Progressives are hounding moderate Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia for refusal to go along with their radical agenda.
Check out the responses from Bernie Sanders and President Biden over the incident.
Bernie Sanders’ Response
Please note Bernie Sanders Refused To Sign On To Statement Condemning Activists Harassing Sinema In Bathroom.
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) refused to sign onto a statement condemning far-left activists who chased Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) into a bathroom where they proceeded to record and berate her.
“Sanders wanted the statement to urge Sinema to drop her opposition to prescription drug reform, as well as Biden’s $3.5 trillion” social spending bill, Axios reported. “An email exchange between Senate Democratic leadership aides, obtained by Axios, reveals Sanders withheld his name from a joint statement declaring protesters who followed Sinema into a bathroom — and filmed her while using the restroom — as ‘plainly inappropriate and unacceptable.’”
Sanders’ communications director Mike Casca indicated that the senator did not approve of the statement and responded to an aide for another senator who organized the statement, writing: “Sanders will not be signing, so please cut ‘Senate Democratic Leadership Team’ from headline.”
‘It Happens to Everybody, Part of the Process’
President Biden says ‘It Happens to Everybody, Part of the Process’
“Do you think that those tactics are crossing a line?” reporter Doocy asked President Biden.
“I don’t think they’re appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody,” Biden responded. “The only people doesn’t happen to people who have Secret Service standing around them. So it’s part of the process.”
Psaki tries cleaning up Biden’s comments: Sen. Sinema’s privacy “was breached; that’s inappropriate and unacceptable”
Adds: “Of course, we stand for the fundamental right of people to protest, to object, to criticize” pic.twitter.com/dOfzxmzhPf
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 4, 2021
Sen. Mitt Romney (UT): “I’ve spent countless hours working alongside Kyrsten Sinema. She is smart, hard working and principled. We don’t always see eye to eye, but I respect her. The harassment she has endured is inexcusable and disheartening. It reflects so poorly on the bullies and abusers.”
Axios Comments
Axios offers a “Big Scoop” on the Sanders’ Sinema Spat.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) withheld support for a joint statement condemning last weekend’s protests against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) because it also wouldn’t include a rebuke of her political views.
Manchin is telling colleagues that progressives need to pick just one of Biden’s three signature policies for helping working families and discard the other two, people familiar with the matter tell Axios’ Hans Nichols.
- Sanders, a leading progressive, separately told reporters there are “48 senators who support $3.5 trillion; we have two people who don’t,” referring to Manchin and Sinema.
- “It is wrong, it is really not playing fair,” Sanders said. “Two people do not have a right to sabotage what 48 want.”
- Manchin’s private demand for progressive prioritization tracks with his public concern that simply trimming a program’s duration doesn’t accurately capture its true overall cost.
Sinema Statement
“It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom.”
Dangerous New Math and Processes
A petulant Sanders would not sign a statement condemning breaking into a school and harassing a Senator and students in a bathroom.
Not to worry, Biden says “It happens to everybody” and it’s “Part of the process.”
Apparently, 48 out of 100 is the new majority. Two people do not have a right to their opinions if 48 disagree.
Manchin’s New Requirement
The big scoop in this drama is that Manchin wants progressives to pick just one of Biden’s three signature policies for helping working families and discard the other two.
At best, Biden will salvage whatever Manchin and Sinema will allow ($1.5 to $1.9T)
It’s possible House Progressives kill the whole thing in a feud, and I hope they do.
— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) October 8, 2021
I hope the whole damn thing goes under. And it will if Progressives hold firm.
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Mish
If it comes to that, i.e. a choice between expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave or subsidies for child care, I would pick the expanded child tax credit in a heartbeat. It is near-universal (because it phases out at annual income of 150K on joint returns, and the median annual family income in US is only about 68K) , and doesn’t depend on varying individual circumstances, like family medical leave or child care would do.
Pick the expanded child tax credit at $100B a year for 4 years, and then run the 2022 and 2024 elections on whether the people want it to end in Jan 2023 and Jan 2025. If they want it to end, they can vote for the Republicans (who will then hand off all that money – and then some, as subsidies to Big Pharma, dirty Big Oil etc.)
If this is true, then I have no objection to them catching her wherever they can.
Thus Democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms. It cannot actually be democratic because it is majoritarianism only in their pre-ordained direction.
She has no future in the Republican Party. More likely, she will probably end up being a VP for Diversity or something like that, at one of the pharma or Wall Street financial companies whose bidding she is doing right now.