[ZeroHedge] Former New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob 'Gold Bar' Menendez - who sat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while working for the Egyptian government (which was notably exempt from Trump's recent halt to foreign aid) has been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison following his conviction on corruption charges.
The sentence comes after a jury convicted Menendez on 16 counts in a sweeping pay-for-play scheme to sell his office to foreign powers and shady businessmen in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, solid gold bars, and a Mercedes Benz.
Charges against Menendez included wire fraud, bribery and extortion - making Menendez the seventh sitting US senator to be convicted of a federal crime.
Menendez and his wife Nadine were accused by prosecutors of orchestrating a bribery scheme while he was head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he acted as an agent of Egypt, and intervened to quash a separate criminal prosecution in New Jersey in exchange for payoffs - and then tried to cover it up.
In a superseding indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, Menendez was accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone acting as "an agent of a foreign principal" to register with the US government. Menendez was prohibited from doing so either way as a member of Congress.
According to the indictment, Menendez and his wife, along with business associate Wael Hana, met with an Egyptian intelligence official in Menendez's Senate office in Washington DC, during which they discussed a US citizen who was injured in a 2015 airstrike by the Egyptian military - an incident which some members of Congress cited as a reason to withhold certain military aid to Egypt.
Shortly after the meeting, the Egyptian official texted Hana that if Menendez took care of the matter, "he will sit very comfortably."
"It wasn’t enough for him to be one of the most powerful people in Washington," said federal prosecutor Paul M. Monteleoni in his closing argument. "But he also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife."
#1
Just 11 years for 16 counts of screwing over the voters?
But, at 70 y/o and IF he serves the full 11 years, he'll likely die in prison the usual Elite Country Club holding facility for Congress and $$$$$ rich.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An embattled Georgia mayor and former Black Lives Matter organizer stormed out of a city council meeting as furious residents questioned him about allegedly using a city credit card for lavish purchases.
South Fulton Mayor Khalid Kamau, known as Mayor Kobi, berated his own constituents for citing his spending in office, which included an $1,800 desk that can be turned into a pool table, and over $9,000 in one month on travel including flight upgrades.
This month he was also accused of blowing thousands of taxpayer money for a 20-day luxury vacation to Ghana, with further purchases also reportedly including a $1,300 drone.
Kamau shot back at a tense city council meeting on Tuesday: 'I am so distressed and disappointed that the blackest city in one of the blackest states in the United States of America heading into Black History Month, we are tearing each other down.'
Councilwoman Helen Willis slammed his attempts to dodge the questioning, responding: 'We're not tearing you down you took your black behind over to Africa for 20 days and didn’t tell anybody.'
The hostile exchange came after residents confronted Kamau over his alleged mishandling of taxpayer money, as local Patricia Wise was seen telling the council: 'You guys got to do better, you guys really do got to do better.'
After facing the onslaught, Kamau walked out of the meeting as the hearing turned to discussing new policies, refusing to give an explanation for his huge expenses, per WSBTV. 'I am so distressed and disappointed that the blackest city in one of the blackest states in the United States of America heading into Black History Month, we are tearing each other down.'
[Breitbart] A report from ABC7 in reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... reported that a magistrate judge ordered the release of a Venezuela
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... n man who was arrested in a targeted enforcement operation over the weekend.
Over the weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers, along with other federal agencies, carried out a targeted enforcement operation, Breitbart News reported. The actions were overseen by brass hats of the Trump administration, including Border Czar Tom Homan.
According to the report from ABC7, law enforcement officials placed Edward Martinez-Cermeno, 24, into custody on Sunday for illegally entering the United States near Eagle Pass, Texas in 2023.
The article states that Martinez-Cermeno, a Venezuelan national, made his way to Chicago and lived with his girlfriend’s parents.
Martinez-Cermeno appeared before a judge in Chicago on Tuesday. The article does not identify the court or judge who heard the matter. Breitbart Texas contacted ICE for additional information about the case and the court.
The judge reportedly ordered ICE to release the Venezuelan man from custody, saying that immigration officials did not have the "legal paperwork necessary for detaining and deporting him."
Martinez-Cermeno has a pending criminal charge after Chicago police arrested him in January 2024 for felony retail theft, ABC7 reported. A court issued an arrest warrant for the man after he failed to appear for a court hearing.
The ABC7 report explains that this case was not mentioned during the magistrate hearing. The judge reportedly only addressed the federal charge of "improper entry by an alien."
Federal prosecutors told the judge that ICE officers filed an immigration detainer against the defendant. The prosecutor told the judge that ICE would likely take Martinez-Cermeno into custody if he were released.
The judge allegedly responded, saying this would be "legally unacceptable," explaining that ICE did not have a "proper judicial warrant" to detain him. The judge said the detainer is only a "civil request."
[WokeSpy] A Lenawee County Democrat who posted an unhinged rant denying the 2024 election results and labeling immigration officials as "Nazi collaborators" is doubling down. Lenawee County Democratic Party Chairman Bill Swift called in to Talk Back Radio with Doug Spade and Mike Clement on Saturday to discuss the post, which was deleted from the party’s Facebook page shortly after it was posted last week. Swift on Saturday also called for the death penalty for the president’s supporters.
Swift alleged the party removed the post over concerns supporters of President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... "might do violence to people in our community," but made it clear "we as a party and I as an individual absolutely 100% support the statements that we made." He described the post as "outlining a very rational argument" about Trump’s inauguration and the president’s immediate move to crack down on illegal immigration. Swift alleged Trump-supporter and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, "performed two Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like... salutes, two Nazi salutes" during the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Swift then extrapolated that to build an argument that Trump and those who support him are Nazis, pointing to Trump’s social media missteps during his campaign and alleged "Nazi imagery and Nazi language" at conservative events. He concluded his comments by highlighting another recent post by the Lenawee County Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... that calls for the death penalty for Trump’s supporters. "They should be arrested, and they should be facing the death penalty," he said. "They should be hanged by the neck until dead. I believe this is one of the few areas of the law where I believe the death penalty should be imposed."
[NYPOST] Security agents escorted the inspector general of the US Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Rooters.
Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying she didn't believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.
In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Rooters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency ''has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.''
Fong declined to comment.
The White House defended the firing of Fong and the other inspectors general, saying ''these rogue, partisan babus bureaucrats — have been relieved of their duties in order to make room for qualified individuals who will uphold the rule of law and protect Democracy.''
The USDA, however, denied that security officials were involved in the incident in an email to Fox News Digital on Wednesday night.
"According to an internal security report, Phyllis Fong departed the USDA premises on Monday, January 27 of her own accord," a spokesperson said. "She was accompanied by two friends who she paused to take selfies with on her way out. Security officials did not play any role in her departure."
#7
That's a heck of a plan. I'd say that will last about a week and then we'll start seeing many of them typing Resign in the subject line and clicking send.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/30/2025 20:11 Comments ||
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#9
She was part of the cover up for the Minnesota/Walz/AG Ellison Feeding the Future. Considering which Somalian terrorist groups those monies went to, she should be in Gitmo.
[Epoch Times] Federal departments and agencies have not addressed 13,808 cost-saving anti-waste and fraud recommendations from inspectors general (IGs), some more than five years old, and nearly 300 more related Government Accountability Office (GAO) ideas, according to government data.
Federal workers’ resistance to reform—plus congressional fears of complaints by civil service workers back home in their states or districts—are two main obstacles to achieving President Donald Trump’s plans to reduce the size and costs of the federal government, according to House Oversight and Accountability Committee (HOAC) Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
Comer said that for longtime House members "whose first priority is not the American taxpayers, but self-preservation, it’s best to not say anything. They want to go along to get along, they’re not willing to rock the boat".
That reality was compounded during the four years of former President Joe Biden’s tenure in the Oval Office, Comer said, because waste, fraud, and abuse "didn’t seem... to be any concern in the Biden administration."
Biden left office with 15 IG vacancies, including in the Department of the Treasury, which has been vacant for more than five years. Comer also noted there were no HOAC spending oversight hearings during the 117th Congress because the Democrat majority’s focus was entirely on Trump.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/30/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11148 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Someone needs to read the riot act to the civil service population - they do not run the country. Go ahead and make it a choice - a republic without civil service or a civil service without a republic.
#2
Federal workers can harass Congress critters at their DC homes, but if the Feds had sway in a home district no Republican would be elected there in the beginning.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/30/2025 18:52 Comments ||
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[X]
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#3
^When you consider that some of the letter agencies created these NGO's, that would follow.
(Cause you need a way to do things that you're not supposed to be doing.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/30/2025 10:21 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ZeroHedge] Former New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob 'Gold Bar' Menendez - who sat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while working for the Egyptian government (which was notably exempt from Trump's recent halt to foreign aid) has been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison following his conviction on corruption charges.
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...
Federal workers’ resistance to reform—plus congressional fears of complaints by civil service workers back home in their states or districts—are two main obstacles to achieving President Donald Trump’s plans to reduce the size and costs of the federal government, according to House Oversight and Accountability Committee (HOAC) Chairman 
