Blog 3.3

1. How does Paste Magazine characterize Cory Booker?

2. Why did Cory Booker vote against an amendment that seems like it would help people?

3. How does Cory Booker justify his vote publicly?

4. Where does Cory Booker get his campaign funding from?

5. What else, besides sources of campaign funding, may impact his vote?

6. Why did Cory Booker testify against Jeff Sessions?

7. Why would voting against the medical bill impact his "national ambitions"?

8. How do his ties to industry and special interest jeopardize those?

9. What will serve as Trump's "bully pulpit"?

10. How are Trump's nominations serving to keep his party happy?

11. Why is it important that Trump get more attention than the policies he is likely to enact?

12. Why would Trump meet with high profile candidates like Al Gore, but chose someone else for the job?

13. In what ways might the role of the Cabinet change under a Trump presidency?

Answer:

1. When Big Money is involved, he'll side with them over all else.

2. "His vote may have had more to do with the concentration of the pharmaceutical industry in his home state."

3. "Booker’s spokesperson cited concerns over the "safety standards" of the prescription drugs that would be coming in from Canada under the amendment."

4. "Jezebel reported that Booker received $267,338 from pharmaceutical companies, which led some on the left to say that this money explained his vote."

5. He's done a lot of work with the private sector before in other fields.

6. Sessions had historically done and said many racist things.

7. He is "stuck between two bad outcomes — defying the industries of their home states, or taking a position that could be broadly unpopular with their national parties."

8. If he acts against the interests of his constituency, they may backlash against him.

9. Twitter, the media, and his own stages events will serve as his pulpit.

10. By giving the jobs to hard-right Republicans, his party gets to pass the sweeping legislation they have wanted for so long.

11. It's like a magic trick. While we're watching "Trump, the Magnificent" waving the magic wand that is his Twitter account in his small, right hand, his equally small left hand is hiding the real trick: sweeping executive orders to the detriment of America.

12. Plain and simple: It's a decoy, a decoy meant to lead us on in this political mess.

13. "The Cabinet could return to prominence under the Trump administration... The trend in recent years... has been for more and more power to accrue to the White House staff at the Cabinet’s expense.... It does seem [though] that the secretaries could get a lot of leeway to run their own shops as they see fit, while the Trump Show gets all the media attention... Alternatively, it’s also possible that the Trump White House could get it together and exert a firm hand on the Cabinet."