Progress Arizona: ‘Sit-In To Save America’ At Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s Tucson Office On May 23rd

Progress Arizona has a political action event coming up directed at the two prima donna Democratic divas in the Senate, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Vichy Democrats collaborating with the enemies of democracy to sabotage all legislation and render the nation ungovernable in the anti-democratic institution of the Senate by refusing to end or to reform the anti-democratic Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster rule.

From the Progress Arizona email:

It’s time to sit in to save America.

On Monday, May 23rd, Arizonans and West Virginians will come together for a joint direct action to end the filibuster in our respective states.

We can not allow Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to continue to block the progress we need and the solutions to the crises we face.

Join us in Tucson at our sit in to save America. 

In Arizona, we’ll take action in Tucson where Sinema was born and has a Senate office which has never once been staffed or open to the public. The actions will start at 11am local time and include a family-friendly rally and march before the sit-in.

We must show Sinema that she is out of line with the Arizonans she supposedly represents, and that her actions have been unacceptable.

At a moment of great urgency, she and Manchin have allowed Republicans to weaponize an outdated Senate rule to prevent the passage of voting rights protections, labor, climate, and immigrant rights, the fight for $15, reproductive rights protections, LGBTQ+ rights, gun violence prevention, climate action and more.

Time after time, Sinema and Manchin have put their corporate donors ahead of our families, our democracy, and our planet. This can’t continue.

Arizonans and West Virginians have been taking action over the past year, but it’s time to escalate our fight to end the filibuster.

Sign up now to join us at the sit in to save America!

Sinema and Manchin are blocking the change we need during a time when our fundamental rights are at risk. It’s time for us to block business as usual and demand it.

As a coalition of movement leaders in the Grand Canyon State and the Mountain State, we call on our fellow Arizonans and West Virginians to join us in Tucson and Charleston on the 23rd.

To register for either the family-friendly rally and march or to take part in the direct action following the event, sign up here.

In solidarity,

Abigail Jackson

Progress Arizona

Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster

Salon reports, Progressives to “block business as usual” to protest Manchin and Sinema’s “corrupt obstruction”:

Progressive organizers in Arizona and West Virginia on Tuesday announced a joint protest targeting Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to demand they back ending the filibuster.

The activists announced a “Sit-In to Save America” rally, march and nonviolent civil disobedience on May 23 in Tucson, Ariz., and Charleston, W.Va., to demand the two senators “stop their corrupt obstruction and end the filibuster so the majority can finally pass legislation to deal with the urgent crises that plague our nation.”

Organizers in a statement accused Sinema and Manchin of “protecting an abused, outdated Senate rule” and the “profits of their corporate donors over our people, our democracy and our planet.”

The organizers said the protest will “block business as usual” in “the great tradition of Dr. King, John Lewis, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, the suffragettes, the sit down strikers and other freedom struggles” in order “to dramatize this emergency and make it impossible to ignore.”

Activists in the two states joined forces in response to the “continuing disgusting role of Sens. Sinema and Manchin and the filibuster rule that maintains racism, oppression and the exploitation of labor,” Steven Valencia, the chair of Arizona Jobs for Justice and coordinating committee member of the Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster, said in a statement to Salon. “Democracy is at stake and the moment is critical to change course for the benefit of working people and the planet. I will join friends in peaceful action and risk arrest to give voice to our demand of ending the filibuster.”

Just to be clear: It is all 50 Republicans in the Senate together with these two Vichy Democrats who are obstructing the agenda the American people voted for in 2020. If you are disappointed that you have not gotten what you voted for, all 50 Republican senators must be defeated as much as these two Vichy Democrats. Republicans will never do anything for you. They only represent the interests of the wealthy elite plutocracy. Putting them in charge is a senseless act of suicide.

Sharon Helan, president of the Eastern Panhandle Green Coalition and coordinating committee member of the West Virginia Poor People’s Campaign, said that Martin Luther King Jr. “taught us the value of nonviolent disobedience to affect positive change.”

“Sen. Manchin’s obstructionism and support of fossil fuels are perilous to preserving our democracy, as well as our planet, and we cannot be silent about it,” Helman said.

Many of the activists involved organized previous efforts to protest the two senators, including two sit-ins at Sinema’s Phoenix office last summer and a Martin Luther King Jr. Day sit-in in Charleston to pressure Manchin. Activists frustrated with the Senate obstruction have also confronted Manchin on his yacht in Washington and Sinema at her teaching gig at Arizona State University and on airplanes.

Activists say their complaints have been ignored, even as the senators routinely make time for corporate campaign donors.“Straight from the heart, I asked Sen. Sinema on an airplane to put people first last year. But like she’s done with nearly every voter who put her in office, she simply ignored me,” Karina Ruiz, executive director of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition and coordinating committee member of the Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster, said in a statement to Salon. “It’s unacceptable. And it’s time to escalate with the power of solidarity. Arizonans and West Virginians are coming together to take on our obstructionist senators together.”

Democrats entered President Biden’s term with high hopes of passing transformational legislation, including protections for workers and the LGBTQ+ community, a $15 minimum wage, a voting rights expansion and the Build Back Better package, which in its initial form sought to provide more than $500 billon to fight climate change, lower drug costs, expand child care and elder care, and provide assistance for families. But Manchin and Sinema opposed key portions of the Build Back Better plan, and their refusal to reform the filibuster has stalled the other proposals indefinitely amid united Republican opposition.

“How much more are we going to let the wealthy and powerful few hurt our democracy, our planet, and our neighbors?” Alexandra Gallo, former organizing director for the West Virginia Working Families Party, said in a statement. “Enough is enough and we are sitting in to save America. Sen. Manchin has demonstrated time and time again that he is not doing right by all West Virginians and we must do whatever it takes to hold him accountable. The time is now and the call to action is urgent.”

“Maserati Manchin” (my other car is a yacht) earlier this year reaffirmed his commitment to protecting the filibuster, arguing incorrectly that it has existed in its current form for 232 years. It was actually established in 1975, two years after Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate. Sinema has also stood firm on her position despite being censured by the Arizona Democratic Party in January over her opposition. Despite ostensibly supporting [head fake] voting rights legislation and other Democratic proposals, Sinema has argued that eliminating the filibuster would “deepen our divisions and risk repeated radical reversals in federal policy, cementing uncertainty and further eroding confidence in our government.”

The two senators have faced very different reactions from their constituents back home. Manchin, who represents a deep-red state that Donald Trump carried by nearly 40 points, has seen his approval rating soar 17 percentage points over the past year, doubling his approval among Republicans in the state to 69%, compared to just 44% among voters in his own party, according to a new Morning Consult poll.

Meanwhile, a January Data for Progress poll found that just 19% of Arizona Democratic primary voters have a favorable opinion of Sinema, compared to 78% for Sen. Mark Kelly, a fellow Democrat. Activists last year launched a crowd-funded PAC to raise money for a potential primary challenger to Sinema. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., has emerged as a likely contender, besting his fundraising record last quarter and leading Sinema by a more than 50-point margin in a potential primary matchup.

But while neither senator is up for re-election until 2024, their obstruction of their party’s agenda [and appeasement of the enemies of democracy] threatens to cost Democrats control of Congress in November. Democrats in recent weeks have blamed Biden’s falling approval rating on congressional inaction, and generic ballot polls have repeatedly shown that midterm voters are more likely to support Republican candidates than Democrats.

So voters will knowingly and willfully murder American democracy and install an authoritarian GQP fascist regime that engaged in a seditious insurrection to overthrow the governent on January 6, 2021, by siding with the enemies of democracy? How very Weimar Republic.  Is your white Christian privilege really more important to you than honoring the sacrifice and service of generations of Americans, including your own relatives, who fought and died to preserve American democracy, just a few years short of America’s 250th Independence Day birthday? Don’t dare to call yourselves patriots.

“The failure of the first filibuster reform vote and the collapse of Build Back Better aren’t a reason to give up — they’re a call to fight harder and smarter,” said Kai Newkirk, founder of For All and coordinating committee member of the Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster, in a statement to Salon. “It’s a lie to say we’ve done all we can. There is too much at stake for our nation and planet not to draw on the nonviolent civil resistance lessons of victorious movements worldwide and put our bodies on the line together to try to make the political costs for Sinema, Manchin and all who continue to block the will of the American majority unbearable.”

Here’s simple math for you: elect more Democrats to the Senate and render Sens. Manchin and Sinema “Mr. & Mrs. Irrelevant.” Duh. Murdering American democracy for the enemies of democracy – and their pal Putin – is a fool’s move. Don’t be a damn fool.