Fausta's Blog

is the relationship between Miami ophthalmologist Solomon Melgen and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez:

Melgen had reportedly received help from Menendez is the matter of a port-security contract between a company owned by Melgen and the Dominican government. That contract could be worth as much as $50 million a year for 20 years — that is, a total of one billion dollars — except that Dominican officials refuse to honor what they have condemned as the “exorbitant” terms of the contract. Melgen’s financial situation looks shady; he reportedly owes the IRS $11.1 million. But if he could get the U.S. government to pressure the Dominican Republic into honoring that billion-dollar contract, Melgen’s money worries would be over.

Unfortunately for Melgen, however, Matthew Boyle broke the story less than a week before Election Day last fall and, while the mainstream media ignored Boyle’s exclusive at the time, now the potential political ramifications are quite serious. Even if it cannot be proven that Menendez consorted with hookers, underaged or otherwise, during his visits to Melgen’s Caribbean luxury resort, the New Jersey Democrat’s connection to his Florida benefactor is sure to be subjected to intense scrutiny now.

Let’s hope so.

In Santo Domingo, Vinicio Castillo, Melgen’s and Menendez’s Dominican lawyer – who also happens to be Melgen’s cousin – said the accusations are aimed at discrediting Salomon Melgen and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and stopping a contract to X-ray shipments moving through ports in the Dominican Republic.

Castillo called the allegations part of a “diabolical plot” orchestrated to discredit Melgen, who owns a company with a lucrative contract with the Dominican government to provide X-ray machines at ports. The machines would be used to scan shipping containers to look for contraband and illegal drugs.

The contract was originally signed with the Dominican government a decade ago. Two years ago, Melgen bought out the company that had signed the contract.

That contract has raised controversy due to its cost — an estimated $500 million to $1 billion over 20 years. And the machines have not been installed.

Menendez, who has received healthy campaign contributions from the doctor, in a July Senate hearing peppered Obama officials about what they were doing to help U.S. business interests in the Dominican Republic. He specifically mentioned the contract for X-ray equipment at the ports.

Castillo’s father, Vinicio “Vincho” Castillo, the government’s drug czar and Melgen’s uncle, has also spoken about the need for the machines.

Menendez would rather have you believe this is a story that “anonymous, nameless, faceless individuals on a Web site” concocted.

Now that Senator Robert Menendez’s friend and major campaign donor Dr. Salomon Melgen is under investigation for Medicare fraud, two of the prostitutes they hired have been missing for several months:
Following the trail of Sen. Robert Menendez scandal leads to dead end in Dominican Republic
Women named by tipster exist and were there — but not anymore.

Maybe they’re hiding at the Doll Palace, maybe not.

As you can see from the article, at least one tipster is not anonymous.

Meanwhile, blame Cuba…

The bigger issue, which I pointed out months ago, is whether he violated Senate rules by accepting two round-trip flights to the Dominican Republican from Melgen. Menendez goes back a long way,

Menendez, who scaled the political ladder in Hudson County, a Democratic bastion long known for its flexible ethics, is no stranger to controversy.

In 2007, Chris Christie, who at the time was the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, began a federal investigation of Menendez over potential conflicts of interests with recipients of government financing.

The Star-Ledger reported then that Menendez had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent for a building he owned in Union City from the North Hudson Community Action Corp., an antipoverty group. Menendez had helped the group win millions of dollars in federal funding.

But no charges were filed, and Menendez ultimately received a rare clearance letter from the U.S. attorney’s office informing him that the case was being closed.

Last May, Joseph Bigica, a major supporter of Menendez, pleaded guilty to using straw donors to funnel nearly $100,000 in illegal contributions to the senator’s campaign, which was not accused of any wrongdoing. It acknowledged having received the donation, but said it had been a victim in the case.

A campaign official said they planned to give the money to charity.

Bigica, of Franklin Lakes, admitted that from April 2005 to May 2009 he had conspired to make the illegal contributions to the campaign committee of an unidentified candidate for federal office. Officials did not identify the candidate, but campaign finance records show the donations went to Menendez.

Ah, the scent of New Jersey politics…and now he’s chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

UPDATE:
Stacy checks out the facts, and also points out (emphasis added)

This is highly interesting, because on Jan. 4, Menendez paid back Dr. Melgen $58,500 for three flights, but this (alleged) Easter weekend trip wasn’t one of those, and it was during the Easter weekend trip that one of the sex parties (allegedly) took place.

And this:

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Billion With a ‘B’: Did Menendez Provide Special Favors to HookerGate Donor? “Follow the money – if Melgen had a billion-dollar contract at stake, his ‘friendship’ with Senator Menendez was obviously more than a mere social acquaintance, which doesn’t necessarily mean that it was illegal for Menendez to pressure the administration to help Melgen enforce his Dominican port security contract. But how and why does a Florida opthamologist become an international port-security mogul?”

Video starts below the fold:
(more…)

Well said.

(And I’m glad Bill’s wearing a dark suit and contrasting tie. The gray-on-gray washed him out.)

h/t Jimbo.

Barack Obama is from the government, and he is here to help

(post title shamelessly stolen from Professor Bainbridge)

The histrionic, hysterical Secretary of State, wearing men’s eyeglass frames yesterday:

What a disgrace:

Hillary Clinton is ending her tenure as secretary of state in fiery fashion. “You really get the sense that [Mrs.] Clinton barely managed to restrain herself from dropping an F-bomb there,” remarks New York magazine’s Dan Amira. He refers to an exchange between the secretary and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing this morning.

Johnson pressed her about the administration’s conflicting explanations for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed the ambassador and three other Americans. “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” said the secretary snappishly to the senator. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”

So it’s “our job to figure out what happened” but it doesn’t make a difference what happened? Huh? What would we do without rhetorical questions? We suppose we’d answer them, as Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin does:

The answer to her question is clear. An administration that sought, for political purposes, to give the American people the idea that al-Qaeda had been “decimated” and was effectively out of commission had a clear motive during a presidential campaign to mislead the public about Benghazi. The fact that questions are still unanswered about this crime and that Clinton and President Obama seem more interested in burying this story along with the four Americans that died is an outrage that won’t be forgotten.

“What difference does it make?” if there were no protests in Benghazi,

Well, gosh, I can think of a few reasons why it matters. First, it mattered enough for the Obama administration to send Susan Rice to five different Sunday talk shows to insist that the sacking was a spontaneous demonstration of anger over a months-old YouTube video, while saying that there was “no evidence” that it was a terrorist attack. On one of those appearances, the president of Libya told US audiences the exact opposite — that it was the work of terrorists and that they had a pretty good idea of who they were. If it didn’t matter, what was Susan Rice doing when she tried pushing that meme, which the White House had to abandon within days as leaks within State and CIA made plain that there was no demonstration?

It also matters because Barack Obama at the time had been bragging about crippling al-Qaeda while on the campaign trail. That false narrative made it seem as though State and our intel community couldn’t have possibly known that the sacking would have occurred, and got blindsided by a grassroots reaction to the video. Instead, it turned out to be a planned terrorist action about which the US embassy in Libya had warned State for months, repeatedly requesting more security.

There’s also the matter of Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya and his undeclared war against Moammar Qaddafi. His actions, and that of NATO in following his initial lead, decapitated the ruthless regime that at least was keeping a lid on terrorist networks in eastern Libya. The rise of those networks in the Benghazi region should have been a predictable outcome from the power vacuum the US/NATO campaign left in the region, which resulted in the ability to conduct this attack. That also reflects on the decision to remove the military security at the consulate even with the deteriorating environment very clear to anyone paying attention. That also matters because of how the transfer of weapons to the militias in that US/NATO effort and the resultant power vacuum has destabilized Mali and potentially a wide swath of North Africa.

So it matters because of credibility.

And yes, “What difference does it make?” is the attitude of someone who feels entitled to their high place.

“If it weren’t for low integrity they’d have no integrity at all.”

And,
Let the 2016 campaign begin,

Do you think there’s any coincidence in the fact that her campaign debt was paid off and her appearance before the joint committee today to talk about the guy in Benghazi?

Latin America’s not the only source for bizarre news.

88-year old Frank Lautenberg (Senator for my district), who went back to the Senate in 2003 thanks to the Torricelli maneuver, is upset enough at the prospect of Newark mayor Corey Booker challenging for the seat that he let it rip,

“I have four children, I love each one of them. I can’t tell you that one of them wasn’t occasionally disrespectful, so I gave them a spanking and everything was OK,” Lautenberg said with a smile in his first public comments since Booker announced he was considering a run for Senate.

This statement is wrong in so many levels (and he gets away with the obvious because he’s a Democrat), where to start?

By asking, “you and who else, Frank?”

On this corner we have 88-year old walking-with-a-cane Lautenberg.

On the other corner we have 43 year old Booker, fit enough to run into a burning house and pull a woman to safety.

It would make a heck of a fundraiser.

Booker may be “entitled to run”, but Lautenberg’s the one who can’t hide.

First, the luncheon menu was 3,000 calories:

First Course:
Steamed Lobster with New England Clam Chowder Sauce
Lobster Tails
New England Clam Chowder Sauce
Sauteed Spinach
Sweet Potato Hay
Per Serving: Calories 783, Fat 45.7g, Saturated Fat 16g, Cholesterol 247 mg, Sodium 1819 mg, Carbohydrates 55g, Dietary Fiber 7.5g, Sugar 14g, Protein 29g

Second Course:
Hickory Grilled Bison with Red Potato Horseradish Cake and Wild Huckleberry Reduction
Bison
Butternut Squash Puree
Baby Golden Beets and Green Beans
Red Potato Horseradish Cake
Strawberry Preserve and Red Cabbage
Wild Huckleberry Reduction
Per Serving: Calories 1184, Fat 34.6g, Saturated Fat 16g, Cholesterol 177mg, Sodium 7445mg, Carbohydrates, 149g, Dietary Fiber 16.7, Sugar 97.2g, Protein 51g

Third Course:
Hudson Valley Apple Pie with Sour Cream Ice Cream, Aged Cheese and Honey
Pie Dough
Cinnamon Crumble
Apples
Sour Cream Ice Cream
Maple Caramel Sauce
Garnish
Artisan Cheeses
Per Serving: Calories 1060, Fat 64.4g, Saturated Fat 39g, Cholesterol 331mg, Sodium 488mg, Carbohydrates, 108.5g, Dietary Fiber 1.7g, Sugar 75g, Protein 14g
Total Nutritional Counts (not including booze pairing): Calories 3027, Fat 145 g, Saturated Fat 71g (49% of fat), Sodium 9752 mg, Total Carbs 312.5g, Sugar 186.2g (59% of carbs)

And the eye roll,

Can’t you see I’m eating?

Hillary, who shall remain concussed until next week, has taken her concussion on holiday to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Gateway Pundit posts that Hillary Clinton So Sick She Had to Travel to Punta Cana Resort to Celebrate the New Year.

The poor woman will not only be nursing her concussion at the tropical resort, she’ll also be nursing her hangover in Bill’s presence,

According to press reports, the Clintons will celebrate New Year’s at the Puntacana Resort & Club and could also attend a fashion show scheduled for December 29, which will be held in honor of famous Dominican designer Oscar de la Renta.

Worse yet, Anna Wintour will be at the party. “Just don’t be late!”

Snark!

That Hillary concussion is so serious that only a New Year’s drunken binge in the Dominican can cure it. dominicantoday.com/dr/people/2012…

— Razor (@hale_razor) December 29, 2012

UPDATE,
Linked by Pirate’s Cove. Thank you!

State Dept. Says Clintons Are Not Partying in Dominican Republic as Was Reported; where are they partying, then?

@iowahawkblog State Department denies. Apparently she is partying somewhere else?

— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) December 30, 2012

UPDATE 2,
Did she have a facelift, maybe?

Benghazi penalties are bogus

The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon, The Post has learned.

The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not “resigned” from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back.

The four were made out to be sacrificial lambs in the wake of a scathing report issued last week that found that the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, was left vulnerable to attack because of “grossly inadequate” security.

State Department leaders “didn’t come clean about Benghazi and now they’re not coming clean about these staff changes,” a source close to the situation told The Post., adding, the “public would be outraged over this.”

They ought to be, but the media’s been assiduously ignoring this story.

Jeff Dunetz:

This looks as though the Benghazi coverup is continuing at the State Department. Remember we still haven’t heard from Obama, or Clinton (Who were not questioned as part of the Accountability Review Board report) in fact Mrs. Clinton has not been seen in public for almost two weeks–she must have had one heck of a concussion.

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) issued this statement, If Reports are True, the State Department’s Failures to Hold Officials Accountable Over Benghazi is “Disgraceful and Deceitful”

“If public reports are true, it is disgraceful and deceitful that senior officials at State who ignored multiple pleas of help from our consulate in Benghazi continue to have any influence over our foreign policy abroad. While I have asked State Department officials several times for clarification on this administrative matter, they remain silent.

The ARB was clear: these high ranking officials were among those responsible for the failures in leadership and management at State regarding the Benghazi terrorist attack. This game of smoke and mirrors by the Obama Administration and State does not do justice for the American people who deserve clear and transparent answers.”

Paul Mirengoff calls it “misdirection on top of misdirection“; I call it lies.

Cross-posted at Liberty Unyielding.

It doesn’t matter that it’s a funeral, for a war hero, Medal of Honor recipient, and president pro tempore of the United States Senate; O has to blab on about himself,

In the short 1,600 word speech, Obama used the word “my” 21 times, “me” 12 times, and “I” 30 times.

Because O is historic, you know.

UPDATE,
The ego has landed.