Old Days and All that Jazz

That's Chicago.

The first night of the Democratic convention last night was a look back and a passing of the torch.  Hillary Clinton was there to pretty much say to voters that she warned us about Trump in 2016 (without mentioning that other who warned us about Trump In 2016 also warned us that Hillary couldn't defeat him), and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez the Killer slayed Trump with her slashing rhetoric against Trump's alliance with the wealthy and powerful (when in fact, he's neither of those things, but Republicans pretend otherwise).

President Biden's farewell address to the convention wasn't much more than a recapitulation of his record, and the most memorable moment for me was when he said how in no other country could a kid from Scranton could one day sit behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office as his country's leader.  I guess that makes sense; after all, how many countries have oval-shaped presidential or prime ministerial offices with a desk made of timbers from the H.M.S. Resolute?  (The King of England has one, but he was literally born into his job.)  And how many other world leaders would have come from Scranton?  

It was a bittersweet farewell for Biden, which brings to mind the subject of the bitter (not sweet) farewell of New Jersey's senior U.S. Senator.  Robert Menendez serves his long-awaited last day today in the Senate. His replacement, who will hold the seat until the election in November, is former gubernatorial aide George Helmy, whom Governor Phil Murphy appointed to fill out the reminder of Menendez's term.  

Bye Bye Bob

Here's an update on the New Jersey primary election, which takes place two weeks from today.

As you likely know already, the state's senior U.S. Senator, Robert Menendez,  is on trial for a ton of corruption charges that I would prefer not to go into again here.  Since I last commented on him, Senator Menendez has announced that he will not run in the stet primary for renomianton to stand for re-election to the Senate as a Democrat.

He is threatening to run as an independent. 

Well, that takes a big weight off me!  I was going to register as a Democrat just to vote against him in the primary to get rid of him once and for all, but now he's saved me the trouble.  Now I can stay an independent myself, though if he runs as such, don't expect me to vote for him in November.

The inevitable Democratic nominee is likely to win this fall, but if Trump is President again, that nominee may not serve long, as a presidential declaration of martial law will render Democrats in Congress moot . . . or worse. 

Menendez No More

I am seriously thinking of voting in the New Jersey Democratic primary this coming June.

No, not for President - Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic presidential nominee, and the New Jersey presidential primary is worthless anyway, because it's so late.  No, I am seriously thinking of voting in the New Jersey Democratic primary to deny incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Robert Menendez another term.

After he was indicted for accepting gifts from a halal meat distributor and providing sensitive information to the Egyptian government, it became clear that Menendez must go, and if he won't go, the Democratic voters of New Jersey have to get him out before he loses to a Republican in the 2024 general election.  I plan to vote for either New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy or U.S. Representative Andy Kim (not to be confused with the guy who had a hit with "Rock Me Gently" in the seventies)  

I have had enough with Robert Menendez and his shameless shenanigans.

And if we're going to drain the swamp - and New Jersey has plenty of those . . . 

. . . hey, let's get serious!

Robert Menendez Must Go

I have long been resigned to the fact that New Jersey is one of the least cool states in the Union, what with its run-down industrial cities, its loudmouth proles, a state turnpike that has wracked the nerves of many a hardened driver, and once-bucolic farmland developed into plastic-jive housing shopping malls (and Muzak fills the air from Livingston to Little Falls).  In other words, we're like Ohio.  But at least, I thought, we don't have a scumbag like James David Vance representing us as the voice and conscience of the state.

And of course, I was wrong.

Robert Menendez and his wife Nadine - who is his second wife, not his first wife, his first wife being the mother of his daughter Alicia - have been indicted on bribery charges.  He was discovered to have cash in his suits and gold bars in his house.  Menendez has been accused of attempting to sway the President Biden's choice of the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey to benefit a businessman and attempting to pressure the Department of Agriculture to protect a contact's monopoly on supplying halal (the Islamic equivalent of kosher) meat to the United States.

Despite the fact that Senator Menendez, a Democrat, is innocent until proven guilty, the evidence pretty much proves it in the court of public opinion.  The evidence is so overwhelming that U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio). John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), and Peter Welch (Vermont) have called for his resignation.  Plus several other Democratic senators, including New Jersey's other Senator, Cory Booker.  Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer, however, won't call for Menendez to resign, apparently because he thinks that a tainted and disgraced Menendez is the best bet to keep his Senate seat in New Jersey Democratic. 

Uh, Chuck?  This is New Jersey!  We have qualified Democrats for the Senate coming out of our ears! 

It's over for Bob.  The sooner he gets out of the Senate and stops disgracing the senate with his gross indiscretions, the better.  Because you know it doesn't look good for him when his daughter - a regular MSNBC host of a program about Hispanic issues - suddenly disappears from the airwaves.

By the way, did you know that only thirteen U.S. Senators have been indicted in the chamber's 234-year history, and Menendez is the only U.S. Senator to be indicted twice?

Back OFF the Dock!

This is incredible.

Mere hours after I posted about Robert Menendez being re-tried by the Justice Department on eleven of eighteen bribery, conspiracy and fraud counts against him, the government has now reversed course and decided not to re-try him at all.  So I guess he's off the hook? 

Not quite.  Menendez still has a stigma of corruption to his name,  he till has to carry all of the baggage associated with it, and Republicans smell blood.  They're ready to produce a winning candidate to oppose the New Jersey Democratic senator's re-election bid in November.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey, 2018!  

Funky dung remergence! :-D

Back In the Dock

I didn't watch Donald Trump's State of the Union speech last night.  I'm actually more preoccupied with another political disaster.

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is going to be re-tried on eleven of the eighteen charges of bribery, conspiracy and fraud filed against him.  The judge in the Menendez case, William Walls, acquitted him on the other seven, but the Justice Department is forging ahead with trying Menendez again on the remaining charges after a mistrial in the previous trial - a trial I almost got on as a juror. 

Now, you think that New Jersey Democrats would treat Menendez like kryptonite and be eager to  nominate someone else to run for his seat in November, seeing that control of the Senate hangs very much in balance.  But no, the state party is rallying around him, as Tom Moran reports in the New Jersey Star-Ledger.  (I don't know Governor Murphy's stand on the issue.)  Menendez has vowed to fight against the charges and for re-election, and the New Jersey Democratic Party - legendarily known as the most crooked state party east of Chicago - is circling the wagons around him.  Just like when the Democratic National Committee circled the wagons around Hillary Clinton when she decided she wanted to run for President (that decision was made on January 21, 2001 - don't kid yourself!).  The difference?  There's nothing Hillary did that, despite Michael Flynn's protests to the contrary, would have caused her to be locked up.

But the corruptions against Menendez could lend him in the slammer if the re-trial leads to a conviction.  As Moran noted, the prospect of Menendez being tried and found guilty during the election campaign season would force the Democrats to have to replace him on the ballot, but they'd have to do that before the middle of September.  Even if he isn't found guilty, he'll have to spend as much time in the media spotlight as a defendant as he will as a candidate.  In that environment, the Republicans - who haven't elected a U.S. Senator from New Jersey since 1972 (to give you an idea how far back that was, it was the year of the Eagles' debut record, the premiere of the TV series version of "M*A*S*H," and the opening of the movie The Godfather) - could run a cow against Menendez and defeat him.

A fellow named Michael Starr Hopkins is planning to run against Menendez in the June 6 U.S. Senate Democratic primary.  If there's any grass-roots group out there willing to back Hopkins, I hope it does.  Look, maybe Menendez is innocent.  Maybe he didn't do anything wrong.  Maybe a second jury will agree with that supposition.  It doesn't matter; he's damaged goods.  This seat is too important for Democratas to put at risk.

But if there's one thing we know about the Democrats, they only take risks when they shouldn't. :-O

After everything I've just said here, I doubt that Judge Walls will be summoning me to the courthouse again.

Menendez Mistrial

After all the speculation that New Jersey Democratic lawmaker Robert Menendez's U.S. Senate seat was in trouble due to his corruption trial, Menendez walked out of the federal courthouse in Newark a free man when the judge declared a mistrial. 

The jurors - one of whom could have been me - decided that Menendez was guilty of no more than helping out a friend,  the friend happening to be a wealthy optometrist, but that Menendez's actions probably weren't illegal.  That's it, and that's all.  No verdict.  So it looks like Menendez will be able to serve out the remainder of his Senate term, which expires in January 2019, and not have to worry about serving a term of a different sort.   

But he might not get another term in the Senate.  Menendez's poll numbers in New Jersey are so low, they almost rival those of Chris Christie.  New Jersey hasn't elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972, but, given that New Jersey Republicans have won half of the twelve gubernatorial elections since then, don't be surprised if they are competitive against Menendez in the state's 2018 U.S. Senate election.

And I can definitely see outgoing lieutenant governor Kim Guadagno going for Menendez's seat.

Why?  Because just as Christine Todd Whitman's failed Senate bid in 1990 was a dry run for her successful gubernatorial run in 993, Kim Guadagno's failed gubernatorial bid could be a dry run for Menendez's Senate seat.  Republicans who lose elections don't quit running for office until they get elected to something or can't run any more, a tradition started by Harold Stassen.

But of course, November 2018 is a long way off, even as November 2017 comes to a close today.  Menendez (below) has time to get his mojo working again.  A week in politics is a life time and a year in politics is an eternity.  A month ago, people were talking about Menendez being in jeopardy; now they've forgotten about Menendez and started talking about Al Franken being in jeopardy.     

What would I have done had I been on that jury?  I doubt that I could have reached a verdict as well.

All My Trials

I am now able to tell all of you what I couldn't mention before.  I had federal jury duty.  That's not what I couldn't mention before.  What I couldn't mention before was the case I came close to being assigned to - the Robert Menendez trial.

Robert Menendez, of course, is the senior senator of my home state of New Jersey, and he was charged with bribery in a case involving an ophthalmologist friend of his, gifts, and Medicare fixes.  When I reported to the federal courthouse in Newark for jury duty in June of this year after getting a summons a month or so earlier, I and other prospective jurors were then told what the case would be, but I'd already figured that out before I reported, based on the who the judge was (William Walls).  Anyway, we were given questionnaires to fill out for review over the summer, and it took us forever to fill them out, because they were so darn long - asking us about our backgrounds, our previous jury experience, and all that bit.  In August, I was called back based on my answers and I had to go through two grueling days of jury selection - twelve regulars and four alternates - and I came close to being called for consideration.  First I had to wait in a jury waiting room.  Then I had to sit in the courtroom while the judge called prospective jurors and interviewed them, while lawyers for the prosecution and the defense approved or disapproved them for the jury.  When I didn't get called up, after sixteen jurors were selected,  I breathed a sigh of relief - until I was told to wait and see until September 5 if the judge still needed me and few others to come back.      

I indeed had to go back the next day, the start date of the trial.  One alternate had to replace a regular and two more alternates dropped out.  So the trial needed three more jurors.  I had to sit again through a long, grueling process before being called into the courtroom and having to go through waiting to be called by the judge for possible inclusion.  But the three vacant alternate-juror seats were filled before I was called, and I was finally dismissed.

Had I been called to serve on the jury, I would not have been sequestered and put in a hotel next to Newark Airport. But it still would have been grossly inconvenient.  Anyway, I commented on the Menendez case back in April 2015.  The trial kept getting delayed for over two years - and I had to let the judge and lawyers know about my media activity, and that I'd mentioned this case on my blog, so I doubt I would have been impartial.     

I'm glad that's out of the way.  Hurricane Irma isn't, though most of the computer models show New Jersey being spared, and while there are are outlier projections saying otherwise, it looks lke my blog will continue as usual.  I will likely go ahead and feature a new Music Video Of the Week tomorrow.  Stay tuned.