The “Three monkeys award” goes to the New Jersey press corps for their coverage of Bob Menendez and Lisa Jackson.
The “They’re all made of ticky tacky and they all look the same” award goes to Newark Mayor Cory Booker for backing down from his candid comment on Meet the Press that he found the negative political ads deployed “by both sides” nauseating.
The “Rahm Emanuel Never Waste A Good Crisis Award” goes to Senate President Steve Sweeney and Senator Mike Dohertyfor their political courage in proposing that funding for rebuilding the Jersey Shore post-Super Storm Sandy be contingent on the elimination of beach badge sales to pay for beach safety and maintenance. Sweeney gets the bonus Kitten, kitten , kitten award for his unwillingness to discuss his proposal with anyone other than stenographers and the Asbury Park Press Editorial Board.
The “Cory Booker Profile In Grandstanding Award” goes to Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik for his multiple TV appearances promoting his community’s Cops in Schools program.
Mitt Romney was declare the winner of the Iowa Caucuses by 8 votes. Weeks later after all the votes were counted, Rick Santorum was declared the winner.
Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina GOP Presidential Primary.
Holmdel Deputy Mayor Serena DiMasowas elected a Monmouth County Freeholder by the Monmouth County Republican Committee.
State Senator Joe Kyrillos announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate.
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez blocked Federal Magistrate Patty Shwartz’s nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Menendez denied he was blocking the appointment because Shwartz’s boyfriend was the Assistant U.S. Attorney who investigated him in 2006. Menendez reversed himself after the news of his opposition to Shwartz become pulbic. Shwartz’s nomination has yet to be confirmed.
Governor Christie nominated Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre to be the Director of the Division of Alcohol Beverage Control.
Governor Christie nominated First Assistant Attorney General Philip Kwon and Chatham Mayor Bruce Harris to be State Supreme Court Associate Justices. Kwon was the first Asian-American ever nominated. Harris was the first openingly homosexual nominee.
New Jersey’s newspaper industry fought back efforts to allow “Legal Notices” to be posted online instead of in newspapers.
Mitt Romney won the Florida GOP presidential primary.
Now that Newark Mayor Cory Booker has taken himself out the the gubernatorial race, everyone expects him to run for Frank Lautenberg’s U. S. Senate seat in 2014. A recent poll indicated that Booker would easily beat Lautenberg in a Democratic primary should the 88 year old senator make another run.
That hasn’t stopped Congressman Frank Pallone from calling Democratic County Chairs to remind them that he is still interested in the Senate seat he has long coveted but never had the guts to fight for.
Pallone best shot at becoming a Senator came and went in 2002 when he declined Governor Jim McGreevey’s offer to replace the disgraced Senator Robert Torricelli on the ballot against Doug Forrester. McGreevey brought Frank Lautenberg out of retirement and got the State Supreme Court to rewrite New Jersey’s election law so the switch could be made after the statutory deadline. The polls showing Forrester beating Toricelli scared Pallone off from giving up a easy victory in CD-6 in favor of his dream job in the Senate.
Lautenberg went on to clobber Forrester in 2002 and was elected again in 2008.
Pallone was passed over for the Senate in 2006 when Governor Jon Corzine chose Bob Menendez to replace him in the Senate. Menendez won his own term that November and was reelected last month. He is on the verge of becoming the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Pallone clearly wants to be a Senator, but his history indicates that he doesn’t have the fortitude to risk his cushy lifestyle as a congressman in order to fight for his dream. I hope he grows a pair and goes for it, because the race to replace him in the 6th Congressional District would be great for blog traffic.
WHO WOULD RUN FOR PALLONE’S CD-6 SEAT IF IT WAS VACANT?
The tragic news in Connecticut knocked the latest scandal involving U. S. Senator Bob Menendez out of the news. In case you missed it, last week the news broke that an 18 year old intern in the senator’s New Jersey office was arrested on December 6 for being an illegal immigrant eligible for deportation because he is also a registered sex offender. The initial report said that the Department of Homeland Security instructed ICE not to arrest the intern before the election. DHS strongly denied that allegation.
A week after the arrest, Menendez told MSNBC, that he had just heard about the situation prior to the interview and blamed the lack of screening of the intern on the college that recommended him:
The intern story was broken by the Associated Press and well covered by the mainstream media prior to the Newtown, CT massacre.
What wasn’t covered by the mainstream media where the ethics and sex scandals that broke in late October and early November. In case you missed those, the right-wing news site, The Daily Caller, reported that Menendez accepted free travel to the Dominican Republic from a campaign contributor for a sex party that included the services of young Dominican escorts who were promised $500 to party with the senator but only received $100. The left-wing news site GAWKER followed the Daily Caller story with a report of the senator’s frequent late night antics “with different women every night” that kept his Washington DC neighbors awake.
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House oversight subcommittee on homeland defense has launched an investigation into the delay in arresting Menendez’s intern. But no one seems to be investigating how an illegal immigrant sex offender became an intern to a U.S. Senator or Menendez’s sexploits funded by campaign contributors.
Menendez is on deck to become the Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee should Senator John Kerry be named Secretary of State.
Menendez has a history of interfering in foreign affairs to forward his personal and political agenda . His power to do so will naturally increase if he becomes Chairman of the committee that recommends the ratification of ambassadors and treaties and influences the economics of our relationships with our allies and enemies around the world.
MMM asked two prominent New Jersey mainstream journalists why Menendez was getting a pass over the sex scandals. “No body cares,” said one of the journalists. “The story is too thin,” said the other. Now that Menendez is on the verge of having real power, hopefully the media will get a more rigorous in how they cover him.
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez says he did not know that his 18 year old intern, Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, was an illegal immigrant and a registered sex offender.
How does the senator’s staff check to see if their interns are in the United States legally? They ask them.
The senator’s office said a background check didn’t show Zavaleta’s registration as a sex offender because he was a juvenille in 2010 when he was arrested in Hudson County. Zavaelta’s name does not appear on the NJ State Police registry of sex offenders. So where is he registered?
The Homeland Security Department has strongly denied media reports that they instructed ICE not to arrest Zavaleta until after the November 6 election. The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office tipped ICE off about Zavaleta in October.
How does Homeland Security or a prosecutor not tell a U. S. Senator that an illegal immigrant and sex offender are working in his office. Maybe there’s an ongoing investigation. One can hope.
How does a teenager from Peru get to be an intern for a U. S. Senator? Does he show up at the office in a suit and say “Me gustaría trabajar gratis como su interno”?
Or is the kid related to a campaign donor or maybe an executive of a bank that Menendez invests in or oversees as a member of the Senate Banking Committee?
The world’s largest commercial baker, Grupo Bimbo (pronounced beem-bo) of Mexico, has an edge in acquiring Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread in the Hostess Brands liquidation, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
There are American companies looking at acquiring the Hostess properties, including Little Debbie baker McKees Foods. But Bimbo has an edge.
By producing Twinkies in Mexico, Bimbo could avoid paying the artificially high sugar prices that Hostess bore due to goverment tariffs that protect the Florida sugar industry. Bimbo also wouldn’t pay union benefits and wages, that the former Hostess employees will no longer be getting now that their employer is closing down. Bimbo could also distribute the products without the inefficient rules, like having different trucks for Twinkies and Wonder Bread, that unions insisted upon with Hostess.
Media cares about Twinkies,not about allegations against Menendez
In case you missed it while the lights were out, the right wing website, The Daily Caller reported allegations that Menendez used the private jet of a campaign contributor to fly to the Dominican Republic for a sex parties on multiple occasions, including a Easter weekend tryst where he didn’t pay his hostesses their agreed fee for a threesome. The left wing website, Gawker followed Daily Caller’s story with a report that Menendez hosts “a different attractive young lady” in his Washington, DC apartment almost every night from 11 p.m. until 3 a.m., keeping his downstairs neighbors up all night with his loud squeaking bed.
Of New Jersey media outlets, only MMM, InTheLobby and Save Jersey, have given Menendez’s bimbo/ethics violation issues any attention, even after state Senator Sam Thompson, as chairman of the Middlesex County GOP, filed an ethics complaint against Menendez. A senior statehouse reporter told MMM that New Jersey’s mainstream media is not covering the Menendez scandal because “nobody cares.” He said its a matter of priorities and that to expect more of this as fewer and fewer people report news and more and more news. The reporter said he didn’t think the lack of coverage was political.
Of course its political. Just as MMM, InTheLobby and Save Jersey paying attention to the issue is political. There is no such thing as an unbiased media. There’s only those who are honest about their biases and those who are pretending not to be biased.
However, the far left wing website, Gawker, followed Daily Caller’s story with a report from “someone who was unfortunate enough to live in the unit below Menendez’s Washington, DC apartment,” who said “he would bring home a different young, attractive lady almost every night, put on a little jazz, and f**k loudly until 3 a.m.”
The Monmouth County Democratic Organization swept races across the county yesterday! U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. for a big 65% district-wide victory! Congressman Pallone also comfortably carried the Monmouth County portion of the district with over 55% of the vote. President Obama and Senator Menendez nearly matched Governor Romney and Senator Kyrillos vote by vote in what analysts had predicted earlier in the year would be a Republican blowout in Monmouth. They were wrong! Monmouth County Democrats delivered over 125,000 votes for President Obama, the 6th highest amount of votes in the state of all 21 counties. Turnout for the election was at an impressive 58% of registered voters despite half the county still not having power and with thousands of people still displaced from their homes.
Monmouth County Democrats scored major municipal wins, defeating 7 incumbent Republicans. NO Democratic incumbents were defeated. Monmouth Dems scored major wins in the Bayshore this year, with wins in Highlands, Atlantic Highlands, Hazlet, Keyport and Matawan, setting up a strong foundation in the Bayshore for future years. Here are some of our major wins
In Atlantic Highlands, Roy Dellosso and Bob Sutton were re-elected, topping two Republican challengers by over 350 votes.
In Belmar, Councilwoman Jennifer Nicolay won nearly 60% of the vote, trouncing her Republican challenger.
In Eatontown, incumbent Councilman Anthony Talerico was top vote-getter by nearly 1,000 votes defeating his Republican challenger. In addition, Janice Kroposky comfortably defeated Republican incumbent Kevin Gonzalez to win the second seat. Welcome to the Eatontown governing body, Councilwoman-Elect Kroposky!
In Farmingdale, 4 Democrats faced 4 Republicans in a showdown for the Western Monmouth community. Democrats Richard Geffken and newcomer Carly Immen defeated their Republican opponents to win 2 of the seats. Democrat Jan Zientek currently trails by just 5 votes behind his Republican challenger for the 3rd seat. Absentee ballots and Provisionals still need to be counted and Monmouth County Democrats’ attorneys are weighing a re-count for Jan’s seat. Still, winning these 2 seats is a huge breakthrough in a town where Republican voter registration outnumbers Democrats 2 to 1.
In Freehold Borough, Democratic newcomer Ron Griffiths outsed Republican incumbent John Newman while Democratic incumbent Sharon Shutzer was re-elected.
In Hazlet, Democrats Jim DiNardo and Barbara Ronchetti beat Republican incumbent Mayor David Tinker and Committeeman Jim Brady to take a 3-2 majority of the Hazlet governing body, a big win for the Bayshore community.
In Highlands, Democratic Councilman Kevin Redmond was re-elected and Democrat Tara Ryan was elected, winning a Republican held seat.
In Keyport, Democratic Councilman Ken McPeek was re-elected and Sophia Lamberson was elected. Councilwoman-Elect Lamberson will take the seat of Council President Christian Bolte who did not seek re-election. The duo beat their GOP challengers by more than 500 votes.
In Matawan, Democratic newcomer Kim Daly was elected to the Borough Council defeating incumbent councilman Andrew Lopez. Democrat Nicholas Nellegar was narrowly defeated for the 2nd seat by just 80 votes. Monmouth County Democrats Attorneys are currently reviewing absentee ballots and provisionals but Democrats have broken the all GOP stronghold in Matawan.
By popular demand (from Matt Rooney and a Democratic operative who doesn’t want people to know he/she talks to me) your favorite blogger is shifting his focus away from the Sandy Aftermath and back to politics on this election eve.
Rooney said, “Let’s hear your projection, Gallagher.” My response: “The power will be off at my house for the rest of the week.”
The “Three monkeys award” goes to the New Jersey press corps for their coverage of Bob Menendez and Lisa Jackson.
