McConnell dark money group thanks Sinema for her filibuster help, which is a big problem

[Celerity]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/11/2029998/-Senate-fight-for-fair-elections-begins-with-Manchin-and-Sinema-playing-McConnell-s-tools

The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, began work Tuesday on S. 1, the groundbreaking voting rights bill known as the "For the People Act." It's the companion bill to H.R. 1, which passed the House back in early March. The legislation would counter the rash of voter suppression laws that states have rushed to pass this year, and would tackle elections integrity on three fronts: removing barriers to ballot access for all voters; fighting the influence of dark money by requiring organizations to disclose large donors and creating a matching system for small campaign donations; and banning congressional gerrymandering by requiring that every state create a nonpartisan redistricting commission subject to nonpartisan redistricting criteria.

Of course the response of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and his vast dark money network is to pour nearly $2 million of that dark money into an ad campaign to defeat the reforms. Another one of the supposed nonprofits tied to McConnell, One Nation, is running radio and TV ads in states that Republicans are targeting for 2022—New Hampshire, Arizona, Nevada—and where Democratic senators are already giving the GOP an assist, namely Arizona and West Virginia. In fact, the ad running in Arizona actually applauds Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for helping the Republicans.

"We think this week's markup in the Senate Rules Committee will be an important inflection point in senators' understanding of the issue, in public awareness of S. 1," Steven Law, the president of One Nation and former chief of staff to McConnell, told Politico. "This advocacy blitz, which starts on Tuesday, is designed to amplify all of that." He promises that this is just the beginning of his group's efforts to swamp the Senate. They are also not the only group doing so, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Heritage Action running ads around the country. Meanwhile, West Virgina Sen. Manchin and Sinema are not backing away from their position that preserving the Jim Crow-era filibuster is more important than preserving the foundational idea of 232 years of constitutional rule in the U.S. (with evolution and amendments): one person, one vote.

Manchin, who obviously is no scholar of history or current events, defends his opposition to restoring and expanding voting rights by saying "How in the world could you, with the tension we have right now, allow a voting bill to restructure the voting of America on a partisan line?" Because nothing that's happening in Republican states has restructured voting in America on partisan lines? The Republican legislature in Texas didn't just make voting harder for people of color because of partisanship? Keeping probably Democratic voters out of the polls wasn't behind the legislation Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last week—live ON FOX NEWS? Manchin further insists upon giving credence to Trump's Big Lie, insisting that the fact that maybe 25% of the voting public is so gullible or so venal as to say the 2020 election was stolen from Republicans means that Democrats can't save democracy. "January 6 changed me. I never thought in my life, I never read in history books to where our form of government had been attacked, at our seat of government, which is Washington, D.C., at our Capitol, by our own people," Manchin told CNN.

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[LenaBaby61]

1. Like I said in a post a while ago ...

This dipstick's skids have been greased, and greased to what seems to be her DINO, treasonous liking.

[Me.]

2. She's Been Hammered At Home For Several Months

In addition to interviews with voters who say they are not happy with her.

“Now, No Excuses is launching its second pressure campaign, targeting intransigent Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Sinema has gone to perhaps even greater lengths than Manchin to showcase her willingness to be an obstacle, and grab some of that spotlight from Manchin as the foremost Democratic opponent of filibuster reform in the Senate. And unlike Manchin, she’s doing it from a purple state Joe Biden won in 2020.

The group is up with radio ads across the state of Arizona, informing voters that their senator is one of Washington’s top obstructionists. It hammers Sinema not just on her support of the filibuster, but on the broad embrace of inaction that the filibuster necessitates. “She seems to think the Senate needs to do more talking and less doing,” said Trent, co-founder of the group and the voice-over artist on the ad spot. “Countless hours of partisan bickering and back-and-forth, they don’t prevent one case of COVID, they don’t stop one death, they don’t create one job,” the ad asserts. “It’s time Kyrsten Sinema stood up for the people and stood against the filibuster.”

The new ad is part of a multi-week multimedia campaign in Arizona. No Excuses has also taken out ad space in The Arizona Republic, the state’s largest newspaper, to drive home the message. And this time, the messaging comes with a recruiting pitch: No Excuses is looking for candidates who could primary Sinema from the left when her term is up in 2024.

The strategy is a new addition to Democratic politics, where it has not been commonplace to hit representatives back home for their work in Washington outside of an election cycle. While progressive primary challenges have pressured Democrats to move left in the House, the Senate, with its six-year terms, is more sheltered from that threat. No Excuses is hoping this strategy will make the left-wing presence a more persistent one, and help facilitate primary challenges of moderates if need be. “We’ve gotta create a little political gravity on that side of them,” said Trent.”

https://prospect.org/politics/kyrsten-sinema-pressure-campaign-goes-up-in-arizona/

[Celerity]

3. Good to see this. NT