The two most powerful people in the world right now appear to be Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, Democratic Senators both. With the $3.5 trillion dollar spending package currently being held up in the Senate, by threats from both of the aforementioned senators, the knives have come out to harass and intimidate them to change their votes and stop derailing President Biden’s domestic agenda.
Without passing something, and soon, it’s feared Democrats are cementing substantial losses next year as progressives will lose their desire to vote for people who can’t pass anything even when they control the House, Senate, and White House.
Sen. Sinema was recently followed into a bathroom stall, on camera, during a fundraiser in Arizona where activists accosted her over several issues:
Immigration activists followed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) into a bathroom in Arizona on Sunday, demanding that she support the Democrats’ massive social spending bill.
The interaction took place at Arizona State University in Phoenix, where Sinema is a lecturer. The activists followed the senator into the bathroom after she exited her classroom and urged her to get on board with the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, according to a video tweeted by the activist group, Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA).
The video showed one activist standing outside of the bathroom stall that Sinema was in while another stood at the entrance of the bathroom filming the encounter.
In a similar but slightly less embarrassing yet terribly awkward encounter, Sen. Joe Manchin had an exchange off the back of his yacht on the Potomac River with activists demanding he relent and support Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget plan:
From his $250,000 boat named “Almost Heaven” on the Potomac River in DC, the centrist from West Virginia explained why he opposed a major part of the bill championed by progressives – the expansion of Medicare to include dental and vision care, and hearing aids.
“We will get to that eventually, but right now we can’t even take care…it’s going to go broke in 2026,” he said of the medicare trust fund. “Let us fix and repair that first.”
Mr Manchin’s words were booed by activists who had reached the senator in a small fleet of kayaks to urge him to support various aspects of the reconciliation bill.
“This is our one chance right now to pass this legislation,” one protester told the senator, pointing out that Republicans are widely projected to win control of at least one chamber of Congress next year.
The optics of the Manchin encounter were quite humorous with the Senator yelling at protestors in kayaks off the back of his yacht named “Almost Heaven”:
Manchin and Sinema have done their share to earn the ire of nervous progressives who fear a midterm wipeout in 2022. As one protestor yelled to Manchin, this might be their last opportunity in a long time to pass any sort of large progressive agenda items as the political winds will assuredly favor the GOP in 2022.
President Biden was asked about the harassment of Sen. Sinema specifically and said it’s just part of the process and happens to everyone, no big deal:
Asked about the confrontations on Monday, Biden said the harassment “happens to everybody.”
“I don’t think they’re appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody … it’s part of the process,” Biden said.
That’s an interesting take on things from the Commander-in-Chief who is supposed to reassert a calmer, more reasoned tenor to the body politic. No condemnation, no forceful words about making sure we are respectful in our dissent, just a slap on the wrist and a slap in the face to the senators in his own party.
At least Manchin was surrounded by a body of water, Sinema didn’t get quite the same level of a moat as protection coming out of the bathroom stall, roll the tape:
The threat of “we knocked on doors to get you elected and we can get you out of elected” seems reasonable, but quite confrontational. As you can see, not one protestor, but two protestors, both armed with smartphones, followed Sinema into the bathroom spewing left-wing rage.
Biden wants Sinema and Manchin to feel the pressure, and why wouldn’t he? It’s unrealistic to expect Biden will run again in 2024, this is probably his last big moment to create some kind of “New Deal” legislation this century with his name on it.
Sinema released a statement and didn’t agree with Biden’s assessment that the whole thing was no issue and just part of the process:
In a statement Monday, Sinema called the episode an “illegitimate protest” that “victimized” her students unfairly and unlawfully. The students gained access to the locked building to disturb the class, despite being unauthorized to enter, Sinema claimed.
“In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students. Yesterday, that environment was breached. My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. This is wholly inappropriate,” the Arizona senator wrote.
The “moderate” Democrats are now facing left-wing progressive rage for not signing on blindly to whatever Nancy Pelosi wants to pass for Biden. Manchin clings to power in West Virginia, Sinema will be doing the same in Arizona if she gives into these progressives and abandons her state’s centrist electorate.
Either way, it’s unlikely that these protestors will be investigated with the Patriot Act as potential domestic terrorists, that distinction will be left for parents attending school board meetings.
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