Well, I`ve been listening to Senate speeches for decades now. Most of them while I was sitting in the Senate chamber as a Democratic Senate staff member and I have never, ever, heard a more contemptuous speech by a Democratic senator than the one written by Kyrsten Sinema`s Senate staff and read by Senator Sinema on the speech floor today.
The speech was filled with contempt for Senator Sinema`s Democratic colleagues, for her constituents, and for all of you. Senator Sinema expressed that contempt by delivering a nonstop insult to the intelligence of everyone who was listening. She filled her 20 minutes on the Senate floor with a string of Hallmark greeting card-like platitudes about how the United States Senate should work and not a single word about the reality of why the United States Senate no longer works.
In announcing her opposition to changing Senate rules in any way in order to pass voting rights legislation by a simple majority vote, Senator Sinema said this.
Kyrsten Sinema (T-AZ) said:
Eliminating the 60-vote threshold will simply guarantee that we lose a critical tool, that we need to safeguard our democracy from threats in the years to come.
It is hard to think of a stupider thing that could be said about the 60-vote threshold. That was Senator Sinema claiming that the 60- vote rule in the Senate is, quote, a critical tool that we need to safeguard our democracy. It is, in fact, the single most anti-democracy rule that exists in American government.
If Senator Sinema said a single true thing about the 60-vote rule today, I would press the play button for that right now and let you hear it. She didn`t. Not one true word about the 60-vote rule.
So here is something untrue that Senator Sinema said about her own history with the 60-vote threshold.
Kyrsten Sinema (T-AZ) said:
There`s no need for me to restate my longstanding support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation. There is no need for me to restate its role protecting our country from wild reversals in federal policy.
My longstanding support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation.
Here is Kyrsten Sinema in 2010, discussing the 60-vote threshold while she mocks a Democratic senator for being insufficiently loyal to the Democratic Party.
Kyrsten Sinema (T-AZ) said:
Well, the Senate, we no longer have 60 votes. So I`m going to argue we never had 60 because one of those was Joseph Lieberman, and Nelson, too. But, really Lieberman. So, now, there`s -- I think as the president so eloquently said on Wednesday, there is none of this pressure, this false pressure to get to 60.
So what that means is that the Democrats can stop kowtowing to Joe Lieberman and instead seek another avenues to move forward with health reform. So, it`s likely that the Senate will move forward with the process called reconciliation which takes only 51 votes. And, by they way, it`s unusual.
You may recall that before the Democrats took the Senate in 2008, that the Republicans controlled the Senate for quite some time, in fact, since around 1994. They never had 60 votes and they managed to do a lot of really bad things during that time. So the reconciliation process is still quite available and we will use it for good rather than for evil. So --
One of the differences about that speech is that no one wrote that for her. She wasn`t reading that. So maybe, maybe that means that`s what she actually thought. That version of Kyrsten Sinema before she came to Washington wanted to use the simple majority vote in the United States Senate for good instead of evil.
She said the Republicans never got 60 votes. She didn`t say that as a complaint, she said that admiring the Republican tactical ability to pass legislation without having to get 60 votes. We cannot know if Kyrsten Sinema actually believes anything at all.
But we do know that she did not support her position today with logic, intelligence or truth. Senator Sinema did tell us how she feels about the unanimous opposition to voting rights legislation by every Republican in the United States Senate.
Kyrsten Sinema (T-AZ) said:
I share the disappointment of many that we`ve not found more support on the other side of the aisle for legislative responses to state level voting restrictions. I wish that were not the case.
Disappointed. She`s disappointed in Republicans. When Kyrsten Sinema ran for the United States Senate, she did not say that she would bring all her legislative and policy goals in the United States Senate to the Republican leader of the Senate and try to get Republican approval of her agenda. That`s not what she told Arizona voters.
But that is her position now. Republicans have to approve everything Kyrsten Sinema wants to do, or she won`t even try to do it. She will just stand at her desk in the United States Senate and be disappointed.
And she will give up if Republicans don`t want to do what she wants to do. She will give up. That`s what she`s saying today. President Joe Biden today said he is not giving up. President Joe Biden attended the Democrats` luncheon today where it is reported that Kyrsten Sinema sat looking at her phone for most of the time.
Senator Sinema`s speech on the Senate floor before the luncheon did not dissuade Senator Jon Ossoff from delivering a passionate talk during that lunch about changing the voting rules, and that speech received a standing ovation in that moment.
" / Twitter
on Twitter: "Whoa. “Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reform” cc: @SenatorSinema 
1/ (link)" / Twitter
on Twitter: "THREAD on Sinema: ..." / Twitter
on Twitter: "@Amy_Siskind She's positioning a run for the POTUS. That does make complete sense. These votes are all performative and positioning. The needs of the Biden Admin are irrelevant. She's likely planning to primary him." / Twitter