Interesting piece, which I think should be read in full, even if you're not following the Menendez story.

It's a story about the very snuggly relationship between high-dollar donors and their politician "friends" and the favors these "friends" do for each other.

L to R: Guilty; Also Guilty

Just a little joke there, fellas. Just a joke. Protected as parody. Parodying the L to R identification in newspaper pictures with a deliberately risible rush to judgment.

So calm down.

The short version is that Melgen had bought a contract in the Dominican Republican giving him rights to deliver port-security services to that country; the contract was worth, it's said, up to $500 million. (Actually at another point the figure $50 million per year for 20 years is cited, which, by my math, is a cool billion with a b, daddyo.)

The Dominican Republic didn't want to honor the contract and Melgen dialed up his Very Good Friend Bob Menendez, who in turn called up some of his Friends at State, who in turn exerted their influence to make sure the contract was honored.

So all these Friends act together so that one of their Friends can cash a $500 million contract. (Or a billion.)

Melgen gives an awful lot of money to Democrats. He also throws some money to local (Florida) Republicans, including Mario Rubio and Ilena Ros-Lehtinen.

Earlier today ABCNews (which had the Menendez tip about the prostitutes last May and apparently did nothing with it) broke this related story:

Officials: Agents Raided Office of Menendez Friend After Document Shredding Truck Spotted

Federal agents raided the West Palm Beach eye clinic of a longtime friend and political supporter of Sen. Robert Menendez earlier this week after a document shredding truck was observed at the building, following attempts by FBI agents to question Dr. Salomon Melgen about his relationship with the New Jersey Democrat, according to federal officials familiar with the investigation.

The execution of the search warrant was carried out by a federal health care task force, with agents from both the FBI and the federal Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General's office, which had been investigating suspected Medicare fraud by Melgen's clinics for more than a year, the sources told ABC News.

Oh right, I forgot that: the good Friend Doctor Melgen's clinics were suspected of defrauding Medicare, too.

The raid appeared unrelated to recent allegations regarding Menendez's trips to Melgen's home in the Dominican Republic.

I highlight that because the raid, then, seems connected to this business about favor-trading.

And there's still more in the NYT story. Enter Harry Reid:

In the end, Mr. Menendez won [the 2012 NJ senate contest] with about 58 percent of the vote, partly because of the support he received from Majority PAC, a “super PAC” set up by former aides to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader.

As the campaign entered its final weeks, the PAC poured $582,500 into New Jersey to support Mr. MenendezÂ’s re-election effort. One of the organizationÂ’s biggest donors? Dr. MelgenÂ’s company, which donated $700,000 between June and October.

There's a media angle, too: Melgen set up a Latino-news website, "Voxxi," which praised Menendez to the skies (and also agitated for this contract deal). A former employee says Melgen instructed him to replace positive coverage of Latino politicians like Rubio and instead praise Menendez.

And Menendez did more than just contact State officials behind-the-scenes, by phone. He also questioned State officials at Senate hearings, acting, essentially, as Melgen's mouthpiece:

And at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere last July, he questioned two administration officials — Francisco J. Sánchez, the undersecretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, and Matthew Rooney, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the State Department — about why the United States government had not been more aggressive on the issue. The senator said more security was needed given the drug trade on the island.

He does not seem to mention "Dr. Melgen is my 'Friend' who gives me tens of thousands of dollars (at a minimum)."

Now, doing favors for high-dollar donors is (or should be) a criminal violation. But in case you want to know about the underlying argument about the contract: There are claims on both sides. The Dominican government says the contract was gained by a one-sided process, and is essentially corrupt, and against its interests as a nation. Menendez and Melgen argue that this is about the Drug Trade and how Drug Smugglers just don't want Dr. Melgen going all Sonny Crocket on their lucrative Drug Business.

I can't hash that out and I doubt we'd ever have an answer there.

But we do know Menendez intervened on his Friend's behalf, making the US Government, effectively, his Friend's contract attorney.

One last thing: I thought this was in the Times article but now I don't see it. Perhaps I picked it up off Twitter. But the claim was made that the whole Underage Prostitute story was some kind of false claim made by Drug Dealers to get Menendez and Melgen out of the customs-inspection business.

I bring that up as it's an interesting defense -- which you may be hearing more about soon -- and also because maybe it would explain something that sparked my skepticism about the prostitute allegations (as I understand them; see My Caveat at post's end).

Update on My Caveat: @johnnyfriegas was kind enough to translate the emails for me, and they do not contain the second prostitute saying "I know I was underage because it was just before my birthday," which would have been suspicious because the other one says that true.

But she doesn't say that. She just says the first tryst occurred near her birthday.

So I'm less suspicious. Though also not going all-in on the claims of prostitutes.

Bonus Jokes: I felt like I owed Breitbart a picture joke too, so I did one for them.

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Posted by: Ace at 07:53 PM | Comments (213)
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You've already lived the good old days.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:27 PM | Comments (622)
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Cute.

Actually, it doesn't really work though.

Explanation: Sorry, in case you didn't catch the context: she's just doing a report on the Super Bowl or something. Nothing to do with STDs. When the drunk woman insists on sharing the shot, she pretends it's an STD report and identifies her as having an STD, hoping this will make her go away.

It actually doesn't.
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Posted by: Ace at 05:31 PM | Comments (188)
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via @johnekdahl, who collected all these up throughout the day.

Three time's a trend.

Frank Lautenberg: "if there are infractions as they are reported, itÂ’s too bad."

Yes, too bad.

Terry Macauliffe just says he don't know nothin' about nothin'.

Below, Jay Carney refuses to answer a reporter's question as to whether the White House has "full confidence" in Robert Menendez. Jay Carney just says he's got nothing on that. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:38 PM | Comments (556)
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Ouch.

Several senators- even undecideds-tell me there's a ton of buzz on senate floor about hagel's lackluster performance. "Shock" is the word

Sorry for all the Hagel stuff today. I certainly didn't plan it (or expect it).

Posted by: Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (374)
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It's not the crime, it's the cover up.

It may well be that what makes Chuck Hagel famous -- in the wrong way -- is not his unsteady bumbling on questions of substance, which, frankly, most people don't know about.

It might be that it's his attempts to explain away his gaps in knowledge that doom him.

First quote, Hagel attempting to reassure people that he won't be trusted to make policy decisions anyway, so it's safe to install him in the job:

"I won't be in a policymaking position."

Next, Chuck Hagel explaining away his morning errors and ignorances:

"If confirmed I intend to know a lot more than I do."

Great. So if we give him a job he's unqualified for, he promises he'll study up and learn a few things about the job. At some point.

Or, at least he'll be poised to do so.

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Posted by: Ace at 01:05 PM | Comments (150)
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I think it's high time America finally got over age-old prejudices and installed a Dummy as SecDef.

I joked earlier that the spin had changed from "Hagel is a smart, informed, capable man" to "Hagel's too dumb to understand words that are said to him so you can't hold these things against him."

I guess it wasn't entirely a joke.

Now, the chances of Hagel being blocked remain on the low side -- Republicans are abandoning him, but Democrats can (and will) push him through, being the party of Central Planning Lockstep Cultish Behavior. Whatever Bambi wants, you know.

The only way Republicans could stop him is if they filibuster -- but will they resort to that tough measure?

Hagel has stupidly, ignorantly bumbled through most of the proceedings:

Meanwhile, as The Cable reported Wednesday, the White House is preparing to ask Russia to start a new round of nuclear-reduction negotiations and is also examining options for unilateral reductions if the Russians don't agree.

"I was a little uneasy about Hagel's answers," Sessions told The Cable about the exchange. "I thought he treated it too lightly and suggested far too readily that there's no conflict between the Global Zero report and what the Department of Defense and the president's position is on nuclear weapons."

Hagel also stumbled by saying he supported President Barack Obama's policy of containment with Iran, before Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) corrected him and said that the administration's policy was to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, not to contain a nuclear Iran.

And he also claimed the Iranian government -- which staged a coup against the elected president in 2008 -- was an "elected, legitimate" government.

The fact that Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz cross-examined him effectively is overshadowing this other point: That even without tough, pointed questionings, Chuck Hagel showed himself to be generally ignorant, uninformed, and detached from any actual intellectual engagement with the issues he would (frighteningly) be called to resolve and advise the President on.

This is what we give our boys? This idiot?

Much, much more at Hot Air. Allah is pessimistic on the prospects of a filibuster, and I'm pretty sure I agree -- if you game this out, you can see that a lot of Republicans will calculate they can please the base simply by voting "No," but permitting Democrats to vote "Yes."

The key then would be to make Hagel unacceptable to swing-state Democrats.

A point made by @rbpundit (I think): The media isn't covering Lindsey Graham's cross-examination, because they have no way to spin it. With Ted Cruz, they've got an avenue of spin ("unfair," "taken out of context"). They don't have any kind of wedge with Graham's cross-examination, so their method of spinning it is their old standby, embargoing it.

As for Ted Cruz, the left is spinning that Hagel "merely" said that Israel's anti-terrorist efforts against Hezballah were the moral equivalent of Hezballah's terrorism -- and what's so bad about that?, they'd like to know.

Dum-Dum Rounds: A Democrat quipped, “It is very clear from the testimony that Sen. Hagel will not be bringing the potato salad to the next Mensa picnic.”

Quick, let's confirm him. We need the Dumb Perspective represented in government.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (278)
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"Concern trolling" isn't quite right, as I actually am concerned and not just pretending.

Still, I used concern-troll tactics.

I thought it was kind of funny. So if you like, here's my concern trolling of Roland Martin.

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (178)
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On his last put, Mickelson was about 12-15 feet out. He putted perfect, dead center, straight for the hole. But he was a little too soft, and wound up three inches away. He knocked in for par.

Now, had he had that birdie, he'd have gone into the last hole needing a birdie for a 58, the first in PGA history.

As it stands, he a birdie gets him 59 -- nice, but a score others have reached. (He'd be the sixth to hit a PGA 59.) Only an eagle could get him his 58.

He did drive perfectly, though.

So: If he puts it in the cup from here, 150 yards out or whatever, he's got a 58. Otherwise, it's just a case of so. Damn. Close.

"Cruel:" He had a long put to make a 59, to make him the 6th PGA player in history to shoot a 59. His put was perfect, went into the hole... and rode the edge of the cup, and squirted back out!

So he knocks in for par, finishing 60, 11 under par. He ties the course record, for what it's worth, but he already had a piece of that course record.

So, so close. And yet so far.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (170)
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Holy crap.

When a supporter says you're a liar, and that you're anti-Israel... you've got a problem.

A wise man once spoke of beds and fleas and waking up.

Thanks very much to Miss80sBaby.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (269)
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