Booker Insists T-Bone Is Real, Says He Put Drug Dealers Up In His House While Mayor

In an interview with NJTV’s On The Record with Michael Aron aired yesterday, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, insisted that T-Bone is a real person and not a composite or archetype as has been previously reported.

The mayor said the Newark police told him there are currently five people in the city using the alias “T-Bone.”  He went on to say that he, as an attorney prior to entering public office, “and after I became mayor”  would hold meetings with drug dealers, “100’s of guys involved in the narcotics trade,” in his house, ” even putting them up with me.”

The Booker interview can be viewed here.  Aron starts the T-Bone questioning at the 9:15 mark.  Booker talks about his meetings and his hospitality for drug dealers, while mayor, at the 11:29 mark.

Booker said he was dealing with non-violent drug dealers.  Aron did not ask him how he knew they were non-violent drug dealers.

When MMM first reported the T-Bone controversy, we asked, Did Booker Fabricate A Drug Dealer Or Did He Harbor A Fugitive?  Last week, I argued that Booker’s “story telling” to make a point or to inspire action was not a big deal and was politically insignificant.

However, if Booker is telling the truth in his stories, as he insists he is, it is a big deal.  It seems to me that Booker is confessing to his own crimes of harboring fugitives and maybe even aiding and abetting.

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Rand Paul slams Booker and his ‘imaginary friend’ as he endorses Lonegan

Rand Paul slams Booker and his ‘imaginary friend’ as he endorses Lonegan (via NJ.com)

CLARK — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a leader of the tea party wing in Congress, today endorsed Republican Steve Lonegan in New Jersey’s U.S. Senate race and came out swinging against Newark Mayor Cory Booker and “his imaginary friend T-Bone.” “There’s 15…

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Cory Booker is a good story teller

In the video below of Cory Booker addressing the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy in 2010, the mayor recounts how his father’s stories get better (or worse, depending on the point of the story) the more often he told them.

Good story telling to make a point, or move an audience or teach a lesson, either in a conference room, college graduation, church or family dinner table, is a trait Booker apparently inherited from his father.

At the 14 minute mark of the video, Booker tells the story of “the lowest point” of his life. Wazn Miller’s murder in 2004.

In the version of the story told at ACS, Miller doesn’t die in Booker’s arms.

Booker gave basically the same talk at NYU Law in October of 2010. In that version, Booker was present when Miller died.  He starts the Miller story at the 6:30 mark and speaks of the death at the 8 minute mark.

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Booker Administration Denies Stonewalling For Cory, Another OPRA Request Apparently Ignored

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A spokesman for the Booker administration in Newark is denying reports that the city is stonewalling the response to OPRA requests, according to a report on PolitickerNJ.

The City of Newark has been sued by The National Review and the Lonegan for Senate campaign for failing to comply with Open Public Records Act requests.  NR is seeking police reports from a shooting incident during which the victim died in Booker’s arms, according to numerous stories the mayor has told over time.  The Lonegan campaign is seeking Booker’s expense and reimbursement reports from the city during his tenure as mayor.

According to PolitickerNJ, City spokesperson James Allen disputed NR’s claim, saying that the city promised to provide the police reports by September 13.

John Ginty, the Lonegan campaign’s attorney, told MMM that since filing his suit, the city has promised to comply and provide the requested documents, also on September 13.

However, NR and Lonegan are apparently not the only information seekers being thwarted.

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More Booker Stonewalling

© Jim Urquhart / Reuters;

GOP U.S Senate nominee Steve Lonegan has sued the city of Newark for the release of Mayor Cory Booker’s expense records since he took office, because the city has failed to comply with the Lonegan campaign’s OPRA (Open Public Records Act) requests.

Newark activist Donna Jackson said that Newark’s government is hiding the real conditions in the city in an effort to give Booker political cover. “Booker’s national profile is killing us,” Jackson said.

Now, today we learn that Newark has also been stonewalling the National Review over public records.

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Booker’s lead “almost insurmountable” in Rutgers-Eagleton poll

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Newark Mayor Cory Booker has an “almost insurmountable” lead over former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan in their race to replace the late U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg in the October 16 special election, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released this morning.

64% support Booker, 29% Lonegan and 6% are undecided.

56% of likely voters, including 44% of Republicans, don’t know enough about Lonegan to form an opinion.  Voters who are familiar with the Republican are split 22%-22% in their favorable/unfavorable impressions of him.

Booker favorably impresses 63% of likely voters.  19% have an unfavorable impression of the Newark mayor.  17% say they are unfamiliar with him.

Rutgers-Eagleton surveyed 925 New Jersey adults, 814 of whom said they were registered voters.  Of the registered voters, only 462 are likely to vote on the third Wednesday in October.

93% of Democrats, 52% of Independents and 19% of Republicans said they were voting for Booker.  90% of Liberals, 70% of Moderates and 20% of Conservatives said they were voting for Booker.

Polling Director David Redlawsk said Lonegan’s “most recent news highlights attacking Booker’s masculinity have been quite unflattering.”  If Redlawsk asked a question about those recent news highlights, he did not report it or the results in the poll release.

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Booker’s Headache: Donna Jackson

Donna Jackson might be Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s biggest threat to being elected a U.S. Senator.

Councilwoman Mildred Crump and Teachers Union President Joe Del Grasso, the other stars of the above video from our friends at BookerFail, could be said to have their own political axes to grind with Booker.  But the Mayor himself told the Star Ledger  in 2010 that Jackson does not have a political agenda, she just cares about Newark.

Jackson’s entire remarks excerpted in the video above are devastating.  View them here. (h/t Matt Rooney at SaveJersey).

She says the media and Newark’s government are hiding the city’s problems to give Booker political cover.  She says Newark is worse since Booker became mayor. “Booker’s national profile is killing us,” Jackson said.

Last May, Jackson accurately predicted the coming outbreak in violence in Newark, during an impassioned rant before the city council wherein she also complained that Newark residents, “darkies” she called them, are not being employed at the new construction projects that Booker often touts.   She calls Caucasians “clear people.”

Jackson says Newark’s mismanagement is intentionally designed to drive residents making less than $100,000 out of the city.

Jackson says she’s “anti-government, anti-government and everybody’s got to go.”

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Lonegan: Booker’s Syria Position Is As Fake As ‘T-Bone’

GOP U.S. Senate nominee Steve Lonegan said this afternoon that his Democratic opponent, Newark Mayor Cory Booker is afraid to admit his support of President Barack Obama’s desire to attack Syria.

“Mayor Booker claims he cannot say whether he will support or oppose President Obama’s proposed military attack on Syria allegedly because he has no access to classified information,” Lonegan said, calling that argument “as fake as T-Bone.”

“The American people have figured out very quickly that President Obama has not made the case that American interests are at stake in Syria,” Lonegan said.  “Americans are sick of being the world’s policeman and sick of getting involved in domestic civil wars where there is no evidence that America’s national security is threatened.”

“Cory Booker is afraid to admit he supports the President’s proposed war in Syria,” Lonegan said, “so instead he attempts to hide behind the smokescreen of not having enough information.  But people are on to the Mayor’s act now, and his refusal to speak out against the President’s war can only be interpreted as assent.”

T-Bone is a character in a parable that Booker used early in his political career, until the Star Ledger raised questions about the authenticity of talent.  Booker claimed that T-Bone was a Newark drug dealer who once threatened his life and then a few year later pled with the mayor, in tears, to help him avoid prison.  In published reports Booker has claimed that the character is both “1000% a real person” and “an archetype.”

Regarding Syria, Booker initially said he would not support a strike, then equivocated.  Now he says he does not have enough information to say whether or not he would vote to authorize a military strike.

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Tax returns reveal Booker earned nearly $4 million since 1998, paid $1 million in taxes

Tax returns reveal Booker earned nearly $4 million since 1998, paid $1 million in taxes (via NJ.com)

John Munson/The Star-Ledger NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s political stardom has paid off well. The Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful has earned nearly $4 million from various endeavors over the past 15 years, including an average income of $577…

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Christie Skipping Rand Paul’s Endorsement Of Lonegan

U.S. Senator Rand Paul is coming to New Jersey on September 13 to endorse Steve Lonegan for Senate in the October 16 Special Election against Cory Booker.

Governor Chris Christie, who had a well publicized rift with Paul over the NSA’s monitoring of domestic communications, was invited to attend the Friday afternoon rally.  Christie and Paul are widely considered GOP contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Christie declined the invitation because he will be away celebrating the First Lady’s 50th birthday.

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