Vox Sentences: Corruption? In New Jersey? But how?

1. I want to realize too late I never should have left New Jersey

There will be a lot more mics once he's indicted. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)

• According to CNN, the Justice Department is about to bring criminal corruption charges against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

  [CNN / Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz]

• The charges relate to Menendez's relationship with Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor and major campaign donor.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Melgen was accused of overbilling Medicare, and in 2012, Menendez allegedly met with then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on his behalf.

  [NJ.com / Matt Friedman]

• In 2010, Menendez took two trips to Melgen's mansion in the Dominican Republic on his private jet without properly disclosing them. He eventually paid back the $58,500 cost of the flights.

  [Washington Post / Carol Leonnig and Jerry Markon]

• He was also accused of sleeping with underage prostitutes at Melgen's vacation house, but despite the story being pushed by right-wing media, it appears to have been a hoax invented as part of a Cuban intelligence plot.

  [Washington Post / Carol Leonnig and Manuel Roig-Franzia]

• If he's forced to resign, it could have major diplomatic implications — Menendez is the ranking member and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and by far the most aggressive Iran hawk in the Democratic caucus.

  [CNN / Stephen Collinson]

• He has long pushed a bill with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) that would impose new sanctions on Iran unless a deal is reached by June 30.

  [The Hill / Kristina Wong]

• He even praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inflammatory speech to Congress about the dangers of the Obama administration's Iran policy.

  [PolitickerNJ / Max Pizarro]

• Menendez, who is himself Cuban-American, was also a vocal opponent of the administration's decision to normalize relations with Cuba.

  [NJ.com / Jonathan Salant]

• The number two Democrat on Foreign Relations, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), is markedly less hawkish on Iran.

  [Huffington Post / Jessica Schulberg and Ali Watkins]

2. Jobs jobs jobs

Jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs. (Shutterstock)

• Today was jobs day! The economy gained 295,000 jobs in February, way more than expected.

  [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben]

• The bad news is that the unemployment rate fell — because people stopped looking for work.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• We're still about 1 million full-time jobs short of where we were pre-recession, and that's not even adjusting for population growth.

  [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben]

• All told, we're still about 4 million jobs away from the economy being okay; if we keep gaining jobs at this rate, we won't get there until September 2016.

  [Brookings Institution / Brad Hershbein and Melissa Kearney]

• And wage growth was an anemic 1.5 percent; adjusting for inflation, wages barely grew at all. All this suggests it's way too early for the Fed to raise interest rates.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

3. Last gasps

Because it's the Supreme Court and it's about same-sex ma—you get it, you get it. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

• Over 300 Republican politicians — including former presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and John Huntsman and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) — have signed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage across the country.

  [Time / Zeke Miller]

• Change in the Republican party at the presidential level looks like it'll be slower in coming: Jeb Bush just recently reiterated his opposition to marriage equality.

  [Metro Weekly / Justin Snow]

• Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Bush's main rival, describes himself as a "traditional marriage Republican," though he notably conceded defeat when a court legalized same-sex marriage in Wisconsin.

  [NYT / Trip Gabriel]

• Both of them appear out of touch with Republican primary voters: "Fifty-two percent of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina said opposing gay marriage is either mostly or totally unacceptable, while 47 percent of likely Iowa caucus voters agree."

  [Washington Post / Aaron Blake]

4. Misc.

• The CIA appears to be blurring the line between covert operatives and analysts, in a major organizational overhaul.

  [NYT / Mark Mazzetti]

• Hillary Clinton's economic policy as president would be, I strongly suspect, significantly more left wing than her husband's was, and Larry Summers' conversion to a full-on labor liberal is one of the biggest pieces of evidence.

  [NYT / Tom Edsall]

• Unions in the US didn't lose ground because they couldn't organize. They lost ground because employment at non-union firms grew much faster. That's a hard thing to fix with policy.

  [Moody's Analytics / Adam Ozimek]

• College basketball coaches are already scouting LeBron James' 10-year-old son, in case you were worried he'd have anything resembling a normal childhood.

  [ThinkProgress / Judd Legum]

5. Verbatim

• "By law they should be seen and not heard, but Tokyo children may soon find their voices as the city rethinks rules demanding library-like hush in residential areas."

  [FT / Robin Harding]

• "Rand Paul would be first to go. Rand Paul is an opthamologist."

  [FiveThirtyEight / Walt Hickey]

• "There are only so many times you can highlight the moral crap factory that is a bunch of white neo-confederates listening to 'Turn Down for What.'"

  [Jeb Lund to National Journal / Simon van Zuylen-Wood]

• "At the height of the Iraq War, fewer than 5 percent of deserters received a court-martial, and fewer than one percent served prison time."

  [New York Mag / Wil S. Hylton]

• "Removing all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants … would take about 20 years and cost the government between $400 billion and $600 billion. The impact on the economy would be even larger, according to the study: Real GDP would drop by nearly $1.6 trillion and the policy would shave 5.7 percent off economic growth."

  [The Atlantic / Russell Berman]

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