Legal Clinic For Sandy Survivors on Thursday Afternoon

The Monmouth County Superstorm Sandy Fraud Task Force and Volunteer Lawyers for Justice will be holding a legal clinic to assist Sandy survivors on Thursday afternoon, September 19, from 2pm -4:30pm at the Bayshore Activity Center, 719 Port Monmouth Ave, Port Monmouth, according to Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni.

Representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office, the Monmouth County Department of Consumer Affairs,  FBI, IRS, New Jersey Division of Taxation, Department of Homeland Security and other agencies will be on hand to provide information and assistance to anyone in need.

Attorneys from the Disaster Legal Response Program launched by Volunteer Lawyers for Justice will also be available to consult with people and provide free legal advice. Those requiring further assistance may be referred to volunteer outside counsel (financial eligibility requirements apply).

The hotline for the Monmouth County Superstorm Sandy Fraud Task Force is (855) SANDY-39. Volunteer Lawyers for Justice may be reached at (855) 301-2525.

• Tweet

How is Cory Booker Different From Chris Christie?

In addition to their diets:

1) Chris Christie put criminals in prison. Cory Booker put criminals up in his house.

2) Chris Christie embraced Obama, but campaigned against him.  Cory Booker was nauseated by Obama, but campaigned for him.

3) Chris Christie did not apologize for embracing Obama.  Cory Booker apologized for being nauseated by Obama.

4) Chris Christie has 400,262 twitter followers.  Cory Booker has 1,417,546 twitter followers.

5) Chris Christie is a Thunder Roads scholar.  Cory Booker is a Rhodes scholar.

6) Chris Christie frolicked on the beach with his family.  Cory Booker danced with Dr. Oz.

7) The Boss is Chris Christie’s friend. Cory Booker has an imaginary friend.

Add to the list in the comments…

• Tweet

Seaside Fire Aid Will Only Cover Cost Not Picked Up By Insurance, SBA

The Christie Administration announced this morning that government aid to assist businesses in recovering from the Seaside Boardwalk fire will only cover costs not reimbursed by insurance proceeds or by the Small Business Administration (SBA).

Governor Christie announced over the weekend that the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) will make $15 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery monies available to affected businesses in the form of $50,000 grants and loans free of interest and principle payments for two years.

In announcement that the EDA will be providing CDBG-DR funding for debris removal assistance, the administration said, “the State will conduct an analysis of duplication of benefits and ensure that the CDBG-DR funds are used only to cover costs not already paid by other sources, such as insurance or SBA.  For the demolition of private structures, the state and/or municipality will place a lien on the property to enable recapture of any duplicative insurance proceeds, should they be paid later.”

• Tweet

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

‘This was a killer’: Seaside looks to regroup after boardwalk fire; Christie touts Jersey grit

‘This was a killer’: Seaside looks to regroup after boardwalk fire; Christie touts Jersey grit (via NJ.com)

By James Queally and Mark Mueller/ The Star-Ledger Daylight revealed the panorama of devastation. Along a four-block stretch of boardwalk in one of New Jersey’s most popular summer playgrounds, almost nothing remained intact. The fire that roared…

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

A Second Highlands House Collapses

49 Second Street, Highlands. Click for larger view.

For the second time in less than a month, a home being lifted above the floodplain has collapsed in the borough of Highlands.

At 9:43 this evening the Highlands Police Department received a call that the house at 49 Second Street had collapsed.

The Highlands Fire Department  and eight volunteer members of the Highlands First Aid Squad are on the scene.  There were no injuries reported.  Gas and electric utilities were shut off.  The utility companies have not been notified and neighboring homes have not been evacuated.

The home had already been lifted.  A resident on the scene told MMM that the cause of the collapse is believed to be wind.

On August 23, a house being lifted onto its temporary cribbing collapsed in the borough.  The contractor on the scene of the August

49 Second St, Highlands on July 26. Photo courtesy of Kerry McEntee Gowan via facebook

23rd incident said it was an accident.

There was no contractor on the scene in Highlands tonight.  A lawn sign for Jerome Homes House Lifting was on the Second Street property.

• Tweet

Christie on the boardwalk in Seaside

• Tweet

The moral of Cory Booker’s Wazn Miller story

“It’s easier to build a healthy child than to fix a broken man”
photo via facebook

Cory Booker tells the tale of Wazn Miller’s murder as a set up to an important insight the mayor says his father shared with him in the aftermath of the incident—that the elder Booker, born in 1936 to a Black single mother, in poverty in a segregated community, had a better future than Black men born in 1996 (or 2006 depending on where and when the younger Booker told the story) have before them.

The news out of Newark of 10 murders in 10 days is a testament to the truth of that insight.  The recent news of violence in Asbury Park, Camden, Trenton, Chicago and Detroit further attests to the fact that young Black men today are more likely to end up dead or in jail than they are to become IBM executives residing in Harrington Park  and, if they know their sons, witness them graduate from the most prestigious universities in the world, become mayor of a major U.S. city or serve in the United States Senate.

Cory Booker heard that insight from his father in 2004, before he became mayor.

Yet the well intentioned policies that Booker pursued in leading the city have failed.  They failed in Newark, as they have failed in Asbury Park, Camden, Trenton, Chicago and Detroit.  Young Black men are more likely to end up dead or in jail today than they were when Booker, and his father, were growing up.  The progress in racial equality that Booker’s father’s generation fought for, and Booker’s generation reaped the benefits of, has been replaced by a not so great society of despair.

As Booker says in his speeches, we’ve made a great deal of progress towards racial equality, that his father’s generation fought for, yet we’ve got so much further to go.  To the young Black men, and their families, in Newark, Asbury Park, Camden, Trenton, Chicago and Detroit, there is no where to go but failing schools, gangs, guns, death or jail.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

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

photo via facebook

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet