Tag Archives: Senator Cory Booker

“I’m Not Letting Anybody in the Senate Steal My Joy”

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Today, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, spoke in support of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court. He spoke for 20 minutes instead of asking her questions. Booker offered a powerfully emotional corrective to what’s been described as a “disgraceful” process, one in which a few Republican senators tried to outdo each other’s disrespectful, demagogic performances. Judge Jackson will be the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Senator Booker made America seem better than it often is.

The senator devotes the first 10 minutes or so debunking ludicrous Republican attacks. If you don’t have 20 minutes to spare, jump 10 minutes in to watch the portion of his remarks that impressed so many today and should be remembered for years to come.

In another Washington building, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court continued to side with Republicans whenever there’s a voting rights case, not only siding with them, but interjecting themselves when they don’t need to. When Judge Jackson is Justice Jackson, maybe she can convince one or two of her Republican colleagues to occasionally act like judges instead of right-wing hacks.

In other news, one of the Court’s worst members, Justice Clarence Thomas, has been in the hospital with an unnamed infection. It’s too much to ask, but may he soon rest in peace. The Court would then have four Republican crazies instead of five. That would allow the somewhat less corrupt Republican who’s Chief Justice to sometimes stop his radical colleagues from doing their worst.

Secretary Nielsen Bullshits. Senator Booker Speaks.

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Before today, very few people could identify Kirstjen Nielsen. She has been the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security for less than six weeks. But that means she is a senior official in the Trump administration, responsible for enforcing our immigration laws and making sure nobody travels to America with a bomb in their underwear. The Department of Homeland Security was created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

Now Secretary Nielsen will be well-known. She testified (under oath) before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Here’s the brief exchange that will make her famous:

Senator Leahy: “Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?”

Secretary Nielsen: “I actually don’t know that, sir. But I imagine that is the case.”

It’s certainly peculiar that she wasn’t sure, or wasn’t willing to admit, that most Norwegians are white, especially since her position involves protecting America’s international borders; she attended the meeting at which the president made his infamous comment about Norwegian immigrants being preferable to those from Africa and Haiti; she has the ultra-Scandinavian name of “Kirstjen Nielsen”; and she isn’t seven years old.

I’ve recounted this vignette (one more moment in that ongoing story “America, How Could You Possibly Have Done This?”) to provide some context for something else that happened at today’s Judiciary Committee hearing. Senator Cory Booker was there. He used to be the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, an old industrial city that our president must think is a shithole. Now he represents New Jersey in the U.S. Senate. He could have asked Secretary Nielsen questions, but chose instead to make an eight-minute speech. The whole thing is worth listening to. He speaks with such intensity that it goes by quickly.

Senator Booker may be our president one day. What an upgrade that would be!