Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema left a two-hour meeting with White House officials seemingly on the verge of an agreement to advance President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda — depending on whether their fellow Democrats sign on. And, in a sign of Biden’s entreaties to progressives, the president hosted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for an afternoon meeting, according to a Democratic source. Sanders has objected to the possible exclusion of his Medicare expansion proposal from a deal, as Manchin…

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Hank Stephenson writes: Walk the streets of Kyrsten Sinema’s old stomping grounds, Phoenix’s artsy Roosevelt Row, on a busy Friday night and you might see a dozen or so Kyrsten Sinemas, none of them flattering. A local dance crew calling itself the Moderate Pixie Dream Girls, whose members dress in pink tutus and purple party wigs, perform on local street corners to protest the Arizona senator’s opposition to increasing the minimum wage or her resistance to immigration reform. Stickers at…

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Dan Kaufman writes: Last month, as Democrats were struggling to craft a passable version of the Build Back Better Act, a $3.5-trillion bill that contains much of the Biden Administration’s domestic agenda, Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, told a group of reporters, “I cannot accept our economy, or, basically, our society, moving towards an entitlement mentality.” The Democrats are attempting to pass the measure through the budget-reconciliation process, an effort that will take every Democratic vote in…

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CNN reports: “I am a hunter — and I think you should be hunted,” a woman can be heard saying in a voicemail left for Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in September. “You will never be safe in Arizona again.” Or there’s the man who spit, “Die you bitch, die! Die you bitch, die!” repeatedly into the phone, in another of several dozen threatening and angry voicemails directed at the Democratic secretary of state and shared exclusively with CNN…

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