Mayor Booker talking about his healthy eating efforts alongside First Lady Michelle Obama just last week. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker has used social media as a major tool for reaching out to his constituents. With his run for New Jersey Senator, he’ll likely continue to rule the Twitterverse.

“Mayor Booker’s message was clear, focus the future of government about modernizing systems and making it look much more like the 2.0 world that we live in today,” Mike Street writes for Black Enterprise.

In addition to his political work, Mayor Booker is also the founder of Waywire, a social network focused on video.

For more about the Mayor’s social media activity, and why he does it, click through to BlackEnterprise.com.

Eugene Parciasepe / Shutterstock.com

Newark Mayor Cory Booker is joining the ranks of the millions of people who use food stamps to pay for their groceries — at least for a week. This past Sunday, Booker challenged one of his Twitter followers, a 39-year-old mother from North Carolina, to join him on a seven-day food stamp experiment. The challenge came after a back-and-forth discussion following a tweet by Booker that said: ‘An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics’ Plutarch ancient Greek historian (c. 46 – 120 CE),” reports UPI. The follower, who is a self-described “Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR), fighting against any and all forms of socialism/communism,” took issue with the tweet.

The University of Bridgeport, which is holding the “UB SNAP Food Challenge” next month, offered to referee the Booker challenge, which will happen December 4 through 11.  Booker plans to document his efforts on various social media platforms.  According to the rules, reports BET,  it has been stipulated that each person has a total budget of $35 to spend on food and beverages, which is $5 per day or $1.66 per meal. They also can’t accept food from outside sources, such as family, friends and work, and cannot use food that’s already in the home, excluding condiments and spices.

It has been estimated that there is a likelihood that half of all adult Americans between the ages of 20 and 65 will use food assistance at some point.  Today a record number of people — nearly 50 million – will use food stamps to pay for their Thanksgiving dinners. According to United States Department of Agriculture data, 36 percent of participants in the food stamp program are white, 22 percent are African American, 10 percent are Hispanic, two percent are Asian, four percent are Native American, and 19 percent are of unknown race or ethnicity.

Typically, food stamp recipients get $133 a month per person. Besides holiday meals, many recipients are using their stamps typically to purchase foods with poor nutritional value. The federal food assistance program SNAP pays $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion for purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages every year, reports The Los Angeles Times.  But the government doesn’t reveal details on what people spend their food stamps, notes the Washington Post.  Food stamps can be spent on goods ranging from candy to steak, says the newspaper.

While we don’t know what Booker will buy with his stamps, we do know this seems to be another move by Booker to take a hands-on approach to governing. You may recall that during Hurricane Sandy the Mayor invited  people without power over to his house. Mayor Booker’s hands-on approach was actually greeted with boos and a near pepper spraying last night when he stepped in to cast a vote to fill a city council spot with someone that other members and people in attendance didn’t agree with. You can watch the mayhem below (h/t Slate).

Source: WENN

From Hello Beautiful

Cory Booker is the epitome of the type of man you’d be proud to bring home to momma. The Newark, NJ mayor is handsome, successful, gives back and has a sense of humor. These are the qualities I swoon over and I know I’m not alone beauties! While Jezebel thinks he’s make a horrible boyfriend, but amazing imaginary boo, I think Cory Booker is–dare I say it–all that and a bag of chips!

Read more at HelloBeautiful.com.

This morning, one of  my co-workers said, “Does Cory Booker think he’s Batman?” Well, when you spend your evening saving someone’s life, there’s no think to it. You are a super hero.

Last night, the Newark, New Jersey mayor was returning home from an interview when he saw that his neighbor’s house was on fire.

According to the Star Ledger, the 42 year old Democratic mayor fought off his own security detail to get into the burning building. By the time he reached the second floor, Booker said he was engulfed in flames and smoke.

“I suddenly had the realization that I can’t find this woman.” Booker said. “I look behind me and see the flames and I think “I’m not going to get out of here. Suddenly I was at peace with the fact that I was going to jump out the window.”

Then he heard her cries in a back bedroom.

“I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed,” Booker said. The two made their way downstairs, where they both collapsed, Booker said.

The mayor, the woman he rescued and three other people were taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation and burns.

As if his actions weren’t enough, the mayor is still very humble about his heroics. This morning he told reporters:

“I’m a neighbor and did what most neighbors would do, which is jump into action to help a friend.”

Hmmm. For the record Mr. Mayor, people would like to think they could and would do something like this if the situation ever arose; but in actuality, most people wouldn’t.

The mayor, who sustained second-degree burns, is back at home now, with a bandaged hand.

Much respect to the him.

Considering Cory Booker is a bit of a cutie, I have just three words: We.go.together.

Do you think you could have done what Mayor Cory Booker did?

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(nj.com) — On the day Mayor Cory Booker made his first state of the city address, he had vowed to end political contributions given in exchange for city contracts.  ”No one with a city contract can give money to politicians in the city of Newark going forward,” Booker told reporters February 7, 2007.  But that same afternoon his deputy mayor, Ronald Salahuddin, was doing just that, according to FBI surveillance tapes.  ”Your contract’s the only one that’s been executed,” Salahuddin told Nicholas Mazzocchi, then the state’s largest contractor in building demolition. Only two months prior, according to the tapes, Salahuddin solicited a $5,000 contribution from Mazzocchi to Booker’s nonprofit, Newark Now, telling him, “This makes you strong.”

Read More…

(The Grio) — When Cory Booker was elected mayor of Newark in 2006 the overwhelming reaction was this is a perfect match. Here is a proud city, battered but never beaten, now being led by a brilliant, motivated and highly educated public servant. Their ambitions and aspirations appeared to be in sync.  Newark has renamed itself the “Renaissance City”, and Cory Booker, the 36-year-old Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law School graduate, calls cities: “the last frontier to make real the promise of America.” His often-repeated mantra could be taken as his mission and his vision.  Newark’s problems were upfront and obvious and Mayor Booker offered solutions. What to do about rising crime? “Increase the number of police on the streets and take a harder line on crime.”

Read More…

(The Star Ledger) — A battle over transparency surrounding Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation to Newark schools will now be decided in court. In a motion filed just after noon today in Superior Court of Newark, the ACLU of New Jersey announced it is suing Newark, accusing the city of violating numerous OPRA regulations and demanding the release of all correspondence between Zuckerberg, Booker, Gov. Chris Christie, and Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf surrounding the September 2010 donation.   The Secondary Parent Council, a 30-year old parent and grandparent advocacy group in Newark, filed an Open Public Records request on April 5, requesting all letters, emails and memos between Booker, Zuckerberg and Christie regarding the donation and its potential uses. The two-page request also lists almost every government official who could have weighed in on the donation including Cerf, former education commissioner Bret Schundler, deputy commissioner Rochelle Hendricks, the Newark City Council and members of the state legislature.

Read More…

(BET) — The latest unemployment numbers are not encouraging and in keeping with recent trends,African-Americans are faring worse than the rest of the country. But the Obama administration has a plan to help turn the tide by boosting the numbers of small and medium-sized businesses in urban areas across the country.  The White House has teamed up with Rutgers Business School to host an invitation-only Urban Entrepreneurship Summit on Monday at the university’s Newark, New Jersey, campus.  “If we as a country want to attract  new jobs in all of our communities we have to do a better job of creating and supporting entrepreneurs in our nation’s cities and when we do that we see good wages and families will be able to thrive and that’s the only way to win the future,” said Don Graves, executive director for the White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Read More…

In the past, when we thought of politicians, older Caucasian men in boring suits immediately came to mind. Oh how times have changed.

Surprisingly, over time a few handsome politicians have seeped through the governmental cracks, offering their political views and a little eye candy for those who care to see. Besides being major players in the control of our counties, states and nation these men present an aura of intelligence and power.

In addition to President Barack Obama, who clearly goes against the white man/boring suit theory, there are a few other politicians, who cause us to do double-takes, despite the fact that some of them are old enough to be our fathers.

So who are these Hot politicians?

By Christina Burton

We’ve all heard of the career-killing misdeeds of former mayors  Kwame Kilpatrick and Sheila Dixon. Once the media got hold of their stories, they became household names.  At the other extreme of national attention is a superstar like Cory Booker.  But of course, the landscape of  African-American mayors is wider than that. The Atlanta Post rounds up seven municipal leaders that, although are overlooked by the national spotlight, have earned distinction (not all good) in their communities.

Byron Brown

Buffalo, NY

Mayor Brown, a Democrat, started off slow in the violent and cold city of Buffalo.  With a campaign focused on abolishing crime and poverty, Brown made efforts to be a part of Buffalo’s firearms solution, helping the city’s homicide rate plummet 20 percent. His secondary problem, poverty,  forced him to set aside funds for demolishing abandoned buildings and clean up trash. With Brown persuading the city to install cameras on street corners, Buffalo’s murder rate shot down 50 percent by early 2009. Controversy has also surrounded this mayor, as well as his aides and business partners, but no charges have been filed.