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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (61936)	1/31/2013 11:31:25 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama's jobs council is disbanding Thursday, two years after the president tapped executives from General Electric Co. ( GE:$22.26,00$0.03,000.13%) , American Express Co. ( AXP:$59.10,00$-0.23,00-0.39%) and Boeing Co. ( BA:$74.02,00$-0.57,00-0.76%) to give him advice on what steps he can take to jump-start the economy. For a president who has had a shaky relationship with the business community-- and particularly Wall Street--the council gave him some political cover from Republicans and business leaders who criticized his administration for enacting onerous regulations on industries key to reviving the economy. In recent months, however, the council had become a political thorn as Republicans accused Mr. Obama of ignoring it. The group of business executives, labor leaders and small-business owners last held a meeting on Jan. 17, 2012. A White House official said the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, as it is formally called, was always supposed to have a two- year charter. Its charter ended Thursday and isn't being renewed, the official said. The official pointed as an example to one of the president's other advisory councils, the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which also expired after its two-year charter ended. Republicans criticizing the president's handling of the economy have pointed to the council as a place where he could have sought more advice. "One thing the President could have done instead of wasting so much time blaming others would have been to convene the Jobs Council he created amidst so much fanfare," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Thursday. "He hasn't done that for more than a year. In fact, from what I understand, the council is expected to disband today after having met only four times since 2011." The White House official said the administration acted on most of the jobs council's recommendations, including retrofitting government buildings for energy efficiency, taking steps to create new construction jobs and making it easier for Americans to start small businesses. The group also called for expanding domestic oil and gas drilling, removing regulatory barriers and revamping the tax code. Mr. Obama has said he supports overhauling the individual and business tax codes, though little progress has been made on either. Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), said the president was disinterested in learning lessons from job creators. "Whether ignoring the group or rejecting its recommendations, the president treated his Jobs Council as more of a nuisance than a vehicle to spur job creation," Mr. Buck said. The White House's outreach to the business community wasn't limited to the jobs council or how to grow the economy. Mr. Obama and his aides have met in recent months with executives to discuss the nation's deficit, government spending and immigration. Senior members of the Obama administration spoke Wednesday with a dozen business executives from companies such as Motorola Solutions Inc. ( MSI:$58.47,00$-0.22,00-0.37%) , General Motors Co. ( GM:$27.95,00$0.01,000.04%) and Deloitte LLP, according to the White House official. The official also said the White House will announce a new, expanded effort to work with the business community and other outside groups to, among other things, get advice on revamping the tax code, expediting infrastructure projects and promoting entrepreneurship. -Write to Jared A. Favole at jared.favole@dowjones.com

To: sandintoes who wrote (61936)	2/1/2013 9:39:16 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Respond to of 71588

The Menendez scandal enters Stage Two By: John Hayward 1/31/2013 02:27 PM Washington scandals have a certain trajectory, which naturally differs based on the party affiliation of the subject. When it’s a Republican, you get intense media coverage, followed by intense media coverage of the subject’s evasive answers or defensive silence, followed by intensive media coverage of the intensive media coverage. Right about the time you see a talking head marveling at just how extensive the coverage of the scandal is – while hardly anyone is still talking about the original scandalous behavior, or whether the hapless Republican buried under the media steamroller actually did it – you’ll know the story has dropped its third-stage booster and achieved orbit. From that point forward, the media will begin freely mentioning the scandal in stories only tangentially relating to it, even when they’re talking about entirely different Republicans. Any similarity, relationship, or common policy interest between Scandal Guy and other members of his party will invariably be remarked upon. The Democrat scandal trajectory is very different. In Stage One the media ignores it completely. In the unlikely event some conservative dissident actually gets to ask a prominent Democrat politician about it, the whole affair will be dismissed as a creation of obsessed right-wing bloggers. Stage Two begins when something happens that drags the scandal into the mainstream newspapers, although the liberal TV networks will continue to tastefully ignore it for a while. The sure sign of Stage Two ignition comes when Democrat politicians suddenly begin refusing to discuss the scandal, instead of using it to bash conservative bloggers and alternative media sources. Stage Three comes if the lefty TV networks are finally pressured into covering the story… at which point network pundits who never mentioned it before will begin loudly declaring that it’s old news, and everyone should just move on. The Bob Menendez affair is officially in Stage Two, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) suddenly doesn’t want to discuss his colleague from New Jersey any more. It was literally just yesterday that Reid was running around and dismissing the story as a fabrication cooked up by the Daily Caller. But today he told reporters, “Any questions in this regard, direct to him. I don’t know anything about it.” Bob’s a little too busy writing checks to field questions right now, as related by liberally biased NBC News: New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez has written a personal check of $58,000 to reimburse a donor for two round-trip flights he took on a private jet to the Dominican Republic. Menendez’s office said Thursday the three-year delay in paying for the plane trips with fundraiser and friend Dr. Salomen Melgen was an “oversight.” “This was sloppy,” Dan O’Brien, Menendez’ chief of staff, told NBC News about the senator’s failure to pay for the 2010 flights at the time. “I’m chalking it up to an oversight.” Several Republicans have accused Melgen, a West Palm Beach eye doctor, of improperly providing Menendez with free flights on his private jet as well as stays at his luxury villa in the Casa de Campo resort. Asked whether the senator has been contacted by the Senate Ethics Committee about the matter, O’Brien said, “We can assume the Senate Ethics Committee is looking at the allegation.” I don’t know how many times I’ve forgotten to reimburse a friend for several years’ worth of flights on his private jet, only to think “Dang, I owe that guy money!” right when the FBI is raiding his office. It’s awkward. Also awkward: a letter ostensibly written by one of the charming young hostesses who showed Senator Menendez how much the Dominican Republic has to offer, and released onto the Internet by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). A translation of the really interesting part was provided by the Daily Caller: “That senator also likes the youngest and newest girls,” the woman wrote on April 21, 2002, according to an English translation provided to The Daily Caller by a native Spanish speaker. “In the beginning he seemed so serious, because he never spoke to anyone, but he is just like the others and has just about the same tastes as the doctor, very refined. I think they were taking us more often to get us checked [medically] because of him.” I’m old enough to remember when we ran people out of Congress for acting raunchy in a bathroom stall, or writing saucy emails to young aides. But then, Larry Craig and Mark Foley had the wrong letter after their names, didn’t they? humanevents.com

To: sandintoes who wrote (61936)	2/8/2013 10:57:22 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The Company Sen. Sleaze-Bob Menendez Keeps By Michelle Malkin - February 6, 2013 Put on your shocked faces: Since my bipartisan call last week for Democratic women to join the Ladies Against Senator Sleaze-Bob movement, not a single Democratic woman in Washington has signed up. Here's the thing. The brewing scandal involving N.J. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is not just a "sex scandal." It's a crony corruption scandal of sordid, soap operatic proportions. Maybe if Menendez were a contestant on "The Bachelor," he'd finally command more widespread female attention. For their part, the Democratic women on Capitol Hill seem as uninterested in the alleged exploitation of underage prostitutes as they are in cozy donor deals, tax evasion and Medicare fraud. Shady Menendez campaign contributor and BFF Salomon Melgen is the high-flying eye doctor at the center of the senior senator's ills. Melgen is owner of the Casa de Campo resort home where he and Menendez reportedly engaged in sexual romps with a bevy of Dominican escorts, including at least one minor girl. In his latest statement on the matter Monday, Menendez repeated his blanket denials of any wrongdoing, recycled his attack on conservative media reporting the story and labeled accounts of the alleged island sex parties "smears." While his lips keep denying, his actions smack of lying. Last week, he sheepishly disclosed that he had just reimbursed Melgen in January of this year for nearly $60,000 in expenses tied to two of three private jet trips to the Dominican Republic in 2010 -- which he had never admitted taking before. Senate rules require prior approval of such private jet travel and luxury lodging. Senate rules also require financial disclosure of such gifts after approval. Menendez ignored all the rules, blamed his staff and now wheedles that the matter simply "fell through the cracks." But you know what didn't fall through the cracks? A special multimillion-dollar port security contract Melgen wanted with the Dominican Republic. The politically connected ophthalmologist -- who forked over $700,000 to help Menendez and other Democrats get re-elected last cycle -- has zero experience in port security. But Menendez used a Senate hearing last summer to lobby for enforcement of the contract Melgen's company has with the Dominican government. Menendez also met with officials from the Obama State and Commerce departments on the matter, though he was careful not to mention Melgen by name. One of Menendez's longtime senior legislative aides, Pedro Pablo Permuy, will be in charge of operations, according to Melgen's cousin and legal mouthpiece Vinicio Castillo Seman. The contract is estimated to be worth up to $1 billion over the next 20 years, according to The Miami Herald. How do you say "crony government" in Spanish? Know-nothing Menendez denies any knowledge of his veteran aide's involvement with the company, of course. Or rather, his lips have issued another in a long line of denials. Wait, there's more. While Melgen shelled out millions to Menendez and the Democratic Party over the years, he is a serial tax evader. The jet-setting doc incurred liens of $1.3 million before 2002, $6.2 million in 2011, and a still outstanding $11.1 million lien between 2006 and 2009. And the FBI and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services -- not a part of the "right-wing" blogosphere the last time I checked -- are now sifting through boxes of documents they carted away during last week's raid of Melgen's offices as part of a Medicare fraud investigation. The feds finally acted after a document shredding truck was spotted outside Melgen's clinic. I think it's safe to say a "right-wing blog" didn't send it. So far, the magical "D" after Sen. Sleaze-Bob's name has conferred supernatural immunity upon him. New Jersey Democrats are AWOL. Liberal columnists for the nation's fishwraps of record remain uninterested. David Letterman was too busy trading fat jokes with donut-munching N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stubbornly clung to his assertion this week that Menendez "did nothing wrong." But the mountains of Things Menendez Should Have Known But Conveniently Overlooked and Things Menendez Should Have Done But Conveniently Forgot just keep growing. My invitation to Democratic women on Capitol Hill to join Ladies Against Senator Sleaze-Bob still stands. Guess it must have fallen through the cracks. realclearpolitics.com