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Post by the Scribe on Oct 26, 2021 12:00:50 GMT
Sinema confronted in airport for second time this month, ‘Don’t touch me’www.yahoo.com/news/sinema-confronted-airport-second-time-090906571.html
Edmund DeMarche
Tue, October 26, 2021, 2:09 AM
A new video emerged Monday that showed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., being confronted by a woman who identified herself as a constituent who walked closely next to the senator, prompting Sinema to say, "Don’t touch me," according to reports.
Sinema has been confronted in recent weeks by protesters displeased with her position on President Biden’s social services and climate change package. Earlier this month, the senator was followed into a bathroom by four protesters who recorded the incident. Arizona State University Police have since recommended charges against them.
Newsweek reported that the most recent confrontation marked the second time this month that the senator was confronted at an airport. The video shows a masked Sinema walking briskly with two men when the woman approaches her to walk next to her.
At one point, Sinema told the woman, "Don’t touch me."
The woman responded, "I did not touch you."
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The senator otherwise ignored the woman, who accused her of not meeting with her constituents to hear their concerns about climate change.
"Every single year in Arizona, it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman said. "We're breaking records ... People are suffering. Your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?" she asked.
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema gets in her car outside the Capitol on October 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) Getty
Sinema’s office did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sinema have almost on their own halted Biden’s massive proposal from advancing. With Republican opposition and an evenly split 50-50 Senate, Biden has no votes to spare and the two Democratic senators have insisted on reducing the size of the enormous package and pressed for other changes.
Sinema rejected an earlier plan to reverse the Republican-led 2017 tax cuts and raise rates on corporations earning more than $5 million a year and wealthy Americans earning more than $400,000, or $450,000 for couples.
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Democrats initially planned that Biden’s package would contain $3.5 trillion worth of spending and tax initiatives over 10 years. But demands by moderates led by Manchin and Sinema to contain costs mean its final price tag could well be less than $2 trillion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 26, 2021 12:03:37 GMT
SNL premieres with a new Biden and a Kyrsten Sinema who hates everything
68,270 viewsOct 3, 2021
Washington Post
1.79M subscribers
The Season 47 premiere of "Saturday Night Live" on Oct. 2 focused on President Biden's attempts to urge Democrats to compromise on his infrastructure plan.
New cast member James Austin Johnson took on the role of Biden. He was joined by moderate Democratic senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia (played by Aidy Bryant) and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona (Cecily Strong). Read more: wapo.st/3ou8Etn
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 7, 2021 1:56:21 GMT
Arizona voters baffled by Kyrsten Sinema: ‘she betrayed us’www.yahoo.com/news/arizona-voters-baffled-kyrsten-sinema-080028213.html
David Smith in Washington
Sat, November 6, 2021, 1:00 AM
Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Allie Young believed in Kyrsten Sinema. Her vote helped elect the seemingly progressive Democrat from Arizona to the Senate in 2018. But she wonders what happened to Sinema when she got to Washington.
Young, a voting rights activist and citizen of the Diné, or Navajo Nation, is appalled by Sinema’s refusal to reform or abolish the filibuster.
Related: The McConnell filibuster is not the same as the Jim Crow filibuster – it's much worse | David Litt
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/25/the-mcconnell-filibuster-is-not-the-same-as-the-jim-crow-filibuster-its-much-worse
“She has betrayed her constituents,” Young, 31, said by phone this week. “The sort of inaction that she’s taking right now is an action and it’s making the BIPOC community, especially in Arizona, distrust her more and more as the days go by.”
thesinemabetrayal.com/
Republicans have deployed the filibuster to block legislation brought by Democrats to safeguard voting rights four times this year. On Wednesday they thwarted debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the civil rights hero and congressman.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-voting-john-lewis/2021/11/03/de00974e-3cc5-11ec-bfad-8283439871ec_story.html
It is an issue that hits home for Young, who last year organized a second “Ride to the Polls” campaign in Arizona that led Indigenous people more than 20 miles on horseback to polling places so they could cast their votes.
www.instagram.com/tv/CG88FfaAUtq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
“Her campaign was something that attracted us because back then she seemed to be a little more progressive than she is now. That’s the part that we’re all having trouble understanding. What happened?”
Allie Young, left, with a group of Native Americans, riding on horseback to the polls in 2020. Photograph: Larry Price/AP
The bewilderment deepened late last year when Sinema nominated Young for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s Citizen Honors Award for her contribution to increasing voter registration and turnout. Young reflected: “The fact that nomination came from her and her office tells me that she knows the importance of the Native vote.”
“[But] she’s not protecting our right to vote and, if she doesn’t end the filibuster and these voting rights acts don’t get passed, that will affect us. We’re already seeing some of these voter suppression laws that have been passed earlier this year and how they will affect the Native vote.”
This has led to the oft-asked question: what does Sinema really want? “A lot of folks are talking about how she’s trying to stay bipartisan. She thinks that’s the key to everything that’s happening in the divisiveness that we’ve seen,” Young says.
“It’s very devastating to all of us Arizonans and those who trusted in her. That’s the point of this election process. We vote in and we elect leaders that should be held accountable and that’s what we’re doing now. We put faith in a leader that’s going to show up for us and protect us and fight for us and we’re not seeing that right now.”
Earlier this year the US supreme court upheld Arizona laws that ban the collection of absentee ballots by anyone other than a relative or caregiver, and reject any ballots cast in the wrong precinct.
www.npr.org/2021/07/01/998758022/the-supreme-court-upheld-upholds-arizona-measures-that-restrict-voting
The inaction that she’s taking right now is making the BIPOC community, especially in Arizona, distrust her more and more
Allie Young
Republicans, who control the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature in Arizona, are also pushing to end same-day voter registration, a move that would hurt the Navajo Nation, with 170,000 people and 110 communities spread over 27,000 square miles, mostly in Arizona.
Young explained: “Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to get to the poll. It’s difficult to get anywhere, to even get to a hospital or a clinic or a grocery store, so making multiple trips to ensure that our vote is counted is nearly impossible for a lot of people.”
Young argued the case for protecting voting rights with Kamala Harris at a White House meeting and is collecting signatures of Navajo leaders to register their discontent with Sinema. She welcomes the prospect of another Democrat challenging her in a primary election one day.
The filibuster, which is not in the US constitution, enables the Senate minority to block debate on legislation. Barack Obama has called it “a Jim Crow relic”, a reference to its long history of thwarting civil rights legislation.
Apart from blocking voting rights legislations, Republicans have used it to block the creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the 6 January insurrection at the US this year. Activists regard eliminating the procedure as crucial to other issues including immigration reform and reproductive rights.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/06/republicans-effort-to-deny-the-capitol-attack-is-working-and-its-dangerous
In a CNN town hall last month, Biden indicated willingness to “fundamentally alter the filibuster”, adding that it “remains to be seen exactly what that means in terms of fundamentally – on whether or not we just end the filibuster straight up”.
www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/filibuster-biden-cnn-town-hall/index.html
Once she got to Congress, she turned her back on the very same people who helped get her in office
Channel Powe
But just as on his economic agenda, senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sinema stand in his way. Both have repeatedly defended the filibuster, with Sinema arguing that it “protects the democracy of our nation rather than allowing our country to ricochet wildly every two to four years”.
thehill.com/homenews/556587-sinema-defends-filibuster-sparking-progressive-fury
Just Democracy, a coalition led by Black and brown organizers, is coordinating with Arizona groups to step up the pressure on her to reconsider.
justdemocracy.us/
This includes a psychological thriller-style parody movie trailer, The Betrayal, about Sinema turning her back on people of color in Arizona, ending with: “Now playing in Sinemas near you.” It will be backed by an advertising campaign in Arizona and run alongside horror content on the streaming service Hulu.
Channel Powe, 40, a local organizer, former Arizona school board member and spokesperson for Just Democracy, said: “We’re going to make it politically impossible for Senator Sinema to continue to stand by the filibuster. In this week of action we are creating a surround sound effect that pushes Senator Sinema on the filibuster. We wanted to share the terrifying consequences of the world that Sinema is enabling.”
thehill.com/homenews/senate/559393-progressive-groups-launch-15-million-ad-campaign-hitting-sinema
Powe added: “Once upon a time, she was a mentor of mine in a 2011 political fellowship that I participated in. I looked up to her. Kyrsten used to be a fierce fighter for the people. But once she got to Congress, she turned her back on the very same people who helped her get her in office.”
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 12, 2021 8:55:06 GMT
New Polls Show Kyrsten Sinema Is Screwed
The Rational National
443K subscribers
Every new poll out of Arizona is showing the same thing - voters want the Build Back Better budget bill passed, and hate Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema for blocking it.
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 14, 2021 0:37:30 GMT
Sinema's shift: 'Prada socialist' to corporate donor magnetwww.yahoo.com/news/sinemas-shift-prada-socialist-corporate-150134740.html
FILE - Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Oct. 19, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Twenty years ago, a Green Party activist running for city council in Phoenix named Kyrsten Sinema likened the practice of raising campaign cash to “bribery.” Now a first-term Arizona senator, she no longer has such qualms, raising nearly $500,000 in donations from financial and pharmaceutical sector this year. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., walks to the chamber after a Senate Democratic Caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 2, 2021. Twenty years ago, a Green Party activist running for city council in Phoenix named Kyrsten Sinema likened the practice of raising campaign cash to “bribery.” Now a first-term Arizona senator, she no longer has such qualms, raising nearly $500,000 in donations from financial and pharmaceutical sector this year. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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Congress Campaign Donations Sinema
FILE - Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Oct. 19, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Twenty years ago, a Green Party activist running for city council in Phoenix named Kyrsten Sinema likened the practice of raising campaign cash to “bribery.” Now a first-term Arizona senator, she no longer has such qualms, raising nearly $500,000 in donations from financial and pharmaceutical sector this year. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP, File)
BRIAN SLODYSKO
Sat, November 13, 2021, 8:01 AM
In this article:
Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator from Arizona
Joe Biden
46th and current president of the United States
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty years ago, a Green Party activist running for the Phoenix City Council named Kyrsten Sinema likened raising campaign cash to “bribery.”
Now a first-term senator from Arizona, she no longer has such qualms.
Once a self-styled “Prada socialist" labeled as “too extreme” by Arizona's Democratic Party, Sinema has found new power as a centrist in a 50-50 Senate where there are no votes to spare, forcing President Joe Biden to downsize his agenda and other Democratic ambitions.
Her outsize authority highlights one senator's ability to exploit her party's narrow hold on the chamber and bend the will of the majority. That prowess is also a reason that corporate interests eager to influence Democrats’ now-$1.85 trillion package of social and climate initiatives have rushed to provide her financial support.
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Throughout months of exhaustive negotiations, Sinema has offered only limited explanation for opposing policies Democrats have campaigned on for years, angering many of her colleagues.
But her actions also have won her new allies, making Sinema a magnet for campaign donations from powerful interests with millions at stake in how the legislation turns out.
Sinema notably opposed two parts of Biden's initial proposal that have broad public support: an increase in the tax rates for corporations and wealthy individuals, and an expansive plan that would have substantially reduced the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.
The concessions she helped win align with the interests of many of her donors who have made Sinema the Senate's No. 3 recipient of money — nearly $500,000 — this year from the pharmaceutical and financial services sectors, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.
Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. In a statement, her office said she has consistently supported “pro-growth economic policies” and “protecting medical innovation." They disputed the relevance of comments Sinema made early in her political career in a race she lost.
“Senator Sinema makes decisions based on one consideration: what’s best for Arizona,” spokesman John LaBombard said.
Yet her embrace of influential donors she once rejected perplexes many in her party.
“It creates the perception of a conflict of interest and perception of industry groups having influence,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who was co-chair of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. “How does she explain the role of all of these contributions?”
A former social worker who served on Ralph Nader's 2000 Green Party presidential campaign, Sinema didn't seek office as a Democrat until after two unsuccessful Arizona bids as a progressive or independent.
After winning a seats in the Arizona House in 2004, her political persona began to shift. Gradually retooling herself as a moderate, Sinema rose through the Legislature's Democratic minority while positioning herself for higher office as the state transitioned from a Republican stronghold to an electoral battleground.
Since her 2012 election to the U.S. House, the candidate who once railed against capitalism's “Almighty Dollar” has welcomed the contributions of industry groups and corporate political action committees. She's raised at least $3 million from CEOs, businesses executives, investors, lobbyists and finance sector workers, campaign finance records show.
Sinema’s swelling campaign account comes as many in her party have refused such contributions, denouncing them as evidence of deep-seated corruption in Washington.
While Sinema is hardly alone in raising money from special interests during a major legislative battle, what is notable is the scope of Sinema's fundraising windfall between April and September. Her objections to Biden’s legislation then gave her massive sway over the future of his bill. The roughly $3 million she collected during that period is the best cash haul of her career outside the 2018 election, when she was first on the ballot for U.S. Senate.
But there were signs of her gravitating to business interests earlier.
Last year, she helped initiate a bipartisan caucus to raise “awareness of the benefits of personalized medicine,” a pricey form of precision treatments for diseases that are hard to cure. Her current opposition to tax increases on corporate and high-earners comes after she voted in 2017 against President Donald Trump's tax cut legislation, which lowered the corporate rate to its current 21 percent while also giving a rebate to high earners.
Among the donors:
—Executives and a PAC for the drugmaker Amgen have given at least $21,500 in 2021, making Sinema second only to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California in receiving contributions from the company this year. Almost all of the Amgen donations were clustered in late June, when Democrats were pushing legislation that would have curtailed pharmaceutical company earnings by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Sinema's opposition was instrumental in leading lawmakers to pursue a scaled-back version that is now advancing in the House. The new plan would allow Medicare to negotiate the price of about 100 drugs within a few years, while limiting monthly insulin copayments to $35 for many.
Company CEO Robert Bradway gave Sinema $5,000; two company lobbyists gave an additional $3,000.
—Sinema has taken in at least $27,000 this year from major drugmakers including Takeda, GlaxoSmithKline, Genentech and Eli Lilly. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the preeminent trade organization representing drugmakers, has been a major source of funding for a group that is running ads praising Sinema as “independent and effective for Arizona,” records show.
—Twelve executives for the investment bank Goldman Sachs have donated $37,000 to Sinema since May. That includes Goldman President John Waldron, who gave a maximum $5,800 donation in August. Sinema's office said that while she doesn't support raising corporate taxes, she does support establishing a corporate minimum tax so that businesses can't altogether avoid paying their fair share, which is now included in Biden's plan.
—Executives, managers and a corporate PAC for Ryan LLC, a global tax consulting firm, poured over $72,000 into Sinema's campaign account in late August and September. That made Ryan, whose employees and PAC had not previously given to Sinema, one of her top corporate donors. The Texas-based company advertises itself as “liberating our clients from the burden of being overtaxed." In August, USA Today reported that the company officials are ensnared in an FBI inquiry over whether they pressured the administration of Gov. Doug Ducey, R-Ariz., to issue millions of dollars in tax refunds to a Ryan client.
Checks have also come in from Jimmy Haslam III, a longtime Republican donor and owner of the Cleveland Browns, and his wife, Susan, who gave $8,700 to Sinema in June and September; Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, twins who run a private equity firm and are perhaps best known for successfully suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who each gave $5,800 apiece in July; and Stanley Hubbard, a billionaire Minnesota TV and radio station mogul who has given millions of dollars to GOP causes, who donated $2,900 in September.
Sinema has drawn the ire of her colleagues in Congress, who say she blocked proposals that almost all Democratic lawmakers support.
“It would be a tragedy for us to not fix the unjust corporate tax system so that corporations and individuals pay their fair share," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who played an major role in negotiating the bill.
Sanders focused on Sinema's support for the priorities of the pharmaceutical industry.
“It is beyond comprehension that there’s any member of the United States Congress who is not prepared to vote to make sure that we lower prescription drug costs,” he said last month. He added that he hoped Sinema "does what the people in Arizona want.”
Some longtime Democratic Party financiers have also grown frustrated with her.
“With all the tension in the party, people have long memories,” said Michael Smith, a donor from Los Angeles, whose partner, James Costos, served as President Barack Obama's ambassador to Spain.
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 14, 2021 20:11:53 GMT
Now We Know Sinema's Price to Sell Out Seniors - 1.2M
3,197 viewsNov 12, 2021
Big Pharma has Spent 1.2 Million On Sinema just since September - Now We Know her Price to Sell Out America's Seniors.
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 21, 2021 22:06:28 GMT
 GOP Donors Back Manchin and Sinema as They Reshape Biden's Agendawww.yahoo.com/news/gop-donors-back-manchin-sinema-151930417.html Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., right, holds the door open for Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., left, after they attended a Democratic policy luncheon, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Kenneth P. Vogel and Kate Kelly
Sun, November 21, 2021, 8:19 AM
WASHINGTON — Over the summer, as he was working to scale back President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia traveled to an $18 million mansion in Dallas for a fundraiser that attracted Republican and corporate donors who have cheered on his efforts.
In September, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who along with Manchin has been a major impediment to the White House’s efforts to pass its package of social and climate policy, stopped by the same home to raise money from a similar cast of donors for her campaign coffers.
Even as Sinema and Manchin, both Democrats, have drawn fire from the left for their efforts to shrink and reshape Biden’s proposals, they have won growing financial support from conservative-leaning donors and business executives in a striking display of how party affiliation can prove secondary to special interests and ideological motivations when the stakes are high enough.
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Sinema is winning more financial backing from Wall Street and constituencies on the right in large part for her opposition to raising personal and corporate income tax rates. Manchin has attracted new Republican-leaning donors as he has fought against much of his own party to scale back the size of Biden’s legislation and limit new social welfare components.
It is not unusual for well-heeled political activists and business interests to spread a smattering of cash across party lines. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., collected a handful of checks from major Democratic donors this year as she bucked her party leadership’s defense of former President Donald Trump.
But the stream of cash to the campaigns of Sinema and Manchin from outside normal Democratic channels stands out because many of the donors have little history with them. The financial support is also notable for how closely tied it has been to their power over a single piece of legislation, the fate of which continues to rest largely with the two senators because their party cannot afford to lose either of their votes in the evenly divided Senate.
Their influence has been profound. The domestic policy bill, which would expand the social safety net and efforts to fight climate change, started out at $3.5 trillion and has been shrunk — mainly at the insistence of Manchin — to around $2 trillion; it could get smaller as the Senate takes up the version passed Friday by the House. New spending measures were originally to have been paid for mostly through tax-rate increases on the wealthy and corporations — a component of the plan that had to be substantially rewritten because of Sinema’s opposition.
This month, billionaire Wall Street investor Kenneth G. Langone, a longtime Republican megadonor who has not previously contributed to Manchin, effusively praised him for showing “guts and courage” and vowed to throw “one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him.”
In a statement to The New York Times, Langone, who has given an overwhelming majority of his millions of dollars in federal political donations to Republicans, said, “My political contributions have always been in support of candidates who are willing to stand tall on principle, even when that means defying their own party or the press.”
Stanley S. Hubbard, a billionaire Republican donor, wrote his first check to Sinema in September and said that he was considering doing the same for Manchin because of their efforts to trim the sails of the Democrats’ agenda. “Those are two good people — Manchin and Sinema — and I think we need more of those in the Democratic Party,” he said.
Cash has also poured in for Manchin and Sinema from political action committees and donors linked to the finance and pharmaceutical industries, which opposed proposals initially included in the domestic policy bill that the lawmakers helped scale back, including changes to Medicare and the tax-rate increases.
John LaBombard, a spokesman for Sinema, rejected any suggestion that campaign cash factored into her approach to policymaking. She was a lead negotiator on the bipartisan infrastructure deal that Biden signed last week, and during her time in the Senate, she has positioned herself as an ideologically flexible centrist willing to buck her party in representing a purple state.
“Sen. Sinema makes decisions based on one consideration: what’s best for Arizona,” LaBombard said.
Manchin’s office did not respond to requests for comment. But he has long expressed concern that the legislation, if not pared back to the level he is seeking, would add to the budget deficit and could fuel inflation.
The lawmakers share a campaign finance consultant, who helped organize fundraising swings through Texas for both lawmakers that yielded cash from Republican donors, as well as a fundraiser for Sinema in Washington in late September with business lobbying groups that oppose the domestic policy bill.
Nelson Peltz, a billionaire investor who brought a Republican-heavy group of CEOs to have lunch with Manchin in Washington a few months ago, said the senator “understands that you can’t spend, spend, spend and feel there’s no recourse for it.”
Peltz, who donated to Manchin in 2017, has not given to Sinema, but he said that she had requested a meeting, which will take place in a few weeks.
Individual donors like Peltz, who over the years has donated nearly three times as much to Republicans as he has to Democrats at the federal level, offer the two Democratic senators a way to restock their campaign coffers — both are up for reelection in 2024 — at a time when they are unlikely to get an enthusiastic reception from some more traditional Democratic donors.
Manchin has long been to the right of his party on litmus-test issues like abortion rights and fossil fuels, while Sinema started her political career as a liberal activist before shifting to the center. One Wall Street executive joked that in his industry, Sinema — who as a young politician once likened political donations to “bribery” — was now referred to as “Saint Sinema” for opposing most of Biden’s proposed taxes on the wealthy. (She has, however, supported a 15% corporate minimum tax and other revenue-raising measures that will help pay for Biden’s legislative spending.)
Progressives are less amused and have accused both senators of undermining their party’s agenda at the behest of special interests.
Wealthy liberals recently began an effort to lay the groundwork for a primary challenge to Sinema in 2024, and liberal group Demand Progress wrote in a petition that “a small group of right-wing Democrats backed by corporate cash, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are trying to destroy” Biden’s legislative agenda.
This year, Manchin and Sinema have received donations from major Republican donors who had never before given to them, including James A. Haslam III, who owns the Cleveland Browns football team, and Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, who is close to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Several other prominent Republican donors who supported Trump also wrote their first checks to Manchin in the last few months. They include Oklahoma oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm, who pushed the former president to deregulate the energy industry; Dallas-based lobbyist and investor Roy W. Bailey, who helped lead fundraising for Trump’s inauguration and a pro-Trump nonprofit group; and banker Andrew Beal, who donated a total of $3 million to a super PAC supporting Trump from 2018 through last year.
Executives at Goldman Sachs, including the firm’s president, John Waldron, combined to donate tens of thousands of dollars to Sinema in the spring and summer. In July, she attended a meet-and-greet at the offices of the Blackstone Group, which is headed by a major Republican donor; some Blackstone employees made donations around the same time. A handful of employees from investment firm Apollo Global Management, including Marc J. Rowan, the CEO and a major donor to predominantly Republican candidates and causes, donated to Sinema in late September after the firm sent a plea to industry contacts seeking donations for her.
G. Brint Ryan, the Republican donor who hosted the fundraisers in Dallas for Manchin and Sinema, said the senators were “out of step with their party, but I tend to believe that they’re in the right.”
Ryan had not previously donated to Sinema and had not held fundraisers for either before this year, though he donated $1,000 to Manchin’s 2018 reelection campaign.
The website for Ryan’s tax consulting firm says it works at “liberating our clients from the burden of being overtaxed.”
The firm’s lobbyists have been monitoring the debate in Congress over the tax implications of the domestic policy bill, according to disclosure filings. Ryan, who said in an email that the measure would “make a bad tax code worse and kill economic growth,” has ties to Republicans who have helped lead opposition to it.
He advised Trump on tax policy during his presidential campaign in 2016. One of the partners in Ryan’s tax consulting firm is Jeff Miller, a corporate lobbyist and close political adviser to Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader.
Miller, who is a top Republican fundraiser, helped steer Ryan’s team to people who could assist in planning the fundraisers for Sinema and Manchin. And Miller’s wife gave to Sinema’s campaign.
In the days around the fundraisers at his home, Ryan, his employees, his company’s political action committee and a relative’s law firm combined to donate nearly $80,000 to Sinema’s campaign and more than $115,000 to Manchin’s.
The $2.6 million raised by Sinema’s campaign through the first nine months of this year was 2 1/2 times as much as she raised in the same period last year, while the $3.3 million raised by Manchin’s campaign was more than 14 times as much as his haul through the end of September last year.
Overall, Sinema’s campaign took in about $6.1 million in donations between the beginning of 2019 and the end of September, and it had $4.5 million in the bank with three years to go until she faces the voters in Arizona. Manchin’s campaign raised about $3.8 million and had $5.4 million on hand.
© 2021 The New York Times Company |
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 15, 2022 6:37:25 GMT
Voting Rights Expert: GOP Plotting Next Coup As Sinema, Manchin Say They Won’t Stop It
175,175 viewsJan 13, 2022
MSNBC
4.6M subscribers
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, some say, paid lip service to the two voting rights bills on Thursday. Despite co-sponsoring the voting rights bill named in honor of John Lewis, her dead set opposition to changing the filibuster ensures that both bills are going nowhere. Joy Reid and her panel discuss the threat to our democracy.
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 18, 2022 9:49:53 GMT
Kyrsten Sinema's Martin Luther King Jr. post BACKFIRES HORRIBLY
124,002 viewsJan 17, 2022
Brian Tyler Cohen
1.27M subscribers
BREAKING: Kyrsten Sinema's Martin Luther King Jr. post just BACKFIRED HORRIBLY.
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 5, 2022 6:44:11 GMT
Proof Kyrsten Sinema Is Owned by Right Wing Billionaires
6,806 viewsFeb 1, 2022
Thom Hartmann Program
286K subscribers
FEC filings have revealed Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema has amassed $1.6 million in 2024 campaign contributions, mostly from larger, Conservative donors. Say What?!
Could this money be what has been stopping Sinema from supporting Build Back Better and The John Lewis Voting Rights Act...
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 21, 2022 19:46:59 GMT
AZCentral | The Arizona Republic
Samantha Bee mirthfully slayeth Sen. Kyrsten Sinema at Arizona Renaissance Festival
www.yahoo.com/news/samantha-bee-mirthfully-slayeth-sen-201950126.html
EJ Montini, Arizona Republic
Wed, April 20, 2022, 1:19 PM
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema
My gracious lords and ladies, thee art in for a treat.
Samantha Bee, host of “Full Frontal,” sent a pair of associates to the Arizona Renaissance Festival to ask how Democrats here felt about Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
Or as one of Bee’s associates, Allana Harkin, dressed in Renaissance regalia, put it to visitors at the fair, “I’m on a quest. I’m here to find a Democrat who supports Kyrsten Sinema. Are thou that Democrat?”
To which the fair goers – and many others – answered, “Nay!”
And worse.
Much worse.
I bid you sit down and have thyself a laugh, for the comedy bit positively slayeth the senator. Yea. Verily. ‘Tis True!
Behold below:
I shall be silent now, with promise to speaketh with thou anon. But, by your leave, I find the video doth stand the hour soundly on its own.
So I sayeth fare-thee-well, and to Samantha Bee I shouteth:
HUZZAH!
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Samantha Bee skewers Sen. Kyrsten Sinema at Renaissance Festival
www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2022/04/20/samantha-bee-asks-democrats-kyrsten-sinema-renaissance-festival/7386874001/
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