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Sellouts
the enemy within
In political movements a "sellout" is a person or group claiming to adhere to one ideology, only to follow these claims up with actions contradicting them, such as a revolutionary group claiming to fight for a particular cause, but failing to continue this upon obtaining power.
december 2022
They lack ideas, courage, and competence so they find happiness riding a fence while not pissing off society's oppressors. The defend the status quo while lying about supporting progress. They are the very definition of "kind of pregnant"
Sellouts
*REPUBLICANS, WITH AN ASSIST FROM MANCHIN, DELAY EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DESTROY DEMOCRATIC AGENDA(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CHILD POVERTY INCREASED BY 41 PERCENT AFTER MONTHLY TAX CREDITS EXPIRED
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MANCHIN'S FAMILY IS CASHING IN ON WASTE COAL – AN ETHICS EXPERT CALLS THE SITUATION ‘INSANE’(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MANCHIN GOT HUGE DONATION FROM GOP BILLIONAIRE AFTER TANKING BUILD BACK BETTER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*QUEEN KYRSTEN HOLDS COURT AFTER VOTE AGAINST FILIBUSTER REFORM
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BEFORE MANCHIN'S "NO," CORPORATE DOUGH
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE MANCHIN CITES 'FAKE' GOP NUMBERS TO DEMAND LAST-MINUTE CUTS TO BIDEN'S BUILD BACK BETTER BILL(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GOP BILLIONAIRE KEN LANGONE SAYS HE WILL HOLD A FUNDRAISER FOR DEMOCRAT JOE MANCHIN, WHO HAS WORKED TO SHRINK BIDEN’S AGENDA(ARTICLE BELOW)
*SINEMA'S GIANT FLIP-FLOP: SHE ONCE CAMPAIGNED ON ISSUES SHE NOW WANTS DROPPED FROM BIDEN’S PLAN(ARTICLE BELOW)
*FDR PURGED "MODERATES" — SHOULD BIDEN?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*NO LABELS OFFERED CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TO SPURN NANCY PELOSI FUNDRAISER(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Moderate Dems threaten Biden's deal
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THIS DEMOCRAT GOT BIG MONEY FROM BIG PHARMA — AND TURNED AGAINST LOWER DRUG PRICES. A DEMOCRAT'S BIG PHARMA FLIPFLOP
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*IN THE RACE AGAINST NINA TURNER, GOP DONORS FUND SHONTEL BROWN
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE DEMOCRAT BLOCKING PROGRESSIVE CHANGE IS BEHOLDEN TO BIG OIL. SURPRISED?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE MANCHIN GETS HOODWINKED — AGAIN: WHY DOES HE KEEP FALLING FOR THE REPUBLICAN CON?(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HERE'S WHY MANCHIN'S INSISTENCE ON BIPARTISAN VOTING PROTECTIONS IS LUDICROUS: STUDY
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*KYRSTEN SINEMA IS A DEEPLY UNSERIOUS PERSON
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TEXAS DEMOCRATS STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY AND SEND A LOUD MESSAGE TO JOE MANCHIN AND KYRSTEN SINEMA(ARTICLE BELOW)
*KYRSTEN SINEMA SLAMMED BY ARIZONA COLUMNIST FOR GETTING 'PLAYED FOR A FOOL BY SENATE REPUBLICANS'(ARTICLE BELOW)
*PRO ACT HOLDOUT MARK KELLY SERVED ON GIG AND RESTAURANT COMPANY BOARDS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DEMOCRATS FUNDED BY BIG PHARMA REFUSE TO BACK COVID VACCINE PATENT WAIVER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DEMOCRAT OPPOSED TO THE PRO ACT WAS SHOWERED WITH CASH FROM AMAZON EXECUTIVES
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MANCHIN’S OBJECTION TO INFRASTRUCTURE BILL MAY BE MOTIVATED BY CORPORATE DONORS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HERE ARE THE 8 DEMOCRATS WHO JUST JOINED GOP TO VOTE DOWN SANDERS' $15 MINIMUM WAGE AMENDMENT(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MANCHIN YELLS HE WILL “NEVER… JESUS CHRIST!” VOTE TO KILL FILIBUSTER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHO MADE JOE MANCHIN ‘THE DECIDER’?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CENTRIST DEMOCRATS MANCHIN, SINEMA SIDE WITH MCCONNELL TO PROTECT THE FILIBUSTER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
Republicans, With an Assist From Manchin, Delay Everything in Order To Destroy Democratic Agenda
by Joan McCarter | the smirking chimp
June 19, 2022 - 7:08am
Senate Republicans have been playing a transparent game for months now, using their willing tool of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to drag out negotiations on any number of issues to keep him away from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden. To prevent Democrats from moving any significant policies that can help the American people and give Democrats a win.
They’ve done it on voting rights and election reforms. They’ve done it on climate and energy. It’s just one tactic—and a very successful one—Republicans are using to keep the Democratic majority tied up and unable to accomplish anything.
Case in point: additional funding for the federal COVID-19 effort. Manchin’s good friend and frequent negotiating partner Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) all but killed it this week when he alleged that the Biden administration lied about the government’s ability to secure additional vaccines, treatments, and supplies. That’s because the White House recently announced it was taking money from other priorities to pay for the most pressing needs.
“Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties,” Romney said Thursday,. “I hope that there’s an appreciation that for the administration to say they could not purchase these things, and then after several months, divert some funds and then purchase them is unacceptable, and makes our ability to work together … very much shaken to the core.” The pearls are tightly clutched.
The White House, not surprisingly, has a different interpretation on how discussions have been going. “We’ve tried to meet Republicans on their requests, and they keep moving the goal posts,” one official told the Washington Post. Another, spokesperson Kevin Munoz, went on the record. “Going back to January, we’ve been working with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, on the funding needs for the covid response,” he said in a statement. “We’ve also been crystal clear about the consequences of a lack of funding … including the very real possibility that we would have to reevaluate the planned uses of existing funds.”
There’s one more potential win for the White House—not to mention all the people at risk of catching COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months—Republicans are cynically blocking. It’s nearly as egregious as what they’ve been doing on guns.
All of that puts this in a “we’ll believe when we sit it” mood. “Senate Democrats are preparing for possible summer action on their still-elusive climate, tax reform and prescription drugs bill, grinding behind the scenes on a new version during high-profile gun safety talks.” Because it’s Manchin, once again, that all this is hinging on and Republicans are on the verge of declaring that partisan Democrats have destroyed any hope of gun safety regulation with their unreasonable demands that guns be kept out of the hands of people who have been convicted of violence.
That sets up Manchin to declare that the Democrats have been horrible partisans and he just can’t continue to work with them. He’s used far flimsier excuses before, like the fact that the White House included his name in a statement about Build Back Better. That’s what blew up the whole package last December, supposedly. It likely wouldn’t take anything more for Manchin to do it again.
Republicans are counting on that.
They’ve done it on voting rights and election reforms. They’ve done it on climate and energy. It’s just one tactic—and a very successful one—Republicans are using to keep the Democratic majority tied up and unable to accomplish anything.
Case in point: additional funding for the federal COVID-19 effort. Manchin’s good friend and frequent negotiating partner Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) all but killed it this week when he alleged that the Biden administration lied about the government’s ability to secure additional vaccines, treatments, and supplies. That’s because the White House recently announced it was taking money from other priorities to pay for the most pressing needs.
“Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties,” Romney said Thursday,. “I hope that there’s an appreciation that for the administration to say they could not purchase these things, and then after several months, divert some funds and then purchase them is unacceptable, and makes our ability to work together … very much shaken to the core.” The pearls are tightly clutched.
The White House, not surprisingly, has a different interpretation on how discussions have been going. “We’ve tried to meet Republicans on their requests, and they keep moving the goal posts,” one official told the Washington Post. Another, spokesperson Kevin Munoz, went on the record. “Going back to January, we’ve been working with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, on the funding needs for the covid response,” he said in a statement. “We’ve also been crystal clear about the consequences of a lack of funding … including the very real possibility that we would have to reevaluate the planned uses of existing funds.”
There’s one more potential win for the White House—not to mention all the people at risk of catching COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months—Republicans are cynically blocking. It’s nearly as egregious as what they’ve been doing on guns.
All of that puts this in a “we’ll believe when we sit it” mood. “Senate Democrats are preparing for possible summer action on their still-elusive climate, tax reform and prescription drugs bill, grinding behind the scenes on a new version during high-profile gun safety talks.” Because it’s Manchin, once again, that all this is hinging on and Republicans are on the verge of declaring that partisan Democrats have destroyed any hope of gun safety regulation with their unreasonable demands that guns be kept out of the hands of people who have been convicted of violence.
That sets up Manchin to declare that the Democrats have been horrible partisans and he just can’t continue to work with them. He’s used far flimsier excuses before, like the fact that the White House included his name in a statement about Build Back Better. That’s what blew up the whole package last December, supposedly. It likely wouldn’t take anything more for Manchin to do it again.
Republicans are counting on that.
thank joe manchin!!!
Child Poverty Increased by 41 Percent After Monthly Tax Credits Expired
BY Chris Walker, Truthout
PUBLISHED February 18, 2022
New data shows that the ending of the popular Child Tax Credit payment program due to objections from conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (West Virginia) has resulted in a massive increase in the childhood poverty rate throughout the U.S.
The program allotted payments to families with children, with families receiving payments of $300 a month for each child age 6 and under, and payments of $250 a month for each child over the age of 6. The payments began in July, and lasted through December, affecting around 61 million children in total.
Reviews of the payments showed that they had immediate and lasting impacts throughout the program’s six-month run. In the first month of payments, around 3 million children were kept out of poverty due to increases in monthly family incomes; by the last month, the number of children being kept out of poverty by the program went up to 3.7 million.
The program also had a remarkable success rate in terms of payments going toward necessities that families had previously struggled to afford. A study by the U.S. Census Bureau found that 91 percent of low-income families spent the monthly benefit on basic needs.
But new research shows the predictable outcome of ending the payment program — that millions of children across the U.S. have slipped back into poverty.
According to a research study from the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, the child poverty rate in the U.S. increased by 41 percent from December, when the program ended, to January of this year.
In December, the child poverty rate was 12 percent. In January, it climbed up to 17 percent — meaning that more than one in every six kids in the country are now living in poverty, versus close to one in eight last month.
The rate shows that 3.7 million children are now living in poverty that weren’t in December — the exact number that previous studies, cited above, showed were lifted out of poverty due to the child tax credit payments.
Most Democrats sought to make the tax credit payments permanent, or at the very least, to extend them beyond their December expiration date. But those efforts were dashed after Manchin derided the way the payments were being spent, parroting unverifiable claims that parents were using the payments to buy drugs in spite of evidence showing the payments were being used otherwise.
Manchin said that he wanted payments modified to exclude higher-income families, but his proposal could have lowered the threshold to families earning under $60,000, which is below the living wage for a family of four in nearly every state. Manchin also wanted to institute work requirements for people to receive the payments, a standard that has produced negative outcomes in other social safety net programs.
Critics of Manchin’s proposals said that they would be detrimental to the overall goal of helping children.
“If the point is to lift children out of poverty, then my personal opinion is that we should be designing the credit to do that as effectively as possible, rather than designing it in a way that claims it’s for the purpose of reducing poverty, but ends up being an incentive program for the adults,” said Elena Prager, an associate professor of strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“Means testing doesn’t actually save money,” Rep. Andy Levin (D-Michigan) said in October. “It only makes programs harder to administer, forces people to jump through hoops to get needed benefits and continues cycles of poverty.”
Progressives in Congress cited the report on child poverty that was released this week as reason to reinstate the child tax credit payments.
“How did this happen?” wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on Twitter, referencing the drastic rise in childhood poverty rates. “50 Republicans and 1 corporate Democrat allowed the $300 a month Child Tax Credit to expire. That is morally obscene.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) also suggested that Manchin was to blame for the rise in child poverty.
“One US Senator ‘heard stories’ about people allegedly using the Child Tax Credit ‘for drugs’ without any evidence or data to back it up,” she said. “He then used that as justification to nuke the entire national program, causing millions of kids to fall into poverty in weeks. Horrifying.”
The program allotted payments to families with children, with families receiving payments of $300 a month for each child age 6 and under, and payments of $250 a month for each child over the age of 6. The payments began in July, and lasted through December, affecting around 61 million children in total.
Reviews of the payments showed that they had immediate and lasting impacts throughout the program’s six-month run. In the first month of payments, around 3 million children were kept out of poverty due to increases in monthly family incomes; by the last month, the number of children being kept out of poverty by the program went up to 3.7 million.
The program also had a remarkable success rate in terms of payments going toward necessities that families had previously struggled to afford. A study by the U.S. Census Bureau found that 91 percent of low-income families spent the monthly benefit on basic needs.
But new research shows the predictable outcome of ending the payment program — that millions of children across the U.S. have slipped back into poverty.
According to a research study from the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, the child poverty rate in the U.S. increased by 41 percent from December, when the program ended, to January of this year.
In December, the child poverty rate was 12 percent. In January, it climbed up to 17 percent — meaning that more than one in every six kids in the country are now living in poverty, versus close to one in eight last month.
The rate shows that 3.7 million children are now living in poverty that weren’t in December — the exact number that previous studies, cited above, showed were lifted out of poverty due to the child tax credit payments.
Most Democrats sought to make the tax credit payments permanent, or at the very least, to extend them beyond their December expiration date. But those efforts were dashed after Manchin derided the way the payments were being spent, parroting unverifiable claims that parents were using the payments to buy drugs in spite of evidence showing the payments were being used otherwise.
Manchin said that he wanted payments modified to exclude higher-income families, but his proposal could have lowered the threshold to families earning under $60,000, which is below the living wage for a family of four in nearly every state. Manchin also wanted to institute work requirements for people to receive the payments, a standard that has produced negative outcomes in other social safety net programs.
Critics of Manchin’s proposals said that they would be detrimental to the overall goal of helping children.
“If the point is to lift children out of poverty, then my personal opinion is that we should be designing the credit to do that as effectively as possible, rather than designing it in a way that claims it’s for the purpose of reducing poverty, but ends up being an incentive program for the adults,” said Elena Prager, an associate professor of strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“Means testing doesn’t actually save money,” Rep. Andy Levin (D-Michigan) said in October. “It only makes programs harder to administer, forces people to jump through hoops to get needed benefits and continues cycles of poverty.”
Progressives in Congress cited the report on child poverty that was released this week as reason to reinstate the child tax credit payments.
“How did this happen?” wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on Twitter, referencing the drastic rise in childhood poverty rates. “50 Republicans and 1 corporate Democrat allowed the $300 a month Child Tax Credit to expire. That is morally obscene.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) also suggested that Manchin was to blame for the rise in child poverty.
“One US Senator ‘heard stories’ about people allegedly using the Child Tax Credit ‘for drugs’ without any evidence or data to back it up,” she said. “He then used that as justification to nuke the entire national program, causing millions of kids to fall into poverty in weeks. Horrifying.”
Manchin's family is cashing in on waste coal – an ethics expert calls the situation ‘insane’
Tom Boggioni - raw story
February 08, 2022
According to a report from Politico, long before he became a U.S. senator and ascended to chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Joe Manchin (D-WV) made sure his family's energy business continued to rake in millions by signing a bill that directly impacted their bottom line.
The report notes that the Democrat, who has become a thorn in the side of his colleagues as he continually stymies President Joe Biden's agenda, continues to be scrutinized over his influence over how coal is regulated -- and how it impacts his financial well-being.
Although Manchin has dismissed concerns over conflicts of interest by pointing out that his son, Joe Manchin IV, runs the family business Enersystems Inc., which was placed into a blind trust, Politico reports that he raked in $500,000 from the company last year, according to Senate financial disclosure documents.
According to Politico, a great deal of those profits come from selling "waste coal" to energy companies -- path made easier because of legislation he signed.
Writing, "The muddy mix of discarded coal and rocks is one of the most carbon-intensive fuels in America," Politico's Scott Waldman adds, "Selling the scrap coal has earned Manchin millions of dollars over three decades, and he has used his political positions to protect the fuel — and a single power plant in West Virginia that burns it — from laws and regulations that also threatened his family business."
As Waldman reports, Manchin's signing of West Virginia's clean energy bill in 2009 contained a specific provision for "waste coal."
"In 2009 he used one of his last actions as governor to sign a renewable energy law. The measure was described as a way to increase the state’s amount of clean power to 25 percent by 2025," the report states. "But it also shielded the waste coal that helped build Manchin’s fortune. Classifying it as an alternative energy source allowed utilities to count it toward their renewable electricity goals."
According to government ethics attorney Walter Shaub, it is stunning that Manchin has been able to get away with it even today.
“All of this is stuff that is so insane, any person who has no interest in any of this would clearly say this should be against the rules, but then the people who get in the position to change the rules have these conflicts and they have no interest in solving them,” lamented Shaub, with the report stating there are no laws that specifically outlaw what the Democrat is doing.
Former West Virginia lawmaker Nancy Peoples Guthrie, who was still in office when Manchin signed the energy bill, "Everything that he does, everything that he did when he was governor, everything that he has done while he is a senator, is going to advance his best interest and the interest of the people who put money in his pocket, period,” adding, "That’s all you need to know about Joe Manchin.”
You can read more here.
The report notes that the Democrat, who has become a thorn in the side of his colleagues as he continually stymies President Joe Biden's agenda, continues to be scrutinized over his influence over how coal is regulated -- and how it impacts his financial well-being.
Although Manchin has dismissed concerns over conflicts of interest by pointing out that his son, Joe Manchin IV, runs the family business Enersystems Inc., which was placed into a blind trust, Politico reports that he raked in $500,000 from the company last year, according to Senate financial disclosure documents.
According to Politico, a great deal of those profits come from selling "waste coal" to energy companies -- path made easier because of legislation he signed.
Writing, "The muddy mix of discarded coal and rocks is one of the most carbon-intensive fuels in America," Politico's Scott Waldman adds, "Selling the scrap coal has earned Manchin millions of dollars over three decades, and he has used his political positions to protect the fuel — and a single power plant in West Virginia that burns it — from laws and regulations that also threatened his family business."
As Waldman reports, Manchin's signing of West Virginia's clean energy bill in 2009 contained a specific provision for "waste coal."
"In 2009 he used one of his last actions as governor to sign a renewable energy law. The measure was described as a way to increase the state’s amount of clean power to 25 percent by 2025," the report states. "But it also shielded the waste coal that helped build Manchin’s fortune. Classifying it as an alternative energy source allowed utilities to count it toward their renewable electricity goals."
According to government ethics attorney Walter Shaub, it is stunning that Manchin has been able to get away with it even today.
“All of this is stuff that is so insane, any person who has no interest in any of this would clearly say this should be against the rules, but then the people who get in the position to change the rules have these conflicts and they have no interest in solving them,” lamented Shaub, with the report stating there are no laws that specifically outlaw what the Democrat is doing.
Former West Virginia lawmaker Nancy Peoples Guthrie, who was still in office when Manchin signed the energy bill, "Everything that he does, everything that he did when he was governor, everything that he has done while he is a senator, is going to advance his best interest and the interest of the people who put money in his pocket, period,” adding, "That’s all you need to know about Joe Manchin.”
You can read more here.
Manchin Got Huge Donation From GOP Billionaire After Tanking Build Back Better
BY Julia Conley, Common Dreams - truthout
PUBLISHED January 29, 2022
After he announced in December he would not be supporting President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, Sen. Joe Manchin’s political action committee received the maximum allowable contribution from billionaire Republican donor Ken Langone.
The Hill reported late Friday that the wealthy investor, who supported former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, gave $5,000 to Manchin’s Country Roads PAC less than two weeks after the right-wing Democratic senator from West Virginia said he would not join his party in supporting the president’s agenda.
Langone’s wife also contributed $5,000 to the PAC, while other political donations the megadonor made around the same time went to the Koch family-backed Americans for Prosperity Action and the Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC.
As Common Dreams reported in November, Langone praised Manchin’s “guts and courage” for standing in the way of the Build Back Better Act’s passage and promised to hold “one of the biggest fundraisers” he’s ever hosted to support the senator.
Manchin in recent months demanded that the Democrats remove the Clean Electricity Performance Program from the Build Back Better Act, dashing plans to put the U.S. “electric sector on a path to zero emissions,” as one lawmaker said. He also refused to support paid family leave and an extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which has helped tens of millions of families afford rising grocery bills, child care, and other essentials, before ultimately stalling negotiations over the package in December.
“We deserve better than career politicians auctioning off the policies that affect our lives to the highest bidder,” tweeted New York congressional candidate Melanie D’Arrigo this week after CNBC first reported Langone’s donation to Manchin.
Melanie D'Arrigo for NY3
@DarrigoMelanie
We deserve better than career politicians auctioning off the policies that affect our lives to the highest bidder.
They don’t stand for anything more than what can benefit them most in that moment.
Protect our democracy. Elect an unbought Congress.
In a 2018 book titled I Love Capitalism, Langone wrote about his objection to popular policies pushed by progressive lawmakers including “free college tuition” and “single-payer healthcare.”
Donors like Langone, tweeted documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, are “always there to reach across the aisle to make sure to support politicians who take from the poor and give to the rich.”
The Hill reported late Friday that the wealthy investor, who supported former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, gave $5,000 to Manchin’s Country Roads PAC less than two weeks after the right-wing Democratic senator from West Virginia said he would not join his party in supporting the president’s agenda.
Langone’s wife also contributed $5,000 to the PAC, while other political donations the megadonor made around the same time went to the Koch family-backed Americans for Prosperity Action and the Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC.
As Common Dreams reported in November, Langone praised Manchin’s “guts and courage” for standing in the way of the Build Back Better Act’s passage and promised to hold “one of the biggest fundraisers” he’s ever hosted to support the senator.
Manchin in recent months demanded that the Democrats remove the Clean Electricity Performance Program from the Build Back Better Act, dashing plans to put the U.S. “electric sector on a path to zero emissions,” as one lawmaker said. He also refused to support paid family leave and an extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which has helped tens of millions of families afford rising grocery bills, child care, and other essentials, before ultimately stalling negotiations over the package in December.
“We deserve better than career politicians auctioning off the policies that affect our lives to the highest bidder,” tweeted New York congressional candidate Melanie D’Arrigo this week after CNBC first reported Langone’s donation to Manchin.
Melanie D'Arrigo for NY3
@DarrigoMelanie
We deserve better than career politicians auctioning off the policies that affect our lives to the highest bidder.
They don’t stand for anything more than what can benefit them most in that moment.
Protect our democracy. Elect an unbought Congress.
In a 2018 book titled I Love Capitalism, Langone wrote about his objection to popular policies pushed by progressive lawmakers including “free college tuition” and “single-payer healthcare.”
Donors like Langone, tweeted documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, are “always there to reach across the aisle to make sure to support politicians who take from the poor and give to the rich.”
REPUBLICAN DONORS ARE GETTING THEIR MONEY'S WORTH!!!
Queen Kyrsten Holds Court After Vote Against Filibuster Reform
as Republicans flock to congratulate her. And of course she wore red.
Susie Madrak — CROOKS & LIARS
January 20, 2022
Kyrsten Sinema isn't just annoying. She's a dangerous narcissist who doesn't care about the looming threats to democracy. So she's willing to sell her vote as part of her insane belief that in the near future, she's destined to be president.
What planet does Kyrsten live on?
She's that conceited girl who thinks she's entitled to the lead in the high school play. Via New York Magazine:
She was absent from the chamber for most of the final hour of debate where Democrats inveighed against the filibuster. Minutes after listening to Mitch McConnell’s speech, she slipped out of the chamber and returned with a bag of cough drops, from which she carefully unwrapped one and slipped under her face mask. Then as the roll call began, she prepared for her big moment. She reached into her overstuffed handbag and pulled out a brush she ran through her hair. Then, removing her mask, she applied a layer of powder to her face and carefully re-did her lipstick. Then she pressed the cough drop wrapper to her lips, letting the lozenge drop out and chasing it with a sip of water. She looked tense as senator after senator stood up to solemnly pronounce their vote, smoothing out the wrinkles in her sweater, until finally her name was called. She stood up erect, both hands on her desk, and shouted “aye.”
After the vote was over, Mitt Romney went over to Sinema and told her, “I respect your strength and character. Congratulations,” he recalled minutes later, and she replied, “Thank you.” The Republican senator, who voted twice to impeach Donald Trump, told Intelligencer that Sinema’s vote “was an act of an extraordinary political courage, the likes of which I have not seen in my political career.”
Her big moment. Brava! I'm surprised she didn't demand a dozen roses.
What planet does Kyrsten live on?
She's that conceited girl who thinks she's entitled to the lead in the high school play. Via New York Magazine:
She was absent from the chamber for most of the final hour of debate where Democrats inveighed against the filibuster. Minutes after listening to Mitch McConnell’s speech, she slipped out of the chamber and returned with a bag of cough drops, from which she carefully unwrapped one and slipped under her face mask. Then as the roll call began, she prepared for her big moment. She reached into her overstuffed handbag and pulled out a brush she ran through her hair. Then, removing her mask, she applied a layer of powder to her face and carefully re-did her lipstick. Then she pressed the cough drop wrapper to her lips, letting the lozenge drop out and chasing it with a sip of water. She looked tense as senator after senator stood up to solemnly pronounce their vote, smoothing out the wrinkles in her sweater, until finally her name was called. She stood up erect, both hands on her desk, and shouted “aye.”
After the vote was over, Mitt Romney went over to Sinema and told her, “I respect your strength and character. Congratulations,” he recalled minutes later, and she replied, “Thank you.” The Republican senator, who voted twice to impeach Donald Trump, told Intelligencer that Sinema’s vote “was an act of an extraordinary political courage, the likes of which I have not seen in my political career.”
Her big moment. Brava! I'm surprised she didn't demand a dozen roses.
Before Manchin's "no," corporate dough
Corporate donations flowed into Joe Manchin's PAC ahead of final "No" on BBB
Money from Goldman Sachs, Blue Shield and Lockheed poured into Manchin's coffers as he worked to scuttle BBB
By JAKE JOHNSON
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 23, 2021 5:30AM (EST)
New federal disclosures reveal that major corporations poured donations into Sen. Joe Manchin's political action committee in the weeks leading up to his pivotal announcement on Sunday that he would oppose the Build Back Better Act, a stance that progressives argue is motivated by the senator's deference to special interests.
CNBC reported late Tuesday that Federal Election Commission filings show that donors to Manchin's Country Roads PAC raked in 17 contributions from corporations in October and 19 in November as he pared back and repeatedly threatened to tank the BBB package, President Biden's $1.75 trillion social spending and climate legislation.
Manchin donors during that period, according to CNBC, included corporate behemoths such as Goldman Sachs, American Express, UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Lockheed Martin, many of which took part in the massive big-business lobbying blitz against the bill, which included key child poverty-reducing benefits and significant investments in clean energy.
"Country Roads raised over $150,000 in October from corporate donors such as Verizon, Union Pacific, Wells Fargo, and PACs tied to the coal and mining industries," CNBC noted.
As founder of the West Virginia-based coal company Enersystems, Manchin is well acquainted with the fossil fuel industry, which donated at least $400,000 to the West Virginia Democrat between July and October as he worked to gut the Build Back Better Act's key climate provisions. The Washington Post reported last week that Manchin's share in Enersystems — currently run by the senator's son — is "worth between $1 million and $5 million."
In a blog post earlier this week, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted that last year Manchin "made half a million dollars in Enersystems dividends (roughly three times the $174,000 salary he made last year as a senator)."
Reich cited such income — as well as the fact that Manchin "collects more campaign money from coal, oil, and gas companies than any other senator" — as possible explanations behind the West Virginia Democrat's decision to block his party's flagship legislation, which he announced in an appearance on the right-wing network Fox News.
Democratic leaders are still working to salvage the Build Back Better Act, but it's unclear how much they would have to water down the already badly weakened legislation to win Manchin's support. The death of the BBB package would likely push millions of children back into poverty, potentially blow a $60 billion hole in the U.S. economy, and thwart what advocates see as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass meaningful climate legislation.
"This is the way things work when democracy has been weakened," the Democracy Initiative — a coalition of dozens of civil rights, environmental and labor groups — said Wednesday. "The powerful get special access to our government, while we're told, 'Sorry, we can't help you.'"
CNBC reported late Tuesday that Federal Election Commission filings show that donors to Manchin's Country Roads PAC raked in 17 contributions from corporations in October and 19 in November as he pared back and repeatedly threatened to tank the BBB package, President Biden's $1.75 trillion social spending and climate legislation.
Manchin donors during that period, according to CNBC, included corporate behemoths such as Goldman Sachs, American Express, UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Lockheed Martin, many of which took part in the massive big-business lobbying blitz against the bill, which included key child poverty-reducing benefits and significant investments in clean energy.
"Country Roads raised over $150,000 in October from corporate donors such as Verizon, Union Pacific, Wells Fargo, and PACs tied to the coal and mining industries," CNBC noted.
As founder of the West Virginia-based coal company Enersystems, Manchin is well acquainted with the fossil fuel industry, which donated at least $400,000 to the West Virginia Democrat between July and October as he worked to gut the Build Back Better Act's key climate provisions. The Washington Post reported last week that Manchin's share in Enersystems — currently run by the senator's son — is "worth between $1 million and $5 million."
In a blog post earlier this week, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted that last year Manchin "made half a million dollars in Enersystems dividends (roughly three times the $174,000 salary he made last year as a senator)."
Reich cited such income — as well as the fact that Manchin "collects more campaign money from coal, oil, and gas companies than any other senator" — as possible explanations behind the West Virginia Democrat's decision to block his party's flagship legislation, which he announced in an appearance on the right-wing network Fox News.
Democratic leaders are still working to salvage the Build Back Better Act, but it's unclear how much they would have to water down the already badly weakened legislation to win Manchin's support. The death of the BBB package would likely push millions of children back into poverty, potentially blow a $60 billion hole in the U.S. economy, and thwart what advocates see as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass meaningful climate legislation.
"This is the way things work when democracy has been weakened," the Democracy Initiative — a coalition of dozens of civil rights, environmental and labor groups — said Wednesday. "The powerful get special access to our government, while we're told, 'Sorry, we can't help you.'"
Joe Manchin cites 'fake' GOP numbers to demand last-minute cuts to Biden's Build Back Better bill
Igor Derysh and Salon - salon
December 15, 2021
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is pushing for more cuts to the Democrats' Build Back Better package as Senate Majority Chuck Schumer races to pass the bill before Christmas.
Manchin, who appears to be the last major Democratic holdout on President Biden's signature legislation, again called for changes to the bill on Monday, citing a Republican-requested analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of what various programs in the bill might cost if they are extended beyond what the legislation actually calls for.
The CBO said in November that the actual bill would cost $1.7 trillion and add $367 billion to the deficit over the next decade, though the Treasury estimates that it will actually raise money, thanks to increased IRS enforcement in the bill. But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in an apparent bid to sway Manchin's vote, requested a CBO analysis of how much it would cost to make all the programs in the bill permanent for 10 years. The CBO in a report on Friday said that hypothetical bill would add nearly $3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
Manchin on Monday called the report "very sobering."
"Everyone has to choose basically what we can sustain," he told reporters.
The White House on Monday rejected the deficit projection as "fake."
"What you're talking about here is a fake CBO score that is not based on the actual bill that anybody is voting on," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. "This was a request by Sen. Graham to score a bill that is not currently being debated. That is his prerogative to do. But what our focus is on is on the existing bill that will lower the deficit, that will also, over an additional 10 years, pay for the $2 trillion tax cuts that Republicans didn't pay for. They're welcome for that."
Though the original proposal included funding for programs like paid family and medical leave for a 10-year period, Democrats have been forced to slash the length of programs to appease both Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who oppose corporate tax increases and other revenue-raising measures. Democrats now appear set to cut the paid leave program entirely in order to win Manchin's vote.
Psaki said Monday that Biden is committed to extending certain programs if he can find the funding but added, "We should really focus on the actual bill everybody is going to vote on and considering in Congress right now."
Manchin, who has long expressed concern that the BBB package would contribute to rising inflation even though rating agencies say it will not, said he is still "engaged" in discussions with Biden on the bill but is not ready to commit to voting for it. He appears determined to extract "major changes" in the final version, according to Politico.
"Listen, let's at least see the bill. Need to see what they write, what's the final print. That tells you everything," Manchin said.
Manchin's pushback comes as Schumer continues to meet with the Senate parliamentarian to finalize the bill this week. The Democratic leader said Monday that the party is "working hard to put the Senate in a position to get the legislation across the finish line before Christmas."
It's unclear whether Democrats can win over Manchin by then, especially after an updated draft released over the weekend included the paid leave proposal he opposes. Schumer has urged Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who has led the push on paid leave, to "keep fighting" to include it in the final proposal, according to Politico. Gillibrand has expressed optimism that Democrats can "get Joe Manchin to yes" by Christmas.
Manchin has also pushed back against the proposed extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which expires within days, because it may be extended beyond the one year included in the bill.
"Where does the money come from? We go back and another bite and more and more funding? Or do we just throw caution to the wind and have debt financing, which has been done by both parties for far too long?" he said. He added that he wants to see more funding from the revenue raised by the bill to go toward paying down the national debt instead of funding social programs.
Manchin has also repeatedly urged Democrats to delay the bill until next year.
"People have been in a hurry for a long time to do something, but I think, basically, we're seeing things unfold that allows us to prepare better," he reiterated on Monday. "And that's what we should do."
Manchin's continued reluctance on the bill has frustrated many Democrats, who are hungry for a big legislative win to finish the year.
"There's nothing more to be gained from more talk," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, told The New York Times. "We have talked and talked and talked. It's time to make some final decisions and vote."
Manchin, who appears to be the last major Democratic holdout on President Biden's signature legislation, again called for changes to the bill on Monday, citing a Republican-requested analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of what various programs in the bill might cost if they are extended beyond what the legislation actually calls for.
The CBO said in November that the actual bill would cost $1.7 trillion and add $367 billion to the deficit over the next decade, though the Treasury estimates that it will actually raise money, thanks to increased IRS enforcement in the bill. But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in an apparent bid to sway Manchin's vote, requested a CBO analysis of how much it would cost to make all the programs in the bill permanent for 10 years. The CBO in a report on Friday said that hypothetical bill would add nearly $3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
Manchin on Monday called the report "very sobering."
"Everyone has to choose basically what we can sustain," he told reporters.
The White House on Monday rejected the deficit projection as "fake."
"What you're talking about here is a fake CBO score that is not based on the actual bill that anybody is voting on," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. "This was a request by Sen. Graham to score a bill that is not currently being debated. That is his prerogative to do. But what our focus is on is on the existing bill that will lower the deficit, that will also, over an additional 10 years, pay for the $2 trillion tax cuts that Republicans didn't pay for. They're welcome for that."
Though the original proposal included funding for programs like paid family and medical leave for a 10-year period, Democrats have been forced to slash the length of programs to appease both Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who oppose corporate tax increases and other revenue-raising measures. Democrats now appear set to cut the paid leave program entirely in order to win Manchin's vote.
Psaki said Monday that Biden is committed to extending certain programs if he can find the funding but added, "We should really focus on the actual bill everybody is going to vote on and considering in Congress right now."
Manchin, who has long expressed concern that the BBB package would contribute to rising inflation even though rating agencies say it will not, said he is still "engaged" in discussions with Biden on the bill but is not ready to commit to voting for it. He appears determined to extract "major changes" in the final version, according to Politico.
"Listen, let's at least see the bill. Need to see what they write, what's the final print. That tells you everything," Manchin said.
Manchin's pushback comes as Schumer continues to meet with the Senate parliamentarian to finalize the bill this week. The Democratic leader said Monday that the party is "working hard to put the Senate in a position to get the legislation across the finish line before Christmas."
It's unclear whether Democrats can win over Manchin by then, especially after an updated draft released over the weekend included the paid leave proposal he opposes. Schumer has urged Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who has led the push on paid leave, to "keep fighting" to include it in the final proposal, according to Politico. Gillibrand has expressed optimism that Democrats can "get Joe Manchin to yes" by Christmas.
Manchin has also pushed back against the proposed extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which expires within days, because it may be extended beyond the one year included in the bill.
"Where does the money come from? We go back and another bite and more and more funding? Or do we just throw caution to the wind and have debt financing, which has been done by both parties for far too long?" he said. He added that he wants to see more funding from the revenue raised by the bill to go toward paying down the national debt instead of funding social programs.
Manchin has also repeatedly urged Democrats to delay the bill until next year.
"People have been in a hurry for a long time to do something, but I think, basically, we're seeing things unfold that allows us to prepare better," he reiterated on Monday. "And that's what we should do."
Manchin's continued reluctance on the bill has frustrated many Democrats, who are hungry for a big legislative win to finish the year.
"There's nothing more to be gained from more talk," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, told The New York Times. "We have talked and talked and talked. It's time to make some final decisions and vote."
POLITICS
GOP billionaire Ken Langone says he will hold a fundraiser for Democrat Joe Manchin, who has worked to shrink Biden’s agenda
PUBLISHED WED, NOV 10 2021 8:37 AM EST
KEY POINTS
Republican billionaire Ken Langone says he plans to host a fundraiser for Sen. Joe Manchin after the conservative West Virginia Democrat blocked key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
The comments came as Democrats in Congress continue to hash out major parts of Biden’s economic agenda, namely social safety net spending and plans to battle climate change.
Langone, in an interview Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” praised Manchin for his “guts and courage” and explained that he was set to raise money for him. Manchin is up for reelection in 2024.
“I don’t see leadership any place in this country. Thank God for Joe Manchin,” Langone said.
“I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him. He’s special. He’s precious. He’s a great American,” he added. Langone has never contributed to one of Manchin’s campaigns, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Manchin’s office did not return a request for comment on Langone’s statements. After publication of this story, Manchin tweeted out a statement on Wednesday’s inflation report that echoed what Langone had said on CNBC.
Manchin, who has made millions from the coal industry, has opposed certain parts of Biden’s $1.8 trillion social spending plan, including clean energy provisions. He has also opposed raising corporate taxes above 25% and a proposed tax that would target billionaires.
The social safety net and climate plan, known as the Build Back Better Act, would expand Medicaid and Medicare, pay for universal pre-K and dedicate $550 billion to initiatives intended to fight climate change, among other things. The House is expected to vote on the legislation this month, but the measure, already the product of several months of negotiations, will likely change some more before the Senate takes it up.
Democrats have a narrow edge in the 50-50 Senate, due to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote, so they can’t afford to lose Manchin’s vote.
Langone is the latest billionaire executive to come out in support of Manchin. Nelson Peltz, who founded the investment firm Trian Partners, told CNBC in October that he talks to Manchin every week and supports how he’s handling his work on Capitol Hill.
Langone and Peltz both supported former President Donald Trump. Langone told CNBC in 2016 he would back Trump’s initial candidacy for the White House but that he was done with political fundraising. After he later endorsed Trump’s economic policies, including tariffs on Chinese goods, Langone took aim at the former president after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6.
Beyond Langone and Peltz, Manchin has already seen a wave of campaign contributions from corporate America as he fights his own party.
In the third quarter, Manchin’s political operation received corporate contributions from J.P. Morgan Chase, Duke Energy, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, UBS Americas and PG&E. Manchin’s reelection committee finished the third quarter raising over $1.5 million.
- Republican billionaire Ken Langone said he will hold a fundraiser for Joe Manchin after the conservative Democrat opposed elements of Joe Biden’s agenda.
- “I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him. He’s special. He’s precious. He’s a great American,” Langone told CNBC.
- Manchin has opposed certain parts of Biden’s $1.8 trillion social and climate spending plan, including clean energy provisions, and has pushed back against raising corporate taxes above 25%.
Republican billionaire Ken Langone says he plans to host a fundraiser for Sen. Joe Manchin after the conservative West Virginia Democrat blocked key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
The comments came as Democrats in Congress continue to hash out major parts of Biden’s economic agenda, namely social safety net spending and plans to battle climate change.
Langone, in an interview Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” praised Manchin for his “guts and courage” and explained that he was set to raise money for him. Manchin is up for reelection in 2024.
“I don’t see leadership any place in this country. Thank God for Joe Manchin,” Langone said.
“I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him. He’s special. He’s precious. He’s a great American,” he added. Langone has never contributed to one of Manchin’s campaigns, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Manchin’s office did not return a request for comment on Langone’s statements. After publication of this story, Manchin tweeted out a statement on Wednesday’s inflation report that echoed what Langone had said on CNBC.
Manchin, who has made millions from the coal industry, has opposed certain parts of Biden’s $1.8 trillion social spending plan, including clean energy provisions. He has also opposed raising corporate taxes above 25% and a proposed tax that would target billionaires.
The social safety net and climate plan, known as the Build Back Better Act, would expand Medicaid and Medicare, pay for universal pre-K and dedicate $550 billion to initiatives intended to fight climate change, among other things. The House is expected to vote on the legislation this month, but the measure, already the product of several months of negotiations, will likely change some more before the Senate takes it up.
Democrats have a narrow edge in the 50-50 Senate, due to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote, so they can’t afford to lose Manchin’s vote.
Langone is the latest billionaire executive to come out in support of Manchin. Nelson Peltz, who founded the investment firm Trian Partners, told CNBC in October that he talks to Manchin every week and supports how he’s handling his work on Capitol Hill.
Langone and Peltz both supported former President Donald Trump. Langone told CNBC in 2016 he would back Trump’s initial candidacy for the White House but that he was done with political fundraising. After he later endorsed Trump’s economic policies, including tariffs on Chinese goods, Langone took aim at the former president after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6.
Beyond Langone and Peltz, Manchin has already seen a wave of campaign contributions from corporate America as he fights his own party.
In the third quarter, Manchin’s political operation received corporate contributions from J.P. Morgan Chase, Duke Energy, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, UBS Americas and PG&E. Manchin’s reelection committee finished the third quarter raising over $1.5 million.
THE TRAITOR WITHIN!!!
Sinema's giant flip-flop: She once campaigned on issues she now wants dropped from Biden’s plan
Sinema now pushing to save Trump’s tax cuts, after calling for corporations and the rich to “pay their fair share”
By IGOR DERYSH - salon
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 21, 2021 6:00AM (EDT)
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., perhaps the main obstacle to passing President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan, campaigned on many of the key issues that she now wants dropped from the proposal. Indeed, her opposition threatens to sink other measures she has supposedly supported for years.
Sinema balked at Biden's proposed $3.5 trillion price tag and is reportedly dead set against Democrats' proposals to partly roll back the Trump administration's tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug costs. It's a remarkable reversal for a former Green Party activist who campaigned for the Senate in 2018 on lowering drug costs and has repeatedly called for the wealthy to "pay their fair share" throughout her career. Sinema has criticized Democratic leaders for making "conflicting promises" on Biden's big legislative package, but Arizona progressives who are now pushing a potential primary challenge in 2024 say she's the one who broke her campaign promises.
In her successful Senate campaign three years ago, Sinema made prescription drug costs a key part of her platform.
"No family should be bankrupted by medical bills. We need to make health care more affordable with access to the lowest cost prescriptions," she said in a 2018 campaign ad.
Sinema, who has often discussed growing up in a financially struggling family, cited that experience during a 2018 interview to argue that parents shouldn't have to "choose between paying the rent and getting medicine for their kids."
She continued to push the issue after her election, writing an op-ed last year vowing to fight to "make prescription drugs more affordable."
"Congress must address the cost of prescription drugs," she wrote. "Today, even Arizonans who have insurance sometimes struggle to afford the medicine they need. That's why I'm pursuing policies to ensure life-saving drugs like EpiPens and insulin are affordable and available to Arizonans — especially our seniors."
Democrats crafted a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices and raise $450 billion to pay for the other programs in the BBB plan, even drawing support from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is no fan of the overall package. But Sinema, who has raised more than $750,000 from pharmaceutical and medical device firms, including over $120,000 since her election, reportedly told the White House that she opposes the proposal. Other Democrats with deep pharmaceutical ties have introduced a far more limited bill that reduces the number of drugs that Medicare can negotiate — but Sinema has apparently balked at that proposal as well.
The prescription drug provision is one of the most popular parts of thge BBB package. About 83% of the public, including 91% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans, support the plan, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"At a time when the drug companies are charging us by far the highest prices in the world, Congress must demand that Medicare negotiate prices with this extremely greedy and powerful industry," Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a statement last month. "Year after year, the pharmaceutical industry makes extraordinary profits and provides their CEOs with obscenely high compensation packages. Meanwhile, one out of five Americans cannot afford the prescriptions their doctors write, and thousands die each year because they lack the money to buy the medicine they need."
Sinema, who previously served in the House, also previously called to hike taxes on corporations and the wealthy before seemingly dropping that issue entirely and pushing to preserve the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
Sinema in 2011 repeatedly pushed to close "tax loopholes for big corporations & the rich so they pay their fair share (like us)," on Twitter.
"Asking big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share is common sense," she wrote at the time, "not class warfare."
Sinema drafted a jobs plan during her 2012 congressional campaign, calling to end the Bush-era tax cuts on the rich, in favor of funding investments to spur economic growth.
"I believe that it is time to let tax cuts and loopholes that favor the rich in the upper income tax brackets be eliminated," she wrote.
Democrats hope to fund many of Biden's initiatives by partially rolling back Trump's tax cuts on corporations and raising the top marginal tax rate on top earners, an idea that has drawn support from Manchin. But Sinema, who has raised more than $900,000 from industry groups and corporations opposing the tax increases and has continued to hold fundraisers with groups opposed to the bill amid negotiations, has ruled out any tax increases on corporations and the wealthy. "I do not think anyone in the caucus believes that to be a tenable position," a Democratic Senate aide recently told Insider.
Her opposition to key proposals to raise revenue to pay for the rest of the package, which even Manchin supports, threatens to derail the entire Biden agenda.
"Manchin and Sinema want very different things, both in terms of revenue and programs," a Biden ally told Politico. "If you just took their currently presented red lines … it wouldn't raise enough money and it wouldn't do enough big programs."
If Sinema's opposition sinks the bill, it would essentially also torpedo many of the other policies she ran on.
Sinema in her 2012 jobs plan called to expand the child tax credit, echoing that position in 2019 while also pushing for paid parental leave, both of which are in Biden's proposal. The BBB would also expand child nutrition programs to combat child hunger, an issue Sinema has repeatedly highlighted.
Even other moderates who have been trying to shrink the size of Biden's plan have insisted that the expanded child tax credit, which provides up to $300 per child each month, must be extended.
"The Build Back Better Act must extend this vital, middle-class tax cut through at least 2025 and keep full refundability to grow our economy and give families the financial security and long-term certainty they need," Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, said in a statement, warning that "it is our constituents who would be left behind if this enhanced Child Tax Credit is not fully extended."
The package would also set clean energy standards and incentivize utilities to switch from coal and fossil fuels. Clean energy has long been one of Sinema's top issues. Her first bill as a member of Congress called for providing billions in grants and tax credits to companies that manufacture renewable energy products.
"It is cruel and unfathomable that she's demanding severe cuts to life-saving climate legislation, but not surprising since she's been meeting nonstop with corporate executives," Varshini Prakash, executive director of the progressive climate advocacy group Sunrise Movement, said in a statement. "Sen. Sinema is out of touch with her constituents and with what's happening across the globe on climate. Maybe if she actually took the time to speak to the people of her state, she'd realize how much their families need her to deliver action on climate."
Sinema balked at Biden's proposed $3.5 trillion price tag and is reportedly dead set against Democrats' proposals to partly roll back the Trump administration's tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug costs. It's a remarkable reversal for a former Green Party activist who campaigned for the Senate in 2018 on lowering drug costs and has repeatedly called for the wealthy to "pay their fair share" throughout her career. Sinema has criticized Democratic leaders for making "conflicting promises" on Biden's big legislative package, but Arizona progressives who are now pushing a potential primary challenge in 2024 say she's the one who broke her campaign promises.
In her successful Senate campaign three years ago, Sinema made prescription drug costs a key part of her platform.
"No family should be bankrupted by medical bills. We need to make health care more affordable with access to the lowest cost prescriptions," she said in a 2018 campaign ad.
Sinema, who has often discussed growing up in a financially struggling family, cited that experience during a 2018 interview to argue that parents shouldn't have to "choose between paying the rent and getting medicine for their kids."
She continued to push the issue after her election, writing an op-ed last year vowing to fight to "make prescription drugs more affordable."
"Congress must address the cost of prescription drugs," she wrote. "Today, even Arizonans who have insurance sometimes struggle to afford the medicine they need. That's why I'm pursuing policies to ensure life-saving drugs like EpiPens and insulin are affordable and available to Arizonans — especially our seniors."
Democrats crafted a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices and raise $450 billion to pay for the other programs in the BBB plan, even drawing support from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is no fan of the overall package. But Sinema, who has raised more than $750,000 from pharmaceutical and medical device firms, including over $120,000 since her election, reportedly told the White House that she opposes the proposal. Other Democrats with deep pharmaceutical ties have introduced a far more limited bill that reduces the number of drugs that Medicare can negotiate — but Sinema has apparently balked at that proposal as well.
The prescription drug provision is one of the most popular parts of thge BBB package. About 83% of the public, including 91% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans, support the plan, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"At a time when the drug companies are charging us by far the highest prices in the world, Congress must demand that Medicare negotiate prices with this extremely greedy and powerful industry," Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a statement last month. "Year after year, the pharmaceutical industry makes extraordinary profits and provides their CEOs with obscenely high compensation packages. Meanwhile, one out of five Americans cannot afford the prescriptions their doctors write, and thousands die each year because they lack the money to buy the medicine they need."
Sinema, who previously served in the House, also previously called to hike taxes on corporations and the wealthy before seemingly dropping that issue entirely and pushing to preserve the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
Sinema in 2011 repeatedly pushed to close "tax loopholes for big corporations & the rich so they pay their fair share (like us)," on Twitter.
"Asking big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share is common sense," she wrote at the time, "not class warfare."
Sinema drafted a jobs plan during her 2012 congressional campaign, calling to end the Bush-era tax cuts on the rich, in favor of funding investments to spur economic growth.
"I believe that it is time to let tax cuts and loopholes that favor the rich in the upper income tax brackets be eliminated," she wrote.
Democrats hope to fund many of Biden's initiatives by partially rolling back Trump's tax cuts on corporations and raising the top marginal tax rate on top earners, an idea that has drawn support from Manchin. But Sinema, who has raised more than $900,000 from industry groups and corporations opposing the tax increases and has continued to hold fundraisers with groups opposed to the bill amid negotiations, has ruled out any tax increases on corporations and the wealthy. "I do not think anyone in the caucus believes that to be a tenable position," a Democratic Senate aide recently told Insider.
Her opposition to key proposals to raise revenue to pay for the rest of the package, which even Manchin supports, threatens to derail the entire Biden agenda.
"Manchin and Sinema want very different things, both in terms of revenue and programs," a Biden ally told Politico. "If you just took their currently presented red lines … it wouldn't raise enough money and it wouldn't do enough big programs."
If Sinema's opposition sinks the bill, it would essentially also torpedo many of the other policies she ran on.
Sinema in her 2012 jobs plan called to expand the child tax credit, echoing that position in 2019 while also pushing for paid parental leave, both of which are in Biden's proposal. The BBB would also expand child nutrition programs to combat child hunger, an issue Sinema has repeatedly highlighted.
Even other moderates who have been trying to shrink the size of Biden's plan have insisted that the expanded child tax credit, which provides up to $300 per child each month, must be extended.
"The Build Back Better Act must extend this vital, middle-class tax cut through at least 2025 and keep full refundability to grow our economy and give families the financial security and long-term certainty they need," Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, said in a statement, warning that "it is our constituents who would be left behind if this enhanced Child Tax Credit is not fully extended."
The package would also set clean energy standards and incentivize utilities to switch from coal and fossil fuels. Clean energy has long been one of Sinema's top issues. Her first bill as a member of Congress called for providing billions in grants and tax credits to companies that manufacture renewable energy products.
"It is cruel and unfathomable that she's demanding severe cuts to life-saving climate legislation, but not surprising since she's been meeting nonstop with corporate executives," Varshini Prakash, executive director of the progressive climate advocacy group Sunrise Movement, said in a statement. "Sen. Sinema is out of touch with her constituents and with what's happening across the globe on climate. Maybe if she actually took the time to speak to the people of her state, she'd realize how much their families need her to deliver action on climate."
FDR purged "moderates" — should Biden?
Roosevelt sought to drive out a passel of conservative Democrats in 1938. Spoiler: It didn't go as planned
MATTHEW ROZSA - salon
6/26/2021
Allan Lichtman has a track record of accurately predicting presidential elections, and is generally an astute observer of the American political scene. So I paid attention when Lichtman, a political science professor at American University, told me it would be disastrous for President Biden to go war against Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and the other centrist Democrats jamming him up in Congress.
Lichtman was fully aware that progressives were eager to purge obstructionist Democrats, or at least punish them somehow for constricting or defeating Biden's legislative agenda. I had already spoken to a historian — Harvey J. Kaye, the editor of "FDR on Democracy" — who pithily summed up the logic behind that point of view.
"Look, there's two choices," Kaye said. "For the sake of the future, he should literally go after them, period." His "them" clearly referred to Manchin and Sinema. "But for the sake of democracy in the near term, what happens if the Republicans win?" Kaye added that he could not understand "why Biden hasn't called Manchin" and the others and told them that their political survival depended on toeing the line.
In my conversation with Lichtman, he quoted humorist Will Rogers' famous quip: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." Kaye said basically the same thing. I reached out to both of them for Salon about the most conspicuous example of a president turning against legislators from his own party: Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to purge right-wing Democrats in the 1938 midterm elections. My primary question was about what lessons Biden could learn from that moment, given that his own presidency may go down in flames because of intransigent "moderate" Democrats.
FDR certainly wasn't the first Democratic president to turn against members of his own party. In 1918, Woodrow Wilson campaigned against five Southern legislators who opposed his World War I policies, and only all one of them actually defeated his Wilson-backed challenger. But that was a different era, when the Democratic Party's chaos led to an ideological vacuum. Instead of trying to fill that vacuum, Wilson weeded out politicians who opposed him on a specific set of policies that were widely supported by both parties. So there's no clear parallel to Biden in 2021.
Roosevelt's situation was at least somewhat similar. He explicitly wanted the 1938 midterm elections to realign the Democratic Party in a more liberal direction. Speaking to the nation in a "Fireside Chat" on June 24, Roosevelt characterized the coming primaries as containing "many clashes between two schools of thought, generally classified as liberal and conservative." Liberals recognized "that the new conditions throughout the world call for new remedies," he said, while conservatives do not "recognize the need for government itself to step in and take action to meet these new problems." Concerned that obstructionist members of Congress might roll back his achievements in creating unemployment insurance, old age pensions, anti-monopoly measures and regulation of the financial industry, Roosevelt accused them of wanting a return "to the kind of government that we had in the 1920s." He didn't need to remind his listeners that those policies had plunged America into the Great Depression. As he saw it, Democrats needed to rid themselves of the conservatives who hindering his vision before they destroyed his new liberal coalition.
Well: It didn't work. FDR targeted Rep. John J. O'Connor of New York, then chairman of the House Rules Committee, along with 10 Democratic senators, and only O'Connor was defeated in a primary. This was more than an immediate political setback for Roosevelt, although it definitely counted as that. (Democrats lost seven seats in the Senate and 72 in the House, although they started out with such a huge margin they still retained control of Congress.) In a way, his desire to realign American politics along more ideological lines worked. Right-wing Democrats from the South realized they had common cause with conservative Republicans from the Midwest, and their "conservative coalition" controlled Congress for a generation, shaping national policy regardless of which party officially had a majority. If anything, Roosevelt weakened the liberal cause rather than strengthening it. His only consolation was that many of the policies he was worried would get targeted wound up staying intact.
While the parallels between Roosevelt's predicament and Biden's are inexact, they are similar in the big ways that count. Biden's critics on the left want him to wage political war against the likes of Manchin, Sinema, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, middle-path Democrats who appear willing to sacrifice his entire agenda in the interest of "bipartisanship." It sounds like strength. It almost certainly would not work.
As Kaye pointed out, Biden simply doesn't have the votes that FDR did, either in Congress or the nation at large. Roosevelt was a deeply beloved figure who had won re-election in 1936 in what at the time was the biggest electoral landslide in history. Biden, although he won decisively in 2020, has a narrower mandate. Lichtman noted that attacking moderate Democrats would imperil the Senate, where even one lost seat would swing the 50-50 body to the Republicans. If Democrats wanted a coalition large enough to render the "centrists" irrelevant, they would need to turn out in larger numbers and elect more Democrats to Congress and local offices. That hasn't happened, and at this moment Biden's legislative coalition is not large enough, nor is his popular support deep enough, even to contemplate Roosevelt's strategy — which, again, did not even work out for the most popular president of the 20th century.
The underlying problem, perhaps, is that the Democratic Party, in its current form, is fundamentally incompetent. Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir addressed this a recent article about Democrats' failure to eliminate the filibuster and protect voting rights.
This isn't a nice thing to say about a bunch of mostly sane and approximately reasonable people, but here's the truth: If you set out to design a left-center political party that was fated to surrender, little by little, to authoritarianism — because of circumstances beyond its control, because of internal indecision and ideological fuzziness, because it faced an entrenched and deranged opposition party, because of whatever — you could hardly do better than the current version of the Democratic Party.
This isn't just about Kyrsten Sinema flipping on prescription drug prices right after taking large campaign donations from Big Pharma. Democrats seem incapable of addressing the fundamental problems with our economy and lacks the internal cohesion to stand up to Republicans who are using Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election to erode or eliminate democracy. Those issues can't be corrected by defeating Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — which is also probably impossible and likely undesirable. The Democratic Party's best hope is to make itself relevant and vital again, which is a much larger problem.
Lichtman was fully aware that progressives were eager to purge obstructionist Democrats, or at least punish them somehow for constricting or defeating Biden's legislative agenda. I had already spoken to a historian — Harvey J. Kaye, the editor of "FDR on Democracy" — who pithily summed up the logic behind that point of view.
"Look, there's two choices," Kaye said. "For the sake of the future, he should literally go after them, period." His "them" clearly referred to Manchin and Sinema. "But for the sake of democracy in the near term, what happens if the Republicans win?" Kaye added that he could not understand "why Biden hasn't called Manchin" and the others and told them that their political survival depended on toeing the line.
In my conversation with Lichtman, he quoted humorist Will Rogers' famous quip: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." Kaye said basically the same thing. I reached out to both of them for Salon about the most conspicuous example of a president turning against legislators from his own party: Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to purge right-wing Democrats in the 1938 midterm elections. My primary question was about what lessons Biden could learn from that moment, given that his own presidency may go down in flames because of intransigent "moderate" Democrats.
FDR certainly wasn't the first Democratic president to turn against members of his own party. In 1918, Woodrow Wilson campaigned against five Southern legislators who opposed his World War I policies, and only all one of them actually defeated his Wilson-backed challenger. But that was a different era, when the Democratic Party's chaos led to an ideological vacuum. Instead of trying to fill that vacuum, Wilson weeded out politicians who opposed him on a specific set of policies that were widely supported by both parties. So there's no clear parallel to Biden in 2021.
Roosevelt's situation was at least somewhat similar. He explicitly wanted the 1938 midterm elections to realign the Democratic Party in a more liberal direction. Speaking to the nation in a "Fireside Chat" on June 24, Roosevelt characterized the coming primaries as containing "many clashes between two schools of thought, generally classified as liberal and conservative." Liberals recognized "that the new conditions throughout the world call for new remedies," he said, while conservatives do not "recognize the need for government itself to step in and take action to meet these new problems." Concerned that obstructionist members of Congress might roll back his achievements in creating unemployment insurance, old age pensions, anti-monopoly measures and regulation of the financial industry, Roosevelt accused them of wanting a return "to the kind of government that we had in the 1920s." He didn't need to remind his listeners that those policies had plunged America into the Great Depression. As he saw it, Democrats needed to rid themselves of the conservatives who hindering his vision before they destroyed his new liberal coalition.
Well: It didn't work. FDR targeted Rep. John J. O'Connor of New York, then chairman of the House Rules Committee, along with 10 Democratic senators, and only O'Connor was defeated in a primary. This was more than an immediate political setback for Roosevelt, although it definitely counted as that. (Democrats lost seven seats in the Senate and 72 in the House, although they started out with such a huge margin they still retained control of Congress.) In a way, his desire to realign American politics along more ideological lines worked. Right-wing Democrats from the South realized they had common cause with conservative Republicans from the Midwest, and their "conservative coalition" controlled Congress for a generation, shaping national policy regardless of which party officially had a majority. If anything, Roosevelt weakened the liberal cause rather than strengthening it. His only consolation was that many of the policies he was worried would get targeted wound up staying intact.
While the parallels between Roosevelt's predicament and Biden's are inexact, they are similar in the big ways that count. Biden's critics on the left want him to wage political war against the likes of Manchin, Sinema, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, middle-path Democrats who appear willing to sacrifice his entire agenda in the interest of "bipartisanship." It sounds like strength. It almost certainly would not work.
As Kaye pointed out, Biden simply doesn't have the votes that FDR did, either in Congress or the nation at large. Roosevelt was a deeply beloved figure who had won re-election in 1936 in what at the time was the biggest electoral landslide in history. Biden, although he won decisively in 2020, has a narrower mandate. Lichtman noted that attacking moderate Democrats would imperil the Senate, where even one lost seat would swing the 50-50 body to the Republicans. If Democrats wanted a coalition large enough to render the "centrists" irrelevant, they would need to turn out in larger numbers and elect more Democrats to Congress and local offices. That hasn't happened, and at this moment Biden's legislative coalition is not large enough, nor is his popular support deep enough, even to contemplate Roosevelt's strategy — which, again, did not even work out for the most popular president of the 20th century.
The underlying problem, perhaps, is that the Democratic Party, in its current form, is fundamentally incompetent. Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir addressed this a recent article about Democrats' failure to eliminate the filibuster and protect voting rights.
This isn't a nice thing to say about a bunch of mostly sane and approximately reasonable people, but here's the truth: If you set out to design a left-center political party that was fated to surrender, little by little, to authoritarianism — because of circumstances beyond its control, because of internal indecision and ideological fuzziness, because it faced an entrenched and deranged opposition party, because of whatever — you could hardly do better than the current version of the Democratic Party.
This isn't just about Kyrsten Sinema flipping on prescription drug prices right after taking large campaign donations from Big Pharma. Democrats seem incapable of addressing the fundamental problems with our economy and lacks the internal cohesion to stand up to Republicans who are using Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election to erode or eliminate democracy. Those issues can't be corrected by defeating Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — which is also probably impossible and likely undesirable. The Democratic Party's best hope is to make itself relevant and vital again, which is a much larger problem.
exposing the sellouts!!!
NO LABELS OFFERED CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TO SPURN NANCY PELOSI FUNDRAISER
Sources told The Intercept that the group dangled $200,000 rewards before two members of Congress for a stand against the party’s legislative agenda.
Ryan Grim, Lee Fang - the intercept
August 26 2021, 8:02 a.m
THE DARK-MONEY GROUP No Labels offered to raise $200,000 for two of the so-called Unbreakable Nine — the House Democratic faction blocking the party’s agenda this week — if they would cancel an appearance last Saturday at a Napa Valley fundraiser hosted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to two congressional sources familiar with the proposal.
Reps. Carolyn Bourdeaux, D-Ga., and Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, had both been scheduled to appear at Pelosi’s fundraiser, which was jointly hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Their appearance would have created awkward optics for No Labels because the group had been working to project a united front of opposition to Pelosi’s legislative agenda, which hinges on a plan to hold back a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to maintain leverage over a complementary $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. The larger package includes significant tax increases on the private equity barons and other wealthy individuals who fund No Labels, and the group has unleashed a flood of money in order to stop it.
Bourdeaux attended Pelosi’s fundraiser. Gonzalez canceled his appearance. “Absolutely no such agreement was made,” said Isaac Baker, a senior adviser to Gonzalez. Margaret White, executive director of No Labels, denied there was any such offer. “This is false,” she said.
An official with the DCCC said that despite Gonzalez’s lack of attendance, his campaign will still benefit from the fundraiser.
“Congressman Gonzalez spent the weekend at home in McAllen, Texas, to work on safely evacuating Americans and our allies out of Afghanistan, and to monitor the urgent situation at the border and a spike in COVID-19 cases that is overwhelming local hospitals,” Baker added. Bourdeaux did not respond to texts or voicemail messages requesting comment.
On Tuesday afternoon, after the group secured a promise of a floor vote on the infrastructure plan by September 27, Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., the leader of the rebellion; Bourdeaux; Jared Golden, D-Maine; and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., gathered over Zoom with dozens of No Labels donors for a victory lap. “You should feel so proud, I can’t explain to you, this is the culmination of all your work. This would not have happened but for what you built,” Gottheimer told them, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Intercept. “It just wouldn’t have happened — hard stop. You should just feel so proud. This is your win as much as it is my win.”
The call was led by Andrew Bursky, managing partner of Atlas Holdings, a major private equity fund in Connecticut, which operates heavily in the construction and development sectors. “When it comes to their ringleader this is about one thing and one thing only: blocking tax increases on the private equity guys who fill his campaign account,” said one House source, reflecting the broadly held view among House Democrats that the effort by Gottheimer and No Labels was singularly focused on preventing tax increases on the wealthy, corporations, and tax-advantaged sectors like private equity and hedge funds. “No Labels professes to value bipartisanship, but from my experience they value ‘buypartisanship,’” said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., a former No Labels member who resigned from the group when they declined to disclose donor identities. “Clearly they want to advocate for their donors more than good government, and that means things like corporate tax breaks and the like.”
The efforts by No Labels donors come as corporate groups have pushed to defeat the investments in combating inequality funded through taxes on the wealthy and certain business sectors. The finance industry has deployed dozens of lobbyists on Capitol Hill to block the infrastructure provisions centered on increasing taxes on private equity. Business Roundtable, which represents the chief executives of the largest publicly traded companies in America, has retained former Democratic staffers to fight the tax provisions.
Whether the House’s concession on infrastructure amounts to a win is dubious and hotly debated on Capitol Hill, but there’s no question No Labels has organized its donors to fight the taxing and spending battles of the Biden administration.
In June, No Labels co-founder Nancy Jacobson — the spouse of operative Mark Penn, a mentor to Gottheimer — was explicit in her plan to use donor money to “reward” members of Congress who voted the way the organization insisted, according to audio of another private meeting, which The Intercept obtained that month.
“Now the truth is, there’s no other group in the center that’s putting the hard dollars together,” Jacobson told a group of donors in the June meeting, which also included Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. The term “hard dollars” refers to money given directly to a candidate for federal office, which candidates find more valuable than outside spending because they have full control over their own funds, whereas super PACs make their own spending decisions. Candidates also have access to discounted television commercial rates, while outside groups pay the full freight. Jacobson noted that while many other dark-money organizations put up “big numbers … that’s a lot of soft dollars, it’s a lot of super PACs, it’s things they don’t control. They” — members of Congress — “love the hard dollars, and I would be hard-pressed to think of any other group that can raise that sort of money. Our hope is at least $20 million over the cycle with this group, and hopefully keep doubling it as we go.”
Jacobson added that the recipients of the largesse remained to be determined. “We’re gonna see what happens with this next vote and we want to reward those people that, you know, get to party solutions,” she said.
By making the linkage between votes — known in the legal ethics world as among a set of “official acts” — and campaign funding so explicit and direct, No Labels isn’t just exposing members of Congress it supports to accusations of run-of-the-mill corruption, but also potentially exposing them to legal liability. On the question of whether accepting campaign funds as a “reward” for the right vote on the infrastructure bill would break the law, a Congressional Research Service summary explains that accepting such money could indeed be off-limits, if it was given because of how they voted: “The prohibition on bribery precludes officials from accepting contributions in exchange for performance of an official act. The prohibition on illegal gratuities does not require that the contribution be made in exchange for the official act, but instead precludes officials from accepting contributions made because of the official act.”
On Tuesday, Gottheimer said that both the White House and congressional leadership had put intense pressure on the group, but the support they had from their donors was key to bucking up their strength. “We got on the phone every single day for a conference call and everyone stuck together. And they beat the shit out of us. Excuse my language. They really, really were tough on us. I mean, they used every single thing, every tool they had to put pressure on us and you know it, and they wanted us to break apart and we wouldn’t break apart,” he said during the Zoom meeting. “You had people from the DCCC threaten our members to cut them off financially. People threatened redistricting, people threatened primaries — our own people, our own leadership. Justice Democrats, which is the Squad, are running ads against me and my colleagues in our district right now. But we fought back and you all really helped us.”
Kurt Schrader, the former chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, told the group Tuesday that the so-called win gives them leverage to target the reconciliation package. “This is a big deal. I just wanna thank you guys so much for your support, having our backs, being a big part of why we are, where we are today,” he said.
“Let’s deal with the reconciliation later. Let’s pass that infrastructure package right now, and don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to spend trillions more of our kids’ and grandkids’ money that we don’t really have at this point,” Schrader said. The Oregon lawmaker went on to note that severing the traditional infrastructure vote from the broader package showed that bipartisanship is still alive and well. “You can build real relationships. … I’ve talked to a lot of our Republican Congress members. It’s a huge win.”
On Monday, Pelosi and her leadership team put the screws to Gottheimer and his crew, deploying the range of threats Gottheimer described later. No Labels put out an ad defending what they dubbed the “unbreakable nine,” characterizing them as heroes of our time and comparing them to the late politicians Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Chase Smith, and John McCain.
Aside from Bursky, the Tuesday evening donor call was attended by a slew of some of the country’s richest people, who all stand to pay high taxes thanks to the multitrillion-dollar legislation’s design to balance its spending with revenue increases on corporations and the wealthy. A variety of approaches have been floated, from raising the corporate income tax rate to increasing funding for the IRS so that the agency could pursue audits of complex, high-end tax returns. The bill’s backers also contemplate changing the structure of the tax code for private equity firms and hedge funds, whose partners currently enjoy much lower tax rates than wage earners.
The call’s list of attendees included billionaire Howard Marks, co-chair of Oaktree Capital Partners; Andrew Tisch of Loews Corporation, whose name is plastered around New York City thanks to the Tisch family’s charitable giving; Gordon Segal, the co-founder of Crate & Barrel, now managing director of the private equity firm Prairie Management Group; Kenneth Schiciano, managing director of major private equity firm TA Associates; Pelican Ventures’ Jim Stanard, founder of RenaissanceRe and former chair of TigerRisk Partners LLC; Jim Tozer, managing director of real estate investment firm Vectra Management Group; John Cushman, chair of global transactions at commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield; Steve Fifield, head of his real estate investment firm Fifield Co.; and former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a co-founder of the group.
The source who provided the recording acted out of disappointment that powerful donors would come together to try to sink the side of the spending effort focused on “social economic inequities that we see in this nation.”
The broader reconciliation bill — focused on unprecedented investments in free child care, education, and health care — represents the most transformative program in decades to alleviate poverty, benefits that will disproportionately flow to many communities that have experienced systemic racism in the past. The source said the fact that No Labels would mobilize its strength to defeat such a groundbreaking proposal provided the motivation to share the recording with The Intercept.
“For every one dollar investment in the early development of a child, the returns are double digit, in terms of workforce participation, health care, longevity, crime reduction,” said the source.
“These No Labels donors are overwhelmingly old, rich and white people, from finance and from Wall Street,” the source added, noting that deficit concerns are only raised in the context of spending, not when taxes on the rich are slashed. “They don’t mind the tax cuts [they got previously]. And they don’t talk about ‘pay-fors’ when it’s a tax cut. They only care when it’s a program to confront systemic racism that is embedded in the numbers in terms of poverty.”
Reps. Carolyn Bourdeaux, D-Ga., and Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, had both been scheduled to appear at Pelosi’s fundraiser, which was jointly hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Their appearance would have created awkward optics for No Labels because the group had been working to project a united front of opposition to Pelosi’s legislative agenda, which hinges on a plan to hold back a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to maintain leverage over a complementary $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. The larger package includes significant tax increases on the private equity barons and other wealthy individuals who fund No Labels, and the group has unleashed a flood of money in order to stop it.
Bourdeaux attended Pelosi’s fundraiser. Gonzalez canceled his appearance. “Absolutely no such agreement was made,” said Isaac Baker, a senior adviser to Gonzalez. Margaret White, executive director of No Labels, denied there was any such offer. “This is false,” she said.
An official with the DCCC said that despite Gonzalez’s lack of attendance, his campaign will still benefit from the fundraiser.
“Congressman Gonzalez spent the weekend at home in McAllen, Texas, to work on safely evacuating Americans and our allies out of Afghanistan, and to monitor the urgent situation at the border and a spike in COVID-19 cases that is overwhelming local hospitals,” Baker added. Bourdeaux did not respond to texts or voicemail messages requesting comment.
On Tuesday afternoon, after the group secured a promise of a floor vote on the infrastructure plan by September 27, Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., the leader of the rebellion; Bourdeaux; Jared Golden, D-Maine; and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., gathered over Zoom with dozens of No Labels donors for a victory lap. “You should feel so proud, I can’t explain to you, this is the culmination of all your work. This would not have happened but for what you built,” Gottheimer told them, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Intercept. “It just wouldn’t have happened — hard stop. You should just feel so proud. This is your win as much as it is my win.”
The call was led by Andrew Bursky, managing partner of Atlas Holdings, a major private equity fund in Connecticut, which operates heavily in the construction and development sectors. “When it comes to their ringleader this is about one thing and one thing only: blocking tax increases on the private equity guys who fill his campaign account,” said one House source, reflecting the broadly held view among House Democrats that the effort by Gottheimer and No Labels was singularly focused on preventing tax increases on the wealthy, corporations, and tax-advantaged sectors like private equity and hedge funds. “No Labels professes to value bipartisanship, but from my experience they value ‘buypartisanship,’” said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., a former No Labels member who resigned from the group when they declined to disclose donor identities. “Clearly they want to advocate for their donors more than good government, and that means things like corporate tax breaks and the like.”
The efforts by No Labels donors come as corporate groups have pushed to defeat the investments in combating inequality funded through taxes on the wealthy and certain business sectors. The finance industry has deployed dozens of lobbyists on Capitol Hill to block the infrastructure provisions centered on increasing taxes on private equity. Business Roundtable, which represents the chief executives of the largest publicly traded companies in America, has retained former Democratic staffers to fight the tax provisions.
Whether the House’s concession on infrastructure amounts to a win is dubious and hotly debated on Capitol Hill, but there’s no question No Labels has organized its donors to fight the taxing and spending battles of the Biden administration.
In June, No Labels co-founder Nancy Jacobson — the spouse of operative Mark Penn, a mentor to Gottheimer — was explicit in her plan to use donor money to “reward” members of Congress who voted the way the organization insisted, according to audio of another private meeting, which The Intercept obtained that month.
“Now the truth is, there’s no other group in the center that’s putting the hard dollars together,” Jacobson told a group of donors in the June meeting, which also included Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. The term “hard dollars” refers to money given directly to a candidate for federal office, which candidates find more valuable than outside spending because they have full control over their own funds, whereas super PACs make their own spending decisions. Candidates also have access to discounted television commercial rates, while outside groups pay the full freight. Jacobson noted that while many other dark-money organizations put up “big numbers … that’s a lot of soft dollars, it’s a lot of super PACs, it’s things they don’t control. They” — members of Congress — “love the hard dollars, and I would be hard-pressed to think of any other group that can raise that sort of money. Our hope is at least $20 million over the cycle with this group, and hopefully keep doubling it as we go.”
Jacobson added that the recipients of the largesse remained to be determined. “We’re gonna see what happens with this next vote and we want to reward those people that, you know, get to party solutions,” she said.
By making the linkage between votes — known in the legal ethics world as among a set of “official acts” — and campaign funding so explicit and direct, No Labels isn’t just exposing members of Congress it supports to accusations of run-of-the-mill corruption, but also potentially exposing them to legal liability. On the question of whether accepting campaign funds as a “reward” for the right vote on the infrastructure bill would break the law, a Congressional Research Service summary explains that accepting such money could indeed be off-limits, if it was given because of how they voted: “The prohibition on bribery precludes officials from accepting contributions in exchange for performance of an official act. The prohibition on illegal gratuities does not require that the contribution be made in exchange for the official act, but instead precludes officials from accepting contributions made because of the official act.”
On Tuesday, Gottheimer said that both the White House and congressional leadership had put intense pressure on the group, but the support they had from their donors was key to bucking up their strength. “We got on the phone every single day for a conference call and everyone stuck together. And they beat the shit out of us. Excuse my language. They really, really were tough on us. I mean, they used every single thing, every tool they had to put pressure on us and you know it, and they wanted us to break apart and we wouldn’t break apart,” he said during the Zoom meeting. “You had people from the DCCC threaten our members to cut them off financially. People threatened redistricting, people threatened primaries — our own people, our own leadership. Justice Democrats, which is the Squad, are running ads against me and my colleagues in our district right now. But we fought back and you all really helped us.”
Kurt Schrader, the former chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, told the group Tuesday that the so-called win gives them leverage to target the reconciliation package. “This is a big deal. I just wanna thank you guys so much for your support, having our backs, being a big part of why we are, where we are today,” he said.
“Let’s deal with the reconciliation later. Let’s pass that infrastructure package right now, and don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to spend trillions more of our kids’ and grandkids’ money that we don’t really have at this point,” Schrader said. The Oregon lawmaker went on to note that severing the traditional infrastructure vote from the broader package showed that bipartisanship is still alive and well. “You can build real relationships. … I’ve talked to a lot of our Republican Congress members. It’s a huge win.”
On Monday, Pelosi and her leadership team put the screws to Gottheimer and his crew, deploying the range of threats Gottheimer described later. No Labels put out an ad defending what they dubbed the “unbreakable nine,” characterizing them as heroes of our time and comparing them to the late politicians Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Chase Smith, and John McCain.
Aside from Bursky, the Tuesday evening donor call was attended by a slew of some of the country’s richest people, who all stand to pay high taxes thanks to the multitrillion-dollar legislation’s design to balance its spending with revenue increases on corporations and the wealthy. A variety of approaches have been floated, from raising the corporate income tax rate to increasing funding for the IRS so that the agency could pursue audits of complex, high-end tax returns. The bill’s backers also contemplate changing the structure of the tax code for private equity firms and hedge funds, whose partners currently enjoy much lower tax rates than wage earners.
The call’s list of attendees included billionaire Howard Marks, co-chair of Oaktree Capital Partners; Andrew Tisch of Loews Corporation, whose name is plastered around New York City thanks to the Tisch family’s charitable giving; Gordon Segal, the co-founder of Crate & Barrel, now managing director of the private equity firm Prairie Management Group; Kenneth Schiciano, managing director of major private equity firm TA Associates; Pelican Ventures’ Jim Stanard, founder of RenaissanceRe and former chair of TigerRisk Partners LLC; Jim Tozer, managing director of real estate investment firm Vectra Management Group; John Cushman, chair of global transactions at commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield; Steve Fifield, head of his real estate investment firm Fifield Co.; and former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a co-founder of the group.
The source who provided the recording acted out of disappointment that powerful donors would come together to try to sink the side of the spending effort focused on “social economic inequities that we see in this nation.”
The broader reconciliation bill — focused on unprecedented investments in free child care, education, and health care — represents the most transformative program in decades to alleviate poverty, benefits that will disproportionately flow to many communities that have experienced systemic racism in the past. The source said the fact that No Labels would mobilize its strength to defeat such a groundbreaking proposal provided the motivation to share the recording with The Intercept.
“For every one dollar investment in the early development of a child, the returns are double digit, in terms of workforce participation, health care, longevity, crime reduction,” said the source.
“These No Labels donors are overwhelmingly old, rich and white people, from finance and from Wall Street,” the source added, noting that deficit concerns are only raised in the context of spending, not when taxes on the rich are slashed. “They don’t mind the tax cuts [they got previously]. And they don’t talk about ‘pay-fors’ when it’s a tax cut. They only care when it’s a program to confront systemic racism that is embedded in the numbers in terms of poverty.”
enemy within!!!
Moderate Dems threaten Biden's deal
Meet the House Democrats threatening the passage of Biden's infrastructure package
A coalition of nine moderate House Democrats gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi their demands on Friday
By JON SKOLNIK - salon
PUBLISHED AUGUST 13, 2021 5:46PM (EDT)
A coalition of nine moderate House Democrats told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that they won't advance the Democratic-backed $3.5 trillion infrastructure package – a measure meant to be passed via budget reconciliation – unless the Senate-approved $1.2 trillion bill passes out of their own chamber first.
"We will not consider voting for a budget resolution until the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes the House and is signed into law," the Democrats wrote.
Their proposition, which came in a letter released on Friday, and throws a potential wrench in the months-long balancing act performed by the Biden administration, which is looking to quickly pass both bills – one with bipartisan approval and the other via budget resolution.
Last Tuesday, the Senate passed the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure measure along 69-19 vote after months of partisan back-and-forth, which culminated in many Republicans actively rebuffing Donald Trump's outside effort to shame them out of backing the bill. That same day, the Senate also passed the Democratic-led budget resolution along a party-line vote, which should allow Democrats to pass their broader $3.5 trillion infrastructure tagalong bill.
But the maneuver is now on shaky ground, with moderate Democrats now conditioning their support of budget resolution on the passage of the $1.2 trillion bill in the House.
In an effort to appease liberal Democrats, who have thrown their support behind the tagalong bill, Pelosi has promised that she will not let the infrastructure bill be passed in the House unless the tagalong bill gets Senate approval, as the New York Times noted. In fact, over half of the Congressional Progressive Caucus has vowed that they will not vote on the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill covers their priorities, which include health care, climate action, child care, family leave, elder care, and education – all of whose funding would have to be approved by the Senate.
The Times noted that this exchange, however, might end up preventing the tagalong bill from being formally passed by the Senate until next Fall – which opens it up to greater risk of derailment.
"Some have suggested that we hold off on considering the Senate infrastructure bill for months – until the reconciliation process is completed. We disagree," the letter wrote, referring to Pelosi's above promise. "With the livelihoods of hardworking American families at stake, we simply can't afford months of unnecessary delays and risk squandering this once-in-a-century, bipartisan infrastructure package."
A Democratic aide told CNN that, in the House, "there are not sufficient votes to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill this month," adding that "there are dozens upon dozens who will vote against the BIF unless it's after the Senate passes reconciliation."
The letter, first reported by Punchbowl News, was authored by Democratic moderates including Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, and Kurt Schrader of Oregon.
Pelosi has not signaled any kind of strategic or legislative pivot in response to the letter, The Washington Post noted. But two days ago, CNN reported, Pelosi sided with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, reiterating that she will not let the infrastructure bill be voted on before the budget resolution is finalized in the Senate.
"We will not consider voting for a budget resolution until the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes the House and is signed into law," the Democrats wrote.
Their proposition, which came in a letter released on Friday, and throws a potential wrench in the months-long balancing act performed by the Biden administration, which is looking to quickly pass both bills – one with bipartisan approval and the other via budget resolution.
Last Tuesday, the Senate passed the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure measure along 69-19 vote after months of partisan back-and-forth, which culminated in many Republicans actively rebuffing Donald Trump's outside effort to shame them out of backing the bill. That same day, the Senate also passed the Democratic-led budget resolution along a party-line vote, which should allow Democrats to pass their broader $3.5 trillion infrastructure tagalong bill.
But the maneuver is now on shaky ground, with moderate Democrats now conditioning their support of budget resolution on the passage of the $1.2 trillion bill in the House.
In an effort to appease liberal Democrats, who have thrown their support behind the tagalong bill, Pelosi has promised that she will not let the infrastructure bill be passed in the House unless the tagalong bill gets Senate approval, as the New York Times noted. In fact, over half of the Congressional Progressive Caucus has vowed that they will not vote on the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill covers their priorities, which include health care, climate action, child care, family leave, elder care, and education – all of whose funding would have to be approved by the Senate.
The Times noted that this exchange, however, might end up preventing the tagalong bill from being formally passed by the Senate until next Fall – which opens it up to greater risk of derailment.
"Some have suggested that we hold off on considering the Senate infrastructure bill for months – until the reconciliation process is completed. We disagree," the letter wrote, referring to Pelosi's above promise. "With the livelihoods of hardworking American families at stake, we simply can't afford months of unnecessary delays and risk squandering this once-in-a-century, bipartisan infrastructure package."
A Democratic aide told CNN that, in the House, "there are not sufficient votes to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill this month," adding that "there are dozens upon dozens who will vote against the BIF unless it's after the Senate passes reconciliation."
The letter, first reported by Punchbowl News, was authored by Democratic moderates including Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, and Kurt Schrader of Oregon.
Pelosi has not signaled any kind of strategic or legislative pivot in response to the letter, The Washington Post noted. But two days ago, CNN reported, Pelosi sided with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, reiterating that she will not let the infrastructure bill be voted on before the budget resolution is finalized in the Senate.
another sellout outed!!!
This Democrat got big money from Big Pharma — and turned against lower drug prices
A Democrat's Big Pharma flipflop
This Democrat got big money from Big Pharma — and turned against lower drug prices
Rep. Scott Peters once backed Democrats' price-control bill. Now critics say he's a "paid mercenary" for Big Pharma
By JON SKOLNIK
PUBLISHED JULY 29, 2021 6:00AM (EDT)
Rep. Scott Peters, a low-profile California Democrat now serving his fifth term in the House, two years ago supported a landmark bill that would have substantially lowered the cost of life-saving drugs for Americans. Now he's the apparent leader of a group of centrist Democrats who oppose that very same bill, and who have collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry.
Peters' apparent flipflop, reported by Stat last week, centers on H.R. 3, a Democratic House bill that would save American consumers billions of dollars on costly drugs for life-altering diseases like cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
Chief among the bill's provisions is a rule that establishes what is called "international reference pricing," effectively capping the price of a drug in the U.S. at 120% of the average price paid in Australia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and the U.K. With that cap in place, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would then be mandated to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, establishing a fixed price for a given drug that would apply to employers, private insurers and Medicare recipients.
H.R. 3 has been estimated to yield $120 billion in savings for consumers over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It's no surprise, then, that 90% of American adults support the bill's policy of letting the government negotiate with drug producers.
But when it comes to drug pricing in recent years, popular opinion has repeatedly has been thwarted or ignored by Big Pharma, which has fought aggressively against H.R. 3 by locating and supporting sympathetic members of Congress — which now evidently include Scott Peters.
In early May, Peters — who has represented California's 52nd district, in and around San Diego, since 2013 and was once named "biotech legislator of the year" — assembled a coterie of 10 moderate House Democrats to sign a vaguely-worded letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging her to consider a balance between "innovation and affordability."
"As we have just seen with the lifesaving, record-breaking development of COVID19 vaccines and therapies, America benefits from the most innovative and capable researchers in the world, and from public-private partnership that encourages world-leading biomedical research and development," the caucus wrote, adding: "To achieve this, we must garner bipartisan, bicameral support, with buy-in from a majority of Americans and stakeholders in the public and private sector."
The letter never specifically mentions H.R. 3, but there is little doubt that's the target. The lawmakers' rhetoric echoes a favorite Big Pharma talking point: that government regulation of drug prices will disincentivize research and development.
In late 2019, however, when the bill was first introduced, Peters praised the measure. He did express concerns that it might make drug development "particularly challenging for small and emerging companies in California" and introduced an amendment to support innovation, but ultimately agreed to back the bill.
After that, the pharmaceutical industry began to flood Peters with campaign cash.
The Center for Responsive Politics found that during the 2020 election cycle Peters received nearly $230,000 from pharmaceutical and health companies, many of whose products would be directly targeted by the measure.
According to FEC filings reviewed by Salon, Peters received money from Abbvie, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Johnson & Johnson and Gilead Sciences — an array of big-name pharmaceutical companies, none of which could plausibly be described as "small" or "emerging."
During that same period, Peters' emerging coalition of Pharma-friendly moderate Democrats likewise took in significant donations from companies in the sector, according to a report by Brick House. Among the major recipients were Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California ($144,735), Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon ($144,252), Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida ($120,912), Rep. Lou Correa of California ($98,125) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey ($96,228) — all of whom had originally voted to approve the bill back in 2019.
Just last month, Peters announced his opposition to H.R. 3, specifically objecting to international reference pricing, a provision of the bill that had not changed from 2019 to 2021.
"I will not vote for that," Peters said in an interview with Roll Call. "If you institute it, you won't have cures because you'll dry up all the private investment that does that research."
Immediately after the letter to Pelosi from Peters and his allies, he once again received thousands of dollars in contributions from pharmaceutical interests, raking in $66,400 between May 4 and June 30 from executives associated with Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and the industry trade group PhRMA, according to a Stat analysis. [...] READ MORE
Peters' apparent flipflop, reported by Stat last week, centers on H.R. 3, a Democratic House bill that would save American consumers billions of dollars on costly drugs for life-altering diseases like cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
Chief among the bill's provisions is a rule that establishes what is called "international reference pricing," effectively capping the price of a drug in the U.S. at 120% of the average price paid in Australia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and the U.K. With that cap in place, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would then be mandated to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, establishing a fixed price for a given drug that would apply to employers, private insurers and Medicare recipients.
H.R. 3 has been estimated to yield $120 billion in savings for consumers over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It's no surprise, then, that 90% of American adults support the bill's policy of letting the government negotiate with drug producers.
But when it comes to drug pricing in recent years, popular opinion has repeatedly has been thwarted or ignored by Big Pharma, which has fought aggressively against H.R. 3 by locating and supporting sympathetic members of Congress — which now evidently include Scott Peters.
In early May, Peters — who has represented California's 52nd district, in and around San Diego, since 2013 and was once named "biotech legislator of the year" — assembled a coterie of 10 moderate House Democrats to sign a vaguely-worded letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging her to consider a balance between "innovation and affordability."
"As we have just seen with the lifesaving, record-breaking development of COVID19 vaccines and therapies, America benefits from the most innovative and capable researchers in the world, and from public-private partnership that encourages world-leading biomedical research and development," the caucus wrote, adding: "To achieve this, we must garner bipartisan, bicameral support, with buy-in from a majority of Americans and stakeholders in the public and private sector."
The letter never specifically mentions H.R. 3, but there is little doubt that's the target. The lawmakers' rhetoric echoes a favorite Big Pharma talking point: that government regulation of drug prices will disincentivize research and development.
In late 2019, however, when the bill was first introduced, Peters praised the measure. He did express concerns that it might make drug development "particularly challenging for small and emerging companies in California" and introduced an amendment to support innovation, but ultimately agreed to back the bill.
After that, the pharmaceutical industry began to flood Peters with campaign cash.
The Center for Responsive Politics found that during the 2020 election cycle Peters received nearly $230,000 from pharmaceutical and health companies, many of whose products would be directly targeted by the measure.
According to FEC filings reviewed by Salon, Peters received money from Abbvie, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Johnson & Johnson and Gilead Sciences — an array of big-name pharmaceutical companies, none of which could plausibly be described as "small" or "emerging."
During that same period, Peters' emerging coalition of Pharma-friendly moderate Democrats likewise took in significant donations from companies in the sector, according to a report by Brick House. Among the major recipients were Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California ($144,735), Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon ($144,252), Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida ($120,912), Rep. Lou Correa of California ($98,125) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey ($96,228) — all of whom had originally voted to approve the bill back in 2019.
Just last month, Peters announced his opposition to H.R. 3, specifically objecting to international reference pricing, a provision of the bill that had not changed from 2019 to 2021.
"I will not vote for that," Peters said in an interview with Roll Call. "If you institute it, you won't have cures because you'll dry up all the private investment that does that research."
Immediately after the letter to Pelosi from Peters and his allies, he once again received thousands of dollars in contributions from pharmaceutical interests, raking in $66,400 between May 4 and June 30 from executives associated with Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and the industry trade group PhRMA, according to a Stat analysis. [...] READ MORE
IN THE RACE AGAINST NINA TURNER, GOP DONORS FUND SHONTEL BROWN
With one week left in the Ohio primary, Republican donors have picked their Democrat — and the pro-Israel PAC supporting her.
Matthew Cunningham-Cook - the intercept
July 27 2021, 2:03 p.m.
AS THE DEMOCRATIC primary for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District draws to a close, establishment pick Shontel Brown, a current Cuyahoga County Council Member and county Democratic Party chair, is facing a potential ethics probe for her past work supporting millions of dollars in contracts awarded to companies run by her partner and campaign donors. According to a story published Tuesday by Newsweek and the Daily Poster, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office took interest in an earlier Intercept story and in June referred it to the state auditor’s office, where officials agreed the matter should go before the state ethics commission. Meanwhile, and unrelated to the potential probe, newly released campaign finance disclosures show that Brown and a major Democratic PAC supporting her campaign have been heavily funded by donors who usually support Republicans.
The revelations come with just one week left in the contest between Brown and Nina Turner, a progressive former state senator who stumped for Sen. Bernie Sanders during his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs and who, to many observers, remains representative of his campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, a high-profile backer of Brown, notoriously lambasted Sanders as “not a Democrat,” and said that she was proud that her greatest enemies were “Republicans.” But in this case, finance reports show GOP donors flocking to Clinton’s chosen candidate in the heated congressional race.
With Clinton and Sanders again pitted against each other, this time via state-level surrogates, the special election race for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District has been described as a reflection of “party tensions.” In addition to Clinton, Democratic establishment figures like Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., and well-funded super PACs have rallied behind Brown, while progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Justice Democrats have coalesced to support Turner.
Undergirding these tensions are donors with long histories of support for Republican candidates who are now funding Brown’s campaign, either directly or via the political action committee Democratic Majority for Israel, a major backer of her campaign. Most notable among them is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a close ally of Donald Trump who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and has supported a slew of Republican candidates. A staunch supporter of Israel, Kraft in 2019 also launched and donated $20 million to a foundation to combat anti-Semitism and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, earning him a gala reception in Jerusalem to receive the Israeli Genesis Prize. Kraft has individually donated the election maximum $5,800 to Brown’s campaign, and with his family contributed more than $20,000.
The former chair of the Cuyahoga County Republican Party, Roger Synenberg, donated $1,000 to Brown’s campaign. Synenberg attracted controversy in 2018 for mailing an anonymous letter to a former county auditor, calling him a “snitch” for his role in an unfolding corruption investigation in the county.
Democratic Majority for Israel, a hybrid PAC/super PAC that has spent $1.2 million on ads supporting Brown and opposing Turner in the election, also has a slew of donors who have made ample donations to Republican candidates and causes. Leonard Feinstein, who donated $25,000 to DMFI on June 14, has made large contributions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, and to committees supporting Republican Rick Berg’s 2012 campaign for Senate in North Dakota.
Steven Fishman, who donated $20,000 to DMFI on June 14, made over $10,000 in campaign contributions to Republicans running in 2020, including Lindsey Graham, Jim Risch, Mike Rounds, and Michael McCaul. He also donated $1,800 to Brown.
David Heller, a Cleveland-area real estate executive, donated $10,000 to DMFI on February 23 and also donated $2,800 to Brown. Heller, who has been an avid supporter of Republicans in Ohio and in Texas, donated over $13,000 to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in 2020, as well as $5,000 to Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who is leading the push to restrict voting rights in that state.
Neil Kadisha, who donated $2,000 to Brown on June 1 and $18,000 to DMFI on June 14, donated to Trump’s reelection campaign in 2019, as well as to then-Vice President Mike Pence’s PAC. In 2012, Kadisha made large donations to both the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Some Republican donors have not supported Brown directly but have poured funding into DMFI. David Horowitz, an executive at the New York school cafeteria food company Tasty Brands, donated $10,000 to DMFI on June 7. In 2020, he donated $25,000 to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, as well as making maxed-out contributions to losing Georgia Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
Philip De Toledo, the president of the Capital Group, donated $50,000 to DMFI on June 8, 2020. De Toledo donated over $25,000 in campaign contributions to Republicans running in the 2020 elections, including right-wing Reps. Patrick McHenry and Jim Risch.
Victor Kohn, another Capital Group executive who donated $100,000 to DMFI from his family trust on June 10, spent over $10,000 in the 2020 cycle supporting Republicans Mike Rounds, Bill Cassidy, Cynthia Lummis, Ben Sasse, and Kay Granger.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Democratic Majority for Israel accused The Intercept of wanting to “cherry pick contributors” and said that DMFI has only supported “outstanding” Democratic candidates. Shontel Brown’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
State Rep. Juanita Brent, a Turner backer who represents Cuyahoga County in the Ohio House, and was referred to The Intercept by the Turner campaign, panned the role of the GOP in the Democratic primary campaign. “As a Democrat who has helped Democrats all over the state, we cannot condone Democrats that are accepting money associated with Trump,” Brent told The Intercept. “How can we have someone who is the party chair and says that she’s a Democrat’s Democrat but is accepting Republican money?”
RELATED: Nina Turner Opponent Facing Potential Ethics Probe for $17 Million in Contracts
The revelations come with just one week left in the contest between Brown and Nina Turner, a progressive former state senator who stumped for Sen. Bernie Sanders during his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs and who, to many observers, remains representative of his campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, a high-profile backer of Brown, notoriously lambasted Sanders as “not a Democrat,” and said that she was proud that her greatest enemies were “Republicans.” But in this case, finance reports show GOP donors flocking to Clinton’s chosen candidate in the heated congressional race.
With Clinton and Sanders again pitted against each other, this time via state-level surrogates, the special election race for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District has been described as a reflection of “party tensions.” In addition to Clinton, Democratic establishment figures like Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., and well-funded super PACs have rallied behind Brown, while progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Justice Democrats have coalesced to support Turner.
Undergirding these tensions are donors with long histories of support for Republican candidates who are now funding Brown’s campaign, either directly or via the political action committee Democratic Majority for Israel, a major backer of her campaign. Most notable among them is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a close ally of Donald Trump who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and has supported a slew of Republican candidates. A staunch supporter of Israel, Kraft in 2019 also launched and donated $20 million to a foundation to combat anti-Semitism and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, earning him a gala reception in Jerusalem to receive the Israeli Genesis Prize. Kraft has individually donated the election maximum $5,800 to Brown’s campaign, and with his family contributed more than $20,000.
The former chair of the Cuyahoga County Republican Party, Roger Synenberg, donated $1,000 to Brown’s campaign. Synenberg attracted controversy in 2018 for mailing an anonymous letter to a former county auditor, calling him a “snitch” for his role in an unfolding corruption investigation in the county.
Democratic Majority for Israel, a hybrid PAC/super PAC that has spent $1.2 million on ads supporting Brown and opposing Turner in the election, also has a slew of donors who have made ample donations to Republican candidates and causes. Leonard Feinstein, who donated $25,000 to DMFI on June 14, has made large contributions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, and to committees supporting Republican Rick Berg’s 2012 campaign for Senate in North Dakota.
Steven Fishman, who donated $20,000 to DMFI on June 14, made over $10,000 in campaign contributions to Republicans running in 2020, including Lindsey Graham, Jim Risch, Mike Rounds, and Michael McCaul. He also donated $1,800 to Brown.
David Heller, a Cleveland-area real estate executive, donated $10,000 to DMFI on February 23 and also donated $2,800 to Brown. Heller, who has been an avid supporter of Republicans in Ohio and in Texas, donated over $13,000 to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in 2020, as well as $5,000 to Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who is leading the push to restrict voting rights in that state.
Neil Kadisha, who donated $2,000 to Brown on June 1 and $18,000 to DMFI on June 14, donated to Trump’s reelection campaign in 2019, as well as to then-Vice President Mike Pence’s PAC. In 2012, Kadisha made large donations to both the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Some Republican donors have not supported Brown directly but have poured funding into DMFI. David Horowitz, an executive at the New York school cafeteria food company Tasty Brands, donated $10,000 to DMFI on June 7. In 2020, he donated $25,000 to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, as well as making maxed-out contributions to losing Georgia Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
Philip De Toledo, the president of the Capital Group, donated $50,000 to DMFI on June 8, 2020. De Toledo donated over $25,000 in campaign contributions to Republicans running in the 2020 elections, including right-wing Reps. Patrick McHenry and Jim Risch.
Victor Kohn, another Capital Group executive who donated $100,000 to DMFI from his family trust on June 10, spent over $10,000 in the 2020 cycle supporting Republicans Mike Rounds, Bill Cassidy, Cynthia Lummis, Ben Sasse, and Kay Granger.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Democratic Majority for Israel accused The Intercept of wanting to “cherry pick contributors” and said that DMFI has only supported “outstanding” Democratic candidates. Shontel Brown’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
State Rep. Juanita Brent, a Turner backer who represents Cuyahoga County in the Ohio House, and was referred to The Intercept by the Turner campaign, panned the role of the GOP in the Democratic primary campaign. “As a Democrat who has helped Democrats all over the state, we cannot condone Democrats that are accepting money associated with Trump,” Brent told The Intercept. “How can we have someone who is the party chair and says that she’s a Democrat’s Democrat but is accepting Republican money?”
RELATED: Nina Turner Opponent Facing Potential Ethics Probe for $17 Million in Contracts
The Democrat blocking progressive change is beholden to big oil. Surprised?
Joe Manchin owns millions of dollars in coal stock, founded an energy firm and Exxon lobbyists brag about their access to him. Republicans fundraise on his behalf
ALEX KOTCH - the guardian
7/20/2021
As “thousand-year” heat waves caused by the climate crisis rock the west coast and biblical floods engulf major cities, Senate Democrats are negotiating a $3.5tn budget package that could include an attempt to slow the use of fossil fuels over the next decade.
One prominent senator is very concerned about proposals to scale back oil, gas and coal usage. He recently argued that those who want to “get rid of” fossil fuels are wrong. Eliminating fossil fuels won’t help fight global heating, he claimed, against all evidence. “If anything, it would be worse.”
Which rightwing Republican uttered these false, climate crisis-denying words?
Wrong question. The speaker was a Democrat: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
West Virginia is a major coal-producing state. But Manchin’s investment in dirty energy goes far beyond the economic interests of the voters who elect him every six years. In fact, coal has made Manchin and his family very wealthy. He founded the private coal brokerage Enersystems in 1988 and still owns a big stake in the company, which his son currently runs.
In 2020 alone, Manchin raked in nearly $500,000 of income from Enersystems, and he owns as much as $5m worth of stock in the company, according to his most recent financial disclosure.
Despite this conflict of interest, Manchin chairs the influential Senate energy and natural resources committee, which has jurisdiction over coal production and distribution, coal research and development, and coal conversion, as well as “global climate change”.
He even gave a pro-coal speech in May to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) while personally profiting from Enersystems’ coal sales to utility companies that are EEI members, as Sludge recently reported.
Manchin is one of many members of Congress who are personally invested in the fossil fuel industry – dozens of Congress members hold Exxon stock – but he is among the biggest profiters. As of late 2019, he had more money invested in dirty energy than any other senator.
How can this be? Wouldn’t basic ethics prevent someone from being in charge of legislation that could materially benefit them? Unfortunately, conflict-of-interest rules in the Senate are remarkably weak. And guess who is seeking to strip conflict-of-interest rules from a 2021 democracy reform bill?
Joe Manchin.
His proposal “leaves out language that S 1 would add to federal statute prohibiting lawmakers from working on bills primarily for furthering their financial interests”, Sludge reported.
Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, has used the evenly split chamber to block Joe Biden’s agenda. In the process he has become arguably the most powerful person in Washington. Hardly any Democratic legislation can pass without his vote.
That’s a problem – especially given that Manchin sometimes seems like he’s an honorary Republican. Earlier this month the Texas Tribune and other publications reported that Manchin was heading to Texas for a fundraiser hosted by several major Republican donors, including oil billionaires.
Manchin, along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has vowed to protect the filibuster – a rule, frequently used to empower white supremacists, that requires 60 votes for most Senate bills to pass. That includes vital voting rights legislation, passed by the House, that is the only way to stop the Republican party from eviscerating what’s left of our democracy in the name of the “big lie” of voter fraud.
Because of his uniquely powerful position as a swing vote, Manchin can rewrite major legislation to his liking – effectively dictating the legislative agendas of Congress and the White House.
It appears that Manchin will have his way with the White House’s infrastructure package as well, and his changes will probably be more devastating, given the climate emergency we live in.
Manchin isn’t just sticking up for the coal industry and his family’s generational wealth; he’s doing the bidding of oil and gas executives, who also stand to lose money if the nation transitions away from toxic fuels.
Manchin’s political campaigns are fueled by the dirty energy industry. Over the past decade, his election campaigns have received nearly $65,000 from disastrously dishonest oil giant Exxon’s lobbyists, its corporate political action committee, and the lobbying firms that Exxon works with. A top Exxon lobbyist recently bragged about his access to Manchin.
In the 2018 election cycle, his most recent, Manchin’s campaign got more money from oil and gas Pacs and employees than any other Senate Democrat except then North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp. Manchin was also the mining industry’s top Democratic recipient in Congress that cycle.
If Biden wants to have any kind of legacy, he needs to stand up to Manchin, a member of his own party, and work with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to get him in line. I don’t fully know why Biden permits the West Virginian to dictate his own presidential policy agenda. But what is crystal clear is that the leader of the United States should be doing a whole lot more.
One prominent senator is very concerned about proposals to scale back oil, gas and coal usage. He recently argued that those who want to “get rid of” fossil fuels are wrong. Eliminating fossil fuels won’t help fight global heating, he claimed, against all evidence. “If anything, it would be worse.”
Which rightwing Republican uttered these false, climate crisis-denying words?
Wrong question. The speaker was a Democrat: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
West Virginia is a major coal-producing state. But Manchin’s investment in dirty energy goes far beyond the economic interests of the voters who elect him every six years. In fact, coal has made Manchin and his family very wealthy. He founded the private coal brokerage Enersystems in 1988 and still owns a big stake in the company, which his son currently runs.
In 2020 alone, Manchin raked in nearly $500,000 of income from Enersystems, and he owns as much as $5m worth of stock in the company, according to his most recent financial disclosure.
Despite this conflict of interest, Manchin chairs the influential Senate energy and natural resources committee, which has jurisdiction over coal production and distribution, coal research and development, and coal conversion, as well as “global climate change”.
He even gave a pro-coal speech in May to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) while personally profiting from Enersystems’ coal sales to utility companies that are EEI members, as Sludge recently reported.
Manchin is one of many members of Congress who are personally invested in the fossil fuel industry – dozens of Congress members hold Exxon stock – but he is among the biggest profiters. As of late 2019, he had more money invested in dirty energy than any other senator.
How can this be? Wouldn’t basic ethics prevent someone from being in charge of legislation that could materially benefit them? Unfortunately, conflict-of-interest rules in the Senate are remarkably weak. And guess who is seeking to strip conflict-of-interest rules from a 2021 democracy reform bill?
Joe Manchin.
His proposal “leaves out language that S 1 would add to federal statute prohibiting lawmakers from working on bills primarily for furthering their financial interests”, Sludge reported.
Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, has used the evenly split chamber to block Joe Biden’s agenda. In the process he has become arguably the most powerful person in Washington. Hardly any Democratic legislation can pass without his vote.
That’s a problem – especially given that Manchin sometimes seems like he’s an honorary Republican. Earlier this month the Texas Tribune and other publications reported that Manchin was heading to Texas for a fundraiser hosted by several major Republican donors, including oil billionaires.
Manchin, along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has vowed to protect the filibuster – a rule, frequently used to empower white supremacists, that requires 60 votes for most Senate bills to pass. That includes vital voting rights legislation, passed by the House, that is the only way to stop the Republican party from eviscerating what’s left of our democracy in the name of the “big lie” of voter fraud.
Because of his uniquely powerful position as a swing vote, Manchin can rewrite major legislation to his liking – effectively dictating the legislative agendas of Congress and the White House.
It appears that Manchin will have his way with the White House’s infrastructure package as well, and his changes will probably be more devastating, given the climate emergency we live in.
Manchin isn’t just sticking up for the coal industry and his family’s generational wealth; he’s doing the bidding of oil and gas executives, who also stand to lose money if the nation transitions away from toxic fuels.
Manchin’s political campaigns are fueled by the dirty energy industry. Over the past decade, his election campaigns have received nearly $65,000 from disastrously dishonest oil giant Exxon’s lobbyists, its corporate political action committee, and the lobbying firms that Exxon works with. A top Exxon lobbyist recently bragged about his access to Manchin.
In the 2018 election cycle, his most recent, Manchin’s campaign got more money from oil and gas Pacs and employees than any other Senate Democrat except then North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp. Manchin was also the mining industry’s top Democratic recipient in Congress that cycle.
If Biden wants to have any kind of legacy, he needs to stand up to Manchin, a member of his own party, and work with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to get him in line. I don’t fully know why Biden permits the West Virginian to dictate his own presidential policy agenda. But what is crystal clear is that the leader of the United States should be doing a whole lot more.
the republican's chump!!!
Joe Manchin gets hoodwinked — again: Why does he keep falling for the Republican con?
C'mon, Joe Manchin! There is no such thing as a voting rights bill that Republicans will support
By AMANDA MARCOTTE - salon
PUBLISHED JUNE 18, 2021 12:55PM (EDT)
On paper, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has produced an elegant solution to the voting rights problem that addresses both Democratic concerns about protecting fair elections and Republican concerns about voter fraud. For months now, Democrats have been touting twin bills — the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act — offering a broad array of democracy reforms, from reducing the impact of money in politics to standardizing ballot access across the country. Republicans, however, have opposed these bills at every turn, pretending to be fearful of "voter fraud," which is so rare as to not be anything even approaching a real problem in the U.S. But Manchin has sworn up and down that bills must be "bipartisan" to get his support, refusing to reform the Senate filibuster, even though Republicans use it to block every big bill Democrats want to bring to a vote. So this week Manchin offered what he touted as a compromise bill, a long list of items for legislation he would support.
Manchin's proposal is not half-bad! It has concessions to Republican concerns, such as as having a national voter ID, but sets standards for how it can be done in a uniform and fair fashion. It would ban partisan gerrymandering, which would level the playing field for both parties. It does a great deal to protect and advance voting rights, while also addressing the main objections that Republicans have to the both of the other bills that Democrats have offered.
So Republicans responded by publicly thanking Manchin for listening to their concerns, treating them with respect, and giving them a bill that they are happy to vote for, right?
Ha ha ha, no!
Only someone born yesterday — or a 73-year-old Democratic senator from West Virginia — could be so naive as to think that would happen. Instead, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., got to work demonizing Manchin's proposal. First, McConnell seized on the fact that voting rights activist and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams publicly came out in favor of Manchin's proposal, saying, "the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise."
As Joan Walsh of The Nation wrote, "he had his caucus at 'Stacey Abrams,'" because invoking her name "branded a proposal by a Democrat from a very white (and red) state as 'Black.'" But just in case folks didn't get McConnell's (unsubtle) implication, he also tossed around terms certain to raise racist fears in conservative white people, like "cancel culture" and "name-and-shame." (GOP focus group testing apparently shows that white people are absolutely terrified that the world will find out about that time they used a racial slur in college.) Pandering to racist whites is the core strategy of the modern GOP and Senate Republicans no doubt heard McConnell loud and clear on this front.
McConnell also denied that the absolute flood of voter suppression and vote nullification laws being passed by Republican state legislatures "are designed to suppress the vote." Since that's all that such laws exist to do, McConnell is letting Manchin know that he is not bound by even the pretense of honesty or good faith when it comes to opposing any and all efforts at protecting free and fair elections in the U.S.
The reason is straightforward: The Republican Party has become radicalized against democracy. That's why they refused to convict Donald Trump when he was impeached for trying to cheat in an election and then refused to convict him when he was impeached for inciting an insurrection. It's why the party is passing state laws faster than they can write them to make it harder to vote and to make it easier to nullify election results. For many Republican leaders, it's because they are deeply racist and just loathe the idea of people of color having equal ballot access. But even those who aren't personally bigoted know Republicans cannot win majorities with free and fair elections, so they are instead trying to kneecap democracy itself.
As Zack Beauchamp wrote at Vox, "The GOP has become an authoritarian party pushing an authoritarian policy agenda," and their main goal is "rigging elections enough to maintain power indefinitely." Asking such people to back a federal voting rights bill, however watered down, is a joke. Why on earth would they do anything that would slow down or even prevent the number one GOP goal: permanent minority rule?
The strategy that Republicans are using to hoodwink Manchin is the same they have used for decades to hoodwink Democrats: Pretend to be interested in a "compromise," mire the Democrats in endless negotiations, and run out the clock until elections. Then Republicans will run on a platform of accusing Democrats of getting nothing done, while ignoring the fact that Republican bad faith is why Democrats got nothing done. They're currently running this same playbook on Manchin when it comes to the infrastructure bill, wasting his time with negotiations on a bill they will never, ever actually vote for. Manchin has been told, over and over and over and over and over, that this is how Republicans operate, and yet, like a chicken who can't help banging his head against the wall all day, he just keeps acting like the barrier is about to crumble.
Democratic leaders are hopeful that Manchin will wake up to reality after watching McConnell take this carefully crafted compromise, crumple it into tissue paper and blow his nose in it. That assumes, unfortunately, that Manchin is capable of learning from experience.
The tea leaf reading on this front is, well, mixed.
On one hand, as Igor Derysh reports, Manchin got interestingly timed donations from corporate funders who have an economic interest in this GOP plan to wind down democracy. So this may be a classic case of someone protecting his own self-interest, even if at the expense of not just his party but his nation. On the flip side, Manchin told another group of donors that he's open to filibuster reform. Even if he is not motivated by serving the voters or his party, Manchin is torn between two sets of donors, which is something.
Time will tell, but right now, things aren't looking good. Manchin appears to have an endless appetite for letting Republicans run out the clock with fake negotiations, either because he's an idiot or because he himself would rather not ever have to vote on actual bills. Unfortunately, the very fate of our democracy really does hang in the balance and Manchin is too busy pretending Republicans could be heroes to see them for the villains they actually are.
Manchin's proposal is not half-bad! It has concessions to Republican concerns, such as as having a national voter ID, but sets standards for how it can be done in a uniform and fair fashion. It would ban partisan gerrymandering, which would level the playing field for both parties. It does a great deal to protect and advance voting rights, while also addressing the main objections that Republicans have to the both of the other bills that Democrats have offered.
So Republicans responded by publicly thanking Manchin for listening to their concerns, treating them with respect, and giving them a bill that they are happy to vote for, right?
Ha ha ha, no!
Only someone born yesterday — or a 73-year-old Democratic senator from West Virginia — could be so naive as to think that would happen. Instead, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., got to work demonizing Manchin's proposal. First, McConnell seized on the fact that voting rights activist and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams publicly came out in favor of Manchin's proposal, saying, "the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise."
As Joan Walsh of The Nation wrote, "he had his caucus at 'Stacey Abrams,'" because invoking her name "branded a proposal by a Democrat from a very white (and red) state as 'Black.'" But just in case folks didn't get McConnell's (unsubtle) implication, he also tossed around terms certain to raise racist fears in conservative white people, like "cancel culture" and "name-and-shame." (GOP focus group testing apparently shows that white people are absolutely terrified that the world will find out about that time they used a racial slur in college.) Pandering to racist whites is the core strategy of the modern GOP and Senate Republicans no doubt heard McConnell loud and clear on this front.
McConnell also denied that the absolute flood of voter suppression and vote nullification laws being passed by Republican state legislatures "are designed to suppress the vote." Since that's all that such laws exist to do, McConnell is letting Manchin know that he is not bound by even the pretense of honesty or good faith when it comes to opposing any and all efforts at protecting free and fair elections in the U.S.
The reason is straightforward: The Republican Party has become radicalized against democracy. That's why they refused to convict Donald Trump when he was impeached for trying to cheat in an election and then refused to convict him when he was impeached for inciting an insurrection. It's why the party is passing state laws faster than they can write them to make it harder to vote and to make it easier to nullify election results. For many Republican leaders, it's because they are deeply racist and just loathe the idea of people of color having equal ballot access. But even those who aren't personally bigoted know Republicans cannot win majorities with free and fair elections, so they are instead trying to kneecap democracy itself.
As Zack Beauchamp wrote at Vox, "The GOP has become an authoritarian party pushing an authoritarian policy agenda," and their main goal is "rigging elections enough to maintain power indefinitely." Asking such people to back a federal voting rights bill, however watered down, is a joke. Why on earth would they do anything that would slow down or even prevent the number one GOP goal: permanent minority rule?
The strategy that Republicans are using to hoodwink Manchin is the same they have used for decades to hoodwink Democrats: Pretend to be interested in a "compromise," mire the Democrats in endless negotiations, and run out the clock until elections. Then Republicans will run on a platform of accusing Democrats of getting nothing done, while ignoring the fact that Republican bad faith is why Democrats got nothing done. They're currently running this same playbook on Manchin when it comes to the infrastructure bill, wasting his time with negotiations on a bill they will never, ever actually vote for. Manchin has been told, over and over and over and over and over, that this is how Republicans operate, and yet, like a chicken who can't help banging his head against the wall all day, he just keeps acting like the barrier is about to crumble.
Democratic leaders are hopeful that Manchin will wake up to reality after watching McConnell take this carefully crafted compromise, crumple it into tissue paper and blow his nose in it. That assumes, unfortunately, that Manchin is capable of learning from experience.
The tea leaf reading on this front is, well, mixed.
On one hand, as Igor Derysh reports, Manchin got interestingly timed donations from corporate funders who have an economic interest in this GOP plan to wind down democracy. So this may be a classic case of someone protecting his own self-interest, even if at the expense of not just his party but his nation. On the flip side, Manchin told another group of donors that he's open to filibuster reform. Even if he is not motivated by serving the voters or his party, Manchin is torn between two sets of donors, which is something.
Time will tell, but right now, things aren't looking good. Manchin appears to have an endless appetite for letting Republicans run out the clock with fake negotiations, either because he's an idiot or because he himself would rather not ever have to vote on actual bills. Unfortunately, the very fate of our democracy really does hang in the balance and Manchin is too busy pretending Republicans could be heroes to see them for the villains they actually are.
Here's why Manchin's insistence on bipartisan voting protections is ludicrous: study
Kerry Eleveld and DailyKos - alternet
June 14, 2021
When Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia shot down Democrats' signature voting rights legislation in an op-ed last week, he said that protecting voting rights "should never be done in a partisan manner."
But a new Brennan Center analysis of the voter suppression laws sweeping the nation shows what a preposterous and indeed hypocritical position that is. The center's examination of the 24 state-level voting restriction laws enacted as of early June proves the suppression efforts have been an almost exclusively Republican enterprise.
"Overall, we find that these new laws were enacted as part of an overwhelmingly partisan Republican push," reads the report. "Republicans introduced and drove virtually all of the bills that impose new voting restrictions, and the harshest new laws were passed with almost exclusively Republican votes and signed into law by Republican governors."
Still somehow Manchin insists that GOP lawmakers at the federal level are both interested in and fundamental to playing a corrective role to their counterparts in the states.
In Iowa, where one of this session's most restrictive bills passed on a party-line vote, Jennifer Konfrst, Democratic whip in the Iowa House of Representatives, is practically tearing out her hair over Manchin's intransigence.
"It is unfathomable to me that we would look at this issue and say we have to bring Republicans along, in this political climate, in order to make true change," Konfrst old The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein. "I don't see anywhere where Republicans are inviting Democrats along, or inviting Democrats to the table. Why are some Democrats saying 'I won't do this unless it's bipartisan?'"
Here's a snapshot of the Brennan Center findings courtesy of Brownstein:
But a new Brennan Center analysis of the voter suppression laws sweeping the nation shows what a preposterous and indeed hypocritical position that is. The center's examination of the 24 state-level voting restriction laws enacted as of early June proves the suppression efforts have been an almost exclusively Republican enterprise.
"Overall, we find that these new laws were enacted as part of an overwhelmingly partisan Republican push," reads the report. "Republicans introduced and drove virtually all of the bills that impose new voting restrictions, and the harshest new laws were passed with almost exclusively Republican votes and signed into law by Republican governors."
Still somehow Manchin insists that GOP lawmakers at the federal level are both interested in and fundamental to playing a corrective role to their counterparts in the states.
In Iowa, where one of this session's most restrictive bills passed on a party-line vote, Jennifer Konfrst, Democratic whip in the Iowa House of Representatives, is practically tearing out her hair over Manchin's intransigence.
"It is unfathomable to me that we would look at this issue and say we have to bring Republicans along, in this political climate, in order to make true change," Konfrst old The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein. "I don't see anywhere where Republicans are inviting Democrats along, or inviting Democrats to the table. Why are some Democrats saying 'I won't do this unless it's bipartisan?'"
Here's a snapshot of the Brennan Center findings courtesy of Brownstein:
- 14 states have passed 24 laws restricting voting access so far this year (with dozens still pending in another 18 states)
- 17 of those passed in nine states are deemed "highly restrictive" by the Brennan Center
- All nine of those states are under unified GOP control with the exception of Kansas, where Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the law only to be overridden by the Republican-dominated state legislature
- No Democrat co-sponsored any of the 17 bills
- Not one Democrat voted for 13 of those 17 laws. Another three of those laws drew support from a single lonely Democratic lawmaker in the legislatures of Arkansas, Montana, and Wyoming. (The only highly restrictive bill to receive meaningful Democratic support was a voter ID law enacted in Arkansas)
- Among all the state House/Assembly Republicans who voted on these 17 bills, just 12 of 1,143 voted against them; among state Senate Republicans, just seven of 458 voted no on them.
Kyrsten Sinema Is A Deeply Unserious Person
Sinema's latest on the filibuster proves her unseriousness, as if her other antics didn't.
By Joan McCarter - crooks &n liars
You just can’t make some things up. Things like the self-proclaimed Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who stood next to Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who had just filibustered the bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Congress to declare that the filibuster “protects the democracy of our nation.” No, really, she said that. With cameras rolling.
This is after Sinema herself inexplicably missed that vote, and that missed vote was after she tweeted out a joint statement with her fellow Democratic obstructionist, Joe Manchin, about how important the Jan. 6 vote was. “The events of January 6th were horrific. We could never have imagined an attack on Congress and or Capitol at the hands of our own citizens,” the two wrote. “We implore our Senate Republican colleagues to work with us to find a path forward on a commission to examine the events of January 6th.”
While she was defending the filibuster on camera while standing next to one of the single most partisan of Republicans, she refused to explain why she missed the vote, saying only, “I had a personal family matter.” Radio silence from her for four days on her absence, and that’s the best she could come up with.
But back to that “democracy of our nation” bit. Sinema went on to say: “To those who say that we must make a choice between the filibuster and 'X,' I say, this is a false choice.” Like a choice between the filibuster or legislation actually passing? She rejects that. “The reality is that when you have a system that is not working effectively—and I would think that most would agree that the Senate is not a particularly well-oiled machine, right? The way to fix that is to fix your behavior, not to eliminate the rules or change the rules, but to change the behavior," Sinema added, confirming that she’s fully committed to make an utter fool of herself.
Behavior? Behavior? Like posting very senatorial Instagram photos, wearing a “Fuck Off” ring while guzzling sangria? Behavior like that? That’s going to help bring the Republicans around?
Again, her commitment to making herself a clown is something else, something entirely not helpful when it comes to actually saving this nation. I mean, look at this. She’s standing next to Cornyn, on a “border” trip to align herself with Republicans on immigration, of all things, and she spews this nonsense.
---
The bill she is refusing to end the filibuster for is “fundamental to our democracy.” Like the filibuster protects our democracy? When the Republicans are vowing to filibuster the “fundamental” For the People Act?
It’s not like the Republicans have demonstrated an iota of good faith here. It’s also not like our democracy isn’t really at stake. It is “truly a five-alarm fire,” says former Senate leadership aide Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for Fix Our Senate. That group, along with more than 100 others, sent a letter to Senate Democrats to highlight just how dangerous the filibuster is.
“Democrats have to make the fundamental choice: Are they going to protect the filibuster or are they going to protect voting rights?” Zupnick says, echoing the letter. "That Republicans could not even support a bipartisan investigation into a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol reflects dangerously misplaced priorities: They have chosen party over country, obstruction over progress, and Trump over democracy," the groups said in the letter.
Perhaps Sinema will take some time away from her personal family concerns and her stunts trying to demonstrate that she’s “quirky” and “authentic” and “mavericky” and spend some time figuring out what’s going on around her. Like the fact that she’s even losing support from critical former Republican backers at home in Arizona.
This is after Sinema herself inexplicably missed that vote, and that missed vote was after she tweeted out a joint statement with her fellow Democratic obstructionist, Joe Manchin, about how important the Jan. 6 vote was. “The events of January 6th were horrific. We could never have imagined an attack on Congress and or Capitol at the hands of our own citizens,” the two wrote. “We implore our Senate Republican colleagues to work with us to find a path forward on a commission to examine the events of January 6th.”
While she was defending the filibuster on camera while standing next to one of the single most partisan of Republicans, she refused to explain why she missed the vote, saying only, “I had a personal family matter.” Radio silence from her for four days on her absence, and that’s the best she could come up with.
But back to that “democracy of our nation” bit. Sinema went on to say: “To those who say that we must make a choice between the filibuster and 'X,' I say, this is a false choice.” Like a choice between the filibuster or legislation actually passing? She rejects that. “The reality is that when you have a system that is not working effectively—and I would think that most would agree that the Senate is not a particularly well-oiled machine, right? The way to fix that is to fix your behavior, not to eliminate the rules or change the rules, but to change the behavior," Sinema added, confirming that she’s fully committed to make an utter fool of herself.
Behavior? Behavior? Like posting very senatorial Instagram photos, wearing a “Fuck Off” ring while guzzling sangria? Behavior like that? That’s going to help bring the Republicans around?
Again, her commitment to making herself a clown is something else, something entirely not helpful when it comes to actually saving this nation. I mean, look at this. She’s standing next to Cornyn, on a “border” trip to align herself with Republicans on immigration, of all things, and she spews this nonsense.
---
The bill she is refusing to end the filibuster for is “fundamental to our democracy.” Like the filibuster protects our democracy? When the Republicans are vowing to filibuster the “fundamental” For the People Act?
It’s not like the Republicans have demonstrated an iota of good faith here. It’s also not like our democracy isn’t really at stake. It is “truly a five-alarm fire,” says former Senate leadership aide Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for Fix Our Senate. That group, along with more than 100 others, sent a letter to Senate Democrats to highlight just how dangerous the filibuster is.
“Democrats have to make the fundamental choice: Are they going to protect the filibuster or are they going to protect voting rights?” Zupnick says, echoing the letter. "That Republicans could not even support a bipartisan investigation into a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol reflects dangerously misplaced priorities: They have chosen party over country, obstruction over progress, and Trump over democracy," the groups said in the letter.
Perhaps Sinema will take some time away from her personal family concerns and her stunts trying to demonstrate that she’s “quirky” and “authentic” and “mavericky” and spend some time figuring out what’s going on around her. Like the fact that she’s even losing support from critical former Republican backers at home in Arizona.
what real demos and leaders look like!!!
Texas Democrats stand up for democracy and send a loud message to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema
Centrist Democrats should turn to Texas Democrats to see what trying to save the country really looks like
By AMANDA MARCOTTE - salon
PUBLISHED JUNE 1, 2021 12:52PM (EDT)
This past Memorial Day weekend was bookmarked by two major events meant to continue Donald Trump's efforts to overthrow democracy. On Friday, Republicans in the Senate used their filibuster power to shut down debate on the formation of a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol insurrection Trump incited on January 6. A million excuses were offered by Republicans, but of course, the real reason is that they support Trump and his efforts to undermine U.S. democracy. Thus on Sunday, Republicans who control the Texas legislature moved to pass a law that, along with draconian efforts to keep huge swaths of Texans from voting, would also make it easier to simply throw out elections if Democrats win them.
Republicans gonna Republican. Both the base and party leaders are radicalized against democracy and show no signs of waking up or developing a conscience. But what was interesting in these two stories is the categorically different reactions that Republicans got from Democrats.
In the Senate, Democrats lamely rolled over for Republicans blocking the commission, even though they had a strong majority of 54-35 to support moving forward. The reason is simple: Centrist Democrats, mainly Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have decided that it's more important to preserve the filibuster than to let the party that won the election —the Democrats, in case anyone forgot — actually govern.
Sinema didn't even bother to show up for the commission vote, once again going out of her way to remind her constituents of how much contempt she has for them. Manchin, on the other hand, made a big public stink about how "disheartening" it was to see Republicans do what pretty much everyone told him they were going to do, and vowed, "I'm going to fight to save this country."
But while Manchin likes to talk a big game, he still refuses to do the one thing that would actually save the country: Get rid of the filibuster. He and Sinema, whose votes are necessary to change Senate rules, keep mindlessly insisting that the current situation is somehow good for bipartisanship and compromise. In reality, Republicans routinely use the filibuster to single-handedly block not just bills, but even holding Senate debates about bills. No "fight" is required in order to save the country. All that Manchin and Sinema need to do is agree to vote to end the filibuster, and voila! Legislation to save the country can start to flow through Congress. It's as easy as having lunch and taking a nap, but Manchin and Sinema won't do it.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Democrats showed what actually fighting to save democracy looks like.
When Republicans tried to pass their Jim Crow-style assault on voting rights, Democrats in the legislature walked out Sunday night, denying the GOP the quorum necessary to pass the bill. "We knew today, with the eyes of the nation watching action in Austin, that we needed to send a message," Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told reporters the next morning, demanding "a national response to federal voting rights."
To be certain, Texas Democrats can't stave off the assault on voting rights forever. Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of the state, is going to call a special session to pass this bill, which has been bolstered by Trump's infamous Big Lie. There are ways for Texas Democrats to escalate, including fleeing the state for a time, but eventually, they are legally obliged to show up for the vote and let Republicans go forward with their plans to gut basic voting rights and electoral integrity. Still, Texas Democrats are doing more than Senate Democrats to fight back against the GOP war on democracy – even though, unlike Senate Democrats, Texas Democrats don't have a majority.
Senate Democrats, especially those who are upholding the filibuster, should be wracked with shame witnessing the situation in Texas. These state legislators basically have no real power and yet they are doing everything they can to preserve the basic notion that Americans have a right to vote for their leaders. But because a couple of centrist Democrats are infatuated with the filibuster, the actual Democratic majority in the Senate is hamstrung to do even the bare minimum to save U.S. democracy from Trump and Republicans' scheming.
Trump is planning to restart his rallies next month, and, as Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reports, he "has been telling a number of people he's in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August." All of which is to say, Trump is clearly going to start turning up the already blazing hot temperature of the Big Lie and the accompanying demands that Republicans in power do more to make sure to end the practice of free and fair elections. Republicans across the country have already done a ton of work to dismantle the systems that ensured that the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, was able to assume office. With Trump escalating the pressure, it's terrifying to consider how much worse this will get.
Clearly, more is needed to fight back than Manchin putting out press releases whining about how he thought Republicans were better than this. The good news is that he and Sinema don't have to do anything as drastic as flee the Capitol building, like Texas Democrats did. All they need to do is stop being such willfully stubborn asses who are standing in the way of basic democracy reform out of a misguided enthusiasm for a "bipartisanship" that never materializes.
Republicans gonna Republican. Both the base and party leaders are radicalized against democracy and show no signs of waking up or developing a conscience. But what was interesting in these two stories is the categorically different reactions that Republicans got from Democrats.
In the Senate, Democrats lamely rolled over for Republicans blocking the commission, even though they had a strong majority of 54-35 to support moving forward. The reason is simple: Centrist Democrats, mainly Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have decided that it's more important to preserve the filibuster than to let the party that won the election —the Democrats, in case anyone forgot — actually govern.
Sinema didn't even bother to show up for the commission vote, once again going out of her way to remind her constituents of how much contempt she has for them. Manchin, on the other hand, made a big public stink about how "disheartening" it was to see Republicans do what pretty much everyone told him they were going to do, and vowed, "I'm going to fight to save this country."
But while Manchin likes to talk a big game, he still refuses to do the one thing that would actually save the country: Get rid of the filibuster. He and Sinema, whose votes are necessary to change Senate rules, keep mindlessly insisting that the current situation is somehow good for bipartisanship and compromise. In reality, Republicans routinely use the filibuster to single-handedly block not just bills, but even holding Senate debates about bills. No "fight" is required in order to save the country. All that Manchin and Sinema need to do is agree to vote to end the filibuster, and voila! Legislation to save the country can start to flow through Congress. It's as easy as having lunch and taking a nap, but Manchin and Sinema won't do it.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Democrats showed what actually fighting to save democracy looks like.
When Republicans tried to pass their Jim Crow-style assault on voting rights, Democrats in the legislature walked out Sunday night, denying the GOP the quorum necessary to pass the bill. "We knew today, with the eyes of the nation watching action in Austin, that we needed to send a message," Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told reporters the next morning, demanding "a national response to federal voting rights."
To be certain, Texas Democrats can't stave off the assault on voting rights forever. Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of the state, is going to call a special session to pass this bill, which has been bolstered by Trump's infamous Big Lie. There are ways for Texas Democrats to escalate, including fleeing the state for a time, but eventually, they are legally obliged to show up for the vote and let Republicans go forward with their plans to gut basic voting rights and electoral integrity. Still, Texas Democrats are doing more than Senate Democrats to fight back against the GOP war on democracy – even though, unlike Senate Democrats, Texas Democrats don't have a majority.
Senate Democrats, especially those who are upholding the filibuster, should be wracked with shame witnessing the situation in Texas. These state legislators basically have no real power and yet they are doing everything they can to preserve the basic notion that Americans have a right to vote for their leaders. But because a couple of centrist Democrats are infatuated with the filibuster, the actual Democratic majority in the Senate is hamstrung to do even the bare minimum to save U.S. democracy from Trump and Republicans' scheming.
Trump is planning to restart his rallies next month, and, as Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reports, he "has been telling a number of people he's in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August." All of which is to say, Trump is clearly going to start turning up the already blazing hot temperature of the Big Lie and the accompanying demands that Republicans in power do more to make sure to end the practice of free and fair elections. Republicans across the country have already done a ton of work to dismantle the systems that ensured that the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, was able to assume office. With Trump escalating the pressure, it's terrifying to consider how much worse this will get.
Clearly, more is needed to fight back than Manchin putting out press releases whining about how he thought Republicans were better than this. The good news is that he and Sinema don't have to do anything as drastic as flee the Capitol building, like Texas Democrats did. All they need to do is stop being such willfully stubborn asses who are standing in the way of basic democracy reform out of a misguided enthusiasm for a "bipartisanship" that never materializes.
Kyrsten Sinema slammed by Arizona columnist for getting 'played for a fool by Senate Republicans'
Tom Boggioni - RAW STORY
May 30, 2021
In a painfully blunt column for AZCentral, journalist Laurie Roberts called out Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) for not showing up to vote for the bipartisan Capitol riot commission and let the Democratic lawmaker know that she is getting "played' by the Senate's Republicans.
Noting that Sinema has expressed admiration for the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who built up a reputation as a "maverick" willing to buck the GOP's wishes, Roberts wrote that Sinema isn't as independent as she seems to thinks she is.
"It's now been two days since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema took a walk when it came time to take a stand on investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and two things are now clear: (1) Sinema was played for a fool by Senate Republicans. (20 Sinema is nothing like her 'hero', the late Sen. John McCain."
The columnist took Sinema to task for not only failing to show up to vote, despite the fact that she previously called the investigation "critical," while also saying her determination to not agree to rid the Senate of the current filibuster rules is wrong-headed.
"It's a noble sentiment and sadly, a naïve one, as Sinema should now realize. It takes two to tango and Republicans in the Senate on Friday sent a message, loud and clear, that they have no intention of putting on their shoes," the columnist lectured the lawmaker before noting she was nowhere to be seen when the vote on the commission was called.
"Sinema was a no-show. She didn't even bother to register a vote for the commission she supported," Roberts wrote. "Sinema owes Arizona an explanation but so far, all we've gotten is crickets. (Maybe she's wearing that "Fuck off" ring again?)"
The columnist added, "The Jan. 6 commission wasn't going to pass even if she had been there. But if that's now the standard, then I suppose Sinema can make like a potted plant and skip votes on every key issue from now on. On the minimum wage. On immigration reform. On gun reform and voting rights and infrastructure and every other issue facing America. That is, if she's not willing to force Republicans to the bargaining table by threatening to reconsider her stance on the filibuster."
Robert concluded with a parting shot, writing: "But if Republicans refuse to budge on investigating insurrection, then really, they have no interest in compromising on … Well, anything. Then again, as it now stands, with Sinema in their pocket, they don't have to."
You can read more here.
Noting that Sinema has expressed admiration for the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who built up a reputation as a "maverick" willing to buck the GOP's wishes, Roberts wrote that Sinema isn't as independent as she seems to thinks she is.
"It's now been two days since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema took a walk when it came time to take a stand on investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and two things are now clear: (1) Sinema was played for a fool by Senate Republicans. (20 Sinema is nothing like her 'hero', the late Sen. John McCain."
The columnist took Sinema to task for not only failing to show up to vote, despite the fact that she previously called the investigation "critical," while also saying her determination to not agree to rid the Senate of the current filibuster rules is wrong-headed.
"It's a noble sentiment and sadly, a naïve one, as Sinema should now realize. It takes two to tango and Republicans in the Senate on Friday sent a message, loud and clear, that they have no intention of putting on their shoes," the columnist lectured the lawmaker before noting she was nowhere to be seen when the vote on the commission was called.
"Sinema was a no-show. She didn't even bother to register a vote for the commission she supported," Roberts wrote. "Sinema owes Arizona an explanation but so far, all we've gotten is crickets. (Maybe she's wearing that "Fuck off" ring again?)"
The columnist added, "The Jan. 6 commission wasn't going to pass even if she had been there. But if that's now the standard, then I suppose Sinema can make like a potted plant and skip votes on every key issue from now on. On the minimum wage. On immigration reform. On gun reform and voting rights and infrastructure and every other issue facing America. That is, if she's not willing to force Republicans to the bargaining table by threatening to reconsider her stance on the filibuster."
Robert concluded with a parting shot, writing: "But if Republicans refuse to budge on investigating insurrection, then really, they have no interest in compromising on … Well, anything. Then again, as it now stands, with Sinema in their pocket, they don't have to."
You can read more here.
another demo sellout exposed!!!
two demo senators from arizona and is worth a damn!!!
PRO ACT HOLDOUT MARK KELLY SERVED ON GIG AND RESTAURANT COMPANY BOARDS
Kelly is in the minority of Senate Democrats who have sponsored neither the sweeping labor reform legislation nor a crackdown on forced arbitration.
Ryan Grim - the intercept
May 19 2021
BEFORE BEING ELECTED to the Senate, Mark Kelly, one of just three Democrats yet to co-sponsor the PRO Act, the party’s sweeping labor reform legislation, enjoyed a nearly five-year paid seat on the board of the restaurant franchise company Landry’s, which owns eateries like Morton’s The Steakhouse and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
Kelly served on the Landry’s board from February 2013 to August 2017 and disclosed compensation of more than $5,000. There are no public records indicating exactly how much he was paid, but Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that in 2009, the last year Landry’s filed SEC disclosures, board members had been paid $120,000 annually in stock and cash, which would put Kelly’s total compensation north of $500,000 for the part-time work. (Records from Kelly’s tenure are not available because the company was taken private in 2010, before he joined the board.)
In 2015, in the midst of Kelly’s board service, Landry’s rolled out a forced arbitration agreement to its workforce, requiring them to sign away the ability to unite as a class in a lawsuit and agree to have any disputes handled by arbitration. This sort of agreement would be illegal under the PRO Act, which seeks to prohibit contracts that waive employee class-action rights.
Landry’s is run by Kelly’s longtime, close friend: celebrity billionaire Tilman Fertitta. Author of the 2019 book “Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths That Will Help You Succeed,” Fertitta is a regular presence on CNBC and star of the network’s reality TV show “Billion Dollar Buyer.” He has also been a particularly outspoken opponent to the $15 dollar minimum wage and to the wealth tax proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Kelly did double duty with Fertitta, also serving from May 2016 to November 2018 on the board of a firm the latter founded called Landcadia Holdings LLC, according to Kelly’s financial disclosure. Landcadia is organized as what’s known as a SPAC, or a “special purpose acquisition company.” Otherwise called “blank check” companies, the firms look to take over businesses they can flip, liquidate, or run more efficiently at a higher profit.
In November 2018, the same month Kelly exited, Landcadia Holdings announced it had completed an acquisition of a food delivery gig company called Waitr Incorporated. The companies combined and went public on the NASDAQ exchange under the banner Waitr Holdings. After opening around $10 per share, its stock value plummeted to just 28 cents a year after the acquisition, and the company was hit with a class-action suit from wiped-out investors who say Fertitta misled them. In February 2019, delivery drivers sued Waitr as well, alleging that they had earned sub-minimum wages; the company offered to settle in August 2020 by dividing up to 1.5 million shares, instead of cash payments, among the drivers.
Before its acquisition by Landcadia, Waitr treated many of its drivers as hourly employees. But since forming the combined company, it has laid off employee drivers or converted them to independent contractors, an approach that illustrates the fight over classification at the heart of the PRO Act. Gig companies have been the most aggressively hostile to the legislation, spending more than $1 million lobbying just in the first three months of this year.
“Senator Kelly continues to evaluate the legislation and speak with Arizonans about it, and as always, he will make a decision based on what is best for Arizona,” said Jacob Peters, a spokesperson for Kelly.
Another leading industry opponent is the National Restaurant Association, of which Landry’s is a member. When the PRO Act was introduced in February, the association met it with a blistering statement, warning of “chaos” under “radical changes to settled workplace policies.” The group also leads the effort against raising the minimum wage to $15.
Kelly voted with 41 other Democrats and independents in March to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, a measure that failed. He is not among the 38 co-sponsors of the Raise the Wage Act, which would gradually increase the wage to $15 by the year 2025 and index it to median wages thereafter.
Amid the minimum wage fight, the right-wing outlet the Washington Free Beacon reported on Kelly’s ties to Landry’s, noting the company had fought such an increase. Peters told the outlet at the time that Kelly “had no role in business decisions, including the one you reference.” (Board directors generally have significant responsibility for oversight of a company.)
Landry’s also owns Mastro’s Steakhouse, McCormick & Schmick’s, Rainforest Cafe, and Oceanaire, among its 500-plus locations. The company made news in 2017 for a passive aggressive political statement appended to its receipts in Washington, D.C., restaurants after the city hiked the minimum wage. “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill,” the note read.
The following year, a server at a Washington, D.C., restaurant sued for wage theft, and Landry’s attempted to have it thrown out due to the arbitration agreement. But the company couldn’t find the paperwork the server had allegedly signed, so the courts let the suit go forward. The case surfaced internal documents in which restaurant managers were told to explain to staff that the arbitration agreements were in everybody’s best interests because class-action suits are “about enriching lawyers” and that arbitration is an efficient way to resolve workplace disputes.
The arbitration agreement covered disputes over “wages, overtime, premiums, gratuities, tips, service/administrative charges, or any other compensation due,” according to court documents.
Beyond Landry’s and Landcadia, Kelly had a busy board life before his election to the Senate. He served on the safety advisory board of Elon Musk’s SpaceX from 2012 to 2019, where he was paid as a consultant.
(His disclosure only reveals it was an amount greater than $5,000.) His 2020 filing listed a total income of $1.5 million to his consulting firm.
His 2020 disclosure also listed holdings of $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock in Waitr, though he no longer owns assets connected to that firm or to Landry’s.
Kelly also reported earning $50,000 in board compensation from the investment firm Vistria Group, with holdings in home health care companies, pharmaceuticals, financial service companies, and for-profit educational firms. Home health care companies in particular have been on the leading edge of the fight against raising the minimum wage and are often locked in confrontation with unions attempting to organize workers.
Fertitta, for his part, is an active and major political campaign donor, spending over $600,000 in the 2019-2020 cycle, which included $35,000 to the “Trump Victory” fund and more than $100,000 to committees supporting Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s effort to hold on to the majority. But he also gave the individual maximum contribution to Kelly, along with $10,000 to the Arizona Democratic Party.
In addition to the PRO Act and the Raise the Wage Act, the Senate is also considering the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, or FAIR Act, which would ban forced arbitration. It was introduced in March with 40 co-sponsors. Kelly is not among them.
Kelly served on the Landry’s board from February 2013 to August 2017 and disclosed compensation of more than $5,000. There are no public records indicating exactly how much he was paid, but Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that in 2009, the last year Landry’s filed SEC disclosures, board members had been paid $120,000 annually in stock and cash, which would put Kelly’s total compensation north of $500,000 for the part-time work. (Records from Kelly’s tenure are not available because the company was taken private in 2010, before he joined the board.)
In 2015, in the midst of Kelly’s board service, Landry’s rolled out a forced arbitration agreement to its workforce, requiring them to sign away the ability to unite as a class in a lawsuit and agree to have any disputes handled by arbitration. This sort of agreement would be illegal under the PRO Act, which seeks to prohibit contracts that waive employee class-action rights.
Landry’s is run by Kelly’s longtime, close friend: celebrity billionaire Tilman Fertitta. Author of the 2019 book “Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths That Will Help You Succeed,” Fertitta is a regular presence on CNBC and star of the network’s reality TV show “Billion Dollar Buyer.” He has also been a particularly outspoken opponent to the $15 dollar minimum wage and to the wealth tax proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Kelly did double duty with Fertitta, also serving from May 2016 to November 2018 on the board of a firm the latter founded called Landcadia Holdings LLC, according to Kelly’s financial disclosure. Landcadia is organized as what’s known as a SPAC, or a “special purpose acquisition company.” Otherwise called “blank check” companies, the firms look to take over businesses they can flip, liquidate, or run more efficiently at a higher profit.
In November 2018, the same month Kelly exited, Landcadia Holdings announced it had completed an acquisition of a food delivery gig company called Waitr Incorporated. The companies combined and went public on the NASDAQ exchange under the banner Waitr Holdings. After opening around $10 per share, its stock value plummeted to just 28 cents a year after the acquisition, and the company was hit with a class-action suit from wiped-out investors who say Fertitta misled them. In February 2019, delivery drivers sued Waitr as well, alleging that they had earned sub-minimum wages; the company offered to settle in August 2020 by dividing up to 1.5 million shares, instead of cash payments, among the drivers.
Before its acquisition by Landcadia, Waitr treated many of its drivers as hourly employees. But since forming the combined company, it has laid off employee drivers or converted them to independent contractors, an approach that illustrates the fight over classification at the heart of the PRO Act. Gig companies have been the most aggressively hostile to the legislation, spending more than $1 million lobbying just in the first three months of this year.
“Senator Kelly continues to evaluate the legislation and speak with Arizonans about it, and as always, he will make a decision based on what is best for Arizona,” said Jacob Peters, a spokesperson for Kelly.
Another leading industry opponent is the National Restaurant Association, of which Landry’s is a member. When the PRO Act was introduced in February, the association met it with a blistering statement, warning of “chaos” under “radical changes to settled workplace policies.” The group also leads the effort against raising the minimum wage to $15.
Kelly voted with 41 other Democrats and independents in March to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, a measure that failed. He is not among the 38 co-sponsors of the Raise the Wage Act, which would gradually increase the wage to $15 by the year 2025 and index it to median wages thereafter.
Amid the minimum wage fight, the right-wing outlet the Washington Free Beacon reported on Kelly’s ties to Landry’s, noting the company had fought such an increase. Peters told the outlet at the time that Kelly “had no role in business decisions, including the one you reference.” (Board directors generally have significant responsibility for oversight of a company.)
Landry’s also owns Mastro’s Steakhouse, McCormick & Schmick’s, Rainforest Cafe, and Oceanaire, among its 500-plus locations. The company made news in 2017 for a passive aggressive political statement appended to its receipts in Washington, D.C., restaurants after the city hiked the minimum wage. “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill,” the note read.
The following year, a server at a Washington, D.C., restaurant sued for wage theft, and Landry’s attempted to have it thrown out due to the arbitration agreement. But the company couldn’t find the paperwork the server had allegedly signed, so the courts let the suit go forward. The case surfaced internal documents in which restaurant managers were told to explain to staff that the arbitration agreements were in everybody’s best interests because class-action suits are “about enriching lawyers” and that arbitration is an efficient way to resolve workplace disputes.
The arbitration agreement covered disputes over “wages, overtime, premiums, gratuities, tips, service/administrative charges, or any other compensation due,” according to court documents.
Beyond Landry’s and Landcadia, Kelly had a busy board life before his election to the Senate. He served on the safety advisory board of Elon Musk’s SpaceX from 2012 to 2019, where he was paid as a consultant.
(His disclosure only reveals it was an amount greater than $5,000.) His 2020 filing listed a total income of $1.5 million to his consulting firm.
His 2020 disclosure also listed holdings of $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock in Waitr, though he no longer owns assets connected to that firm or to Landry’s.
Kelly also reported earning $50,000 in board compensation from the investment firm Vistria Group, with holdings in home health care companies, pharmaceuticals, financial service companies, and for-profit educational firms. Home health care companies in particular have been on the leading edge of the fight against raising the minimum wage and are often locked in confrontation with unions attempting to organize workers.
Fertitta, for his part, is an active and major political campaign donor, spending over $600,000 in the 2019-2020 cycle, which included $35,000 to the “Trump Victory” fund and more than $100,000 to committees supporting Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s effort to hold on to the majority. But he also gave the individual maximum contribution to Kelly, along with $10,000 to the Arizona Democratic Party.
In addition to the PRO Act and the Raise the Wage Act, the Senate is also considering the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, or FAIR Act, which would ban forced arbitration. It was introduced in March with 40 co-sponsors. Kelly is not among them.
the sellouts endorse corporate profits over people!!!
Democrats Funded by Big Pharma Refuse to Back COVID Vaccine Patent Waiver
BY Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED May 4, 2021
The leading Democratic recipients of pharmaceutical industry cash in Congress are refusing to endorse calls for a temporary suspension of patents for coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics, an indication of Big Pharma’s influence as it lobbies aggressively in Washington and elsewhere to maintain monopoly control over production.
HuffPost’s Daniel Marans reported late Monday that 110 House Democrats have signed on to a letter — led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) — calling on President Joe Biden to support India and South Africa’s proposed vaccine patent waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is set to consider the idea again this week. The letter is set to be unveiled on Tuesday.
Citing the latest campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Marans noted that “none of the nine House Democrats among Congress’ top 25 recipients of donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs in the 2020 election cycle have signed the letter.”
“Democratic Reps. Scott Peters (Calif.) and Ron Kind (Wis.) — Nos. 7 and 19, respectively, on the top 25 list — have actually solicited support for another letter to Biden asking him to not waive the intellectual property rules,” Marans pointed out.
In addition to Peters and Kind, the other top House Democratic recipients of pharmaceutical industry cash during the 2020 campaign cycle were Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Anna Eshoo (Calif.), Robin Kelly (Ill.), Brad Schneider (Ill.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), and Raul Ruiz (Calif.).
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the top recipient of pharma PAC money among Senate Democrats, has refused to join Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and nine other colleagues in urging Biden to endorse the patent waiver, which would lift a key legal barrier preventing generic manufacturers from mass-producing vaccines for the developing world.
During a virtual event last week, Coons invoked the January 6 insurrection to justify his opposition to temporarily suspending restrictive intellectual property (IP) protections and echoed pharmaceutical industry warnings that the proposed waiver would harm the United States’ global competitiveness.
Other Democratic opponents of the patent waiver have similarly framed the issue in ways that closely resemble pharmaceutical industry messaging, as Marans reported Monday.
“A spokesperson for Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois (No. 17) provided a statement that mirrored what the pharmaceutical industry itself has been saying in opposition to the temporary waiver: That it would not alleviate the current shortage of vaccines,” Marans noted.
“It is not clear that the currently proposed broad TRIPS waiver is the fastest method to accomplish this, given manufacturing intricacies and access to raw materials,” spokesperson Rachel Kingery said. “Congresswoman Kelly believes U.S. companies should step up domestic production, assist other nations in the development of effective Covid-19 vaccinations, and increase funding to COVAX to protect global health.”
While acknowledging that a patent waiver would not be sufficient in itself, experts have disputed pharmaceutical industry talking points that try to divert attention way from IP protections by blaming other factors for production shortages and massively unequal global distribution, such as lack of technical know-how and inadequate manufacturing capacity in developing countries.
“Many people are saying, ‘Won’t they need the secret recipe?’ That’s not necessarily the case,” Tahir Amin, a founder of the nonprofit Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, told the New York Times on Monday. “There are companies that feel they can go it alone, provided they don’t have to look over their shoulder and feel like they are going to take someone’s intellectual property.”
And as The Intercept reported last week, “Factory owners around the globe, from Bangladesh to Canada, have said they stand ready to retrofit facilities and move forward with vaccine production if given the chance.”
“Abdul Muktadir, chair and managing director of Incepta, a pharmaceutical firm based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has told reporters that his firm has the capacity to fill vials for 600 million to 800 million doses of vaccine per year. He has reportedly reached out to Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax,” The Intercept noted. “Other firms in South Korea and Pakistan have also reportedly expressed an interest in producing vaccines or vaccine components.”
On Wednesday and Thursday, WTO member nations will meet to discuss the patent waiver as the Biden administration privately debates whether to throw U.S. support behind the idea, which rich nations have blocked for months.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top medical adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic, told the Times in an interview Monday that he “always respect[s] the needs of the companies to protect their interests to keep them in business, but we can’t do it completely at the expense of not allowing vaccine that’s lifesaving to get to the people that need it.”
“You can’t have people throughout the world dying because they don’t have access to a product that rich people have access to,” Fauci added.
Led by the Free the Vaccine coalition, activists plan to march on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to demand that Biden and other world leaders to end their opposition to the patent waiver and provide all of the resources necessary to ensure vaccine access in developing countries.
“Millions in the Global South will not get Covid-19 vaccines until 2024,” the coalition says on its website. “The Biden administration has an opportunity to make vaccines available by supporting the TRIPS Waiver at the World Trade Organization, as proposed by India and South Africa. Furthermore, the U.S. can and should invest money in scaling up global vaccine manufacturing.”
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch told HuffPost Monday that “the greed of pharma means that they are effectively blocking the manufacture of the necessary supply.”
“Biden is getting quite good marks — even from a lot of Republicans — about how he’s taken on Covid,” Wallach said. “All of that positivity and the health gains could be lost if they’re not paying attention and a vaccine-resistant variant ends up brewing someplace else, inevitably spreading worldwide and we all end up on lockdown again.”
HuffPost’s Daniel Marans reported late Monday that 110 House Democrats have signed on to a letter — led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) — calling on President Joe Biden to support India and South Africa’s proposed vaccine patent waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is set to consider the idea again this week. The letter is set to be unveiled on Tuesday.
Citing the latest campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Marans noted that “none of the nine House Democrats among Congress’ top 25 recipients of donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs in the 2020 election cycle have signed the letter.”
“Democratic Reps. Scott Peters (Calif.) and Ron Kind (Wis.) — Nos. 7 and 19, respectively, on the top 25 list — have actually solicited support for another letter to Biden asking him to not waive the intellectual property rules,” Marans pointed out.
In addition to Peters and Kind, the other top House Democratic recipients of pharmaceutical industry cash during the 2020 campaign cycle were Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Anna Eshoo (Calif.), Robin Kelly (Ill.), Brad Schneider (Ill.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), and Raul Ruiz (Calif.).
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the top recipient of pharma PAC money among Senate Democrats, has refused to join Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and nine other colleagues in urging Biden to endorse the patent waiver, which would lift a key legal barrier preventing generic manufacturers from mass-producing vaccines for the developing world.
During a virtual event last week, Coons invoked the January 6 insurrection to justify his opposition to temporarily suspending restrictive intellectual property (IP) protections and echoed pharmaceutical industry warnings that the proposed waiver would harm the United States’ global competitiveness.
Other Democratic opponents of the patent waiver have similarly framed the issue in ways that closely resemble pharmaceutical industry messaging, as Marans reported Monday.
“A spokesperson for Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois (No. 17) provided a statement that mirrored what the pharmaceutical industry itself has been saying in opposition to the temporary waiver: That it would not alleviate the current shortage of vaccines,” Marans noted.
“It is not clear that the currently proposed broad TRIPS waiver is the fastest method to accomplish this, given manufacturing intricacies and access to raw materials,” spokesperson Rachel Kingery said. “Congresswoman Kelly believes U.S. companies should step up domestic production, assist other nations in the development of effective Covid-19 vaccinations, and increase funding to COVAX to protect global health.”
While acknowledging that a patent waiver would not be sufficient in itself, experts have disputed pharmaceutical industry talking points that try to divert attention way from IP protections by blaming other factors for production shortages and massively unequal global distribution, such as lack of technical know-how and inadequate manufacturing capacity in developing countries.
“Many people are saying, ‘Won’t they need the secret recipe?’ That’s not necessarily the case,” Tahir Amin, a founder of the nonprofit Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, told the New York Times on Monday. “There are companies that feel they can go it alone, provided they don’t have to look over their shoulder and feel like they are going to take someone’s intellectual property.”
And as The Intercept reported last week, “Factory owners around the globe, from Bangladesh to Canada, have said they stand ready to retrofit facilities and move forward with vaccine production if given the chance.”
“Abdul Muktadir, chair and managing director of Incepta, a pharmaceutical firm based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has told reporters that his firm has the capacity to fill vials for 600 million to 800 million doses of vaccine per year. He has reportedly reached out to Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax,” The Intercept noted. “Other firms in South Korea and Pakistan have also reportedly expressed an interest in producing vaccines or vaccine components.”
On Wednesday and Thursday, WTO member nations will meet to discuss the patent waiver as the Biden administration privately debates whether to throw U.S. support behind the idea, which rich nations have blocked for months.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top medical adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic, told the Times in an interview Monday that he “always respect[s] the needs of the companies to protect their interests to keep them in business, but we can’t do it completely at the expense of not allowing vaccine that’s lifesaving to get to the people that need it.”
“You can’t have people throughout the world dying because they don’t have access to a product that rich people have access to,” Fauci added.
Led by the Free the Vaccine coalition, activists plan to march on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to demand that Biden and other world leaders to end their opposition to the patent waiver and provide all of the resources necessary to ensure vaccine access in developing countries.
“Millions in the Global South will not get Covid-19 vaccines until 2024,” the coalition says on its website. “The Biden administration has an opportunity to make vaccines available by supporting the TRIPS Waiver at the World Trade Organization, as proposed by India and South Africa. Furthermore, the U.S. can and should invest money in scaling up global vaccine manufacturing.”
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch told HuffPost Monday that “the greed of pharma means that they are effectively blocking the manufacture of the necessary supply.”
“Biden is getting quite good marks — even from a lot of Republicans — about how he’s taken on Covid,” Wallach said. “All of that positivity and the health gains could be lost if they’re not paying attention and a vaccine-resistant variant ends up brewing someplace else, inevitably spreading worldwide and we all end up on lockdown again.”
another sellout exposed!!!
Democrat Opposed to the PRO Act Was Showered With Cash From Amazon Executives
BY Sam Knight, Truthout
PUBLISHED April 18, 2021
Tactics used by Amazon to defeat the union organizing drive at the company’s Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse have highlighted the need for Democrats to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act). The legislation is a sweeping proposal that would implement the strongest protections for workers since 1935, when collective bargaining itself was first given legal protection in the United States.
If signed into law, the PRO Act would impose tougher restrictions on management during union election campaigns. The legislation would stop companies from forcing workers to hear anti-union propaganda at so-called captive audience meetings. It would ban managers from influencing the size of the bargaining unit sought by union organizers, and would prohibit stall tactics designed to allow managers to wage fearmongering campaigns to scare workers out of voting for union representation. Amazon employed all of these tactics in the run-up to the union certification vote at Bessemer, and was also accused by organizers with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) of engaging in tactics that are already illegal under current law. The PRO Act would drastically increase the consequences for companies found guilty of committing unfair labor practices during organizing drives.
But while the struggle in Bessemer showcased how the PRO Act would drastically benefit workers in the U.S., the struggle to pass the legislation itself highlights the power of Amazon, which has grown in recent years to become the second-largest employer and the second-largest spender on lobbying in the U.S. The PRO Act is supported by President Biden. It has passed the House. But currently, it only has the support of 46 out of 50 Democrats in the equally-divided Senate. Of the four Democrats resisting calls to cosponsor the PRO Act, two faced election campaigns last year: Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia). They both received significant campaign donations from individuals employed by Amazon. Kelly received $139,270, and Warner received $44,896.
While Kelly received more money from individuals employed by the firm, the money given to Warner is particularly illuminating. It came almost exclusively from the top echelons of Amazon: prominent executives such as Jay Carney and David Clark, two men who earned notoriety on social media in recent weeks for attacking pro-RWDSU lawmakers. Clark, in particular, was the subject of ridicule for claiming that Amazon was “the Bernie Sanders of employers” because it pays workers a minimum of $15/hour. In reality, Amazon’s market power pushes down wages in warehouses throughout the logistics industry, and only four other companies have more employees on food stamps, according to a Bloomberg analysis published in December.
The deluge of money from Amazon executives like Clark came after Warner supported Virginia officials flooding Amazon with subsidies in exchange for the company placing its second headquarters (HQ2) in northern Virginia. Amazon decided on moving part of its HQ2 to Crystal City, Virginia, after a lengthy process that involved local jurisdictions publicly competing with one another to offer the company publicly funded giveaways (Carney was described by CNBC as the “architect” of the plan). The contest started in September 2017, and ended more than a year later in November 2018, with Amazon choosing locations in Crystal City, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and Long Island City, New York, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.
The company withdrew its plans to move part of its HQ2 to Queens, however, after a backlash from local officials. Progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were outraged at the likelihood of longtime residents being displaced by well-paid techies coming from outside of the community to take jobs — in plans fueled by billions in subsidies to boost the net revenue of an incredibly profitable company run by Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest man. But while both U.S. senators from New York met the outcome of the HQ2 competition with silence, the same couldn’t be said for their counterparts from Virginia, who were elated. Warner was particularly vocal, releasing a statement immediately after the announcement saying that he was “really excited” about the Crystal City plans. Later that morning, he appeared at a Yahoo Finance summit where he fist-pumped when the publication’s editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer, brought up the HQ2 news.
“This process is probably the most unique kind of economic development, where the whole county is chasing it,” Warner said, hinting that the HQ2 announcement would likely be followed by news from Virginia Tech University, a publicly run institution, about the establishment of a new campus in northern Virginia, which would be built specifically to complement the Amazon facility. Warner then conceded, when asked by Serwer, that he wasn’t aware how much these Amazon developments would cost the public. “I’ve not actually gone through all the particulars of the announcement,” he said. “I’m sure Amazon extracted a good deal for themselves.”
The cost would soon become clear. Three months later, in February 2019, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law a bill that gave $750 million in subsidies to Amazon. The subsidy total wasn’t as much as those offered by other jurisdictions vying for HQ2, but Virginia’s deal was made sweeter to Amazon by the state’s union-busting “right-to-work” laws. (The PRO Act would invalidate these misleadingly titled laws, which enable workers to starve unions of dues while still benefiting from contracts negotiated through collective bargaining.) Then in June 2019, Virginia Tech unveiled its plans to build a $1 billion campus, with up to $250 million coming from the subsidy package approved by the state legislature and Northam. Heralding the news, at the Virginia Tech press conference, was Senator Warner, fresh off of a three-week stretch in which he was showered with campaign cash from Amazon executives.
The first donation to roll into Warner’s coffers came on May 17, 2019. Amazon’s Vice President of Public Policy Shannon Kellogg gave Warner $1,000. Four days later, Amazon Senior Vice President Doug Herrington, who is in charge of “North America Consumer,” maxed out on donations to Warner, giving him $5,600, with half earmarked for Warner’s primary, and the other half slated to go to his general election campaign fund. Warner was not facing a primary opponent at the time of the gift. He never would. His primary contest was canceled altogether due to the lack of a challenger.
Three days after Herrington’s money came, Warner’s campaign was blessed with $2,800 from another vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, who was described by CNBC as a top lieutenant to Jay Carney, in an article which said that Amazon public policy views influence peddling as “watering the flowers” with the goal of cultivating “a well-tended ‘garden’ of pro-Amazon policymakers, from state governors and senators down to local officials and economic development teams.” The same day that Huseman gave to Warner, David Levy, the vice president of Amazon Web Services, gave Warner $1,500. Six days later, on May 30, 2019, Carney himself donated $2,900 to Warner’s campaign war chest.
The same day that Carney donated to Warner’s reelection campaign, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky gave the senator $2,800. The following day, Jeff Wilke, then-Amazon CEO of worldwide consumer business, matched the $5,600 maximum donation given by Herrington. Olsavsky and Wilke were, alongside Carney, part of Amazon’s S-Team, which was described by CNBC as “the 18 most senior executives who work closely with [CEO Jeff Bezos].” Then on June 8, two days before Warner spoke at the Virginia Tech HQ2 campus press conference, David Clark, who now holds Wilke’s old position, gave Warner the $5,600 maximum. The three-week “flower watering” left Warner — who had no primary challenger and wasn’t facing a competitive general election component — with $27,800 from the top tiers of Amazon’s corporate structure.
When asked by Truthout if Warner’s hesitancy to sign onto the PRO Act was influenced by his support for HQ2, and Amazon’s aversion to unions, a staffer for the senator sent a two-word reply: “Absolutely not.”
Still, Warner’s stated opposition to the bill doesn’t deviate much from the kind of talking points one might hear from managers and lawyers specializing in the sort of “union avoidance” that Amazon has become famous for. In a virtual press conference on April 12, Warner cited his opposition to elements of the bill that would stop the misclassification of gig workers as independent contractors — something that would give workers like Uber drivers status as employees, and all the rights under labor law that come with it, such as the right to organize a union. He also said he was opposed to “some of the process issues around [the] election voting process for unions” in the PRO Act — provisions written to benefit workers trying to organize unions, like those recently thwarted by Amazon in Bessemer.
If signed into law, the PRO Act would impose tougher restrictions on management during union election campaigns. The legislation would stop companies from forcing workers to hear anti-union propaganda at so-called captive audience meetings. It would ban managers from influencing the size of the bargaining unit sought by union organizers, and would prohibit stall tactics designed to allow managers to wage fearmongering campaigns to scare workers out of voting for union representation. Amazon employed all of these tactics in the run-up to the union certification vote at Bessemer, and was also accused by organizers with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) of engaging in tactics that are already illegal under current law. The PRO Act would drastically increase the consequences for companies found guilty of committing unfair labor practices during organizing drives.
But while the struggle in Bessemer showcased how the PRO Act would drastically benefit workers in the U.S., the struggle to pass the legislation itself highlights the power of Amazon, which has grown in recent years to become the second-largest employer and the second-largest spender on lobbying in the U.S. The PRO Act is supported by President Biden. It has passed the House. But currently, it only has the support of 46 out of 50 Democrats in the equally-divided Senate. Of the four Democrats resisting calls to cosponsor the PRO Act, two faced election campaigns last year: Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia). They both received significant campaign donations from individuals employed by Amazon. Kelly received $139,270, and Warner received $44,896.
While Kelly received more money from individuals employed by the firm, the money given to Warner is particularly illuminating. It came almost exclusively from the top echelons of Amazon: prominent executives such as Jay Carney and David Clark, two men who earned notoriety on social media in recent weeks for attacking pro-RWDSU lawmakers. Clark, in particular, was the subject of ridicule for claiming that Amazon was “the Bernie Sanders of employers” because it pays workers a minimum of $15/hour. In reality, Amazon’s market power pushes down wages in warehouses throughout the logistics industry, and only four other companies have more employees on food stamps, according to a Bloomberg analysis published in December.
The deluge of money from Amazon executives like Clark came after Warner supported Virginia officials flooding Amazon with subsidies in exchange for the company placing its second headquarters (HQ2) in northern Virginia. Amazon decided on moving part of its HQ2 to Crystal City, Virginia, after a lengthy process that involved local jurisdictions publicly competing with one another to offer the company publicly funded giveaways (Carney was described by CNBC as the “architect” of the plan). The contest started in September 2017, and ended more than a year later in November 2018, with Amazon choosing locations in Crystal City, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and Long Island City, New York, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.
The company withdrew its plans to move part of its HQ2 to Queens, however, after a backlash from local officials. Progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were outraged at the likelihood of longtime residents being displaced by well-paid techies coming from outside of the community to take jobs — in plans fueled by billions in subsidies to boost the net revenue of an incredibly profitable company run by Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest man. But while both U.S. senators from New York met the outcome of the HQ2 competition with silence, the same couldn’t be said for their counterparts from Virginia, who were elated. Warner was particularly vocal, releasing a statement immediately after the announcement saying that he was “really excited” about the Crystal City plans. Later that morning, he appeared at a Yahoo Finance summit where he fist-pumped when the publication’s editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer, brought up the HQ2 news.
“This process is probably the most unique kind of economic development, where the whole county is chasing it,” Warner said, hinting that the HQ2 announcement would likely be followed by news from Virginia Tech University, a publicly run institution, about the establishment of a new campus in northern Virginia, which would be built specifically to complement the Amazon facility. Warner then conceded, when asked by Serwer, that he wasn’t aware how much these Amazon developments would cost the public. “I’ve not actually gone through all the particulars of the announcement,” he said. “I’m sure Amazon extracted a good deal for themselves.”
The cost would soon become clear. Three months later, in February 2019, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law a bill that gave $750 million in subsidies to Amazon. The subsidy total wasn’t as much as those offered by other jurisdictions vying for HQ2, but Virginia’s deal was made sweeter to Amazon by the state’s union-busting “right-to-work” laws. (The PRO Act would invalidate these misleadingly titled laws, which enable workers to starve unions of dues while still benefiting from contracts negotiated through collective bargaining.) Then in June 2019, Virginia Tech unveiled its plans to build a $1 billion campus, with up to $250 million coming from the subsidy package approved by the state legislature and Northam. Heralding the news, at the Virginia Tech press conference, was Senator Warner, fresh off of a three-week stretch in which he was showered with campaign cash from Amazon executives.
The first donation to roll into Warner’s coffers came on May 17, 2019. Amazon’s Vice President of Public Policy Shannon Kellogg gave Warner $1,000. Four days later, Amazon Senior Vice President Doug Herrington, who is in charge of “North America Consumer,” maxed out on donations to Warner, giving him $5,600, with half earmarked for Warner’s primary, and the other half slated to go to his general election campaign fund. Warner was not facing a primary opponent at the time of the gift. He never would. His primary contest was canceled altogether due to the lack of a challenger.
Three days after Herrington’s money came, Warner’s campaign was blessed with $2,800 from another vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, who was described by CNBC as a top lieutenant to Jay Carney, in an article which said that Amazon public policy views influence peddling as “watering the flowers” with the goal of cultivating “a well-tended ‘garden’ of pro-Amazon policymakers, from state governors and senators down to local officials and economic development teams.” The same day that Huseman gave to Warner, David Levy, the vice president of Amazon Web Services, gave Warner $1,500. Six days later, on May 30, 2019, Carney himself donated $2,900 to Warner’s campaign war chest.
The same day that Carney donated to Warner’s reelection campaign, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky gave the senator $2,800. The following day, Jeff Wilke, then-Amazon CEO of worldwide consumer business, matched the $5,600 maximum donation given by Herrington. Olsavsky and Wilke were, alongside Carney, part of Amazon’s S-Team, which was described by CNBC as “the 18 most senior executives who work closely with [CEO Jeff Bezos].” Then on June 8, two days before Warner spoke at the Virginia Tech HQ2 campus press conference, David Clark, who now holds Wilke’s old position, gave Warner the $5,600 maximum. The three-week “flower watering” left Warner — who had no primary challenger and wasn’t facing a competitive general election component — with $27,800 from the top tiers of Amazon’s corporate structure.
When asked by Truthout if Warner’s hesitancy to sign onto the PRO Act was influenced by his support for HQ2, and Amazon’s aversion to unions, a staffer for the senator sent a two-word reply: “Absolutely not.”
Still, Warner’s stated opposition to the bill doesn’t deviate much from the kind of talking points one might hear from managers and lawyers specializing in the sort of “union avoidance” that Amazon has become famous for. In a virtual press conference on April 12, Warner cited his opposition to elements of the bill that would stop the misclassification of gig workers as independent contractors — something that would give workers like Uber drivers status as employees, and all the rights under labor law that come with it, such as the right to organize a union. He also said he was opposed to “some of the process issues around [the] election voting process for unions” in the PRO Act — provisions written to benefit workers trying to organize unions, like those recently thwarted by Amazon in Bessemer.
exposing the sellout!!
Manchin’s Objection to Infrastructure Bill May Be Motivated by Corporate Donors
BY William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED April 12, 2021
President Biden’s schedule for Monday included a White House meeting with four House members and four senators on the administration’s proposed $2 trillion infrastructure bill. On the GOP side, Representatives Don Young and Garret Graves joined Senators Roger Wicker and Deb Fisher, while Democratic Representatives Donald Payne and David Price joined Senators Maria Cantwell and Alex Padilla.
The choice of these congresspeople has everything to do with the committees they serve on. GOP Representatives Young and Graves both sit on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee as well as the National Resources Committee. Wicker and Fisher sit on the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, with Wicker also holding a seat on Environment and Public Works. Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr. joins Young and Graves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Senator Padilla sits on the Public Works Committee and Budget Committees, and Senator Price is a member of the Appropriations Committee.
Transportation and Infrastructure, Environment and Public Works, Natural Resources, Budget, and of course Appropriations, where the money is. If you’re going to push a massive infrastructure bill toward passage, these are the committees to speak with, to be sure. Additionally, every Republican invited to the meeting has supported infrastructure bills in the past.
It was notable, however, that Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia rock in the road, was not on the invitation list. Negotiating with the proper committees is absolutely required, but Manchin has deliberately made himself the Indispensable Man on infrastructure, and virtually every other piece of legislation the Biden administration seeks to pass. If Manchin and his small cohort of allies are not satisfied, nothing will move unless Biden can scrape some Republicans to his side during reconciliation. Easier to find hen’s teeth in the cloakroom.
Trying to grasp Joe Manchin’s motives is like trying to see the bottom of a mud puddle. On the surface, the Democratic senator from a bright red state is all about bipartisanship; he insists that all legislation must come with a rousing verse of “Kumbaya,” even in the face of years of implacable Republican resistance. This devotion to bipartisanship is Manchin’s main stated reason for defending the parliamentary wrecking ball known as the filibuster.
“Generations of senators who came before us put their heads down and their pride aside to solve the complex issues facing our country,” Manchin declared in a recent Washington Post op-ed. “We must do the same. The issues facing our democracy today are not insurmountable if we choose to tackle them together.”
Sure thing, Joe, and if my cat had wheels, she’d be a wagon. Here on planet Earth, such lofty balderdash has been ground to a fine meal by rock-ribbed obstructionists like Mitch McConnell, whose entire game plan since 2008 has been to filibuster every Democratic piece of legislation that dares to brave the daylight.
On the infrastructure bill, Manchin’s main complaint is the tax Biden seeks to levy on the ultra-wealthy in order to pay for it. Biden wants a 28 percent tax, but Manchin has declared that number to be no good, and wants it to be set at 25 percent. It may not seem like much, but that 3 percent funding gap represents billions of dollars that will have to be found elsewhere.
Money, it seems, has more to do with this situation than tax policy.
“Manchin’s move could also particularly benefit private equity firms that have converted from partnership structures to C Corporations to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s tax law, which dropped the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent,” report David Sirota and Andrew Perez for The Daily Poster. “Such conversions allow private equity firms to attract capital from a wider array of institutional investors who may not have been permitted to invest in partnerships. But private equity firms had not converted until a lower corporate tax rate made the switch even more profitable. The conversions are effectively permanent.”
According to OpenSecrets.org, Manchin has received almost $212,000 in campaign donations from private equity and investment industry members like Ares Management. The Carlyle Group and the Blackstone Group, two industry titans, have donated millions to a variety of Democratic Senate PACs that supported Manchin’s reelection bid in 2018.
Lawyers and law firms is another industry that has donated significantly to Manchin between 2015 and 2020, to the tune of nearly $800,000, according to OpenSecrets.org. According to further reporting by The Daily Poster, the legal industry did very well by Trump’s massive tax cut, and has developed deep ties with a number of Democrats in order to keep the tax rules as they are.
“In 2017, as Congress debated tax legislation, top lobbyists for the legal industry threw more money behind Republicans, and the industry as a whole spent more than $16 million on lobbying that year, the most since 2011,” continues The Daily Poster. “Biden’s new tax proposal would undo the Republican tax breaks — at least partially.”
There’s a lot of smoke here. It takes a special kind of dunderheaded credulity to believe massive compromise is possible with Congress in its current condition. Manchin is saying all the right things about it, but he is talking about a world that, for the time being, simply does not exist.
The longer Manchin harps on this, and the more obstructionist he becomes, the thinner his arguments will wear. There is already great momentum to shatter the filibuster, or to go around it with a Rule 304 maneuver. There is equally great momentum behind this infrastructure bill, as evidenced by today’s White House meeting. If Manchin continues to thwart these efforts while relying on the same flimsy reasoning, people need to look behind the curtain and see who is really pulling the strings.
The choice of these congresspeople has everything to do with the committees they serve on. GOP Representatives Young and Graves both sit on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee as well as the National Resources Committee. Wicker and Fisher sit on the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, with Wicker also holding a seat on Environment and Public Works. Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr. joins Young and Graves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Senator Padilla sits on the Public Works Committee and Budget Committees, and Senator Price is a member of the Appropriations Committee.
Transportation and Infrastructure, Environment and Public Works, Natural Resources, Budget, and of course Appropriations, where the money is. If you’re going to push a massive infrastructure bill toward passage, these are the committees to speak with, to be sure. Additionally, every Republican invited to the meeting has supported infrastructure bills in the past.
It was notable, however, that Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia rock in the road, was not on the invitation list. Negotiating with the proper committees is absolutely required, but Manchin has deliberately made himself the Indispensable Man on infrastructure, and virtually every other piece of legislation the Biden administration seeks to pass. If Manchin and his small cohort of allies are not satisfied, nothing will move unless Biden can scrape some Republicans to his side during reconciliation. Easier to find hen’s teeth in the cloakroom.
Trying to grasp Joe Manchin’s motives is like trying to see the bottom of a mud puddle. On the surface, the Democratic senator from a bright red state is all about bipartisanship; he insists that all legislation must come with a rousing verse of “Kumbaya,” even in the face of years of implacable Republican resistance. This devotion to bipartisanship is Manchin’s main stated reason for defending the parliamentary wrecking ball known as the filibuster.
“Generations of senators who came before us put their heads down and their pride aside to solve the complex issues facing our country,” Manchin declared in a recent Washington Post op-ed. “We must do the same. The issues facing our democracy today are not insurmountable if we choose to tackle them together.”
Sure thing, Joe, and if my cat had wheels, she’d be a wagon. Here on planet Earth, such lofty balderdash has been ground to a fine meal by rock-ribbed obstructionists like Mitch McConnell, whose entire game plan since 2008 has been to filibuster every Democratic piece of legislation that dares to brave the daylight.
On the infrastructure bill, Manchin’s main complaint is the tax Biden seeks to levy on the ultra-wealthy in order to pay for it. Biden wants a 28 percent tax, but Manchin has declared that number to be no good, and wants it to be set at 25 percent. It may not seem like much, but that 3 percent funding gap represents billions of dollars that will have to be found elsewhere.
Money, it seems, has more to do with this situation than tax policy.
“Manchin’s move could also particularly benefit private equity firms that have converted from partnership structures to C Corporations to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s tax law, which dropped the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent,” report David Sirota and Andrew Perez for The Daily Poster. “Such conversions allow private equity firms to attract capital from a wider array of institutional investors who may not have been permitted to invest in partnerships. But private equity firms had not converted until a lower corporate tax rate made the switch even more profitable. The conversions are effectively permanent.”
According to OpenSecrets.org, Manchin has received almost $212,000 in campaign donations from private equity and investment industry members like Ares Management. The Carlyle Group and the Blackstone Group, two industry titans, have donated millions to a variety of Democratic Senate PACs that supported Manchin’s reelection bid in 2018.
Lawyers and law firms is another industry that has donated significantly to Manchin between 2015 and 2020, to the tune of nearly $800,000, according to OpenSecrets.org. According to further reporting by The Daily Poster, the legal industry did very well by Trump’s massive tax cut, and has developed deep ties with a number of Democrats in order to keep the tax rules as they are.
“In 2017, as Congress debated tax legislation, top lobbyists for the legal industry threw more money behind Republicans, and the industry as a whole spent more than $16 million on lobbying that year, the most since 2011,” continues The Daily Poster. “Biden’s new tax proposal would undo the Republican tax breaks — at least partially.”
There’s a lot of smoke here. It takes a special kind of dunderheaded credulity to believe massive compromise is possible with Congress in its current condition. Manchin is saying all the right things about it, but he is talking about a world that, for the time being, simply does not exist.
The longer Manchin harps on this, and the more obstructionist he becomes, the thinner his arguments will wear. There is already great momentum to shatter the filibuster, or to go around it with a Rule 304 maneuver. There is equally great momentum behind this infrastructure bill, as evidenced by today’s White House meeting. If Manchin continues to thwart these efforts while relying on the same flimsy reasoning, people need to look behind the curtain and see who is really pulling the strings.
sellouts, the worthless democrats!!!
Here are the 8 Democrats who just joined GOP to vote down Sanders' $15 minimum wage amendment
Jake Johnson, Common Dreams - raw story
March 05, 2021
Sen. Bernie Sanders' last-ditch effort to re-attach a $15 minimum wage provision to the Senate coronavirus relief package failed Friday morning after 8 members of the Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republicans in voting down the Vermont senator's amendment.
"Are you on the side of the working people in America who desperately need a raise? Or are you on the side of the wealthy and the powerful who want to continue exploiting their workers and paying starvation wages? It ain't more complicated than that."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders
Those who voted against Sanders' amendment were Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.).
"Every single Dem who voted against a $15 minimum wage should be primaried," declared Krystal Ball, host of HillTV's "Rising."
In a floor speech ahead of the vote, Sanders (I-Vt.) said that "in my view, it all comes down to this: Which side are you on?"
"Are you on the side of the working people in America who desperately need a raise? Or are you on the side of the wealthy and the powerful who want to continue exploiting their workers and paying starvation wages?" the Vermont senator asked. "It ain't more complicated than that."
Sanders' attempt to add the federal minimum wage increase to the coronavirus relief package via the amendment process came after the Senate parliamentarian—an unelected official with zero constitutional authority—issued an advisory opinion that deemed the proposed pay hike a violation of budget reconciliation rules.
After the White House made clear that Vice President Kamala Harris would not be willing to exercise her authority to override the parliamentarian's advice, Senate Democrats removed the $15 minimum wage provision from their version of the coronavirus relief bill.
"Because of an unfortunate and misguided decision by the parliamentarian, this reconciliation bill does not include an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour," Sanders said on the Senate floor Friday. "In my view, an unelected staffer in the Senate should not be in charge of determining whether 32 million workers in America receive a raise."
"Are you on the side of the working people in America who desperately need a raise? Or are you on the side of the wealthy and the powerful who want to continue exploiting their workers and paying starvation wages? It ain't more complicated than that."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders
Those who voted against Sanders' amendment were Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.).
"Every single Dem who voted against a $15 minimum wage should be primaried," declared Krystal Ball, host of HillTV's "Rising."
In a floor speech ahead of the vote, Sanders (I-Vt.) said that "in my view, it all comes down to this: Which side are you on?"
"Are you on the side of the working people in America who desperately need a raise? Or are you on the side of the wealthy and the powerful who want to continue exploiting their workers and paying starvation wages?" the Vermont senator asked. "It ain't more complicated than that."
Sanders' attempt to add the federal minimum wage increase to the coronavirus relief package via the amendment process came after the Senate parliamentarian—an unelected official with zero constitutional authority—issued an advisory opinion that deemed the proposed pay hike a violation of budget reconciliation rules.
After the White House made clear that Vice President Kamala Harris would not be willing to exercise her authority to override the parliamentarian's advice, Senate Democrats removed the $15 minimum wage provision from their version of the coronavirus relief bill.
"Because of an unfortunate and misguided decision by the parliamentarian, this reconciliation bill does not include an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour," Sanders said on the Senate floor Friday. "In my view, an unelected staffer in the Senate should not be in charge of determining whether 32 million workers in America receive a raise."
SELLOUT "DINO" SPEAKS OUT!!!
Manchin Yells He Will “Never… Jesus Christ!” Vote to Kill Filibuster
BY Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED March 2, 2021
With the fate of major voting rights, minimum wage, immigration, and climate legislation likely hanging on the Senate Democratic majority’s willingness to eliminate the legislative filibuster, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Monday yelled at reporters that he will “never” agree to scrapping the 60-vote threshold standing in the way of his own party’s agenda.
“Jesus Christ! What don’t you understand about never?” said Manchin (D-W.Va.), an outburst that came as top progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both stressed the necessity of eliminating the filibuster in the wake of the Senate parliamentarian’s advisory ruling against the inclusion of a minimum wage increase in the emerging coronavirus relief package.
The parliamentarian’s widely disputed opinion that the proposed $15 minimum wage provision would violate the Senate Byrd Rule — and Vice President Kamala Harris’ refusal to override the unelected official’s advice — lays bare the severe limitations inherent in using the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to leapfrog obstructionist Republicans.
Asked whether there’s any “practical vehicle” left for Senate Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage, Warren said in an appearance on MSNBC late Monday that “of course it can happen, if we just get rid of the filibuster.”
“[Republican Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell, right now, has a veto over our being able to do anything, unless we can twist ourselves into pretzels and make it fit through reconciliation,” Warren said. “Understand, it’s not just minimum wage. It’s voter protection. It’s environmental crisis issues. It’s immigration. It’s universal childcare. It’s college. It’s gun safety. It’s the things we need to pass to make this country work.”
“And I want to be clear: It’s the things the majority of Americans strongly support,” the Massachusetts Democrat continued. “Americans didn’t send us to Washington to be some kind of debating society. They sent us here to get things done, and that’s what we should do. And that means no veto for Mitch McConnell.”
Sanders echoed his progressive colleague in a statement Monday night, declaring that “obviously, as soon as we can, we must end the filibuster that currently exists in the U.S. Senate.”
“Given the enormous crises facing working families today,” the Vermont senator said, “we cannot allow a minority of the Senate to obstruct what the vast majority of the American people want and need.”
Scrapping the filibuster would require 50 votes in the Senate plus a tie-breaking vote from Harris, a level of support that cannot be achieved without the assent of Manchin — who supported reforming the filibuster a decade ago — and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), another outspoken defender of the current 60-vote threshold required to end debate on legislation.
This past weekend, Arizonans flooded Sinema’s voicemail box with demands that she get on board with eliminating the legislative filibuster:
While Manchin and Sinema have both claimed the legislative filibuster is necessary to promote bipartisanship, The Week’s Ryan Cooper wrote in a column Tuesday that “back when 51 Senate votes were enough to pass a law, there was a lot more compromise and collaboration, because members of Congress often figured that if something was going through anyway, they might as well see what they could get with their vote.”
Manchin’s own effort to pass a bipartisan gun control amendment with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in 2013 received 54 votes but collapsed due to the filibuster — an experience that appears to have had no impact on the West Virginia Democrat’s view of the 60-vote rule.
Cooper argued that “whether or not Democrats can overcome the Senate filibuster and their own timidity to pass H.R. 1” — sweeping democracy reform legislation backed by the White House and two-thirds of U.S. voters — “is now the most important single factor in whether they can hang on to their congressional majorities, and hence stop Republicans from cheating them permanently out of national power.”
“More than 250 vote suppression bills have… been introduced at the state level. I would not be at all surprised to see some state Republican Party attempt to pass a law straight-up banning Democrats from voting at some point,” Cooper wrote. “Moderate Democrats in the Senate have a choice to make: They can either defend democracy and the Constitution by passing H.R. 1 or they can save the McConnell filibuster. They can’t do both.”
“Jesus Christ! What don’t you understand about never?” said Manchin (D-W.Va.), an outburst that came as top progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both stressed the necessity of eliminating the filibuster in the wake of the Senate parliamentarian’s advisory ruling against the inclusion of a minimum wage increase in the emerging coronavirus relief package.
The parliamentarian’s widely disputed opinion that the proposed $15 minimum wage provision would violate the Senate Byrd Rule — and Vice President Kamala Harris’ refusal to override the unelected official’s advice — lays bare the severe limitations inherent in using the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to leapfrog obstructionist Republicans.
Asked whether there’s any “practical vehicle” left for Senate Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage, Warren said in an appearance on MSNBC late Monday that “of course it can happen, if we just get rid of the filibuster.”
“[Republican Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell, right now, has a veto over our being able to do anything, unless we can twist ourselves into pretzels and make it fit through reconciliation,” Warren said. “Understand, it’s not just minimum wage. It’s voter protection. It’s environmental crisis issues. It’s immigration. It’s universal childcare. It’s college. It’s gun safety. It’s the things we need to pass to make this country work.”
“And I want to be clear: It’s the things the majority of Americans strongly support,” the Massachusetts Democrat continued. “Americans didn’t send us to Washington to be some kind of debating society. They sent us here to get things done, and that’s what we should do. And that means no veto for Mitch McConnell.”
Sanders echoed his progressive colleague in a statement Monday night, declaring that “obviously, as soon as we can, we must end the filibuster that currently exists in the U.S. Senate.”
“Given the enormous crises facing working families today,” the Vermont senator said, “we cannot allow a minority of the Senate to obstruct what the vast majority of the American people want and need.”
Scrapping the filibuster would require 50 votes in the Senate plus a tie-breaking vote from Harris, a level of support that cannot be achieved without the assent of Manchin — who supported reforming the filibuster a decade ago — and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), another outspoken defender of the current 60-vote threshold required to end debate on legislation.
This past weekend, Arizonans flooded Sinema’s voicemail box with demands that she get on board with eliminating the legislative filibuster:
While Manchin and Sinema have both claimed the legislative filibuster is necessary to promote bipartisanship, The Week’s Ryan Cooper wrote in a column Tuesday that “back when 51 Senate votes were enough to pass a law, there was a lot more compromise and collaboration, because members of Congress often figured that if something was going through anyway, they might as well see what they could get with their vote.”
Manchin’s own effort to pass a bipartisan gun control amendment with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in 2013 received 54 votes but collapsed due to the filibuster — an experience that appears to have had no impact on the West Virginia Democrat’s view of the 60-vote rule.
Cooper argued that “whether or not Democrats can overcome the Senate filibuster and their own timidity to pass H.R. 1” — sweeping democracy reform legislation backed by the White House and two-thirds of U.S. voters — “is now the most important single factor in whether they can hang on to their congressional majorities, and hence stop Republicans from cheating them permanently out of national power.”
“More than 250 vote suppression bills have… been introduced at the state level. I would not be at all surprised to see some state Republican Party attempt to pass a law straight-up banning Democrats from voting at some point,” Cooper wrote. “Moderate Democrats in the Senate have a choice to make: They can either defend democracy and the Constitution by passing H.R. 1 or they can save the McConnell filibuster. They can’t do both.”
PORTRAIT OF A SELLOUT!!!
Who Made Joe Manchin ‘The Decider’?
When Every Senate Vote Counts, the West Virginia Democrat May as Well Be a Republican
By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor
2/25/2021
We spent hundreds of millions, talked endlessly, suffered generally insulting campaigns to elect a president, withstood months afterward of one side denying results and endured an attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Where in all this was the decision to elect the winner to be Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)?
Forget competing personalities, ideologies, even skills. What we effectively have wrought is that the decisions about whether we extend unemployment or try to save restaurants or pay to widen federal research into coronavirus mutations don’t sit in the White House or in the leading majority leaders of Congress. It is with Manchin. He is the self-described centrist, so moderate a Democrat that he is always a threat to vote for Republican policies. He hails from a state that he sees as unready to embrace climate change or big investment in recovery. And, as we found out this week, a Biden Cabinet-level nominee.
Manchin says he is opposing Neera Tanden for the Office of Management and Budget because she tweeted too harshly about political opponents.
Maybe now he opposes the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as secretary of Interior, who thinks drilling for oil on public lands is a bad idea. Manchin headed the committee holding this hearing.
As an aside, when compared with colleagues in the Congress who have tweeted and worked hard to ignore years of public insult tweets of Donald Trump, the argument against Tandem seems pretty limp.
Still, among Tanden’s tweet targets was Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, former CEO of Mylan, a company that made EpiPens and raised its price substantially over 10 years. Bresch defended the higher prices as less than that of others and said she also raised financial assistance for patients.
The Key Vote?
It’s not so much that we may find ourselves agreeing or disagreeing with Manchin. But rather, we have given the car keys to a single individual who may be voting only to support the local interests of a 93% white state. It is a state still waiting for coal mining to come back, that votes Republican, that has the nation’s worst record on opiate usage and whose small business owners mostly reject raising the minimum wage.
With the U.S. Senate split down the middle, Manchin’s vote has become The Vote for a Democratic agenda, followed closely by the support of sorta Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and one or two others. Indeed, one hears Manchin’s vote more linked to that of Susan Collins (R-Maine) than to the Democratic majority.
Would an LBJ or even a Harry Reid have allowed the Senate majority to have allowed a critical vote like Manchin to run free from issue to issue, from more liberal to more conservative, but outside the party attitudes? No, they would have found a way to pressure his votes with something that West Virginia needs, like energy jobs, or found a threat that worked. A weaker Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) just seems to believe that repetition of arguments alone will win the day.
One friend proposes that Democrats offer a trade of Manchin to the Republicans, baseball style, for their Collins or Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), though I doubt that Joe Biden or Schumer would count on that outcome as any more dependable.
Manchin is insisting that calling yourself a Democrat does not necessarily mean anything.
Most Valuable Target
Manchin has become the most sought-after target for lobbyists, reports TheHill.com because he is seen as the swing vote in the 50-50 Senate on many bills and nominees. And he has to watch his own political back in a Republican-leaning state.
Actually, only a small group of former staffers and ex-senators-turned-lobbyist have a chance to influence Manchin, who prefers to listen to groups that have established direct interests in West Virginia. That has included more liberal groups like the Poor People’s Campaign and unions, or those with ties to local businesses.
It’s also true that Manchin voted with the Trump administration half the time.
Manchin, fully aware of his sudden celebrity status, talks a lot about the need for bipartisanship and listening to the other side, no matter what it is, before coming out with what he sees as his more common-sense solutions. It all must come as a bit of upbraiding for Biden, who considers himself a centrist, and float the question of what it is that makes Manchin want to identify as Democrat in the first place.
“He’s kind of the Democratic version of John McCain,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told Politico. “I say that partially in jest. But partially it’s true: Joe’s a hard guy to figure out how to lead. He dances to his own music.”
Actually, Manchin favors raising the minimum wage, but more slowly and as not part of a coronavirus aid bill. He generally favors gun rights, though backs “sensible” registration efforts, and he opposes killing the Senate’s filibuster rules to make decision-making into simple majority votes. He sleeps on a houseboat, occasionally swigs moonshine from a jar, was a college football quarterback and ran a coal brokerage before running for governor.
As The Washington Post noted, Manchin is a coal country native come to power as Biden is proposing vast climate changes. As governor, he sued the Environmental Protection Agency. He has scuttled efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, criticized the Paris climate agreement and famously shot a copy of a cap-and-trade carbon proposal full of lead. “There’s nobody I know in my state that wants to drink dirty water, to breathe dirty air, I can assure you,” Manchin told the Post. “I’m as environmental as anyone else. I’m pretty rational, practical about it, too.”
The Decider?
Based on reports from his Senate colleagues, Manchin often does succeed at changing minds, including getting Republicans Steve Daines of Montana and James Lankford of Oklahoma to stand down from their election challenges in the hours following the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Manchin is the ultimate gradualist, making Biden look as if he is speeding toward some progressive goals in immigration, race relations, environment and economic policies aiming to re-set built-in inequalities. Manchin’s support—and those middle position on every sizeable issue brings with him—is the reason behind the agonizingly slow response from Congress on coronavirus and economy alike.
At least with the main body of Republicans in the Senate, we know there is straight opposition to virtually any Biden policy, and we expect the tight majority to work around whatever those limitations set. So, expect to see Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the new head of the Budget Committee, for example, maneuvering to use the more arcane rules of reconciliation to move Democratic bills through the process.
But it is annoying to me to see a single individual, Democrat or Republican, insisting that he or she is the center of the political universe. It’s more annoying when I thought I have voted for the program of a party that I favored. I didn’t like it when Trump insisted that he was the sole voice to hear, even from the White House, I didn’t like it with chief obstructor Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) deciding to forgo Senate votes on more than 300 House-passed bills.
We didn’t vote for Joe Manchin to be The Decider.
Where in all this was the decision to elect the winner to be Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)?
Forget competing personalities, ideologies, even skills. What we effectively have wrought is that the decisions about whether we extend unemployment or try to save restaurants or pay to widen federal research into coronavirus mutations don’t sit in the White House or in the leading majority leaders of Congress. It is with Manchin. He is the self-described centrist, so moderate a Democrat that he is always a threat to vote for Republican policies. He hails from a state that he sees as unready to embrace climate change or big investment in recovery. And, as we found out this week, a Biden Cabinet-level nominee.
Manchin says he is opposing Neera Tanden for the Office of Management and Budget because she tweeted too harshly about political opponents.
Maybe now he opposes the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as secretary of Interior, who thinks drilling for oil on public lands is a bad idea. Manchin headed the committee holding this hearing.
As an aside, when compared with colleagues in the Congress who have tweeted and worked hard to ignore years of public insult tweets of Donald Trump, the argument against Tandem seems pretty limp.
Still, among Tanden’s tweet targets was Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, former CEO of Mylan, a company that made EpiPens and raised its price substantially over 10 years. Bresch defended the higher prices as less than that of others and said she also raised financial assistance for patients.
The Key Vote?
It’s not so much that we may find ourselves agreeing or disagreeing with Manchin. But rather, we have given the car keys to a single individual who may be voting only to support the local interests of a 93% white state. It is a state still waiting for coal mining to come back, that votes Republican, that has the nation’s worst record on opiate usage and whose small business owners mostly reject raising the minimum wage.
With the U.S. Senate split down the middle, Manchin’s vote has become The Vote for a Democratic agenda, followed closely by the support of sorta Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and one or two others. Indeed, one hears Manchin’s vote more linked to that of Susan Collins (R-Maine) than to the Democratic majority.
Would an LBJ or even a Harry Reid have allowed the Senate majority to have allowed a critical vote like Manchin to run free from issue to issue, from more liberal to more conservative, but outside the party attitudes? No, they would have found a way to pressure his votes with something that West Virginia needs, like energy jobs, or found a threat that worked. A weaker Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) just seems to believe that repetition of arguments alone will win the day.
One friend proposes that Democrats offer a trade of Manchin to the Republicans, baseball style, for their Collins or Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), though I doubt that Joe Biden or Schumer would count on that outcome as any more dependable.
Manchin is insisting that calling yourself a Democrat does not necessarily mean anything.
Most Valuable Target
Manchin has become the most sought-after target for lobbyists, reports TheHill.com because he is seen as the swing vote in the 50-50 Senate on many bills and nominees. And he has to watch his own political back in a Republican-leaning state.
Actually, only a small group of former staffers and ex-senators-turned-lobbyist have a chance to influence Manchin, who prefers to listen to groups that have established direct interests in West Virginia. That has included more liberal groups like the Poor People’s Campaign and unions, or those with ties to local businesses.
It’s also true that Manchin voted with the Trump administration half the time.
Manchin, fully aware of his sudden celebrity status, talks a lot about the need for bipartisanship and listening to the other side, no matter what it is, before coming out with what he sees as his more common-sense solutions. It all must come as a bit of upbraiding for Biden, who considers himself a centrist, and float the question of what it is that makes Manchin want to identify as Democrat in the first place.
“He’s kind of the Democratic version of John McCain,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told Politico. “I say that partially in jest. But partially it’s true: Joe’s a hard guy to figure out how to lead. He dances to his own music.”
Actually, Manchin favors raising the minimum wage, but more slowly and as not part of a coronavirus aid bill. He generally favors gun rights, though backs “sensible” registration efforts, and he opposes killing the Senate’s filibuster rules to make decision-making into simple majority votes. He sleeps on a houseboat, occasionally swigs moonshine from a jar, was a college football quarterback and ran a coal brokerage before running for governor.
As The Washington Post noted, Manchin is a coal country native come to power as Biden is proposing vast climate changes. As governor, he sued the Environmental Protection Agency. He has scuttled efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, criticized the Paris climate agreement and famously shot a copy of a cap-and-trade carbon proposal full of lead. “There’s nobody I know in my state that wants to drink dirty water, to breathe dirty air, I can assure you,” Manchin told the Post. “I’m as environmental as anyone else. I’m pretty rational, practical about it, too.”
The Decider?
Based on reports from his Senate colleagues, Manchin often does succeed at changing minds, including getting Republicans Steve Daines of Montana and James Lankford of Oklahoma to stand down from their election challenges in the hours following the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Manchin is the ultimate gradualist, making Biden look as if he is speeding toward some progressive goals in immigration, race relations, environment and economic policies aiming to re-set built-in inequalities. Manchin’s support—and those middle position on every sizeable issue brings with him—is the reason behind the agonizingly slow response from Congress on coronavirus and economy alike.
At least with the main body of Republicans in the Senate, we know there is straight opposition to virtually any Biden policy, and we expect the tight majority to work around whatever those limitations set. So, expect to see Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the new head of the Budget Committee, for example, maneuvering to use the more arcane rules of reconciliation to move Democratic bills through the process.
But it is annoying to me to see a single individual, Democrat or Republican, insisting that he or she is the center of the political universe. It’s more annoying when I thought I have voted for the program of a party that I favored. I didn’t like it when Trump insisted that he was the sole voice to hear, even from the White House, I didn’t like it with chief obstructor Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) deciding to forgo Senate votes on more than 300 House-passed bills.
We didn’t vote for Joe Manchin to be The Decider.
DEMOCRAT SELLOUTS, COWARDS TO THE CORE AIDING THE FASCISTS!!!
Centrist Democrats Manchin, Sinema Side With McConnell to Protect the Filibuster
BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout
PUBLISHED January 26, 2021
Since the new Senate convened for the first time last week, its new leaders, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were stuck on a stalemate over the Senate filibuster — McConnell was dead set on keeping it, while Schumer, with his newly found majority and power, would not cave on his demand to keep the filibuster.
On Monday night, that stalemate ended.
Schumer called it a win: “We’re glad Senator McConnell threw in the towel and gave up on his ridiculous demand,” said one Schumer spokesperson, “We look forward to organizing the Senate under Democratic control and start getting big, bold things done for the American people.”
But at the end of the day, McConnell ended up getting what he wanted. Though he didn’t get any promises from Schumer about keeping the filibuster, Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona), two moderate Democrats, have come out strongly against getting rid of it, effectively securing McConnell’s demand to keep the filibuster. Democrats hold the majority, so they could have used the “nuclear” option to abolish the filibuster, but they needed all 50 Senators to stand together on it.
So, on Monday, McConnell declared victory for his side. “Today two Democratic Senators publicly confirmed they will not vote to end the legislative filibuster,” he said in a statement. With the protection of the filibuster, Schumer and McConnell will share power in the same way that the two parties did the last time the Senate was split down the middle in the 2000s. “The legislative filibuster was a key part of the foundation beneath the Senate’s last 50-50 power-sharing agreement in 2001. With these assurances, I look forward to moving ahead with a power-sharing agreement modeled on that precedent,” McConnell said.
The protection of the filibuster is a major win for Republicans, and will likely be a major roadblock for Democrats hoping to pass any progressive legislation with their newfound majority. The legislative filibuster will require most bills to get 60 votes to pass. Under Barack Obama, McConnell broke records with his use of the filibuster, blocking 79 of Obama’s nominees from 2009 to 2013, which led the Democrats to change nominations to a simple majority vote.
As many have pointed out, McConnell’s use of the filibuster is highly partisan. In 2017, McConnell ended the use of the legislative filibuster specifically to push through Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees after refusing to hold hearings on Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, for almost a year.
“Step by step,” wrote former labor secretary Robert Reich in The American Prospect, “McConnell has sacrificed the Senate as an institution to partisan political victories.” In 2005, McConnell was a key player in the Republican effort to end the filibuster at a time when they had a 55-seat majority. He once even filibustered his own bill in 2012, which pundits at the time argued was a great case for filibuster reform.
Now that Democrats are in charge by a narrow margin, McConnell is insistent on keeping the filibuster intact. And this week-long showdown over the filibuster is likely indicative of McConnell’s intentions to use it.
While this is not entirely surprising coming from McConnell, many on the left were hoping for transformative legislation to be passed under Biden and expressed frustration that Manchin and Sinema would take McConnell’s side on the filibuster.
Reich noted on Twitter that, if Democrats aren’t efficient in passing legislation in the coming years, it will harm the Democratic party. “Memo to Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin: Supporting the filibuster will backfire. Keep it in place and risk losing your seats in 2024,” he said.
Many left and progressive groups have been advocating for an elimination of the filibuster even before Democrats clinched the majority in this election. Such anti-filibuster voices include the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, gun control groups and the Sunrise movement, reports The New Republic. Many activists say that abolishing the filibuster will be the only way to pass progressive policy.
With the filibuster firmly in place for now, Democrats will have to resort to budget reconciliation to pass legislation with a simple majority, as Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders discussed this week with regards to passing a new COVID relief bill. Democrats in 2010 used budget reconciliation to pass the Affordable Care Act. Sans filibuster reform, it will likely be the only hope for ambitious agenda items like addressing the climate crisis.
RELATED: Mitch McConnell Is Already Running Circles Around Chuck Schumer in the Senate
On Monday night, that stalemate ended.
Schumer called it a win: “We’re glad Senator McConnell threw in the towel and gave up on his ridiculous demand,” said one Schumer spokesperson, “We look forward to organizing the Senate under Democratic control and start getting big, bold things done for the American people.”
But at the end of the day, McConnell ended up getting what he wanted. Though he didn’t get any promises from Schumer about keeping the filibuster, Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona), two moderate Democrats, have come out strongly against getting rid of it, effectively securing McConnell’s demand to keep the filibuster. Democrats hold the majority, so they could have used the “nuclear” option to abolish the filibuster, but they needed all 50 Senators to stand together on it.
So, on Monday, McConnell declared victory for his side. “Today two Democratic Senators publicly confirmed they will not vote to end the legislative filibuster,” he said in a statement. With the protection of the filibuster, Schumer and McConnell will share power in the same way that the two parties did the last time the Senate was split down the middle in the 2000s. “The legislative filibuster was a key part of the foundation beneath the Senate’s last 50-50 power-sharing agreement in 2001. With these assurances, I look forward to moving ahead with a power-sharing agreement modeled on that precedent,” McConnell said.
The protection of the filibuster is a major win for Republicans, and will likely be a major roadblock for Democrats hoping to pass any progressive legislation with their newfound majority. The legislative filibuster will require most bills to get 60 votes to pass. Under Barack Obama, McConnell broke records with his use of the filibuster, blocking 79 of Obama’s nominees from 2009 to 2013, which led the Democrats to change nominations to a simple majority vote.
As many have pointed out, McConnell’s use of the filibuster is highly partisan. In 2017, McConnell ended the use of the legislative filibuster specifically to push through Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees after refusing to hold hearings on Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, for almost a year.
“Step by step,” wrote former labor secretary Robert Reich in The American Prospect, “McConnell has sacrificed the Senate as an institution to partisan political victories.” In 2005, McConnell was a key player in the Republican effort to end the filibuster at a time when they had a 55-seat majority. He once even filibustered his own bill in 2012, which pundits at the time argued was a great case for filibuster reform.
Now that Democrats are in charge by a narrow margin, McConnell is insistent on keeping the filibuster intact. And this week-long showdown over the filibuster is likely indicative of McConnell’s intentions to use it.
While this is not entirely surprising coming from McConnell, many on the left were hoping for transformative legislation to be passed under Biden and expressed frustration that Manchin and Sinema would take McConnell’s side on the filibuster.
Reich noted on Twitter that, if Democrats aren’t efficient in passing legislation in the coming years, it will harm the Democratic party. “Memo to Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin: Supporting the filibuster will backfire. Keep it in place and risk losing your seats in 2024,” he said.
Many left and progressive groups have been advocating for an elimination of the filibuster even before Democrats clinched the majority in this election. Such anti-filibuster voices include the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, gun control groups and the Sunrise movement, reports The New Republic. Many activists say that abolishing the filibuster will be the only way to pass progressive policy.
With the filibuster firmly in place for now, Democrats will have to resort to budget reconciliation to pass legislation with a simple majority, as Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders discussed this week with regards to passing a new COVID relief bill. Democrats in 2010 used budget reconciliation to pass the Affordable Care Act. Sans filibuster reform, it will likely be the only hope for ambitious agenda items like addressing the climate crisis.
RELATED: Mitch McConnell Is Already Running Circles Around Chuck Schumer in the Senate
Find the Common Ground They Say, Heh...
Soph0571 - demo underground
go to hell, moderates!!!
anti-aca democrats
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