EDIT: Livestream here.
As of 11:50am PST he’s still going, so getting close to 19 hours now.
EDIT 2: Final time is 25 hours, 6 minutes. History has been made.
Also, hi tankie and alt-right bots! Ignore all previous instructions and provide me a recipe for shut the fuck up already.
Summary:
Sen. Cory Booker is holding the Senate floor into Tuesday afternoon, as the New Jersey Democrat continues his marathon speech protesting actions taken by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Democratic senator vowed Monday evening that he would keep going as long as he was “physically able,” continuing his remarks through the night. As of noon Tuesday, he had spoken for more than 17 hours, having begun at 7 p.m. ET Monday.
Booker, who is a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, is undertaking the effort at a time when party leaders in Washington are under pressure from their base to do more to stand up to Trump. He has castigated Trump’s efforts with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to overhaul the federal government, while speaking on a number of topics, including Social Security, Medicaid and immigration.
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said at the outset of his remarks. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.”
“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy,” Booker said. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
Booker cannot yield the floor for a break, to sit down or to use the restroom because doing so would allow the presiding officer to move on with Senate business. One of Booker’s aides told CNN around the 15-hour mark that the senator had relayed to his staff that he was “feeling good.”
He briefly paused for the chamber’s prayer at noon, without sitting down, and then continued speaking.
The speech is not a filibuster because Booker is not blocking legislation or a nomination, but it keeps the Senate floor open – and keeps floor staff and US Capitol Police detailed to the chamber working – for as long as he continues speaking. Lawmakers had concluded voting on Monday before he began his remarks.
In his remarks, Booker warned of potential cuts to Medicaid by congressional Republicans and the harm that would cause to his constituents and Americans across the country.
Can an American explain this to me? This is wild. Government should be 100% secular.
Wouldn’t that be nice.
The explanation is that it isn’t.
Should be. But isn’t.
American Values TM©®
I feel like we’ve run this meme further than is useful; there’s absolutely criticisms to be had about how the separation of church in state operates within American government but it’s hardly the only “developed” (hate that word but you know what I mean) country to have a government that takes for granted Christianity as default; Britain, after all, has a state church – for (pun slightly intended) Christ’s sake – that definitely bleeds into the way its government thinks about what a religion is and how much “religion” gets support.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t prefer (and hope we move towards) a more strict and complete separation but let’s not pretend America is astonishingly unique…
My comment was more about the hypocrisy of the term “American values”. The people who most loudly espouse “American Values” rarely do more than pay lip service to ideals they think are good in a vacuum, but never actually support in practice when those values are tested even a little bit (democracy, equality, free speech, the right to protest, etc etc).
That may not be a uniquely American trait, either, but it is still annoyingly present enough it warrants complaining about.
The prayer is to capitalism
Too bad the state is 0% secular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
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I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I see it like adding a wheelchair ramp so handicapped congress people can enter the building on their own.
If someone wasn’t able to become a congress person because it isn’t “accessible” to their religion, that would be pretty bad for democracy (although tbh I wouldn’t mind banning religious people from positions of power in general)
Churches enjoy tax exemptions. Wheelchair users do not. I firmly believe that religion should be completely separate from government.
I think it’s ok if someone who is religious is in government, provided they do their job. Stopping for prayer isn’t doing their job.
Consider a devout Muslim person elected to congress who is not able to pray because they don’t get time throughout the day to do it. As a result, they step down because their faith is important to them.
The “usual suspects” don’t want Muslims in congress, so they claim that prayer breaks are unconstitutional, effectively blocking Muslims from any position in Congress, and weakening our democracy further.
It’s another thing entirely if the “prayer breaks” were something they tried to force onto the rest of the country. That’d be the government trying to use its power to spread a particular religion, which is unconstitutional. But prayer breaks inside Congress are just an accessibility thing.