also like, a Black man breaking Strom Thurmond's record is absolutely *chef's kiss*

for those who are too young to know about Strom, he was literally a white supremacist

He trained himself to give this speech by practicing and then implementing limits on food and water intake leading up to this. He cut out food for days, then cut out water the day before.

He then went to do an appearance on Maddow after yielding.

For those of you from outside the US or those of you who didn’t pay attention in government class, in the US senate there’s really no limit to the amount of time a senator can speak. So sometimes if they don’t want a bill to pass they just. Don’t stop talking. To hopefully get past the deadline to vote on a bill. This is called filibustering.

Senator Cory Booker isn’t doing that. He’s disrupting “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able”. Just in protest. This doesn’t usually happen.

He’s less than 20 minutes away from breaking the record of the longest speech given on the senate floor

Cory Booker has officially broken Strom Thurmond’s record for longest speech on the senate floor and he’s still going

For those of you wondering what he’s been talking about this whole time, his staff wrote down a bunch of stuff for him to read like stories from people across the political spectrum opposed to what the administration is doing. He’s also been telling personal anecdotes about meeting important civil rights leaders and other democratic senators have been pausing him for “questions” but the questions have been as long as a small speech and have both served the purpose of giving him a second to sit down and updating him on the news that he’s been missing while he’s been talking.

Reblogging and adding the livestream link from Senator Booker's YouTube (the other one was glitching) . It is almost 4am. He is still going STRONG. If you are watching and plan to go to sleep, turn the volume down and leave it up so that the "watching" number reflects the involvement of people supporting him.

If he can LITERALLY stand and protest as a single voice, we can keep it playing and symbolically stand with him.

Senator Booker is on Hour 13 and going STRONG

Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. No business as usual! Slow the Fascists down! He should get some Democrat colleagues to join him so they can periodically cede to each other and spell each other off to keep it up longer!

STILL GOING! If you can open up the livestream to show support.

Folks, he's still going - and importantly, he's talking about his own shortcomings, his own failures and the things he wants to do better because he knows he fucked up the last time.

ALT

If your disdain for Democrats has been rooted largely in their reluctance to meet the moment, then I heartily encourage you to watch the livestream — other Democratic senators are asking long-winded "questions (which is part of the rules and allows Booker to take the occasional break for a drink of water or to rest his feet or whatnot) and helping however they can.

Booker's going to hit 24 hours at 7 pm and it's worth watching a few minutes, don't you think?

a skosh more for @whiskygoldwings

“I’m…” Fox swallows. “I’m not done with the thruster.”

Breha grins and pats his chest. “I think you can handle that part for me.”

His face burns with a blush, the full-face kind that he gets every time she talks to him like that. Nobody did that before her. Nobody but Bail, and that was extraordinarily rare. Never in the Senate building or the Senators’ quarters, where there were hidden cameras that they all pretended not to know about.

It was in the shuttle that took Bail from the Senate to the spaceport, windowless so he could have some privacy from the cameras and the reporters. Bail had been allowed to have an escort from the Guard all the way to the spaceport. He’d always chosen Fox. Fox had always been a writhing, gasping mess by the time they got there.

Bail had rarely ever gotten his clothes off him, now that he thought about it. He’d just pressed his body against Fox’s, whispered words that Fox always thought reserved for- for-

For anyone but him. Bail treated him in a way that nobody else did, and Fox had finally realised what desire felt like.

It’s creeping up him now, flushing his body, widening his eyes.

“You know,” he says, his voice a little faint and unsteady even to his own ears, “there was something I wanted to check that’s- not here.”

“Fox…” Breha’s hand slides up his chest, her fingertips brushing across his lower lip. “Doesn’t this class of shuttle have a bedroom?”

He nips at her fingers in reply, and she gasps softly.