The only passage charged with politics in the mayor's State of the City address Tuesday night. Part of an effort to “dismantle these narratives one after the other,” Booker tells BuzzFeed.

Image by Brad Barket / Getty Images

NEWARK, N.J. — Before closing his State of the City address Tuesday evening, Cory Booker said he would not apologize for his frequent trips outside Newark, making a tacit, but pointed, reference to critics who claim the mayor spends city time giving speeches and interviews across the country at the expense of City Hall.

Traveling outside the Central Ward, Booker argued, has helped attract investors and draw development into the city.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the mayor, "I am relentless and unapologetic in my pursuit of development for our city."

"I will not stop, I will not yield, I will continue to crisscross this land, going state to state, door to door, CEO to CEO, investor to investor, philanthropist to philanthropist, making the argument to bring new capital, new companies, new properties, new opportunities, and new jobs to Newark," Booker said during his seventh State of the City address.

Booker, who has 481 days remaining in his second and last term in City Hall, appeared to direct the comments to detractors who have argued that the mayor travels outside Newark in order to boost his national profile.

When Booker announced last December that he would "consider" a run in 2014 for the New Jersey U.S. Senate seat still occupied by 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg — who has since announced that he will retire and not seek reelection — the Senator used the line of attack to fire back at his colleague.

At the annual New Jersey Chamber of Commerce dinner in Washington D.C. in January — where Booker was not in attendance — Lautenberg planted a dig at the mayor in his prepared remarks: "I'm disappointed that Cory Booker couldn't be here tonight," said the Senator. "I'd think spending time out of the city was one of his favorite activities."

And last summer, a Star Ledger report found that, in an 18-month period from January 2011, Booker spent 21.7 percent of his time outside of New Jersey and the New York City area.

But in his address Tuesday, delivered at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Booker defended his travel time as a reason residents have seen what he calls "Newark's boom." It's the way Booker claims he wooed Panasonic — "wooed with all the woo I had," he said — to choose Newark for its new North American corporate headquarters, which began construction last year.

"And this is how it should be," said Booker. "I, along with our great team, will attract new businesses, and woo new companies. No one can do the woo that I do. It's like Bruce Lee's Kung Fu."

Asked after the State of the City about the section of the speech, Booker acknowledged it was "a little bit of a nod toward criticism we don't hear from the grassroots, but we hear from others," he said.

"Look, inside Newark, we're doing great. My residents appreciate the work that I'm doing," said Booker, in a press conference. "But there is this other media now covering my life more than before, and in many ways you've seen that narrative popping up. It takes reminding people."

(Booker recalled a past State of the City — delivered by his predecessor, Sharpe James — in which a new International House of Pancakes, or iHop, was praised as economic improvement in Newark. By contrast, in his address Tuesday night, Booker announced an additional $1.5 billion in development slated for the city in 2013 and 2014.)

"So it was a line in the speech," he said, "that really was meant to say, 'Hey look, as mayor, these next 481 days, I'm not stopping. The proof is here right now.'"

Booker added that the "great thing" about his "profile right now" is that he can pick up the phone, and a CEO or real estate developer or investor will take his call without hesitation.

"Now I can call anybody in the country, and the assistant says, 'Cory Booker's calling,' and they usually get on the phone with me, and they'll usually talk and want to hear about the opportunities I have for them," Booker said.

Booker's defense of traveling outside Newark — perhaps the only politically charged passage in the entire State of the City address — was part of an effort, he told BuzzFeed after the press conference, to "dismantle these narratives one after the other."

"The biggest one is that [I'm] more popular outside of Newark, more popular in the country," Booker said of the long-time critique lodged against his administration.

That, he noted, was dampened in part by new poll numbers, obtained and released by the Star-Ledger last week, that show Booker at a 65 percent approval rating inside Newark.

The Newark mayor says he'll wait to make his campaign announcement until after the N.J. gubernatorial race this fall. “It would would be wrong to hold a press conference,” says Booker.

Image by Larry Bussaca / Getty Images

NEWARK, N.J. — Cory Booker confirmed to BuzzFeed Tuesday that he would not make his bid for U.S. Senate official until after the New Jersey gubernatorial race this fall.

Following weeks of speculation last fall over whether the Newark mayor would choose to run for governor in 2013 or for Senate in 2014, he announced in December that he would "consider" a bid for the latter race. Although Booker has since started to campaign — he filed paperwork with the Federal Election Committee in January, and he is headed later this month to a fundraiser in Florida in support of his Senate bid — he has declined to say definitively that he will be a Senate candidate, despite a universal acknowledgement that his candidacy is all but certain.

In his last interview on the subject, Booker would not concede that he would even run. "What I am running right now is the city of Newark," he told the host of a local radio show last month. "I'm not bonding myself to doing it, and I'm not making any formal announcement."

But asked Tuesday night when he would officially announce his campaign, Booker said, "Not until after the governor's race. I'm really going to wait."

Booker suggested, as he has in past interviews, that the delay was an effort not to distract from the Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor, state Senator Barbara Buono, whose biggest challenge in the race this fall against incumbent Gov. Chris Christie, a national political superstar, is name recognition.

"I'm gonna go out and try to raise a lot of money [for Buono], but it would be wrong to hold a press conference" until her race is over, he said.

The Kentucky senator is filibustering John Brennan, the Obama administration's nominee to be CIA director, over the administration's drone policy.

View Video ›

Image by

“It's a deterrent ordinance,” said Nelson City Councilman Duane Cronic, who proposed the ordinance . “It tells the potential intruder you better think twice.” City leaders could make it law next week.

View Video ›

Image by

Hoping to break sequester deadlock, Obama and Republicans are sitting down for dinner at hotel with a $1,776 “tasting menu” option.

WASHINGTON — As the White House shuts down tours to save money amid widespread federal budget cuts, President Barack Obama is hoping to break the gridlock by hosting Republican lawmakers at a swanky downtown D.C. restaurant.

The bipartisan dinner will occur Wednesday night at the Jefferson Hotel, whose tony Plume restaurant offers such exquisite dining experiences as the "1776 Food and Wine Experience" tasting menu, which will set back the average diner a cool $1,776.

According to Plume's website, it has been "voted Washington, DC's best fine dining restaurant by Zagat" and provides diners with "a discreet and elegant backdrop to the culinary artistry of our award-winning executive chef, Chris Jakubiec."

"Choose a cozy nook or a table by our inviting fireplace as you savor classic dishes crafted using traditional techniques and seasonal restaurant menus that are inspired by the harvest from Thomas Jefferson's kitchen gardens at Monticello," the website advises.

If members are hoping for a glass of wine before dinner, the restaurant boasts a cellar with more than 1,300 labels, incuding the "rare" 1780 Borges Madeira Bual, as well as vintages "Jefferson himself enjoyed in his time as well as newer wines he might select were he alive today."

The prix fixe menu runs $85 per person, with selections like Lobster "Thermidor," Rabbit Charcuterie, and a Golden Beet Soup that includes "Quail Egg, Horseradish Crème Fraîche, Chives." Want to add an artisanal cheese plate? Just throw in an extra $18 and it can be yours.

The Plume also offers a decadent desert list for members to choose from, including a 1924 Castarède Armagnac, which is a bargain at $240.

The former Congresswoman and her husband Mark Kelly were holding an event in support of stricter gun control laws at the Safeway where she was attacked in 2011.

View Video ›

Image by

From Switzerland to Jamaica, the death of the Venezuelan president was the front page story.

Ecuador

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Argentina

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Argentina

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Argentina

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

View Entire List ›

Where left and right meet. Paul on drones.

Rand Paul appears on a television screen in an office at the U.S. Capitol as he filibusters on the Senate floor.

Image by Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's hours-long, multi-senator filibuster of John Brennan's CIA director nomination has accomplished a rare feat: Questions about targeted killing and the drone program have vaulted from the fringes to the forefront of Washington conversation, and it's lasted nearly an entire day.

Civil libertarians have, finally, arrived.

"You would hope that the question of whether the president can on his own authority kill citizens in the U.S. would have come to the forefront as soon as it was floated," said David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute. "But it seems like it took this particular circumstance to get people talking about it."

Paul began his filibuster at 11:47 a.m. with the promise that "I will speak until I can no longer speak." Over the course of the afternoon, seven other Republican senators and one Democrat, Oregon's Ron Wyden, have joined in the filibuster that has revolved around constitutional debate over whether or not the administration can use its authority to turn drones on U.S. citizens within U.S. territory.

Paul has name-checked a number of writers in the progressive libertarian space including Guardian blogger Glenn Greenwald, The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, Firedoglake's Kevin Gozstola, and Esquire's Charles P. Pierce. He has promised to continue until the administration guarantees that it will not kill U.S. citizens within the United States. And his filibuster is undoubtedly the political story of the day, in mainstream news and otherwise.

Greenwald tweeted this afternoon: "Claimed assassination powers unite people" after Paul cited his column.

"Pretty sad — and pretty revealing — that it was left to Rand Paul to raise in the Senate the killing of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki," Greenwald tweeted later.

"What we're seeing with the Brennan nomination is what has been so urgently needed, but destructively missing, for so long: Congress playing the role it was intended to play by impeding Executive Branch extremism and prioritizing, for once, its institutional responsibilities over trivial partisan loyalties," Greenwald told BuzzFeed in an email later. "Everyone, regardless of party, has an equal interest in ensuring that the ability of the president to abuse power in secret is constrained. That this current battle is being led by members of both parties underscores that fact, and has the real potential to trigger a truly trans-partisan campaign against the presidential assault on core liberties being waged on a pretense of national security."

"Not sure if it's a 'we've arrived' moment but I'm glad to see that someone is sticking up for civil liberties (and ultimately international law)," said another drone program critic, Michael Shank, a professor at George Mason University's School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, in an email.

"Amazing that it's a Republican," Shank said. "Appreciated Wyden's nod to the senator from Kentucky, that he 'made a number of important points.' Now for more Dems to stand up."

Ron Wyden, who was the only Democrat to join the filibuster, said after he had left the floor that "we're pushing our efforts as visibly as we can."

Marco Rubio, who also briefly joined in, said afterward that he thought the issue had been simmering in the Senate for a while.

"I think there have been significant civil liberties questions going on in the two years that I've been here," Rubio said. "I think, for me, the issue here today was more about the right of individual senators, no matter how we may feel about what they stand for, to have answered relevant questions, particularly questions of constitutional importance."

Though the filibuster has captured the attention of the political class on Twitter, Boaz argued that its true effectiveness would come if it makes headlines and leads news broadcasts today and tomorrow.

"I guess a lot of it depends on — do the newspapers and the networks treat this as news today?" Boaz said. "I hope this is going to be significant. I also think this is significant in that Rand Paul is clearly positioning himself to run for president."

Boaz called for more Democrats to join in ("Why isn't Pat Leahy down there? Why aren't some of the other civil libertarian Democrats there?") but praised Paul for "pushing conservatives to get excited about civil liberties."

As of 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Paul's filibuster was still in progress.

Rebecca Berg contributed additional reporting.

Congress is magical!

Mrs. Kucinich as Ariel

Eric Cantor (R-VA) as Prince Eric

Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) is Jasmine

Joaquin Castro (D-TX) is Aladdin

View Entire List ›

Congressman Underwood, Zooey Barnes is on line one.

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

WASHINGTON — The lonely and the randy around Washington are using the "sequester" as an excuse to have sex, extramarital affairs, volunteer their uterus to incubate other people's babies, and to generally stretch the boundaries of their sexual experience.

With the spending cuts under the sequester hitting the D.C. area the hardest — thanks to the legions of federal workers, military personnel, and contractors in the area — residents are finding themselves with a lot of time on their hands, and they're turning to Craigslist in droves.

There's the 48-year-old man who might actually be a superhero, promising a "a very muscular body that is the result of working out 3-4 times per week at the gym" and he's "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."

"Not much time left," he cautions would-be partners in his ad, noting his offer is perfect for, "but not limited to, lobbyists."

When BuzzFeed asked him for comment, he responded, "Why are you writing an article now? By the time it's published, the whole country will be shut down, no one to work the presses."

Other area residents are combining sequestration mania with the region's notorious inability to deal with snow into a super-packed sex pitch.

"Does all this sequestration panic have you down in the dumps?" asks one Reston, Virginia, resident. "What about the snowpocalypse? Let's get each other off today before it all goes south."

And, don't worry, ladies. If you are concerned about whether your needs will in fact be met, Reston has a strict ladies-first orgasm policy.

View Entire List ›

“One of my favorite things about being in D.C. is being able to see things like this in person,” one late-night audience member said.

Image by Senate Television / AP

WASHINGTON — As Sen. Rand Paul ferried a filibuster from Wednesday night into the wee hours of Thursday morning, a few dozen committed members of the public took in the spectacle from the Senate gallery.

They came for fun and education, to satisfy curiosity or to witness some manner of history.

As the clock ticked toward midnight, roughly 12 hours after Paul first began expounding on the administration's policies regarding the use of unmanned drones on U.S. soil, a couple from Utah wandered the grounds of the Capitol, looking for the entrance to the Senate.

"We just thought it'd be fun to watch," they told this reporter, who pointed them in the right direction.

Theo Wallace, visiting D.C. from Duluth, Minn., for a leadership institute, was likewise curious, and so he found his way to the public gallery in the Senate with a group of friends. There aren't that many talking filibusters, after all, he noted.

"I wasn't a big Rand Paul fan before, but I really respect him after watching this," Wallace said.

After a day off from his internship due to the snowstorm that was predicted to hit D.C., but which never came to fruition, Robert Diaz was eager to watch the government in action — particularly having studied the very subject of drone use in one of his college classes.

"It was very interesting to actually be here in person to see what we talked about in class," Diaz said.

He watched the filibuster unfold from the Senate gallery with Amanda Almeda, who is also interning in Washington.

"One of my favorite things about being in D.C. is being able to see things like this in person," she said.

But, by just after midnight, even Diaz and Almeda had had enough: They exited the gallery to get a bit of sleep.

He needed to use the bathroom.

View Video ›

WASHINGTON — In the end, it wasn't fatigue or a lack of things to say that ended Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's nearly 13-hour long talking filibuster of Jon Brennan's nomination as CIA director. It was the need to use the bathroom after not getting a single chance to do so throughout the entire day.

"I would go for another 12 hours to try to break Strom Thurmond's record but I've discovered that there are some limits to filibustering and I'm going to have to go take care of one of those in a few minutes here," Paul said, as those on the floor laughed. Thurmond's record was a 24-hour filibuster in 1957; he was opposing the Civil Rights Act.

Asked earlier in the night how Paul was dealing with the bathroom situation — he wasn't allowed to leave where he stood otherwise he would be yielding the floor — his press secretary Moira Bagley said she had "no idea." The Washington Examiner's Tim Carney later reported that Paul simply "held it" for the entire 13 hours.

"My legs hurt, my feet hurt, everything hurts right now," Paul said following the filibuster.

“Twitter is woven through the DNA of this filibuster, taking an obscure legislative process into the public space,” says Wilson.

Senator Rand Paul is seen on a TV monitor participating in a filibuster on the Senate floor as Politico reporter Tim Mak works on his story at the Senate Press Gallery Wednesday.

Image by Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul's nearly 13-hour-long filibuster could mark a key turning point not only in the Kentucky Republican's meteoric political career, but for a Republican Party that has struggled to find any footing since November's electoral defeats.

Fueled in large part by support from a Twitter political class that flexed its muscles on policy issues, Republicans rallied around Paul in a way that hasn't been seen on the national stage in years and could provide a glimmer of hope for a listless party.

"There was a hell of a lot of team play tonight," a senior GOP leadership aide said Thursday morning, acknowledging that Paul's filibuster had given the GOP a much needed jolt of energy. "Everybody's in a three-point stance, helmets on and ready to fight," the aide said.

"I think it was a great show of unity by the Republicans, and I think that the White House really missed an opportunity to tell the American people on this specific issue what the American people want to hear," said Sen. John Barrasso, who as chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, is the fourth ranking member of leadership.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who after an initially strained relationship with Paul has come to embrace him, was effusive in his praise. "I wanted to congratulate him for his tenacity, for his conviction, and for being able to rally the support of a great many people and also people who have come over from the House of Representatives who felt also, I gather, that this is a legitimate question," McConnell said.

Paul even got some love from Democrats. "It was a good debate, and I think it was collegial and Sen. Paul and others brought up good issues, and Sen. Durbin engaged, and all in all — it was the first real filibuster in a long time," said freshman Sen. Brian Schatz.

The push was partially fueled by Paul's libertarian-tinged demands that the White House explain its drone policy when it comes to U.S. citizens.

The effect Paul was having on his colleagues was clear early on. While a core group of senators led by Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee kept Paul company throughout his vigil, as the night wore on more and more Republicans joined them. At first, it was largely conservatives like Sens. Marco Rubio and Jerry Moran, but by the end even McConnell had come to the floor.

And it wasn't just Senate Republicans. A host of House conservatives also came to the Senate floor to participate — several, including Rep. Louie Gohmert, even brought Paul candy and cough drops, and by the end of the night House conservatives were packing the benches behind him.

But throughout the filibuster and the media and public uproar it caused, Twitter was the driving force behind much of the momentum that helped power Paul and the pressure on his colleagues to join in.

"Twitter is woven through the DNA of this filibuster, taking an obscure legislative process into the public space," GOP strategist Rick Wilson opined on Twitter at one point late in the evening Wednesday.

Although he wasn't able to check Twitter, television, or any other media, it was clear Paul himself was beginning to grasp the enormity of his effort in the public sphere minutes after the filibuster was over.

"I really think that we will get word out and we drew enough attention. I haven't been outside of the Senate, but I think we drew some attention to the issue, and I'll be very surprised if the president doesn't respond," he told reporters.

Indeed, Cruz — in a clear hat tip to the famous telegraph scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — twice came to the floor to read tweets encouraging Paul, and the hashtag #standwithrand trended not only nationally but worldwide, including in places like Mali and Iran.

According to several GOP aides, a number of Senate Republicans, who had initially dismissed Paul's filibuster as futile gesture, were swayed into coming to the floor to demonstrate their support for CSPAN's cameras in no small part because of local and national Twitter pressure campaigns organized by Tea Party groups and other conservatives.

"I was getting tired for a while. And I got more energy when a lot of the senators started coming in and the House members, and that sort of reenergized me. But I was flagging there," Paul said following the filibuster.

The upwelling of support from Twitter wasn't lost on Republicans.

Late in the evening, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus even went so far as to tweet "Attention all Republican US Senators -> Please go to the floor and help out @SenRandPaul #StandWithRand."

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, began pushing out tweets of support for Paul at a rapid-fire pace Wednesday evening, and the NRSC quickly launched a donation page to capitalize on the swell of public support.

The energy couldn't have come at a better time for the GOP. House Speaker John Boehner has at best a tenuous hold on his conference, there is no national leader who's emerged to unite the deeply fractured party, and infighting over everything from gay marriage to the budget threaten to erupt on a daily basis.

More fundamentally, once the forced confidence and declarations that the party is beating President Obama on fiscal issues are put aside, the reality is the Republican Party has had little if any energy or direction.

Whether Paul's filibuster will actually provide a long-term direction for Republicans remains to be seen: While rivals for the 2016 presidential nomination like Rubio may have played nice Wednesday night, that won't last long, and social conservatives may not like Paul's largely libertarian focus.

But at least for now, Republicans went home with a pep in their step for once.

“This is an issue that does get people together who believe in liberty – on the left and right.”

View Video ›

Rand Paul ended a dramatic, old-fashioned filibuster early Thursday morning having held the floor for 13 hours to rail against the administration's drone program. The internet responded with pee jokes.

This is how the internet responded, in meme form:

Via: memegenerator.net

Via: memegenerator.net

Via: memegenerator.net

Via: memegenerator.net

View Entire List ›

“To allege that … our government would drop a drone hellfire missile on Jane Fonda … that brings the conversation from a serious discussion about U.S. policy to the realm of the ridiculous.”

View Video ›

A new ad from the Coalition for Medicare Choices, an industry-backed group, groups ObamaCare's cuts to the Medicare Advantage program with the sequester, and urges seniors to call Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. The ad begins airing tomorrow, a source says.

Source: youtube.com

Local communities prepare for the automatic federal budget cuts.

View Entire List ›

Rep. Sean Duffy will chop right into your heart.

This is Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI)

This is Duffy with an Axe in front of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.

Image by Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Oh...

Image by Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

My...

Image by Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

View Entire List ›

Rand Paul's filibuster made for strange bedfellows in the punditocracy. Here's a breakdown ranked from most supportive of Rand to least.

Glenn Beck

"Rand Paul is standing for Americans & the Constitution, not self-interest. Regardless of party, all should be thankful."

Mark Levin

View Entire List ›