Another Update on a New Jersey State of Mind

Long-time visitors to Kiko's House know how I delight in beating up on New Jersey, which after years of hard work has wrested the title of most corrupt state from Louisiana.

My pummeling began with a widely disseminated essay that laid out in detail how incredibly screwed up New Jersey is. I updated my opus only last week with the latest crap and corruption, but the just disclosed saga of state Senator Wayne R. Bryant can't wait for another periodic update.

Bryant, a Democrat from hardscrabble Camden, has long been a poster child for all that is wrong with official New Jersey. He is unapologetic about the fact that he has held as many as four government jobs simultaneously, while five family members also have been on the public payroll at various times.

But old Wayne has outdone himself this time: A federal investigator reports that he was paid $35,000 a year to "lobby himself" at the School of Osteopathic Medicine at the troubled University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey from 2003 to 2006. Surprise of surprises, Bryant did no work at the school.

UMDNJ is so mobbed up that it already is under the supervision of a federal monitor. The investigation that outted Bryant has found evidence of tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid fraud, wasteful spending and no-bid contracts awarded to vendors with ties to elected officials or former trustees.

More here.