Catching Up With The Dynamic Duo Of Prima Donna Democratic Divas Undermining The Democratic Agenda

News has been occurring so fast and furious over the past few weeks that these prima donna Democratic divas undermining the Democratic agenda hope that you were too distracted to have seen this reporting on what these corrupt corporate Demcorats have been doing. Ah, but I save everything and will get around to it, eventually.

First up, our very own prima donna Democratic diva Sen Kyrsten Sinema.

Politico reported, Sinema’s grassroots donor pool dries up:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema had her best fundraising quarter since her election, bringing in nearly $1.6 million in the last three months of 2021 as she positioned herself as one of her party’s high-profile contrarians in the Senate.

But underneath that record number is a starker reality for the Arizona Democrat. Sinema is increasingly leaning on corporate PACs and big donations to fill her campaign coffers. The Democratic grassroots fundraising world has largely abandoned her.

Just over 2 percent of Sinema’s fundraising haul this quarter — $33,983 — came from small-dollar donors, or those who have given an aggregated total this election cycle of $200 or less. By comparison, the PAC “Change for Arizona 2024” — which is preparing its attempt to unseat Sinema with a more progressive candidate — reported $180,000 in small-dollar unitemized contributions during the last quarter of 2021.

The numbers revealed in a filing with the Federal Election Commission on Monday are the continuation of a recent trend for Sinema, who has seen her small-dollar donations grind to a near halt.

[T]hough she won’t go before voters for a few years, the waning of grassroots support could prove dangerous for her reelection campaign, when a primary challenge is all but certain. At a minimum, it will likely force Sinema to lean more heavily on the pool of big-money donors to help fund a bid, should she choose to make one.

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Sinema’s [deceivingly named] leadership PAC, “Getting Stuff Done,” [is this what the kids are calling obstructionism nowadays?] reported no unitemized donations in its $477,500 haul this quarter.

The drop-off has coincided with Sinema’s elevation as an obstacle for the Biden administration on key agenda items. Though the senator has been a reliable Democratic vote on the vast majority of her party’s legislation, she has taken stances against key components: the raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the increases of personal or corporate tax levels, and the changing of the filibuster rules. In response, political action committees across industries have thrown thousands at her campaign making up for the drop in grassroots giving.

Among those donor groups with the most at stake before Congress, this quarter, “Pharman Girl” Sinema received $3,500 from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and $3,000 from Johnson & Johnson’s PAC, which have been fighting drug pricing provisions championed by Democrats in the Build Back Better Act. She also received $2,500 from the American Petroleum Institute, $5,000 from the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, $3,000 from the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, and $2,500 from ExxonMobil. [She pretends to support the climate change agenda in Build Back Better.] In November, she also received $2,000 from the private corrections company, CoreCivic (President Joe Biden has ordered the Department of Justice not to renew contracts with private prison companies).

Her campaign has also seen some interest from Republicans. Shawn Smeallie, a GOP lobbyist, gave $2,000 this quarter, and Jeffrey MacKinnon, another Republican lobbyist, gave $1,000. Some Republican donors also gave to her campaign, including Harlan R. Crow, who gave $5,800 (and was refunded for an excess contribution this cycle), and Ken Langone, who gave $5,800.

Salon adds, Kyrsten Sinema quietly amasses piles of cash from GOP, fossil fuel donors:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is amassing a sizable war chest as a result of Republican donors, according to new financial disclosures. But a new analysis explains why money may not even be enough to secure Sinema’s re-election.

The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher recently took to Twitter with details about the donations Sinema has received as he revealed the names of some of her biggest donors.

Per The Rolling Stone, Goldmacher noted that Sinema’s big donors include: “Harlan Crow, a massive GOP donor the Texas Tribune called ‘one of the biggest whales in the country‘; Ken Langone, another massive GOP donor who felt ‘betrayed’ by Trump and switched to Biden; Nelson Peltz, the aforementioned Manchin confidante; and Miguel B. ‘Mike’ Fernandez, a Florida health care billionaire who threw his fortune behind Hillary in 2016 after Jeb Bush fizzled out.”

In addition to the donors Goldmacher listed, Sinema has attracted Republican fossil fuel donors like Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance. Republican voters have also applauded Sinema for her adamant support of the Senate filibuster.

But despite raking in the big bucks, Sinema still faces a number of obstacles that could compromise her chances of re-election. According to the analysis written by The Intelligencer’s Ed Kilgore, money from Republican donors won’t necessarily help Sinema win over Democratic voters. In fact, Kilgore explains why Sinema’s war chest likely will not prove to be beneficial on the Republican side either.

Kilgore argues that Sinema’s moderate obstructionist stance on key issues and voting record won’t be enough to win unwavering support from Republican voters.

“Trouble is, smiling upon a pol for screwing up the hated opposition party’s agenda is not the same as voting to reelect her,” Kilgore wrote. “According to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of Sinema’s voting during her two years in the Senate when Trump was president, she voted with the 45th president half the time. That was about the same as Manchin’s level, but far lower than nearly all Republicans. The GOP is a party with extremely low tolerance for dissidence.”

“The Republican voters who give Sinema favorable ratings can’t cross over to support her in a Democratic primary,” Kilgore explained, adding, “and aren’t going to vote for her in a general election against an actual Republican.”

Kilgore is confident about one thing. He wrote, “Whether you view her as a brave and principled dissident or a scurrilous traitor, Sinema is probably, from a political point of view, toast.”

The Guardian adds, Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance:

With a crucial vote pending over filibuster rules that would have made strong voting rights legislation feasible, Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema flew into Houston, Texas, for a fundraiser that drew dozens of fossil fuel chieftains, including Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance.

The event was held on 18 January at the upmarket River Oaks Country Club. One executive told the Guardian that Sinema spoke for about half an hour and informed a mostly Republican crowd that they could “rest assured” she would not back any changes with filibuster rules, reiterating a stance she took several days before during a Senate speech.

The Arizona senator also addressed some energy industry issues according to the executive, who added that overall he was “tremendously impressed”.

The day after the Houston bash, Sinema voted against changing filibuster rules, thereby helping to thwart the voting rights bill.

Coincidence? I think not. Her vote was bought and paid for by right-wing corporate interests opposed to Build Back Better (and apparently voting rights legislation). To put it another way, Sinema sold her vote for “thirty pieces of silver” to be a Judas who betrayed the Democratic Party, and more importantly, betrayed the constituents who elected her to office.

Campaign finance watchdogs say that the Houston fundraiser reveals much about Sinema’s aggressive efforts to capitalize on her Senate power on matters ranging from climate change to taxes to the filibuster rule.

“Sinema isn’t up for re-election this year, but she’s fundraising full-tilt,” Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of OpenSecrets, told the Guardian. “By her comment to oil-industry attendees last week, she clearly knew her vote to protect the filibuster would please them.”

The Houston fundraiser, which was expected to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the senator’s campaign coffers, offers a stark example of how Sinema has been courting major Republican donors and special interests who, in turn, seem to be increasingly eager to help her.

Sinema’s drive to rope in more big Republican donors was also apparent at a September fundraiser in Dallas at the $18m home of G Brint Ryan, a prominent Republican donor and CEO of a global consulting company, who hosted another money bash last year for Manchin.

Sinema’s stance against changing filibuster rules has also won her support from other top Republican donors such as Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota billionaire broadcaster who gave her $2,900 last September, which reportedly was the first donation he made to a Democrat since 2019.

Hubbard told the Guardian that her opposition to the filibuster was a crucial reason he donated, adding that it would “be terrible to get rid of the filibuster”, and that he thought voting rights were “just fine”, without passing a Democrat-backed bill to protect them.

Little wonder that voting rights advocates were dismayed by Sinema’s staunch opposition to any changes with the filibuster.

“We are very disappointed that Senator Sinema has put formalistic rules over protecting our democracy,” said Danielle Lang, the senior director of voting rights at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

Actually it was old fashioned political corruption: she sold her vote (or was it her soul) to the highest bidder.

More broadly, Democratic angst about Sinema was highlighted by a January tracking poll before her filibuster vote that showed just 8% of registered Arizona Democrats had a favorable view of the Senator.

The recent poll reflects a steep drop from the 70% positive rating the Senator had in 2020. Her declining popularity also has been spurred by the senator’s voting against raising the federal minimum wage, and skipping a Senate vote to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Sinema has also drawn brickbats from Democrats for her unwillingness last month to endorse the House passed Build Back Better legislation that she and Manchin were instrumental in whittling down from the measure’s original size, while accelerating their fundraising outreach to rightwing donors and lobbyists.

Sinema told Democratic senators according to the New York Times that she was opposed to any tax increases in personal rates or corporate rates to pay for the bill, which included approximately $550bn for clean energy and climate change measures, a crucial part of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The Democratic divas waisted five months of time pretending to engage in good faith negotiations and dangling the possiblity of their vote in support, when they never had any intention of ever reforming the Senate filibuster rule or voting in favor of the bills that they forced to be scaled back to meet their demands.

Finally, Politico reports that employees working for the Democratic consulting firm Authentic, which does work for Sen Sinema, are not the least bit happy about it. ‘I am doing the devils work’ — Staff at Dem firm revolt over work for Sinema:

Since the beginning of 2020, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s reelection campaign has paid the Democratic consulting firm Authentic nearly a half million dollars for digital work and list acquisition.

Inside the firm, staffers have revolted over the contract, expressing shock and agitation that a company that professes fidelity to a set of progressive values has worked alongside a lawmaker many believe are standing in the way of progress on those values.

“I am doing the devils work,” said one employee at Authentic of the work done for Sinema, according to internal union messages reviewed by POLITICO. “I feel sick about it tbh,” chimed another.

Faced with pushback from employees, management at Authentic, one of the Democratic Party’s more prominent firms, defended itself by saying their work for Sinema was important for maintaining a Democratic Senate majority, according to those messages. [Hey clueless, you don’t have a Democrtic majority when Sens. Manchin and Sinema vote with Republicans on the Senate filibuster rule.] But the situation grew dire enough that employees, who are unionized, were told they could be removed from the Sinema account if they felt uncomfortable with it, per the union’s contract.

“The Authentic Union views Sen. Sinema’s recent actions to block voting rights legislation as an affront to their company’s values, which they’re proud of and committed to upholding,” Taylor Billings, organizing director of the Campaign Workers Guild, which represents Authentic’s union, said in a statement to POLITICO.

The revolt inside Authentic underscores the degree to which Sinema has found herself in the crosshairs of her own party during the Biden years. The Arizona Democrat has rankled some of the biggest powers in Democratic circles with her refusal to back key components of the president’s agenda, most recently a reform to Senate rules to allow elections reform legislation to pass by a simple majority vote.

Some bullshit lines from “Silent Sinema’s” spokepersons who do all the talking for her:

“The senator supports voting rights legislation but not eliminating the filibuster to achieve it.”

“Sinema supported raising the minimum wage but opposed waiving a procedural hurdle to include it in the Covid-relief bill.”

You are not for something if you do not actually vote in favor of it. Stop treating your constituents as if they are stupid.

In mid-January of this year — as the Senate was ramping up its consideration of voting rights legislation — an Authentic employee complained once again about the firm’s contract with Sinema. “What’s the point of us supporting a client who is the antithesis of what we claim to stand for,” the employee wrote in internal correspondence, which was shared with POLITICO on the grounds that the identity of the senders would not be exposed.

“Ugh, not a good look. I feel like we have clients who would consider leaving us if they realize we work for her…” said the same employee, who also expressed fears about being passed over for a promotion if they were to say no to working on Sinema’s account. The employee also complained that the senator’s actions were effectively “letting Jim Crow 2.0 become a reality” and questioned whether the senator would reconsider if “literally no one in democratic politics wants to work with her anymore.”

“For me, the bigger question is how long until we become known as the team behind KS and it impacts all of our reputations regardless if we worked on the account,” said another member of Authentic’s staff.

Yet another employee said that “it doesn’t seem like anyone is comfortable working on her account at this point.” Employees contemplated sending a formal letter and spoke of convening over Zoom, but it was unclear whether a letter was ever sent.

Leadership at Authentic has maintained that it would not end its work on behalf of the senator. At one point, Sinema’s team offered to meet with the firm’s CEO Mike Nellis along with three employees who worked on the account to discuss the senator’s vote. The employees declined the meeting. One said the question was not about whether the Senator was aligned with their values but about how the firm responds. Another said the situation was more about where the firm stands than about the Senator.

Sen. Sinema does’t even meet with her constituents, she wasn’t going to meet with these employees unless they came bearing campaign contributions. You’ve got to pay for access to this senator.