Lots of people were upset over the recent failure of the Senate bill that inexplicably combined financial support for Ukraine (outspending the budget for the United States Marine Corps budget) as well as for Israel, with measures supposedly addressing the oozing sore that is our southern border. Now, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) is angry about that bill's failure, as she helped negotiate it.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema angrily denounced the swift demise of the bipartisan border security bill she helped negotiate, blaming partisanship — especially from Republicans — for neglecting the conditions in her home state.
“We produced a bill that finally, after decades of all talk and no action, secures the border and solves the border crisis. Our bill was ready for prime time,” Sinema, I-Ariz., said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
“But less than 24 hours after we released the bill, my Republican colleagues changed their minds. Turns out they want all talk and no action. It turns out border security is not actually a risk to our national security. It’s just a talking point for the election.”
Of course, the other side of this coin is that the "bipartisan" border deal was crap, and it deserved to die the horrible, twitching death that it did--if for no other reason than that the Executive Branch already has all the authority it needs to get the borders under control.
They choose not to do so.
See Related: McConnell's Camp Looks for Someone to Blame for the Border Bill Fiasco
The 'Border Security' Deal Is Utter Trash, but There's One Provision That Is Just Infuriating
Sen. Sinema seems to be taking all this far too personally.
This writer writes, knowingly belaboring the obvious, that this is an election year, and that being the case, it's unlikely that any substantive legislation will go through either the House or Senate; after all, we can't have these people risking their phony-baloney jobs by asking them to take a stand on something contentious when they face re-election in the fall.
And, it seems now that this debacle may mar the good Senator's own re-election chances, if she chooses to run at all:
The bill’s abrupt failure and Sinema’s 11th-hour efforts to avert it with rare national media appearances also raised questions about her reelection plans. Sinema has sidestepped such questions since she quit the Democratic Party in December 2022 and she faces an April deadline to submit more than 42,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
Let's be honest: Sen. Sinema's chances of being re-elected are greater than the chances of Diogenes finding an honest man in Washington, but only just. While her leaving the Democratic Party would appear to be a movement from principle, and I can appreciate that, it also puts her in a difficult electoral position, as she faces challenges from left and right; at the moment it looks like Representative Ruben Gallego on the left and former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on the right, although Arizona's primary isn't until August 6th. In any case, the Senator faces a difficult time, should she decide to try to retain her seat.
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