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.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the September 11th attack on Benghazi this afternoon.
Monmouth County Congressman Chris Smith is a member of the committee.
Prior to last month the buzz about Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s future was that he would run for U.S. Senate in 2014, challenging Senator Frank Launtenberg if necessary. Booker opened a federal PAC last year and Lautenberg has been sniping at him ever since.
But in the weeks leading up to the convention Booker met with county chairs to plant the seeds of a gubernatorial run against Governor Chris Christie last year. In Charlotte he went into full campaign mode without making an announcement. In the process he made himself the front runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2013. A Booker candidacy for governor will clear the Democratic field. Without Booker in the race there will be a contentious primary. Senators Dick Codey, Barbara Buono and Steve Sweeney could be contenders. Assemblymen John Wisniewski and Lou Greenwald are acting like candidates. Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage says he will run if Booker doesn’t.
None of the other potential candidates will be able to gain any traction until Booker makes his intentions clear.
As a nod to Booker’s front runner status, Quinnipiac polled a Christie/Booker match up. Christie won the poll by 7%, but Booker’s name was recognised by 60% of those polled. That is an extraordinary high number for a New Jersey politician who has never run a statewide race. Booker has better name recognition than Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. He is as well known and better liked than U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.
Booker told the New Jersey delegation in Charlotte that Christie can be beat and that he is only governor because urban Democrats didn’t come out to vote for Jon Corzine in 2009. The implication is that he can get urban voters out, regardless of the desires of Democratic bosses George Norcross in the south and Joe DiVincenzo in the north who didn’t rev their machines for Corzine in 09.
Speaks out against Chinese trade practices at Foreign Affairs Committee hearing
At a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) blasted the Chinese Government for stealing U.S. jobs through deceitful policies and trading practices. Fake products and components made in China and sold in the U.S. put American consumers at risk, he said. Fake Chinese computer chips have even been found in U.S. defense systems.
“All of us know that economic growth and vigorous exports are vital to American prosperity, and now in these difficult times—economic recovery,” said Smith at a full hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee entitled “Unfair Trading Practices against the U.S.: Intellectual Property Rights Infringement (IPR), Property Expropriation, and Other Barriers.”
“American workers can out-compete anyone in the world, but theft of intellectual property – the patents, copyrights, trademarks, industrial designs, and trade secrets of American companies — robs them of a fair return on their innovation and their work,” Smith added.
Invoking Hillary Clinton from her ill-fated 2008 Democratic presidential primary against Barack Obama, the Romney for President campaign is releasing a television ad today that pushes back on Obama’s claims that Romney outsourced jobs while managing Bain Capital.
In the unlikely event that any of the challenges to Barack Obama’s candidacy for a second term makes it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court and succeeds, then what?
Before the case even got that far, would Judges and Justices appointed by Obama be eligible to hear and rule on the issue? Can you imagine Hannity or Limbaugh if they do rule? Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann (if he gets a job) if they don’t?
If Obama is ruled ineligible to serve as President of the United States, is he immediately removed from office? If so, who becomes President? If Obama’s 2008 election was invalid, it seems that Joe Biden’s election as Vice President would also be invalid. Next in line would be House Speaker John Boehner.
If John Boehner assumes the presidency, would the GOP nominate him as the 2012 candidate? Boehner isn’t ready to retire. Why would he want to give up the Speakership in order to be President for a few months. Would Boehner appoint Mitt Romney as Vice President? Would the Senate confirm Romney? Would Romney accept the job?
Would Boehner pardon Obama?
Who do the Democrats nominate for President? Biden? The party never warmed to him as a presidential candidate in his multiple tries. Hillary Clinton? John Kerry? Al Gore? Jesse Jackson? Al Sharpton? Keith Ellison (a real American Muslim)? Cory Booker? Dennis Kucinich?
What happens to all the laws, executive orders and appointments that Obama signed? Is ObamaCare the law? Are Sonya Sotomayor and Eleana Kagan Supreme Court Justices? Did Sandra Fluke really need all of that birth control?
Obama hasn’t signed a budget sinced he’s been President, but is the debt ceiling valid? Is all of that debt backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America?
Would Obama owe the U.S. Treasury his salary, rent on the White House? Would he have to reimburse the Treasury for his security and vacations? Does he has to reimburse all his donors from the 2008 and 2012 campaigns?
I can understand why Judges would look for procedural or jurisdictional grounds not to hear such a case.
What would be better for the country? To pursue the issues raised by the Objectors or look the other way?
Far be it from me to note the superficial and inconsequential, but when I see Fluke I think more “chaste librarian” than raging “slut.”
By Olivia Nuzzi
The Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh drama has succeeded in sparking a national debate about false equivalency in the media. Of course, things like sexism and misogyny exist on both the right and left. But on which side is it worse? And on which side – if any – is it fundamental?
In a piece posted here yesterday, Art Gallagher attacked “misogynists lefties” whom he admitted he had “never heard of” until The Daily Beast’s Kristen Powers brought them to his attention. Though, not knowing about these media figures didn’t stop Gallagher from blindly agreeing with Powers that they were “misogynists.”
I have a big problem with anyone making a diagnosis from a distance. Is Rush Limbaugh a misogynist? I suppose to figure that out you’d have to talk to his mother and four wives.
Does Rush Limbaugh say misogynistic things, and has he done so consistently throughout his career? From his claim that having “two or three abortions” is a part of a feminist “paying her dues” to his cracks about First Lady Michelle Obama’s figure, the evidence isn’t difficult to find.
However, none of that means that Limbaugh is without insight. And liberals who nod in agreement with the establishment left – conceding that he’s a mere useless blowhard – are not doing themselves any favors.
Limbaugh is right on occasion – there are indeed militant feminists, and what they espouse is arguably as harmful as Mel Gibson calling your daughter “sugar tits.” Admitting that doesn’t mean that I’m not a feminist, it means I’m not an ideological imbecile (though the readers on this website may disagree.)
The assertion that “lefties” are never reprimanded for their sexist or racist remarks may read as accurate if you live in a bubble. Evidently, Gallagher’s bubble hasn’t yet been punctured by reality on this topic.
Last May, MSNBC host and converted-liberal, Ed Schultz, was suspended by the network after calling Laura Ingraham a “right wing slut” on his radio program. I condemned that statement, as did every one from Alyssa Rosenberg from the left-wing Think Progress, to the Women’s Media Center’s President Julie Burton, to Keith Olbermann – that’d be one of those “misogynists lefties” Gallagher had “never heard of.”
In 2008, the National Organization for Women (NOW) circulated a petition, protesting MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ “record of ‘overt sexism when discussing women.'” They based this claim on research conducted by the known-liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America. The left-leaning NOW denounced Matthews for “sexist comments” made about Hillary Clinton, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the female correspondents who he worked with at MSNBC.
Also in 2008, MSNBC suspended Tucker Carlson’s guest-host David Shuster for suggesting that the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” Chelsea Clinton.
The late, great Christopher Hitchens was often the subject of liberal rage for his alleged sexism in the form of observations such as “Mrs. Clinton, looking like the dog being washed” and assessments of that same target as being “flagrant, hysterical, repetitive and pathological lying.” One of Hitchens’ later works, a Vanity Fair piece entitled “Why Women Aren’t Funny” saw him denounced as “sexist” by Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar and comedian Sarah Silverman.
In 2010, liberal hero Michael Moore, along with noted feminist author Naomi Wolfe, was the subject of a left-wing protest labeled “Moore and Me.” After making comments deemed “insensitive” regarding rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and offering to post his $20,000 bail, Moore was declared a “rape apologist.” Also smeared with the label was Naomi Wolfe, who – along with Moore and a handful of others – refused to condemn and dismiss Assange by virtue of the unclear rape allegations made against him.
And should you be under the impression that those on the left are only castigated when they’re criticizing fellow liberals, you’re mistaken.
Keith Olbermann has come under fire numerous times from the liberal and feminist establishments for his bombastic remarks about conservative women. In 2009, Olbermann was called out by the left-wing Air America’s editor of news and politics, Megan Carpentier, for “belittling” Malkin’s voice with his impersonation of her. Carpentier went on to suggest that Olbermann’s attack relied on “silly stereotypes” and “imagery that brings to mind victims of domestic violence.”
This past November, Bill Maher – another one of those “misogynists lefties” Gallagher had “never heard of” – was scolded by feminists after he made a joke about the detention of CBS’s Lara Logan, wherein he suggested that America would be willing to send Elisabeth Hasselbeck to Egypt in exchange for the safe return of the foreign correspondent.
The Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh episode is a unique one, mainly because Sandra Fluke is not a public figure. Limbaugh did not simply take a one-shot at a commentator – he used his platform as the loudest voice in radio to verbally batter a civilian for days.
Far be it from me to note the superficial and inconsequential, but when I see Fluke I think more “chaste librarian” than raging “slut.” Not to mention, Fluke’s testimony itself had nothing to do with sex. Which leads me to believe that Limbaugh didn’t even bother to listen to her speak – and perhaps he didn’t even bother to look at her. Had he done so, he would’ve witnessed a civil woman discuss a friend who paid, out of pocket, for the birth control pills she was prescribed to treat a medical condition.
It’s true that both the liberal and conservative movements have leaders, followers and mouthpieces who often thoughtlessly employ incendiary rhetoric. But it’s also true that those with sharp tongues on both sides of the aisle face consequences.
Unfortunately for ideologues, more people are governed by their sense of Right and Wrong than Right and Left.
Olivia Nuzzi was briefly a MMM contributor until Dan Jacobson’s triCityNews lured her away with money and colorful language. We’re glad to have her back, even if only to set us straight.
Serena DiMaso will be elected Monmouth County Freeholder at the Title 19 convention of the Monmouth GOP Committee on January 14. Bob Walsh will withdraw during his speech before the convention.
Bill Spadea defeats Donna Simon and John Saccenti at a Title 19 convention of the 16th legislative district to fill the assembly seat vacated by the death of Peter Biondi. After recounts and law suits, the November special election for the seat is declared a tie between Spadea and Democratic Princeton Committeewoman Sue Nemeth. Another special election is scheduled for January of 2013.
Joe Oxley will be named Township Administrator and In House Attorney for Wall Township. The appointment will forward a statewide trend of municipalities hiring either attorneys or engineers as their administrators as a cost saving measure. Oxley is reelected GOP County Chairman by acclamation. Senator Jennifer Beck will give the nominating speech. Christine Hanlon will be Vice Chair.
Middletown will get a new Parks and Recreation Director. It won’t be Linda Baum or Pam Brightbill.
Jim McGreevey is ordained an Episcopal priest.
Jon Corzine remembers where he put the $1.2 billion.
Senator Joe Kyrillos will be the GOP nominee for U.S. Senator, defeating Anna Little and Joseph Rudy Rullo in the primary.
Congressman Steve Rothman defeats Congressman Bill Pascrell in the Democratic primary for the 9th Congressional District nomination. In the only surprise of the primary, former Bergen County GOP Freeholder Anthony Cassano, who had agreed to take one for the team in the 9th, was defeated when the Bergen County Tea Party Group organized a write-in campaign for Anna Little. Little was on the ballot as a U.S. Senate candidate. Having lost the Senate nomination to Joe Kyrillos, Little accepts the nomination, asks Kyrillos to host a fundraiser for her, and promises to move into the district if she wins. She doesn’t.
Maggie Moran defeats Vin Gopal and Frank “LaHornica” LaRocca in a close election for the Monmouth County Democratic Chairmanship.
James Hogan of Long Branch is the GOP nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District. Frank Pallone is reelected by 8%.
Jordan Rickards of North Brunswick is the GOP nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. Rush Holt is reelected by 15%.
On August 28, the second day of the Republican National Convention, the National Weather Service warns that Hurricane Chris is heading towards the Jersey Shore. Acting Governor Kim Guadagno gets on TV and says, “Get the heck off of the beach please.”
Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee for President of the United States. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be the Vice Presidential nominee.
President Obama nominates Vice President Joe Biden to be Secretary of State. Biden submits his resignation as VP effective upon both houses of congress confirming his successor. President Obama nominates Hillary Clinton as Vice President. Speaker of the House John Boehner refuses to schedule confirmation hearings for the VP nomination on the constitutional grounds that their is no vacancy in the office. Obama makes them both recess appointments. Clinton is nominated for VP at the Democratic National Convention and Secretary of State Biden spends October in China.
Despite losing their home states of Massachusetts and New Jersey, the Romney-Christie ticket wins the electoral college by one vote, 270-269. The winning vote comes from Maine, one of two states that awards electoral votes by congressional district. Romney-Christie lose Maine 3-1 but win the election. Obama-Clinton file suit to challenge Maine’s method of awarding electoral votes. Romney-Christie counter with a suit in Nebraska, which they won 4 electoral votes to 1, using the same arguments that Obama-Clinton use in Maine. The U.S. Supreme Court decides both cases for the plaintiffs, 5-4, and determined that in all future presidential elections that electoral votes are awarded on a winner take all basis nationally. Tea Party leader Dwight Kehoe calls for the impeachment of the Justices who voted affirmatively, claiming that they don’t understand the 10th Amendment.
Robert Menendez defeats Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate by 1%.
U. S. Senator Frank Lautenberg resigns. In one of his last acts as Governor before ascending to the Vice Presidency, Chris Christie appoints Kyrillos to Lautenberg’s Senate seat.
The Internet and print media are replete with comments of Democratic leaders and rank-and-file expressing “buyer’s remorse” over their party’s selection of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton as the presidential nominee in 2008.Obama’s political ineptitude and pathetic lack of policy insight have been magnified before the national electorate during the debt ceiling wars and the financial markets’ free fall.Unless unemployment drops below eight percent by September, 2012, Obama will not be reelected, regardless of the identity of his Republican opponent.
My normal reaction would be to say, “Far be it from me to comment on Democratic Party internal travails.”As a long time New Jersey GOP stalwart, however, I have the following shameful confession to make. I had a surprisingly good working relationship with the then New York U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and her staff while I served as Region 2 EPA Regional Administrator during the second term of President George W. Bush. I certainly would never support her for President, but if I had to have a Democratic President, I would far rather have her than a Barack Obama.
I had substantial interaction with Hillary Clinton – direct substantial interaction, because she often would pick up the phone herself to call me. I dealt extensively with her on post- 9-11 matters, and to her credit, she kept these matters out of partisan politics. She had a deep, genuine interest in the environment, and she was always most appreciative when I would brief her on subjects as to which she was unfamiliar, such as the Filtration Avoidance Determination for New York City water.
Unlike Obama, Hillary Clinton was willing to work closely with Republican members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to achieve bipartisan goals. This was confirmed for me in conversations I had with my closest friend in the New York State Republican Congressional delegation, the then Representative Jim Walsh, who represented the Syracuse area.
Jim Walsh and I had similar experiences of bipartisan cooperation with Hillary Clinton. This was in sharp contrast to our working experiences with the disgraced former Governor Eliot Spitzer, a political Sonny Liston, who was a vulgar, offensive and profane cowardly partisan bully, without ethical scruples. Both of us had experienced ugly confrontations with the then New York governor – from which neither Jim nor I backed down. Unlike Hillary, who was gracious and dignified, Eliot Spitzer gave new meaning to the term “political thug”.
Another distinguishing feature of the then Senator Hillary Clinton was her Senate staff. On the Democratic side of the aisle, she had the most competent staff of any Senator, with the exception of the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s Labor Committee staff. Her record of Senate accomplishment stood in sharp contrast to that of the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who established a record of substantial nonachievement.
So in late 2007, I was certain that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2008. I had no doubt that she would have a campaign staff as competent as her Senatorial staff. I felt that with the supreme political skills of both her husband Bill and herself, she would easily defeat Barack Obama.
I was therefore shocked by the incompetency of both her campaign and campaign staff. I was even further surprised when she accepted Obama’s appointment of her as Secretary of State.
Had Hillary Clinton remained in the U.S. Senate, I am convinced that she could have eventually achieved the stature of the late Senator Ted Kennedy or an Orrin Hatch, senators respected on both sides of the political aisle for their ability to achieve bipartisan cooperation in pursuit of the public good.
Instead, she became the spokesperson for a failed foreign policy with which, I believe, she often disagrees.
Rumor in Washington has it that Hillary will be leaving the Obama administration in the spring of 2012 to become the president of the World Bank.This would enable her to independently have influence on the world economy.There is no doubt as to her competency in this new position.
In retrospect, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary positioned herself as a highly qualified and ready future President of the United States.By contrast, Barack Obama was campaigning as a national political rock star and messiah.He was a senator without accomplishments, yet his charisma won over Hillary’s competence and experience.
It seems to me that Democrats throughout the nation now comprehend this all too clearly.For the remainder of this administration, increasing numbers of Democrats will continue to express remorse for voting for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008.This is scant comfort to Hillary, whose hopes of becoming President are effectively gone.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and eight federally recognized Indian nations. Under former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, he served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He currently serves on the political science faculty of Monmouth University.
