Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.) on Monday dismissed speculation that he would step down as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because of pending Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal corruption charges against him.
“You know what? I haven’t been charged with anything, so you guys are way ahead,” he told a mob of reporters.
He also shrugged off suggestions by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and others that the corruption charges against him are political retribution for opposing the White House’s negotiations with Iran.
“That’s their speculation, not mine,” he said.
Menendez said Friday that he was not “going anywhere” despite reports that DOJ was moving to bring criminal corruption charges against him, likely concerning allegations that he used his office to advocate for an ophthalmologist friend from whom he had accepted plane trips to the Dominican Republic.
Social Security Administration Expects Beneficiaries of Obama’s Amnesty Will Be Covered Starting Later This Year
by Ryan Lovelace March 9, 2015 1:29 PM
Illegal immigrants who take advantage of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration will soon collect another benefit: Social Security. Starting in 2017, the Social Security Administration expects that thousands of undocumented immigrants will begin collecting from the Old-Age, Survivor’s, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program as a direct result of the president’s actions. In a letter to Republican senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the SSA’s chief actuary Stephen Goss indicated that an additional 16,000 people will begin collecting OASDI benefits come 2017, and that the number of beneficiaries would continue to increase for 40 years thereafter, topping out at 695,000 people. Goss’s projection may underestimate the number of potential beneficiaries, however, as it assumes that 50,000 fewer illegal immigrants will enter the country each year starting in 2016.
What’s more, the SSA is proceeding as if nothing has changed in the wake of a federal judge’s injunction against Obama’s November 2014 executive actions. Goss tells NRO that he expects 58,000 new workers will be covered under the OASDI program later this year, although they will not be eligible to collect benefits immediately. “Based on the best advice and counsel we have gotten, we’re working on the assumption that these [executive actions] will persist,” Goss says. “Most indications we seem to get are that it’s likely that this will get back on track, with some delay.” Goss notes that a law, additional regulation, or another executive action by Obama or a future president could alter the way SSA calculates and administers OASDI benefits, but says that he does not expect the court’s order will ultimately succeed in changing anything.
Highway robbery? Bill seeks probe of New Jersey road costs
By Mark Lagerkvist | New Jersey Watchdog
Why does New Jersey spend more on its highway system than any other state?
On the heels of reports by New Jersey Watchdog, a state senator is introducing legislation Monday to create a task force to address that question.
“When we’re spending two or three times more per mile than any other state, it’s extremely likely that significant savings can be found by the task force,” said Sen. Mike Doherty, R-Washington Township, the bill’s sponsor.
New Jersey pays in excess of $2 million a mile per year — more than 12 times higher than the national average — to maintain 3,338 miles of state-administered roads, according to a Reason Foundation study.
State transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox responded by calling the study “inaccurate and unfair” in a column published by NJ.com. However, Fox did not offer alternative figures, nor did he dispute that New Jersey has the costliest roads in the country.
“Some may quibble over how much more New Jersey spends on our highways than other states, but nobody disputes that we do spend more than everyone else,” said Doherty. “With New Jersey drivers already shouldering such a heavy tax and toll burden, it’s imperative that we find out why millions we spend on our roads get us so little in return.”
That weight will only get heavier if lawmakers pass a proposed 25-cents a gallon hike in the state gas tax. According to its proponents, the state must to raise $2 billion a year to fund its transportation projects.
The Transportation Trust Fund is almost out of cash and must repay $17 billion in debt for money already spent. That figure equals half of New Jersey’s entire annual state budget.
“It leaves us with this very, very long tail of debt,” testified David Rosen, budget officer for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, at a public hearing in November. “Literally, out to the next 25 years, we still have over $1 billion a year in debt service for stuff we’ve already done.”
Even though TTF soon will run out of money, the state continues to build roads and bridges.
“We just don’t have any cash to do it, so we’re borrowing all the cash,” said Rosen.
The task force proposed by Doherty would be composed of 15 state officials, legislative leaders and transportation representatives. It would release its findings within six months of its organization.
Not Only do Dead People Vote but many collect Social Security
IG Audit: 6.5 Million People With Active Social Security Numbers Are 112 or Older
March 9, 2015 – 10:39 AM
By Susan Jones
An IG audit of the Social Security Administration found that the nation’s database of active Social Security numbers includes more than six and a half million people who are older than 112 years of age.
(CNSNews.com) – Many people are living longer, but not to age 112 or beyond — except in the records of the Social Security Administration.
The SSA’s inspector general has identified 6.5 million number-holders age 112 — or older — for whom no death date has been entered in the main electronic file, called Numident.
The audit, dated March 4, 2015, concluded that SSA lacks the controls necessary to annote death information on the records of number-holders who exceed “maximum reasonable life expectancies.”
“We obtained Numident data that identified approximately 6.5 million numberholders born before June 16, 1901 who did not have a date of death on their record,” the report states.
Some of the numbers assigned to long-dead people were used fraudulently to open bank accounts.
And thousands of those numbers apparently were used by illegal immigrants to apply for work:
“During Calendar Years 2008 through 2011, SSA received 4,024 E-Verify inquiries using the SSNs of 3,873 numberholders born before June 16, 1901,” the report said. “These inquiries indicate individuals’ attempts to use the SSNs to apply for work.”
“It is incredible that the Social Security Administration in 2015 does not have the technical sophistication to ensure that people they know to be deceased are actually noted as dead,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Emails May Be a Key to Addressing ‘Pay-to-Play’ Whispers at Clinton Foundation
There are not two Clinton controversies. There is one big, hairy deal.
By Ron Fournier
March 8, 2015 “Follow the money.” That apocryphal phrase, attributed to Watergate whistle-blower “Deep Throat,” explains why the biggest threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential dreams is not her emails. It’s her family foundation. That’s where the money is: corporate money, foreign money, gobs of money sloshing around a vanity charity that could be renamed “Clinton Conflicts of Interest Foundation.”
What about the emails? Hillary Clinton’s secret communications cache is a bombshell deserving of full disclosure because of her assault on government transparency and electronic security. But its greatest relevancy is what the emails might reveal about any nexus between Clinton’s work at State and donations to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation from U.S. corporations and foreign nations.
Nate Silver hits NYT: Scott Walker’s electoral record ‘pretty damned impressive’
March 8, 2015
By Olaf Ekberg
Election data analyst Nate Silver took to Twitter to dispute a New York Times article claiming Scott Walker’s three election wins during two terms in office weren’t really all that impressive.
“Walker was the second-most-conservative GOP governor running for re-election in 2014,” Harry Enten writes on Silver’s Five Thirty Eight website.
Of all the Republican governors running for re-election in 2014, Walker is the most conservative compared with the type of governor you’d expect was elected based on the 2012 presidential vote. The next closest is Paul LePage in Maine. Based on Walker’s ideology and the ideology of the incumbents running in 2014, you’d expect him to have been a governor of a state that Romney won by about 13 percentage points (Montana, for example) instead of one he lost by about 7 percentage points.
Walker may not be more electable than an average Republican, but electability isn’t the only thing that matters. As my colleague Nate Silver pointed out, Republican voters will be looking for a candidate who is both conservative and electable.
Enten’s analysis is intended to dispute a piece by Nate Cohn in the New York Times in which he claims Walker’s electoral record “isn’t as impressive as it looks.”
Hudson Dems back Menendez in face of allegations as they announce 2015 slate
JERSEY CITY – The Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) announced its slate of candidates for state and county office on Friday in a building that took on an unexpectedly ironic meaning: a courthouse.
Examining New Jersey’s Highest in Nation Highway Costs
SATURDAY, 07 MARCH 2015 12:36
BY BRAD SCHNURE
SPECIAL TO NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
In response to concerns that New Jersey highways are the nation’s most expensive to build, operate and maintain, Senator Mike Doherty (R-23) hasdrafted legislation that will give policymakers the information they need to lower costs for drivers and taxpayers.
As Doherty expressed in a recent editorial, the new measure addresses the dual concerns of excessive state highway costs highlighted in a recent report by the Reason Foundation and calls by some legislators to raise the state’s gas tax to fund new transportation projects.
“Some may quibble over how much more New Jersey spends on our highways than other states, but nobody disputes that we do spend more than everyone else,” said Doherty. “With New Jersey drivers already shouldering such a heavy tax and toll burden, it’s imperative that we find out why the many millions we spend on our roads get us so little in return.”
According to the Reason Foundation’s 21st Annual Highway Report, New Jersey’s overall highway performance ranked 48th among the states despite our roads being the nation’s most expensive. The next most expensive state, Massachusetts, was found to spend two-thirds less per mile than New Jersey despite similarities in population density, climate and highway system size.
Doherty’s legislation would create the “State Transportation Cost Analysis Task Force” to conduct a methodical analysis of the factors that contribute to New Jersey’s road costs, compare our costs to those of other states, and provide recommendations to complete projects more cost-effectively.
HACKENSACK – Democrat Roy Cho, the Korean-born attorney who ran an insurgent campaign in 2014 to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-5) in New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District, announced his decision on Sunday not to run again for the congressional seat in 2016.
“I’ve decided that I’m going to take a pass on running in 2016,” Cho, 33, of Hackensack, told PolitickerNJ on Sunday, noting that he just started a new job at the New York office of the Chicago-based law firm Winston & Strawn as part of its private equity group. “This is a professional decision. After talking to my family, friends and supporters, I think it’s important for me to focus on the professional side of the ledger.”
Cho’s campaign against Garrett, a conservative Republican now in his seventh term, at one point appeared close. A combination of a well-run, grass-roots campaign, a Garrett gaffe in a campaign flyer about the congressman’s actions after Hurricane Sandy and some powerful fundraiser friends got Cho within five points of Garrett with three weeks left in the campaign.
Although Cho raised around $1.3 million for his campaign with no help from the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), money proved to be decisive in the campaign’s final weeks. According to Cho, Garrett spent $2.2 million of his campaign war chest to defeat Cho, including $1.3 million in the campaign’s last week, contributing to the eventual 55 percent to 43 percent margin of victory in favor of Garrett.
“This was the most expensive race the Fifth District has even seen, and the most money [Garrett] has ever spent against anybody,” Cho said. “What we saw in this election is the impact of money on American politics, whether it’s about local or federal races. Campaign finance is an issue that I want to keep talking about.”
Proposals call for senior apartments, luxury duplexes in downtown Ridgewood.
March 9, 2015 Last updated: Monday, March 9, 2015, 1:21 AM
By CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — More than two acres of land downtown could soon be transformed into luxury duplex apartments or assisted-living housing for seniors.
Ridgewood issued a request in September seeking proposals from developers for the 10 properties — including the former gas station site at 132 Franklin Ave. — that make up the village’s redevelopment zone.
The plan from Kensington Senior Development, based in White Plains, N.Y., calls for two structures: a 60-foot-tall residential building — with 98 assisted-living units and 5,000 square feet of retail space — and a parking garage the village would own and operate.
The garage, which will be accessible from Walnut Street, would add more than 130 much-need parking spots to Ridgewood’s downtown, said Harley Cook, one of Kensington’s founding partners.
Cook said Ridgewood could expect an additional 18,000 visitors each year to the village, should his plan gain the appropriate approvals.
Reader says starting in 2018 the BoE and the Village will start having to pay a 40% tax on top of those benefits just because they are so valuable
But let’s raise taxes more to pay to subsidize all of the annual increases in healthcare premiums for our BoE and Municipal employee, right? While they pay a minimum amount out of pocket for what are classified as “platinum” plans under the ACA, the rest of us are paying for both our own health care coverage and then subsidizing public workers – how on earth is this fair? And starting in 2018 the BoE and the Village will start having to pay a 40% tax on top of those benefits just because they are so valuable, worth well over $22,000 according to divorce settlement findings on the value of the health plans. Why are Village taxpayers footing all of the annual increase, which was almost $700K (+12% compared to 2013) just for our municipal employees in 2014? This taxpayer give away has to stop, as this article says, we’re already have the fifth-highest average property tax bill in the nation and pay well over 2% of our property value annually in property taxes… we’re literally being taxed to death to pay for essentially free health care benefits. This has to stop.
Reader says Next Election Cycle the three amigos to at least claim the moral high ground and hypocritically accuse their opponents of incivility.
No presumptions should ever be made about a given officeholder’s current or future odiousness to the public, or about the notion that “now they’ve really cooked their own goose”, certainly leading to a lack of success at the upcoming polls and a failed re-election bid. Corruption can sway election results, but, and perhaps more importantly, an honest but weak or timid election opponent (read: McCain, Romney) can serve to further embolden an ethically compromised incumbent, giving them the breathing and maneuvering room they need to avoid accountability, right at the time they were expecting their opponent to oratorically “put it to them”, for lack of a better term. One must always have a well-developed plan for preventing one’s opponent from gaining or maintaining electoral momentum.
In the upcoming election, we can expect the three amigos to at least claim the moral high ground and hypocritically accuse their opponents of incivility. No opponent can be expected to survive this type of an attack who does not step toward the punch, immediately painting the ‘amigo’ in question as a brazen hypocrite by immediately reciting, preferably from memory, every act of three amigo incivility that seems to apply, and then refusing to back down in the face of the dishonestly indignant reaction (including by their friends in the media) that will be sure to follow.
Menendez, majority of US Senate on same page over Iran: Analyst
Most members of the US Senate share Democratic Senator Robert Menendez’s opinion on Iran’s nuclear energy program and sanctions, an American foreign policy analyst says.
“Senator Menendez is a very powerful member of the Senate, especially in the area of foreign affairs, and his opinion on Iran carries great weight inside the US Senate,” said James George Jatras, a former US diplomat and adviser to the Senate Republican leadership.
The Department of Justice has reportedly decided to bring criminal corruption charges against Menendez, who is involved in congressional efforts to pass anti-Iran legislation.
“As far as the pending charges against him from the Justice Department, I think… you have to presume that he is innocent until the government shows that they have proof of criminal wrongdoing,” Jatras told Press TV on Saturday.
“But I do not think that charges will really do much to change the direction of the Senate on the question of Iran, and the nuclear program and sanctions because Senator Menendez’s opinions are widely shared by other senators of both parties,” he noted.
Menendez, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been one of the detractors of President Barack Obama’s administration.
Analysis: More Mideast allies fear U.S. soft on Iran
Jim Michaels, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Israel is not the only vital American ally in the Middle East increasingly alarmed that the U.S. is working too closely with Iran. So are America’s most important Arab partners.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has trumpeted his worries about a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal, most recently to the U.S. Congress last week. Equally concerned but less vocal are Saudi Arabia and other moderate Arab states who play vital roles as bulwarks against radical Islamists in the region.
Shared interests Washington and Tehran have in driving the Islamic State out of Iraq and Syria are another source of worry for the allies, who do not want to see Iran’s radical leadership emerge as a more powerful and potentially nuclear-armed state in the region.
“Distrust in Saudi Arabia toward the United States hasn’t been this high since 1973,” during the oil embargo, said Michael Rubin, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
Reports last week that Iran’s military was playing a prominent role in an Iraqi offensive to drive Islamic State militants from Tikrit, north of Baghdad, raised a fresh a wave of fear that the United States isn’t doing enough to blunt Iran’s expansionist designs.
