Cory Booker Engineers City Council Coup In Newark, Near-Riot Ensues

Amazing footage from Newark as Mayor Cory Booker seated a crony on the City Council per a backroom deal, then got run off the stage by protesters in a near-riot:


The cops maced a bunch of people, Booker slunk off into the darkness and once again, we see democracy, American-style, in action.

Afterwards the crowd chanted "Cory's gotta go!  Cory's gotta go!" and Councilman Darrin Shariftold told the Newark Star-Ledger:

"This truly was an out-of-body experience. The mayor, who goes all around the country to talk about democracy … literally in the back of the room, hiding in the shadows."

As an aside, this is exactly the kind of political manipulation corporate education reformers like Cory Booker do all the time to sell off the public school system.

We need a little of this kind of response to get the message across to Booker and the other crooks when they pull their backroom deals selling off the schools and privatizing the system.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - until the oligarchs and their political functionaries like Booker fear the consequences of their actions, really fear that they will suffer financially or career-wise or personally for selling the 99% down the river to the corporate interests, nothing is going to change.

But you get this kind of reaction to a backroom political manipulation by Booker and the oligarchs and their political functionaries will take notice.

Booker was expected to announce a run for governor next year earlier this month and the political elite were eagerly anticipating a race between Christie and Booker.

Booker delayed that announcement, ostensibly because of the hurricane fall-out but more likely because Christie's post-Sandy approval ratings are through the roof and he's rethinking whether he wants to run or not.

I am willing to bet that last night's events, captured on video and ready for a 30 second spot to be used on him, put the last nail in Booker's 2013 campaign for governor.

Christie's post-Sandy popularity across political lines, coupled with the Obama footage from the hurricane, won't play well against last night's Newark video footage for Booker.

Booker is a favorite of the hedge fund criminals and Wall Street crooks, so I doubt last night's near-riot puts an end to his career trajectory.

But it surely takes the gloss off of it and makes him look like just another corrupt New Jersey pol - which he is.