[guest post by Dana]

It’s refreshing to see a politician remain undeterred by their party’s pressure for conformity of thought and vote their conscience in an effort to serve the best interests of their constituents. When she was elected to represent Arizona in the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema was the first Democrat elected to a Senate seat in 30 years. In her victory speech, she made it very clear that she intended to do what Arizonans were clamoring for: focus on common goals and bridge the political divides in her state. Arizonans, she recognized, simply wanted the state to work as it should, and to work without all hyper-partisan nuttery that is Washington:

As your Senator, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Not by calling names or playing political games, but by showing up and doing the work to keep Arizona moving forward.

So far she has charted her own course. Too bad for her, though, that’s against the Party rules. As a result of being a political centrist, the Progressive Caucus wing of Arizona Democratic Party are up in arms, and have submitted a resolution of censure:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing a censure vote from the Arizona Democratic Party, brought by progressives who deem her politics too accommodating to President Donald Trump at the expense of Democratic values.

[…]

The Arizona Democratic Party is planning to hold a vote this week to determine whether Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) should be censured.

The Arizona Republic reports the censure vote is due to the fact that progressives in the state Democratic Party see her as too accommodating to President Trump and his policies.

Those seeking to censure Sinema point to her vote to confirm David Bernhardt, Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of the Interior, as well as her vote to confirm William Barr as Attorney General, the news outlet notes.

Additionally, progressives in the Arizona Democratic Party cite Sinema’s resistance to joining fellow Democrats in trying to reinstate net neutrality rules to prevent internet service providers from throttling websites.

Here is precisely what’s bothering Democrats:

FiveThirtyEight’s Trump Tracker found that Sinema has opposed Trump during her time in the Senate 81 percent of the time. During her time in the House, where she served three terms, she supported Trump’s agenda 54% of the time.

Dan O’Neal, the state coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America, asserts that Sinema’s centrist ways are unacceptable:

“Here’s the thing: We really support Kyrsten Sinema, we want her to succeed, we want her to be the best senator in the country,” O’Neal said. “But the way she is voting is really disappointing. We want Democrats to vote like Democrats and not Republicans.”

In contrast to O’Neals’s observations, Arizona’s Democratic Party chairwoman, Felecia Rotellini, demonstrated a little of her own independent thinking when discussing the censure (which she isn’t convinced will pass):

“We are a very diverse group and that means diversity of thought, as well,” Rotellini said. “I don’t think it reflects poorly on the party at all, I don’t think it’s an indication of a fracture. I think it’s an indication of a group of people who think differently and have a different perspective on the same topic.”

Here is the resolution. The vote to bring it to the floor will be held on Saturday.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

I have not watched this vile scumbag’s testimony yet, as I just got home from work, but this clip is infuriating. It shows how the Trumpists mock the very notion of truth itself. I have literally seen testimony from several criminal defendants over the years who have come across as more honest than this.

Lewandowski, dripping with disdain, all but admits he lied during media interviews, prompting the audience to gasp at his brazenness. Hard to believe this guy is considering a run for US Senate. pic.twitter.com/cwLf3NEI2E

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2019

Let the whatabouts and rationalizations begin!

P.S. CNN contributor. This guy and McCabe. They hire all the best liars.

UPDATE: “I will continue to be fourth-rate.” LOL.

UPDATE x2: Pro-tip: “I care more about the political leanings of the guy who posted this video on Twitter than I do about the utter dishonesty on display in the actual video” is equivalent to saying “I am a partisan hack who doesn’t give the slightest crap about the truth because of how much I love Donald Trump and his lying sycophants.”

Not a good look. But hey, many of you don’t care about that.

UPDATE x3: LOL.

"But at the end of the day, you're accusing a President of very high …" long pause as Mr. Collins goes slightly wall-eyed… "issues." 1:09:40 here: https://t.co/wR5LyYrw8x

— Patterico (@Patterico) September 18, 2019

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

A recent New York Times article tried in vain to resuscitate a discredited allegation about Brett Kavanaugh. As I mentioned yesterday, there was a curious omission from the original version of the piece:

An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book’s account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article.

The reporters knew about that detail because they had included it in their book.

Here’s a clip where the reporters now allege that the editors were responsible for deleting the critical passage:

Plot thickens.
Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly claim that the qualifier about the other alleged Kavanaugh accuser not remembering an incident at Yale was included in the initial NYT draft but removed. pic.twitter.com/p9wUTnFyM1

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) September 17, 2019

I believe them. This shows that the editors are hacks, which we already knew. I don’t think this lets the reporters off the hook. They don’t seem particularly exercised about the omission. They almost seem to defend it.

Chuck Philips (formerly of the Los Angeles Times) once wrote a looong blockbuster front-page story about how a murder defendant was not guilty because he had an alibi showing he was all the way across the country in church, instead of in Compton on the night of the murder. I later read court documents showing that the defendant had admitted, in a recorded interview, being in Compton on the night of the murders. I asked Philips about it in a phone conversation, pressing him as to why that little tidbit had not appeared in his blockbuster story (along with the videos of the church service that disproved the alleged alibi). He said it had been cut for reasons of space.

He didn’t seem too upset about it either.

This is who they are and this is what they do.

Why provide the reader with the full picture when the full picture would just fully inform confuse them? If the inconvenient fact makes for a less powerful story, the solution is simple. Cut the inconvenient fact.

You know. For reasons of space.

If you want to see how a real reporter handles the truth, watch this report from Jan Crowford of CBS:

We report tonight the real bombshell: Christine Ford’s close HS friend (who Ford says was at the party when Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her) said Ford’s story is not believable and told the FBI Ford’s allies pressured her, threatened her with a smear campaign to say otherwise https://t.co/GQhBTXHcze

— Jan Crawford (@JanCBS) September 17, 2019

That’s how you do it.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]