Free Republic

A former shipping terminal operator has sued the International Longshoremen's Association on claims that President Harold Daggett and some other union officials and members are organized crime associates who forced the company off the Newark and Brooklyn docks after it refused to play their waterfront games as reported by Steve Strunsky for The Star-Ledger: "one of the allegations in the suit by American Stevedoring is that ILA leaders told the company's chairman, Sabato Catucci, in August 2011 that if he refused to pull up stakes and leave the port he would be carried out 'in a box.'" The Mafia allegedly...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker made a statement on HBO's Real Time Friday that should please gun rights advocates across the fruited plain. Despite being for stronger gun laws, Booker said, "Legal gun buyers are not causing murders in Newark and Chicago and other places" … CORY BOOKER, NEWARK MAYOR (D-N.J.): To me, the data should drive our decision making. So I know, I’m not afraid of people having guns who are law abiding citizens. In the analysis of gun murders and shootings in my city, I could only find one in the entire time I’ve been mayor...The guns that are...

Cory Booker has filed a statement of organization for his U.S. Senate run according to documents posted on the Federal Election Commission website. The actual papers provide little detail about how much money the mayor of Newark has raised, but the papers, filed on January 8 are the first official step towards a run in 2014. His treasurer is listed as Judith Zamore.

Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker says the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), which spent $80.4 billion in fiscal 2012, is “not a government handout.” “I hope and understand that people are getting a better recognition that this is a program that really helps America, helps families in need,” Booker said on Friday, while describing his fourth day of living on a SNAP budget. "It’s not a government handout,” he said. “If anything, it’s a safety net that helps people through difficult times and bridges them towards stability.” …

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

NEWARK — A behind-the-scenes political maneuver by Newark Mayor Cory Booker to fill a vacant council seat with his choice led to a near-riot in city hall tonight, with dozens of residents rushing the council stage and police responding with pepper-spray. After weeks of jockeying for Rep. Donald Payne’s successor, Booker made an unprecedented personal appearance to cast the deciding vote with his council allies for Shanique Davis Speight, a longtime ally of power broker Stephen Adubato, over the angry objections of residents. "In the absence of a quorum, I have an obligation to sit in," Booker said, though he...

In a sweeping pastoral statement to be made public today, the leader of more than 1 million North Jersey Catholics urges them to vote “in defense of marriage and life,” and warns that the passage of same-sex marriage laws might lead to a government crackdown on their religious freedoms. Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said the statement on gay marriage was not timed to coincide with the November election, now little more than a month away, and that he was not calling on Catholics to vote for a particular candidate. But he said they should examine the “full spectrum” of...

A multi-colored symbol of inclusiveness flapped in the breeze above city hall Thursday night, when several dozen people turned out for the raising of the rainbow flag in celebration of the city’s seventh-annual Gay Pride Week. “I pray we begin this week in celebration knowing that each of us is special and knowing that God loves each one of us,” the Rev. Janyce Jackson, a member of Newark’s LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) Advisory Commission, said during a ceremony in the city hall rotunda. . . Julien Neals, the city’s business administrator, described the pride he felt in...

Amtrak announced a $151 billion improvement plan on Monday that includes 37-minute trips from New York to Philadelphia at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour (354 km per hour). However, the U.S. passenger railroad will need substantial financial support from both state and federal governments to make its ambitious plan to transform rail travel in the Northeast a reality. The railroad predicted that super-fast train trips along the East Coast could be a reality by 2040. Travel times from New York to either Washington or Boston—both about 200 miles (350 km) in distance—would also be slashed, to 94 minutes, the...

The Associated Press has called the 10th Congressional District primary race for Newark City Councilman Donald Payne Jr. Payne Jr. out-raised, outspent, and in the end, out-campaigned fellow City Councilman Ron Rice and State Sen. Nia Gill, his two biggest challengers in a heated race to succeed his father, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Sr., who died in March after a battle with colon cancer. Payne won in the 10th District, which carries parts of Essex, Hudson and Union Counties. The seat was vacated when his father, Rep. Donald Payne Sr. died in March after a battle with colon cancer. Now...

Winston Churchill captured what this presidential election is about when he observed “the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” It’s why the young black Democrat mayor of Newark, NJ, Cory Booker, got high level repudiation from the Obama campaign, including from the president himself, when he insolently suggested that Bain Capital, the investment firm once headed by Mitt Romney, might actually do positive things. Booker, an Obama campaign surrogate, went off script on Meet the Press when he refused to justify a campaign attack ad...

"I'm a surrogate for the Obama campaign," said Newark Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, "I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity ... I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of the record of Bain Capital, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses."Many a conservative commentator seized on Mayor Booker's pronouncement as a sign of weakness - that some within Obama's camp see the discussion of economic matters as a losing...

Newark mayor Cory Booker may have been reduced to filming “hostage videos” in which he apologizes for throwing sharp spikes of reason and temperance beneath the madly spinning wheels of the Obama re-election bus, but the Booker Insurgency continues to grow. Harold Ford Jr., formerly a Democrat congressman from Tennessee, was welcomed to the ranks on Monday. Ford was no small-time back-bencher. He took a credible shot at wrestling House leadership away from Nancy Pelosi, and served as leader of the Democratic Leadership Council - a now-forgotten artifact of an earlier time, when there really were “moderates” in the Democrat...

NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital tonight for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house. "I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said in recounting the fire. Booker told The Star-Ledger he also suffered second-degree burns on his hand. The fire started in a two-story building on Hawthorne Avenue in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood, shortly before the mayor arrived home after a television interview with News 12 New Jersey. Five people were taken to the hospital for treatment: the mayor,...

Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark carried a woman out of a burning house and was treated for smoke inhalation on Thursday night. Mr. Booker arrived to his home in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood to find a neighbor’s house on fire, said Anne Torres, a spokeswoman. The Fire Department had not yet arrived, she said, and Mr. Booker went inside with two members of his security detail and rescued one woman. The mayor was treated at a hospital and released at 11:30 p.m. “Everyone is O.K.,” Ms. Torres wrote in an e-mail. < snip > The mayor told The...

There have been some great feuds in the history of the world: Mary Queen of Scots and the Queen of England. Bugsy Moran and Al Capone. The Hatfields vs. the McCoys. But do any of these really beat what’s going on in Newark right now between the mayor and the owner of the New Jersey Devils?

Newark Residents Miffed Over Bill from Whitney Houston's FuneralBy Connor Simpson | The Atlantic Wire – 20 hrs ago Newark residents are being left to pick up the bill for Whitney Houston's funeral, and, surprisingly, they aren't happy about it. The demands of the high-profile funeral attendees have left the city of Newark with a $187,000 bill for police overtime. Police acted as barriers between fans and the proceedings on the day of the funeral of the Newark native who drowned in February. Nearly 200 officers were posted to the New Batist Church on the day of the funeral.

NEWARK — Call him a "high-class, highfalutin huckster and hustler?" Well then, you can just forget about those Springsteen tickets. A day after Newark Mayor Cory Booker lashed out at Devils managing partner Jeff Vanderbeek — accusing him of exploiting the city — the mayor said the team owner turned down his request for seats to next month’s sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert at the Prudential Center.

A Newark man died after a tussle with a former high school wrestler he tried to rob early Saturday, NBC New York has learned. Law-enforcement sources told NBC New York that 30-year-old Gian Davis approached two men near Bloomfield Avenue at about 1:15 a.m. and asked for change. When the men said "no," he then asked to borrow a cell phone, grabbed it and tried to run off with it, sources said. One of the men lunged to get the phone back and Davis put him in a headlock, according to sources. Then, sources say the other man, a former...

For twenty years – long before 9/11 – the danger of terrorists armed with surface to air missiles shooting at passenger planes has been the secret fear of many top political leaders. In the late 90s, a terrorist network was nabbed trying to bring them into Newark Airport, but the airline industry and the government have done nothing to equip passenger airplanes with any defense against these always deadly missiles. Now Barack Obama has committed the ultimate sin: He has let 20,000 surface-to-air missiles escape from military depots in Libya. According to ABC News “U.S. officials had once thought there...