Cory Booker is the senior senator from the state of New Jersey. He is not the senior senator due to his political acumen, knowledge and opinions on issues, or for his overall intellect or even his impact on legislation in the upper chamber. He’s the senior senator only because the Garden State’s other senator, Andy Kim, just got elected in November, replacing Bob “Gold Bars” Menendez, currently a resident of the Graybar Hotel.
Booker has envisioned himself a presidential contender in the past, and considers himself a viable candidate in the future. Of course, Booker has been, is, and will be a fool long into the future. Monday night at 7pm, Senator Spartacus took to the well of the Senate and began talking. As of mid-afternoon Tuesday, he’s still talking. He’s cosplaying as Jimmie Stewart, conducting a good, old-fashioned talking filibuster.
Ted Cruz of Texas previously held the record at 21 hours, set in 2013 in a futile attempt to defund Obamacare. You’ll be surprised to learn that Obamacare still exists, and Cruz’ filibuster, wildly entertaining at times, ultimately didn’t do anything to kill the Affordable Care Act. But Ted Cruz has retained his sense of humor about his record. As Booker carried on, Sen. Cruz put this on X.
As @CoryBooker approaches my 21-hour filibuster record, I’m contemplating pulling the fire alarm….
H/T Jamal Bowman pic.twitter.com/t4EjMfErSk
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 1, 2025
I mentioned Senator Spartacus a bit ago without giving context. Here was Booker in 2019 trying to block now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.
Cory Booker says he will drop out of the presidential race very soon. He tried to launch his campaign with a phony attack on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and grandstanding in the Senate, but when he declared “I am Spartacus!” he became a punchline, not an icon. Oh well! pic.twitter.com/TVrbBsLTs6
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 22, 2019
He will never get out from under the meme avalanche that followed. It was such an embarrassment, even CNN’s Anderson Cooper threw shade at Booker for his stunt.
You know you screwed up when even CNN calls you out for your “publicity stunt.”
Cory Booker’s “Spartacus” moment was a total failure. pic.twitter.com/U7lEMLOV4U
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) September 7, 2018
But to Sen. Spartacus’ credit, his ego compels him every day to continue grandstanding, overacting wildly in the process. Forget Jimmie Stewart. If you’re going to make an analogy to an actor, Cory Booker is the William Shatner of senators.
I won’t bore you with a lot of Booker’s theatrics, but just in case you were curious what he might sound like going into his 18th hour of ranting, it’s pretty much as you would imagine.
🚨 ‘STOP THEM! PLEASE, GOD, PLEASE, GOD!’: Senator Cory Booker has now been on the Senate floor since last night at 7PM and is CLEARLY losing his mind. HE’S GOING INSANE, look at him – flailing his hands, yelling and preaching incoherently!
“Please, God. Please, God. Don’t let… pic.twitter.com/cuzWPslfl8
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 1, 2025
I’ve seen eyes like that before. In 1976’s The Gumball Rally, Chuck Courtney played Lapchik, a deranged Hungarian trying to run a coast-to-coast illegal road race on a motorcycle. YouTube won’t let me embed it here, but it’s a funny scene worth watching in the link below.
This is what Cory Booker looks like after 19 hours of a talking filibuster. via @YouTube
— Duane Patterson (@Radioblogger) April 1, 2025
So what exactly is Senator Booker railing on the floor to defend?
Here’s what Cory Booker has been speaking out against:
1. Securing our borders
2. Deporting illegal alien criminals
3. Peace through strength
4. Rooting out fraud & waste
5. Unleashing American energy
6. Ending government weaponizationIt’s no wonder Democrats have 27% approval…
— Jim Banks (@Jim_Banks) April 1, 2025
We’ll hear more from Senator Banks in a little bit. Booker, and the Senate Democrat conference enabling him, are defending waste. They’re defending bloat. They are drawing a line in the sand that not one federal worker can be laid off. Every bureaucrat is an essential bureaucrat – even the 1,400 IRS agents whose sole job is to provide laptops and cellphones to other IRS workers.
There are 1,400 IRS employees whose job is just to deliver laptops and cell phones to other IRS agents.
Maybe we should have postal workers handle that instead? pic.twitter.com/54ZtA6V8Ww
— Mr PitBull (@MrPitbull07) March 30, 2025
Meanwhile, on the waste and bloat front, the downsizing of HHS and its sub-departments has begun in earnest. Wailing and gnashing of teeth has ensued among the left, but the cutting of the workforce in just this department alone is significant.
Sam Stein of The Bulwark (Never Trump, Inc.) and MSNBC (stark-raving lunatics) calls it a bloodbath.
Absolute BLOODBATH at HHS/NIH/CDC this morning. Generation of scientists, health care officials being wiped out pic.twitter.com/ikJjcOiqhp
— Sam Stein (@samstein) April 1, 2025
The echo chamber on the left is predicting that millions of Americans are going to die as a result of all these scientists getting the pink slip. Here’s the thing. These are the same people that gave you the COVID response in 2020 – the masking, the social distancing, the lockdowns, the postponement of life-saving medical tests, remote work, remote education, the lying and obfuscation about the origin of the disease and how it’s spread, the age cohort most susceptible and the least, but mandating policies that ignored the science. The same people that said gain of function would save lives ended up partially funding what ended up killing millions globally. These are the science types about which we’re to feel pity now that they’re out of a federal pension-earning gig. Sorry. All out of sympathy. Learn to code.
Fortune’s article about the downsizing underway has an interesting passage 12 paragraphs into their story.
The department’s leadership will target positions in human resources, procurement, finance and information technology. Positions in “high cost regions” or that have been deemed “redundant” will be the focus of the layoffs.
Talk about burying the lede. Nowhere in human resources, procurement, finance and information technology do I see a murderer’s row of vital scientists.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was on Fox and Friends Tuesday morning with Ainsley Earhardt, and talked about the kinds of steps he’s taking in order to rebuild some sense of credibility back into NIH. Keep in mind, this is the same agency that gave us Dr. Francis Collins, who in the name of science conspired with Anthony Fauci to publicly destroy anybody that got too close to the truth behind COVID.
Thread summarizing what we’ve learned so far of the Fauci/Collins email dump on the Great Barrington Declaration:
It starts on 10/14/20 when Collins instructs Fauci and his staff to “take down” the GBD and the “fringe” scientists behind it. pic.twitter.com/XyTWINMOnG
— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) December 18, 2021
Can’t have that enter the public bloodstream. We must take it down.
It’s a new day at NIH with Director Bhattacharya.
One way to restore trust is to blow out all the clowns who squandered that trust.
And speaking of clowns, and tying this back to freshman Indiana Senator Jim Banks, a former HHS worker allegedly axed as part of a Valentine’s Day purge ambushed the senator going from his Senate office building to the elevator down for the ride to the subway underneath the street that takes senators and staff to the floor. This alleged former staffer, and his lady friend, were outraged at his ouster over a month ago, and wanted Banks to do something about it immediately, on camera. Banks didn’t even flinch. He said you probably deserved it.
You seem to me to be a clown. And…scene. The timing of the closing of the elevator doors is exquisite.
Booker has now exceeded the 21-hour mark. Cruz’ record falls today, as does the roster of the federal workforce. Well played, Spartacus. You accomplished, checks notes, nothing.
