natural disaster should have to confront is price gouging from unscrupulous profiteers,” said Governor Christie. “It’s illegal, offensive and completely opposite the spirit of cooperation we saw just about everywhere else in our state in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I encourage more of the same treatment from the Attorney General for any other instances of price gouging he discovers.”
A Star Ledger article posted Tuesday morning raises questions as to whether the State and 43 municipalities were gouged by the Florida contractor, AshBrit Environmental, that was awarded a $100 million no-bid contract to clean up state roads and waterways and allowing municipalities to hire the firm without going out to bid.
Don’t count on it happening. Senator Bob Mendendez as already survived a recall effort, an FBI investigation while Chris Christie was U.S. Attorney, Tom Kean JR and Joe Kyrillos. There’s little reason, so far, to think Menendez won’t survive his latest scandals involving illegal campaign donations and gifts, a sex offender illegal immigrant intern and allegations of engaging with prostitutes and underage girls in the Dominican Republic.Why would Menedez resign? It’s not as if he tweeted nude pictures of himself, or anything as bad as that.
For a senator to be expelled requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate. The Senate Select Committee on Ethics has not responded to State Senator Sam Thompson’s complaint about Menendez filed last November. There is no reason to think the Democratically controlled Senate will even consider censuring Menendez, much less expelling him, unless the FBI’s current investigation results in an indictment and/or conviction.
But if Menendez’s seat in the Senate were to become vacant this year, it would put New Jersey politics into a fabulous turmoil that would be fun to cover and generate unprecedented blog traffic. “Peter Williams,” if you’re reading, please cooperate with the FBI and bring the Domincan girls with you to the USofA!
Embattled U.S. Senator Bob Menendez reimbursed his friend and campaign contributor, West Palm Beach eye doctor Salomon Melgen $58,500 for two flights to the Dominican Republic on Melgen’s private jet almost three years after the flights took place, according to reports in The Star Ledger and The Daily Caller.
Menendez’s spokesman Paul Brubaker told the Ledger that the senator, prompted by the ethics complaint filed by NJ State Senator Sam Thompson last November, reviewed his travel and discovered that he should have paid Melgen for an August 2010 flight between Florida and the Dominican Republic and a September 2010 flight from Teterboro to the DR. Menendez paid Melgen $58,500 for the flights on January 4, 2013.
Menendez’s chief of staff, Dan O’Brien told NBC News that the over two year gap in paying for the flights was an office mistake, according to Daily Caller.
“This was sloppy,” O’Brien conceded about two 2010 flights. “I’m chalking it up to an oversight.”
No one has reported what, if anything, Menendez reimbursed Melgen for his food, lodging and party favors on the trips. Senate rules prohibited members from accepting gifts valued at more the $250 without prior permission from the ethics committee. We’d call Brubaker, but he stopped returning our calls last summer during the senator’s campaign.
Menendez finally denied he had sex with prostitutes while in the Dominican Republic, saying the charges were manufactured by a right-wing blog. Presumably he’s referring to Daily Caller.
FoxNews reported last night that Menendez cleared his Washington schedule yesterday. He cancelled a meeting with Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew and skipped John Kerry’s fare well speech on the Senate floor.
On the home front however, it was politics as usual for Menendez. Yesterday afternoon he sent out a fundraising email asking his supporters to thank Hillary Clinton for her years of service.
Roll Call is reporting that Senator Bob Menendez’s office has issued a statement denying any wrongdoing on the senator’s part related to the FBI raid last night on his friend and campaign contributor’s West Palm Beach, Florida office:
“Dr. Melgen has been a friend and political supporter of Senator Menendez for many years. Senator Menendez has traveled on Dr. Melgen’s plane on three occasions, all of which have been paid for and reported appropriately,” Menendez’s office said in a statement. “Any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically-motivated right-wing blog and are false.”
The Menendez statement appears to conflict with information included in State Senator Sam Thompson’s ethics complaint filed with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics last November. Thompson alleged that Menendez appeared to have accepted free travel to the Dominican Republic on Dr. Soloman Melgen’s private jet, and failed to disclose the gift traffic as required by Senate rules. The Senate Select Committee had not responded to Thompson as of Monday
Maybe Now New Jersey’s Mainstream Media Will Report The Story
Late last night the FBI raided the office of the West Palm Beach eye doctor who allegedly provided New Jersey’s junior U.S. Senator Bob Menedez with free travel to the Dominican Republic on his private jet where the men engaged in sex parties with prostitutes and underage girls, according to reports in The Miami Herald and FoxNews.
FBI agents late Tuesday night raided the West Palm Beach business of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. — who has denied what he calls the “fallacious allegations.”
Agents gathered at the medical-office complex of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a contributor to Menendez and other prominent politicians, to start hauling away potential evidence in several vans.
The investigation is believed to be focusing on Melgen’s finances and the allegations about Menendez’s trips and contact with prostitutes. A spokesman for Menendez could not be reached for comment, nor could Melgen.
Menendez’s appointment as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee became official just hours before the raid when former Senator John Kerry, the previous chairman, was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Secretary of State.
Yesterday afternoon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed the allegations against Menendez because the story was first reported by the conservative website, The Daily Caller. “I always consider the source,” Reid told Roll Call. Maybe Reid will take these allegations more seriously now, since The Miami Herald endorsed President Obama over Mitt Romney in last year’s presidential election.
Since The Daily Caller broke the story of Menendez’s activity with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic at Melgen’s largess last October, just days before the election where the Senator won his second full term, New Jersey’s mainstream media outlets have not covered the story. One prominent reporter told MMM that the story had been shopped to a prominent New Jersey newspaper prior to the initial Daily Caller report. The paper’s editors considered the story too thin both before and after Daily Caller reported it. Another prominent reporter said “no body cares and we’re too busy.”
Monmouth County’s newest Demcratic office holder, Marlboro Councilwoman Carol Mazzola, is not ready to join Mayor Jon Hormik on the Barbara Buono for Governor bandwagon.
“I love Chris Christie!’ Mazzola exclaimed when asked what she thought about the Governor. But she stopped short of endorsing the New Jersey head of her former party. “Ask me in the fall when its time to make a decision.”
Mazzola was elected to the Marlboro Township Committee as a Republican in 2009. She announced earlier this month that she will run for reelection as a Democrat on Hornik’s team.
Academy Award winning actress Mira Sorvino and John Morton, the Director of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be among the keynote speakers at an Anti-Human Trafficking Symposium held at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
MMM is promoting the symposium and embedding the livestream video in the hopes that Senator Bob Menendez will either watch or stop by the hilltop.
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, issued the following statement about State Senator Barbara Buono, the presumptive Democratic nominee for New Jersey Governor:
“Barbara Buono understands the challenges facing New Jersey’s middle-class families because she’s lived through them. That’s why she’s spent her entire career fighting to create jobs, improve education, expand access to quality health care, and balance budgets. Unfortunately, Governor Christie has failed to deliver on his promise to turn the state around. He’s blown a hole in the budget while New Jersey ranks near the bottom of the nation in unemployment, foreclosures, property taxes, and business climate. New Jersey needs a governor focused on creating jobs and expanding opportunity for New Jersey’s working families and that’s exactly the kind of governor Barbara Buono will be.”
Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik joined the growing list of New Jersey Democrats in lining up behind State Senator Barbara Buono as the party’s nominee to take on Governor Chris Christie this fall.
In a statement released to MoreMonmouthMusings, Honik said that Buono is ready to lead for New Jersey’s middle class and that she is the best candidate to get our economy moving and creating jobs.
“Senator Buono understands the principle challenge facing New Jersey is a need for good-paying jobs. It’s a failure of the Governor when nearly one of every 10 New Jerseyans is out of work.
“There is no comeback when one in 10 is left behind. I know Senator Buono is prepared to make job creation her first priority.
“Senator Buono and I also share the same concern for protecting all of our residents, but in particular our children from gun violence. I applaud her call for a special session of the Legislature to pass common-sense gun safety laws.”
News of the allegations that U.S. Senator Bob Menendez sexually exploited Dominican teen aged girls during his trips to the DR on a campaign contibutor’s private jet slipped into New Jersey main stream media coverage last weekend when Bob Ingle blogged about the sentor’s spokesperson telling FoxNews that the allegations were “unsubstantiated garbage.”
Yesterday, Brietbart caught up with Menendez who said he would not dignify the story. Click here to listen to Mendendez refusing to dignify.
“Unsubstantiated garbage” and “I’m not going to dignify that” are not denials. I can not imagine a dignified substantiation.
New Jersey State Senator Sam Thompson, in his capacity as Chairman on the Middlesex GOP, wrote to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics last November asking that they investigate Menendez’s accepting illegal travel for his DR sexcapades. Thompson tells MMM that he has not heard from the committee.
It would seem that Mendenez, who officially becomes Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee upon John Kerry’s confirmation as Secretary of State, is getting a pass from the Select Committee on Ethics. The FBI won’t confirm or deny that they are investigating him.
Late last night the FBI raided the office of the West Palm Beach eye doctor who allegedly provided New Jersey’s junior U.S.