Another View from Arizona, Annals of Sinema

TPM Reader XX gives us another view on how Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is doing back in Arizona.

I am a longtime TPM subscriber who has known Krysten Sinema since she was running for Phoenix City Council as a Green party candidate. I think your analyses, and that of fellow reader GT, of her behavior are largely on target, though the revelation this morning that the big mail and digital push on her behalf is coming directly from Big Pharma suggests that this, again, is short-term positioning rather than some long-term plan.

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Abbott Is Using Cars For A Border Wall And It Looks Pretty Stupid

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.

Working At The Car Wall

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has engineered a “steel wall” of Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles at the Del Rio area of the southern border, which has seen a major influx of Haitian migrants in recent days.

  • Abbott calls his barrier a “steel wall,” and it looks like……this:

  • Abbott bragged about the “wall” on Fox News earlier this week, claiming that “we effectively regained control of the border.”

(Sorry, it’s just way too easy to picture migrants casually strolling between those cars in the middle while the agents inside struggle to open their doors.)

The House Jan. 6 Select Committee Is Still Digging

Seven executive agencies have handed over records the committee requested in its massive sweep for Trump-era documents to get to the bottom of the Capitol attack, according to Politico.

  • The committee will reveal its subpoena targets this week, according to committee chair ​​Bennie Thompson (D-MS).
  • Thompson aims to wrap up the investigation this spring, he told Politico.

Proto-Trump Is Officially Gunning For His Old Job

The infamous former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) announced yesterday that he is running to get his seat back.

  • Sen. Susan Collins (R) endorsed LePage, claiming that he was the “best candidate to grow our economy.”
  • LePage had already filed his campaign back in July. I wrote about that with a short recap of some of his worst hits here.
  • Calling LePage a proto-Trump isn’t a lazy comparison between two racist shit-stirrers; this is how the ex-governor reacted to an election result he didn’t like (and how you can certainly expect him to react if he loses):

Your Kids Are Learning About MLK Being Mean To Whites And That Is A Problem For Me

A local group of Tennessee moms is on a warpath to scrub out any educational material that it deems to be “critical race theory” via a detailed list of complaints to the state’s department of education.

  • One of those materials includes “Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington”
  • Go ahead and take a guess as to whether the leader’s kid actually goes to public school.

Bipartisan Talks Over Police Reform Collapse

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) and Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) six-month effort to reform laws on policing is dead.

  • Biden blamed Republicans for the failure, saying that they “rejected enacting modest reforms, which even the previous president had supported, while refusing to take action on key issues that many in law enforcement were willing to address.”

Trump v. Bush: The Cheney Round

The 43rd president will be holding a campaign fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) next month, according to the Wall Street Journal and CNN.

  • It’ll be Bush’s first campaign event of the 2022 midterms. The event will reportedly be held in Dallas on Oct. 18.
  • Trump has endorsed one of Cheney’s primary challengers, Harriet Hageman, as part of his revenge mission against the Republicans who voted to impeach him for fomenting the Capitol insurrection.
  • Bush has (sort of) criticized Trump without actually calling him out by name, while the latter fully mocked Bush’s “failed and uninspiring presidency” (even though Trump should probably thank Bush’s incompetence for giving rise to his own future presidency).

How To Do A Science

Dennis Prager, a conservative commentator behind the “Prager University” videos, offered this solution to climate change while ranting about women who choose not to have kids:

The Smoothest Of Brains

Lt. Col. Paul Douglas Hague, an Army officer who says he’s quitting over the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, admits he’s gotten all the other vaccines the military requires, but he insists the COVID-19 shot is BAD because freedom and eagles.

  • Hague told Fox News host Sean Hannity that his stunt is “really not about whether I’ll get the shot,” it’s about “the freedom of the American people.” It’s about “The right to decide what’s gonna be injected into your body and what’s not,” said Hague.

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BFD and STFU – It’s All Down to Biden

Our friend Ed Kilgore has a piece in New York Magazine that’s worth your time to read. The gist is that the Democratic party and its tenuous control of the federal government is at a critical moment of decision. There’s now a very real chance that the President’s whole agenda could go down in flames. Remember 1994 and 2010 and then multiply one times the other. The consequences for the country and the Democratic party will be vast and hard to calculate. This isn’t just about saving Biden’s presidency. That actually gets things backwards. It’s the ability to pass legislation like this that was the point of all the effort that went into the 2018 and 2020 cycles in the first place.

I have a quibble on exactly what Ed says should happen next. But I think it’s largely a tactical one. Big picture we totally agree.

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Where Things Stand: Loudmouthed Former Guv Gets Surprising Endorsement For Comeback Bid

Susan Collins refused to endorse Trump in 2016, and she voted to remove him during his 2020 impeachment trial.

But in 2022, she will be supporting the self-declared proto-Trump Paul LePage. (“I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular,” the former two-term governor of Maine once opined.)

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Michigan GOP Lawmaker Needs To Be Babysat At Work After Threatening His Ex

32-year-old Michigan state Rep. Steve Marino (R) now has to be chaperoned at work after telling a fellow lawmaker he used to date that he was out to “destroy” her, prompting her to get a protective order.

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Yep. Sinema’s Cratering Back Home

Let me share a few more thoughts on the post from yesterday on Kyrsten Sinema from TPM Reader GT. And here I am not talking about the substantive impact of her stance. I’m talking purely about her own political future, self-aggrandizement, etc.

It makes perfect sense for someone like Sinema to carve out a centrist niche in the Senate. Arizona is purple but just barely, at least for now. It just voted for Biden and now has two Democratic Senators. But Sinema, who was only elected in 2018, is the state’s first Democratic Senator since Dennis DeConcini. He retired in 1994 but he was first elected all the way back in 1976, almost 45 years ago. Arizona may be trending blue but it’s just at the beginning of the trend.

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Former Federal Judge Lays Out Advice He Gave Pence To Ignore Trumpian Scheme To Steal Vote

A former federal judge on Tuesday night pulled back the curtain on the crucial early January days when Vice President Mike Pence was deciding whether or not to steal Donald Trump a second term.

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It’s Been 5 Years Since Russian Cash Was Allegedly Funneled Into The Trump Campaign. Why Wasn’t It Charged Until Now?

Imagine for a moment if it had come out during the 2016 campaign or in the first year of the Trump presidency that GOP political operatives were accused of illegally funneling Russian money into the Trump campaign.

Now, some five years later, that’s precisely the accusation federal prosecutors are making in a new case in DC.

What took so long?

Continue reading “It’s Been 5 Years Since Russian Cash Was Allegedly Funneled Into The Trump Campaign. Why Wasn’t It Charged Until Now?”