You’ll Never Guess Who’s Trying to Hack Your iPhone

The FBI wants to search through your electronic life. You may think it’s a given that the government is in the business of collecting everyone’s personal data—Big Brother run amok in defiance of the Constitution. But under the limits of the Fourth Amendment, nothing it finds can be used to prosecute its targets. Now the FBI… Read the rest of this entry »

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Federal prosecutors interviewed Chris Christie in bridge scandal probe, report says

TRENTON — Federal prosecutors interviewed Gov. Chris Christie last month as part of the ongoing investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closure controversy, according to a published report. The governor, who’s weighing a presidential campaign, met with prosecutors and the FBI for more than two hours, according to ABC news. The meeting took place at… Read the rest of this entry »

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Former al-Qaida hostage recounts nightmare of dealing with FBI after his return

WASHINGTON — The only thing as bad as being tortured for months as a captive of jihadists in Syria was dealing with the U.S. government afterward, according to one former American hostage. Matt Schrier, 36, a freelance photographer held by extremists for seven months in 2013 until he escaped, has told McClatchy that the bureaucracy he… Read the rest of this entry »

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Andrew Lucas Arrested

Former Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas was arrested this morning by federal authorities, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Lucas has been indicted on 11 counts including wire fraud, loan application fraud, illegal monetary transaction, false statements to the IRS,  aggravated identity theft, obstruction of a grand jury investigation and falsification of records in a federal investigation.

The charges are for alleged actions in connection with Lucas’s purchase of Burke Farm. No charges were made in connection of the sale of the development rights to the farm to the government’s Open Space Program, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Lucas is being represented by Mario F. Gallucci of Helbock, Nappa and Gulluci, a Staten Island, NY law firm.

The U. S. Attorney’s statement says:

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Monmouth County Prosecutor Actively Investigating 4am Robocall

Despite waking up thousands of Monmouth County voters at 4am on primary day, the Bayshore Tea Party Group and the Bellew Brigade have apparently not lost any sleep over their crushing defeat last week.  The architects of the 20%-80% defeat in the Monmouth County and LD 13 GOP primaries have endorsed Dr. Alieta Eck in the Special U.S. Senate Primay and are angling to run that campaign.

Congratulations Steve Lonegan!

Neither BTPG nor Leigh-Ann Bellew’s campaign have admitted to commissioning the 4am robocall on June 4 that announced it was being made on behalf of Senator Joe Kyrillos , Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon and faked the caller ID to a number belonging to the Monmouth County Republican Organization.  They are exercising their right to remain silent to the extent that they have yet to congratulate their opponents.

MMM first reported the call (click here to listen) and that it appears to have been recorded by the same person who recorded Bellew’s voice mail greeting. (Click here to listen to Bellew’s voice mail greeting.)

Kyrillos and O’Scanlon publicly accused the Bellew campaign of making the call. Monmouth County GOP Chairman John Bennett lodged a complaint with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. Bennett said yesterday that he will not let up on pursuing prosecution of the dirty trick.

Bayshore Tea Party Group co-founder Barbara Gonzalez complained about this website on facebook, saying she was going to report its owner to the FBI because he finds out, and acts on, what she is writing about on the social media site without the help of the NSA or the Obama Administration.

Charles Webster, spokesperson for the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, confirmed that there is an active investigation into the 4am robocall.

Webster was not at liberty to discuss the investigation, so MMM’s investigative team got to work to find more evidence of the call’s origin.

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What if Menendez resigns or is expelled from the Senate?

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!

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Menendez Ponies Up $58,500 For Two Flights To The Dominican Republic

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.

T.J.Hooker is selling flights from Miami to Punta Cana for $446.

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.

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

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Menendez not denying allegations of pay to play with Dominican children

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.

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Menendez Sex and Ethics Scandal Widens

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.

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