Fucking brutal and hilarious:
“Saturday Night Live” returned for its 47th season Saturday and blasted Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema right out of the gate.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was pretty funny. The show portrayed Sinema as out of touch and against pretty much everything.
And it didn’t waste any time — it all happened in the cold open. If Sinema thought reportedly escaping from Washington to Arizona during the middle of a heated fight over important legislation involving a massive infrastructure bill would somehow keep her out of the public eye, it didn’t. At all.
Cecily Strong played Sinema, not for the first time, and it was like a greatest-hits package of everything that is frustrating so many people about Sinema not supporting a massive spending bill. Earlier Saturday Sinema said Democrats linking a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which she brokered, to their $3.5 billion human safety net measure was "inexcusable, and deeply disappointing for communities."
Here’s some more:
New cast member James Austin Johnson also roared out of the gate, replacing Jim Carrey as an eager-to-please (and often failing to do so) Biden. The sketch finds him recuperating from a disastrous summer, which found him dragged over the messy exit from Afghanistan, only to find his dreams torpedoed by two (2) Democratic senators: not just Strong’s Sinema but also West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, played by Aidy Bryant.
“I didn’t come to congress to make friends. And so far: mission accomplished,” Strong’s Sinema cracks. She talks about her passions: “Yellow Starbursts, the film The Polar Express, and when someone eats fish on an airplane.” She then laid out how relatable she is.
“As a wine-drinking bisexual triathlete, I know what the average American wants,” she said. “They want to be put on hold when they dial 911. They want bridges that just stop — car falls down. They want water so thick you can eat it with a fork. And I will fight for that no matter what. Unless my foot hurts, then I’ll go back to Arizona.”
As in life, there is no resolution to this. There are mild digs at two “Squad” members: Edgo Nowdim’s Ilhan Omar and Melissa Villaseñor’s AOC. But the overall gist is that the Dems aren’t so much in disarray as being held hostage by two weirdos.
Watch the sketch above. It’s pretty funny.
So how are things going for Sinema? Well, her latest trip back in Arizona didn’t go well:
A video posted to Twitter on Sunday by social justice group Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) shows youth organizers confronting Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), even following her into a bathroom at one point.
Looking to talk to the Democratic representative about her opposition to the Build Back Better agenda, President Biden’s ambitious economic recovery plan widely supported by Democrats, several activists can be seen in the video waiting outside what LUCHA said was Sinema’s classroom on Arizona State University’s campus.
When Sinema emerges, they ask to speak to her. “Actually, I am heading out,” she replies, and walks into a bathroom stall.
Over the sounds of toilets flushing, an activist identified as Blanca spoke to Sinema from the entrance to the bathroom.
“We need to hold you accountable to what you told us, what you promised us that you were going to pass when we knocked on doors for you,” Blanca says in the footage. “It’s not right.”
And CNN’s Harry Enten does a pretty good job pointing out that Sinema is no Maverick:
So what else might explain Sinema's ways? It's
been reported that Sinema holds up former Arizona Sen. John McCain as a role model. McCain was, of course, a thorn in former President Donald Trump's side and didn't always vote in-line with his party.
If she's trying to copy McCain's ways, Sinema isn't doing a great job. McCain usually voted with his party. In his final full year in the Senate, he voted with
his party more than 90% of the time on party unity votes (i.e. those where at least 50% of one party voted a different way from 50% of the other party). This was about on par for him. McCain voted with his party
less than the median senator, but not that much less.
Sinema is an entirely different legislator. She votes against her party far more than the median legislator on party unity votes, according to the CQ Almanac. From
2013 to
2019, she's never voted with her party more than 75% of the time.
There is one way though in which Sinema is similar to McCain: She's upsetting her party's base. By voting the way she does, Sinema may be leaving herself open to a primary challenge -- a possibility certain liberal groups are
already eyeing.
And unlike Manchin, who has beaten back primary challenges easily, Sinema isn't going to face a primary electorate where less than 40% of registered Democrats call themselves liberal.
Democrats in Arizona are about as liberal as the national average, according to both the 2020
primary exit polls and
CES. More than 60% of Democrats called themselves liberal in both surveys.
The bottom line is that Sinema may be unnecessarily moderate for her own electoral good. Maybe it'll work out for her. Still, It's possible though that not only is she making Biden's life more difficult, but her own electoral future more difficult as well.
Speaking of Manchin:
After a tumultuous week in Congress, during which deep divisions in the Democratic Party delayed progress on part of President Biden’s economic agenda, debate spilled over into the weekend as the party braced for intense negotiations in the weeks ahead.
Progressives on Sunday flatly rejected the latest demands from Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key swing vote for Democrats, to shrink President Biden’s domestic policy agenda by more than half and to insert a provision to ensure that the federal government does not fund abortions.
Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that progressives would not agree to reduce Mr. Biden’s 10-year, $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate bill to $1.5 trillion, as Mr. Manchin requested.
“That’s not going to happen,” Ms. Jayapal said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “That’s too small to get our priorities in. It’s going to be somewhere between $1.5 and $3.5, and I think the White House is working on that right now. Remember: What we want to deliver is child care, paid leave, climate change.”
FYI, there is now a new timeline:
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has set a new deadline for the House to pass a major infrastructure spending bill after a week of negotiations left Joe Biden’s social and environmental policy overhaul plan in a limbo.
In a letter to House Democrats on Saturday, Pelosi said that the House will have until Sunday 31 October to pass the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate in August.
Progressive Democrats in the House refused to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, despite pressure from their moderate counterparts, as leverage in negotiations over a separate bill that contains massive spending on many of Biden’s campaign promises, including increased access to childcare and action on climate change.
“More time was needed to reach our goal of passing both bills, which we will,” Pelosi said in the letter.
iden and progressive Democrats have advocated an overhaul plan costing $3.5tn, but centrist Democrats have refused to agree to that cost. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key centrist in negotiations, proposed a package of $1.5tn, a significant cut to Biden’s original plan.
Refusing to agree on a price that low, progressive Democrats in turn declared on Friday that they would stall a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until an agreement is reached on the overhaul plan.
“We made all these promises to voters across the country that we were going to deliver on this agenda. It’s not some crazy leftwing wishlist,” Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a key House negotiator, told the Seattle Times on Friday.
If you’re on of Sinema’s constituents in Arizona, she needs to hear from you. Click here to contact her office and demand she stop blocking President Biden’s agenda and carve out the filibuster to protect voting rights.
If you are one of Senator Manchin’s constituents, he needs to hear from you. Click here to contact him and tell him get out of the way and pass President Biden’s agenda.