Daily Caller says FBI is investigating NJ Senator for exploiting underage Dominican prostitutes, ABC News covering up scandal
Senator Bob Menendez should be kicking back and celebrating his accomplishments this weekend. He took over the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just in time to preside over Hillary Clinton’s high profile testimony regarding the September 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya and he scored a 51% approval rating among New Jersey voters in a Quinnipiac poll this week.
But the stories about Menendez’s inappropriate foreign relations in the Dominican Republic just won’t go away.
Early this morning Daily Caller, the conservative website that last October broke the story about Menendez stiffing Dominican prostitutes, posted a story reporting that the FBI opened an investigation into the Senator for victimising underage Domincan girls, in exchange for money, last August.
DC links to documents indicating that ABC News Senior Investigative Producer Rhoda Schwartz was on to Menendez’s exploits last May and that Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was alerted to Menendez’s foreign pay to play last April.
New Jersey’s mainstream media has ignored the story because it is considered “thin,” according to one reporter and becauses “nobody cares and we’re too busy” according to another.
USNews reported in November that the story “wouldn’t stick”, in part, because it involved a Democrat.
“You would see a little more digging if he were a Republican. It is the slightest of the factors, but it is still a factor,”
State Senator Sam Thompson, in his capacity as chairman of the Middlesex GOP, wrote to the Senate Ethics Committee in November asking that they investigate Menendez. So far, there has been no investigation reported.
Posted: January 25th, 2013 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Bob Menendez | Tags: ABC News, Bob Menendez, Bob Menendez sex scandal, Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics in Washington, Crew, Daily Caller, FBI, FBI investigation, FBI Investigation into Bob Menendez, Menendez sex scandal, Senator Sam Thompson | 3 Comments »
By Art Gallagher
While municipalities and school boards throughout New Jersey are struggling with budget cuts and layoffs of teachers, police and other public workers, over in Rumson they’re fighting over whether the spring crew program will be administered by the Rumson Recreation Department or by Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, according to a post this morning at RedBankGreen.
People who participate in crew are very passionate about it.
Growing up in Bergenfield, we didn’t have a crew team. Not one run by the Recreation Department or by the High School. The nearest river was the Hackensack. I guess it didn’t occur to anyone to row there.
At Georgetown I had some friends on the crew team. My roommate would get up before dawn and run, so he told me, like really run hard, down to the Potomac where the team would row for a couple of hours and then run up and down the stairs from the Exorcist movie for a while. I knew it was time to get up for my first class when I smelled him come back into our room and heard his groaning.
My girlfriend’s roommate was a coxswain. She was less than five feet tall and weighed less than 100 lbs. She got up before dawn too, did the running thing, and then sat on the back of the boat yelling at all of the guys through a bullhorn who did what she said. She loved it.
They all seemed very passionate about it. I didn’t get it, but I was happy for them. But I digress.
Why would smart adults be having a turf war over the crew team? That’s tougher for me to get my head around than trying to understand what my friends were so passionate about 35 years ago.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the issues is this controversy. The RBG article indicates it has something to do with which government entity owns the equipment. Doesn’t it all belong to the taxpayers? Ahh, but which taxpayers, Rumson’s or Fair Haven’s? Muncipal or School Board?
I suppose this is an opportunity to teach the kids a lesson in politics and red tape. Maybe they already mastered commitment, teamwork and the other character building lessons of scholastic athletics.
I never heard of an award winning Recreation Department sports team. I never heard of a kid earning a college scholarship based upon his or her performance on a Recreation Department team. But like I said, I’m not an expert on crew. Maybe somone from Princeton or the Philadephia Main Line could clear it up for me.
In the meantime, I bet that if the powers that be in Rumson and Fair Haven focused on what is best for the kids that the politics and red tape could be solved quickly. Wouldn’t that be a great lesson.
Posted: December 15th, 2010 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Education, Fair Haven, Property Taxes, Rumson | Tags: Crew, Rumson, Rumson-Fair Haven | 1 Comment »
