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NBC4 I-Team Report Focuses On North Bergen Coerced Teachers’ Contributions

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North Bergen NJ, ‘Several current and former educators and political insiders in Hudson County claim teachers are pressured to make political donations to a campaign fund linked to North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco. Some said their jobs and promotions can be affected by whether and how much they give’, according to NBC4’s I-Team, led by investigative journalists Jonathan Dienst and David Paredes.  The current dispatch from the I-Team follows a previous report from November focusing on Sacco’s family employment in North Bergen.

The report also includes an audio clip sent to them in which Mayor Sacco allegedly speaks about the I-Team investigation, saying of NBC “they are liars. They are incompetent.  ‘You’re either totally incompetent or totally corrupt.’  One or the other. OK, that’s both response to them.  They are not your friends. They will twist what you say.”  Sacco allegedly also says that the NBC4 team is ‘behaving like criminals’.

According to the report, Sacco’s team contends that the I-Team is colluding with Sacco nemesis Larry Wainstein, a claim they deny.

Read the I-Team report here.

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Menendez bullish as jury selection begins in federal corruption trial

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file photo by Boyd Loving

NEWARK, N.J. – Sen. Bob Menendez said Tuesday that he expects to be exonerated of federal bribery charges, as lawyers began picking the jurors who will decide his fate in a trial set to begin next month.

“Looking forward to picking a good jury,” the New Jersey Democrat told reporters as he arrived at the federal courthouse here, flanked by his lawyers.

His arrival just before 9:30 a.m. set off a day in which U.S. District Judge William H. Walls, prosecutors, and Menendez’s defense team worked to winnow the pool of about 200 prospective jurors to the 12 men and women and four alternates who will hear the case.

Whatever verdict the panel reaches – after a trial expected to last one to two months — has the potential to reverberate far beyond the courtroom. Should Menendez be convicted, it almost certainly would mean the end of his four-decade political career in New Jersey and could dramatically shift the makeup of the Senate.

https://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/menendez-bullish-as-jury-selection-begins-in-federal-corruption-trial-20170822.html

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Sanders camp condemns ‘rush to judgment’ on Clinton nomination

Bernie Sanders

By Gabriel Debenedetti

06/06/16 09:41 PM EDT

Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Monday evening condemned the media for its “rush to judgment” in declaring Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nominee, saying superdelegates should not be automatically counted.

“It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs said.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/sanders-clinton-nomination-223976#ixzz4Arly10cY