(BSDMS) – UNITED STATES – Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is in some hot water after leaked audio revealed his connections to AIPAC. Booker is also a corporate Democrat according to his donors’ list provided by OpenSecrets.org.
AIPAC Connection
Senator Cory Booker talked with AIPAC members from New Jersey at AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington D.C. The Intercept released a leaked recording of Booker speaking, including saying he talks to the AIPAC President in “Text messages back and forth like teenagers.”
The Intercept’s audio can be found on Sound Cloud and is about 35 minutes long.
MoveOn, a progressive advocacy group, called on 2020 presidential candidates to not attend the conference, which resulted in Senator Bernie Sanders declining to attend and judging from Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s recent response to a question about returning donations from people who contributed to AIPAC and the way that she is seen from AIPAC, we don’t foresee her attending as well. Presidential Hopeful Elizabeth Warren did not attend and would not meet with representatives of AIPAC like the rest of the candidates who were in Washington DC at the time did.
At the AIPAC conference, Booker brought up being against the BDS movement many times. BDS means “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” of the Israel movement. BDS is a global movement with a focus on pressuring Israel to end its human rights violations and its militarized occupation of territories in Palestine.
“Don’t fall prey to cynical attempts to try to pit members of this great organization against the Democratic Party,” Booker said to the AIPAC audience on Tuesday. “We, right now, need voices in our country that are going to show the tribalism that is deepening in our country, that undermines obvious things to do like condemning the BDS movement.”
The way we here at BSDMS look at it is that there’s a huge difference between criticizing the actions of Israel compared to hating all Jewish people or Israeli’s. Such criticism is acceptable, but hating an entire group of people is not. The recent Ilhan Omar controversies have only stifled the debate on Israel’s human rights violations.
There are currently 28 states, in the land of the free, that have anti-free speech laws passed, 13 states with legislation being passed that are Anti-BDS stating Americans cannot criticize Israel.
Why?
Cory Booker’s Donors
It may come as no surprise that Cory Booker’s top donor is NorPAC. NorPAC is a pro-Israel PAC that states its mission is to support members of Congress who “demonstrate a genuine commitment to the strength, security, and survival of Israel.”
But Booker’s donors are not only from Israel, but they also include well-known businesses such as GOLDMAN SACHS, Morgan Stanley, Prudential Financial, Microsoft Corp., and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Big Pharmaceutical companies have also donated to Sen. Cory Booker, such as $57,500 in 2016 from pharma PACs. He has taken money from Pfizer, Merck & Co, Becton, Dickinson & Co, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Sanofi pharma PACs.
It comes as no surprise that Booker went from “progressive hero to traitor” in less than two days after voting against lowering prescription drug prices.
Bookers Bias towards Israel
Clearly there is a bias that Cory Booker shows towards favoring Israel while ignoring the country’s human rights violations and occupation of Palestine. It seems like just another politician who serves special interests rather than being for the interests of the people.
Those types are a dying breed.
Featured Image Credit: CC/Flickr/Marc Nozell
Kyle James Lee – BSDMS – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
