Should convicted felons be allowed to hold party posts?

What about not-convicted Fellons like James McGreevey with his Machiavelli taped comments? His crimes were given a pass as soon as he announced he's Gay. He belongs in jail and being gay is not a get-out-of-jail card!!!

Viva Dino!

Wally, how about an Unelected Senator becoming a convicted felon? If he likes hanging around felons so much, perhaps he's a candidate for three hots and a cot?
That being said, what about Boss Bob helping out a convicted felon that wasn't even in his Congressional District?

Thank God the RNC is answering the call in New Jersey and here's the reason why:

Bob Menendez: Boss or Puppet?

Another bombshell has been dropped on the Unelected Senator, Bob Menendez. Gregory J. Volpe of the Gannett State Bureau reported yesterday that Menendez wrote a letter on behalf of Federal Prison Inmate Nicholas Parlavecchio in 1998. Parlavecchio was sentenced in 1992 on racketeering, cocaine, and credit card fraud and is expected to be released in March of next year.

Menendez wrote the letter to request that Nicholas Parlavecchio be moved to a facility closer to his family, including his son Antonino who was also incarcerated on the same charges. Antonino, whom was released in '04 had his sentence extended by six months back in '01 for smuggling his sperm out of prison to his wife.

Nicholas, now 76 years-old, was set up at a car wash which he owned and operated on Route 21 in Newark. An undercover federal agent befriended Nicholas, claimed to be short on cash, and asked him to buy some heroin to make ends meet. Nicholas took the bait and got arrested. The racketeering, cocaine, and credit card charges stemmed from deals that were made at the family's auto repair shop in Union.

So why would Bob Menendez write a letter on a federal prisoner's behalf that did not even reside within his own Congressional District? To answer that question you have to revisit why Perth Amboy Mayor and State Assemblyman Joe Vas wrote a letter on behalf of a convicted child mollester requesting leniancy. Vas had a political relationship with the man's mother and she threatened to rescind support if Vas didn't give into her demand.

The Parlavecchios were allegedly members of the Lucchese Crime Family which many believe are the source of Bob Menendez's power. Perhaps Bob Menendez is controlled by the Lucchese family as well? Maybe he was told to do it?

The more this report unfolds, the case very well may be that Menendez is the puppet and the Luccheses control the strings.

Junior just got B -slapped...read their letter below:
For 86 years the League of Women Voters has worked diligently to preserve the integrity of the electoral process by educating voters and preparing them to make informed choices at the polls. The League’s nonpartisan candidate debates have played a unique and critical role in giving voters the opportunity to directly compare the candidates side by side and to learn where they stand on the important public policy issues they will face as our representatives.

On Sunday, October 15 the voters of New Jersey should have had the opportunity to watch a televised debate between NJ Senator Tom Kean, Jr. and US Senator Robert Menendez, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of New Jersey Education Fund, WPVI-TV and WABC-TV. The voters did not get that opportunity because, although Tom Kean, Jr. agreed to the debate back in August, a letter was faxed to the League office from his campaign manager less than two weeks before the debate was scheduled for broadcast stating that unless Robert Menendez would agree to an additional debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press�, the Kean for Senate campaign “would not be accepting any further debates.� We were stunned.

How could a candidate in such an important election unilaterally cause the demise of a debate that he agreed to do having claimed in the press that debates were so important to him? And what about the voters?

To set the record straight this was not the first roadblock from the Kean campaign that the League came up against while trying to finalize the details of this scheduled debate. The League has sponsored more than 25 televised debates over the past 30 years featuring candidates running for state-wide office. From this experience, we know that there are always production details that must be negotiated between the candidates. These issues, however, cannot be resolved when one campaign takes the unusual steps of missing the only scheduled meeting among the two campaigns and the sponsors; phoning in a demand for a change to the set design; and then retreating in silence.

Despite these roadblocks, Tom Kean, Jr.’s demand about the set design was resolved in his favor. In the end, the demise of the League debate was not a case of the negotiations breaking down. This was a case of Tom Kean, Jr. receiving all that he asked for in the negotiations and then immediately taking the extraordinary step of using a totally unrelated excuse to withdraw from the debate.

This tactic begs the question of whether Tom Kean, Jr. ever really intended to participate in our debate. It is easy for any candidate to say “I would have participated in a debate if only the other candidate would have....� It is a lot harder to go on record in front of a camera right before an election and reveal one’s ability to express ideas and one’s grasp of complex issues.

For the sake of the voters, Tom Kean, Jr. should have honored his commitment to participate in the League of Women Voters debate and faced that camera.

Danzey Burnham
Executive Director
League of Women Voters of New Jersey

Deborah Macmillan
President
League of Women Voters of New Jersey

Marion,
I thought the inmates family resided in district? I am not sure however. Seems like a non issue to me. I have a question for you. Why is Tom Kean Junior only pay 4& taxes on earnings of over $200,000.00? No wonder he wants to freeze the Bush tax cuts, with tax payers like Junior our country would be bankrupt. Read Below:
Tom Kean Jr. released federal tax returns today showing that despite making $202,488 in income, he only paid $8,146 in tax in 2005 – an effective tax rate of only 4%. Kean Jr. used tax shelters and other investments to shield most of his income from taxation.
In response, Menendez for Senate Communications Director Matthew Miller made the following statement:

“Tom Kean’s tax returns tell us everything that’s wrong with tax policy in America today. Tom Kean Jr., who earns most of his $200,000 income from a trust fund and dividends, pays only 4% of his earnings in taxes while nurses, firefighters, and school teachers pay anywhere from 10 to 20% of their income in taxes under George Bush’s policies. Those are the tax policies Tom Kean Jr. says he wants to make permanent, despite record deficits, and now we know why. Bob Menendez will fight those policies because New Jersey need tax cuts for the middle class, not the wealthiest 1%, and we need to restore fairness to our tax policy so everyone pays their fair share.�