Lawrence O’Donnell deconstructed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s speech at the McConnell Center, where she said she shared Sen. Mitch McConnell’s values.
Lawrence O’Donnell deconstructs Sinema’s ignorance.
Recently Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema appeared at the McConnell center in Kentucky. She made some ill-advised statements as they made her seem clueless. Lawrence O’Donnell did not disappoint in his critique.
It was hard to fathom that this woman lives in the same reality we are in now.
“Those of you who are parents in the room know that the best thing you can do for your child is to not give them everything they want,” a delusional Sinema said. “Right? And that’s important in the United States Senate as well. We shouldn’t get everything we want in the moment because later, upon cooler reflection, you recognize that has probably gone too far. So the importance of the 60 vote threshold is to ensure that no one gets everything they want, that you compromise. Did you find that middle ground? And by doing so, you’re much more likely to pass legislation that stands the test of time that will not be reversed when the next party gains power. That’s the importance of the 60 vote threshold.”
That is likely the most uninformed statement a senator could make. In effect, she is saying the codification of minority rule is okay. Worse, the filibuster is a Senate rule. It is not in the Constitution. Lawrence schooled her.
“The Senator thinks that the 60 vote threshold ensures no one gets everything they want,” O’Donnell said. “There is not a single senator in the history of the United States Senate who has gotten everything that he or she wants. Not ever. Senator Cinema did not give a single example of a bill being passed with less than 60 votes, that was then repealed. When there was a change of power in Congress in the White House, not a single example of her fear of her theoretical justification for a voting threshold in the Senate that was not provided for in the Constitution and which defies democracy in a body whose very structure of two senators per state defies democracy.”
Kyrsten Sinema wants to reinstitute the 60-vote supermajority for many other bill types as well. She seems to imply she knew better than most what the forefathers intended. The truth is, I don’t really care what the founders intended. I care about the needs of Americans. But Lawrence said it best.
“Our forefathers, as she calls them, intended that women never be senators. Our forefathers intended that women never have the right to vote,” Lawrence explained. “Our forefathers did not intend for a place called Arizona to be represented in the United States Senate when the Founding Fathers were writing the Constitution. … A constitutional amendment finally overruled the Founding Fathers and allowed the United States senators to be elected by the voters of the state instead of the state legislatures, as the founders wanted it to be.”
Lawrence then reminded Sinema of an inconvenient truth.
“The United States Constitution says that the president shall nominate and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint judges of the Supreme Court,” O’Donnell said. “The Constitution does not say that Mitch McConnell shall prevent a nominated Supreme Court justice from even being considered by the United States Senate for its consent, as Mitch McConnell did to Merrick Garland in the last year of the Obama presidency. And Mitch McConnell didn’t need 60 votes to do that today. Kyrsten Sinema traveled to Kentucky to celebrate Mitch McConnell’s constitutional vandalism and her own relentless ignorance by saying this about Mitch McConnell.”
“While we may not agree on every issue,” Sinema said. “We do share the same values.”
Maybe Sinema does share McConnell’s values. After all, it was the value set that ensured the portions of the Build Back Better bill that would have helped millions of the poor and middle class not get realized. So much for good values, let alone family values.