YSK that President Joe Biden wanted to end a loophole benefiting Private Equity billionaires. Powerful Senator Kyrsten Sinema opposed it. She was lavishly rewarded.
At first sight, the decision to insist on keeping a provision that benefits some of America’s wealthiest people seems a far cry from the concerns of voters in Sinema’s southwestern home state of Arizona.
However an FT analysis shows that the senator is a beneficiary of significant contributions from the private equity industry — whose lobbying machine and political influence have grown increasingly powerful over the past two decades.
Other sources:
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/kyrsten-sinema-private-equity-tax-loophole/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/sinema-received-nearly-1-million-from-wall-street-while-killing-tax-hike-on-investorsOpen linkView original on lemmy.world677
Comments52
Sincerely fuck Krysten Sinema, she campaigned on all of this progressive shit, took the money from donors and then tanked some of the biggest votes during bidens presidency. Like the infamous no vote for raising the minimum wage.
God do you remember that awful " boss woman move " where she did this stupid curtsy and a thumbs down?
Absolute f****** worst and loved every minute of it.
She was one of their rotating villains to prevent progress. She was complicit with the party against anything getting passed. 'we tried'
The thumbs down with the little curtsy to vote know for a better minimum wage will forever be burned into my psyche
Typical Green Party snake
Those of us who were actually paying attention know that Biden, while flawed like all human beings, was actually going to bat for average Americans.
And we repaid him by telling him to fuck off in favor of an equally old felon rapist insurrectionist pedophile born rich trash excuse for a human being.
Good job 'Merica.
bUt hE LoVeD tHe GeNoSiDez!!?1
"But but but uh Bully pullpit!"
He still signed the bill, with all of her bullshit changes intact, into law.
did you know that 30% of Americans didn't vote? estimates include half of those were in protest of the attacks in Gaza while others failed to vote because they feel disenfranchised, were blocked at the polls, or others.
if you account for the missing 30%, only 40% voted for the orange bitch.
had they not protested, or failed to vote early, trump would probably be in prison right now.
but hey. at least Trump saved all those Palestinian children in Gaza, right?
I don't know what estimates you're talking about but they're absurd if they say that 15% of Americans didn't vote because of Gaza. That's lunacy. Simply absurd.
Or, you know, had Biden not enthusiastically participated in the genocide of these people's friends and families.
On top of ignoring the affordability crisis.
Do you actually take yourself seriously? Because reasonable people do not.
Is this satire?
No, it's a statement from someone who, unlike you, was paying attention.
It's BlueMAGA fantasy fiction.
I like it when dipshits who weren't paying attention use buzzwords like "BlueMAGA" and think it makes them look like they were paying attention.
The problem with your claim is that we are the only ones paying attention. Democrats had their heads buried in the sand and were busy at brunch while Biden was office and only focus on Trump committing the same crimes.
Hey, the knuckle dragger who uses the term "BlueMAGA" unironically decided to respond with a low effort comment devoid of facts. Nice.
Vaccine rollout ending lockdowns
American Rescue Plan (HUGE investment in our economy/education/consumer protections)
Inflation Reduction Act
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (biggest infrastructure investment in our lifetimes)
SNAP Act
Created jobs every month consecutively for entire term (only administration in history to do this)
Biden stood on a picket line with striking workers (first president in history to do so)
Social Security Fairness Act (first administration in 20 years to expand SS benefits)
Increased federal contractor minimum wage.
Forgave student loans for millions of people.
Tried to remove medical debt from appearing on credit reports before being blocked.
This is just a FRACTION of what Biden and Dems did. And infinitely more than what you were aware of.
Look, kiddo. You aren't informed. That's what leads you to say things like "BlueMAGA" without realizing how stupid it makes you look. That's what leads you to try to compare Biden and Trump when it comes to lawlessness, which is only something a pretty dumb person with absolutely no knowledge about either individual would do.
Get yourself back in school. You need it.
You are the poster child of BlueMAGA.
Agreed. I don't understand how anyone could have this perspective if you actually had to buy your own groceries or pay a medical bill over the last four years, absent their social media algorithm warping their sense of reality.
Like I said.
Those of us who were paying attention know that we were recovering, like the rest of the world, from a global pandemic and that we were doing so more efficiently than most other countries. We also know that our groceries were less expensive than they are now. We also know Biden tried to remove medical debt from credit reports. We also know he tried (and somewhat succeeded) at forgiving student loan debt.
Not to mention the American Rescue Plan and CHIPS act that helped stimulate the economy.
But I'm sure your feelings are more accurate than these facts.
You're talking as if your senile pedo rapist was any different than the one in office now.
Tell me more about how our situation was worse then than it is now.
Tell me more about how Biden had the military in our cities and masked federal goons regularly harassing and assaulting American citizens.
Tell me more about how Biden pardoned hundreds of violent insurrectionists.
Tell me more about how Biden had Roe v Wade repealed.
Tell me more about how Biden caused the value of the dollar to decline 10% in the first 10 months of his presidency.
Tell me more about how Biden is a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, insurrectionist, and probable pedophile doing everything in his power to keep/redact the Epstein files from the public.
Then follow up by telling me how you became so fucking stupid. I'm sure it's a depressing story and I like sad stories.
Biden, and like all Democrats before him, set the stage for Trump to get away with most of what he is currently doing. Democrats always lay the groundwork for fascism. I don't think anyone supporting a party that has lost two times to a carnival barker is in any position to be lecturing anyone on politics.
I'm very confused why Americans don't realize the fact that their democracy is basically non existent.
Elected officials are paid by corporations to make decisions in favor of these corporations and sometimes against the interests of the normal people. The representatives no longer represent.
If I paid my teachers in school to modify the exams so that only I know all the answers, that'd be called bribery.
However, when it comes to the government (of the people, for the people) being controlled by a few billionaires, it's called lobbying instead of bribery.
I mean, YMMV. Sinema ostensibly ran on a progressive platform from a seat in a purple state where liberals were perennial losers. Nobody looked too deeply because the idea of Team-D winning was more important than the idea of placing a competent and trustworthy candidate in the seat.
Combine that with the fact people just don't have much contact with their elected officials. Mass media doesn't do a particularly good job of highlighting who is or isn't trustworthy (in large part because media is also owned and operated by corporate interests).
Well... funny story.
There are hosts of black and gray market mechanisms for gaming the accreditation system. You think its a coincidence that George Bush Jr's grades were too shitty to enroll at the University of Texas Law School but more than good enough to join the Yale squad? Or that his nephew nearly flunked out of Rice U before Bush's mom bailed him out?
I mean, the people will go where they are lead. And the national leadership in the United States is concentrated in the offices and board rooms of the corporate executives.
The biggest problem is not the individuals who lie, but the system that allows them to take bribes without repercussions.
The system is self-reinforcing and replicating, in large part because of the people who have a class interest in protecting one another and their entrenched positions in administration.
You can blame the public at-large for tolerating a corrupt system. But its hard to identify singular individuals at fault (unless you just want to scream at or ) that you can actually lean on to affect any kind of change.
And then, the very specter of radical change is frightening to people because they don't know if it will cost them any amount of pain in the short or medium term. Look at all the hysterics around Zohran Mamdani, a relatively conservative socialist reformer who gotten written up like the next Joseph Stalin for proposing publicly operated grocery stores in corners of the city lacking fresh produce.
I find it very easy to blame people for social conditions. Far more difficult to find the root of the problem and do anything about it.
Just because the solution isn't readily available doesn't mean that its a lost cause. In most cases, no individual is solely responsible for the whole problem. It takes a huge coordinated effort from the public via protesting to make any impactful difference.
And it's not a radical change in terms of it being a completely new concept. If anything it's just going back to pre 2005 which is exactly the root of the problem (citizens united vs FEC)
I'm not a citizen of this country and I don't have the ability to vote, but the reality that your vote and your voice means nothing to those in power must be incredibly depressing.
System Justification Theory explains this well. People support existing structures as a way of limiting cognitive stress. Political conservatism (and I don't just mean this in the American sense) is also a defining cause of this. This can manifest as general apprehension towards radical systemic/social change.
But this isn't something that has existed for a long time. This has only become an issue since citizens united vs FEC in 2005
YSK this story is old
Yeah, Biden is out of politics and Sinema has left the Senate. It's not clear why somebody would say that people should know this in late 2025.
I think it's important to remind people, or inform them if they missed it the first time, that capitalists will do whatever it takes to make an extra buck, including blatantly bribing a US Senator.
Also, I never want to miss an opportunity to post about Kyrsten Sinema being a piece of shit.
I guess as a tactic, it's not unlike how Trump always harped on Hillary as if she was still relevant. So, if that sort of tactic works, then maybe people see payback as fair play.
It's a good way to remind people that just because someone says they are progressive and an ally to the LGBTQ+ community it's a good idea to vet these statements with past actions, otherwise you get this POS.
I think there's value in understanding what we chose to get rid of and what we now have in its place.
We chose to get rid of a president who went to bat for average Americans.
We chose to replace him with a felon rapist insurrectionist pedophile who is robbing us blind.
Sometimes we just need to hold the mirror up.
And both were conservatives, as evidenced by their records as politicians, so pretending otherwise is silly.
Trolling for America hate
She was one of their rotating villains to prevent progress, the DNC has always had them, and they use them as part of their ratchet effect.
And then the DNC proceeds to promote their rotating villains like Hakeem Jeffries to top positions
No, he didn't.
He had all the power he needed to stop her if he wanted to. All they would have needed to do was strip her of all of her committee assignments, which would have negated her value to the lobbyists, and he couldn't even be bothered to lift a finger to do that.
Democrats aren't powerless and they never were, which should be abundantly apparent after what you've observed these last ten months.
They were complicit.
She was powerful? I honestly don't recall anything about her other than her voting with the GOP on most things.
Ya she was awful. She won her seat as an openly LGBTQ+ Democratic candidate. You'd at least figure she'd vote in line with the party. But with a closely divided Congress, every vote counts. Remember the ACA repeal vote was foiled by one no vote from John McCain.
So it was pretty obvious when she started to vote against the party, in favor of special interests and not people, that she was getting something from being one of the holdouts. I think she switched to Independent toward the end of her career there. Now she's pushing AI data centers in AZ because she just goes where the money is.
sorry we're too busy voting to condemn socialism to actually do literally anything beneficial.
As with so much in life, follow the money.
Do you all need to keep seeing the ratchet model even not-during election time???
What a fucking fake. Sure must be enjoying all the money paid by the corps for derailing everything.
When we revolt and take our country back, I hope she gets put against the wall just like the rest.
Could the DSA stay honest and do better than the current clowns representing the Donkey and Elephant.
She? He was nuts.