Tag: Michael Bennet

The Story:  Michael Bennet, a US Senator from Colorado, announced on May 2, 2019 that he is a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for...

The Story: Senator Michael Bennet (D- Colorado) has made it very clear that he wants to run for President of the United States. The great...

Since December, David Sirota has, on Twitter, on his own website, and in columns in The Guardian, been trashing most of Sanders’s Democratic opponents—all without disclosing his work with Sanders—and has been pushing back on critics by saying that he was criticizing the other Democrats as a journalist. Sirota’s hiring as a senior adviser and speechwriter was announced by the Sanders campaign on Tuesday morning after The Atlantic contacted the campaign and inquired about the undisclosed role Sirota held while attacking other Democrats. “He was advising beforehand,” Shakir said, explaining that Sirota’s informal work for Sanders goes back months, and was meant to be a trial period to see how the senator, who famously likes to write every word that he says himself, would work with a speechwriter. “Negative attacks on Democratic candidates,” Sanders said in 2018, criticizing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for putting out damaging information about an opponent to a favored candidate in a primary, “just continues the process of debasing the Democratic system in this country, and is why so many people are disgusted with politics." When people have questioned his tactics, Sirota has called them “mentally incapacitated.” Responding in mid-January to those who criticized him online for preemptively railing against the record of O’Rourke, who had not yet entered the race but had been a huge source of concern for Sanders allies since talk of O’Rourke’s potential presidential run picked up last year, Sirota tweeted, “The screaming temper tantrums by Democratic Party operatives whenever reporters scrutinize a lawmaker’s voting record is something to behold. On Monday night, after being contacted for a second time by The Atlantic with a list of specific questions about his undisclosed work for Sanders, Sirota did not respond to the email but deleted more than 20,000 tweets. On Tuesday morning, minutes after his position was announced by the Sanders campaign in a long list of new hires, Sirota said he hadn’t been able to respond to my initial inquiries because he’d been caring for his sick child. I started doing this many months ago.” He did not respond when asked if it was a coincidence that the tweets were deleted hours after I contacted him and the morning before he was announced as a Sanders employee. He then turned those into an op-ed on December 20 in The Guardian, writing that “a new analysis of congressional votes from the non-profit news organisation Capital & Main shows that even as O’Rourke represented one of the most solidly Democratic congressional districts in the United States, he has frequently voted against the majority of House Democrats in support of Republican bills and Trump administration priorities.” “This story was reported by David Sirota of Capital & Main,” the disclaimer at the end of the article read. He wrote another op-ed two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, headlined “Beto O’Rourke Is the New Obama.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs of strain from the 34-day partial government shutdown are emerging on the Senate floor. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado tore into Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Thursday after Cruz backed a GOP bill to pay Coast Guard members but not reopen the government. The normally mild-mannered Bennet erupted in a fiery speech, saying, “These crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is crying for first responders are too hard for me to take.” Bennet noted that Cruz single-handedly shut down the government in 2013, at a time when Colorado was flooded. His voice rising to a shout, Bennet said eight people were killed and many homes and businesses destroyed because of the flooding. “And because of the senator from Texas, this government was shut down for politics,” delaying relief efforts, Bennet said. Cruz, who led a 16-day government shutdown in a failed bid to derail funding for the Affordable Care Act, said Bennet “spent a great deal of time yelling (and) attacking me personally,” adding that he has never “bellowed or yelled at a colleague on the Senate floor, and I hope I never do that.” Bennet shot back that, unlike Cruz, he never called someone a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz famously accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying to him during an extended tirade in 2015. Bennet also denounced President Donald Trump, saying he “wants $5 billion to build some antiquated medieval wall that he said Mexico would pay for. This is a joke.” Cruz, for his part, said Bennet and other Democrats opposed the wall merely because of Trump. “They really, really, really, really don’t like this man,” Cruz said.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Thursday asked for a meeting with Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson over the company’s plans to deny funding for its Southwest Chief route pending additional financial investments. The letter, penned by multiple House and Senate lawmakers in both parties, argues the route that runs through Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico is “vital to the economic well-being of our communities.” “The lack of transparency by Amtrak management about its changing position on the Southwest Chief is troubling, particularly for a Government-Sponsored Enterprise entrusted with an important public transportation mission,” the letter reads. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) signed the document, as did a group of House lawmakers from New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas. Amtrak has put conditions on its decision to contribute funds to a project on the route. The letter comes in response to a message the company sent to Congress responding to questions about plans for the route. “Amtrak will offer a $3 million match towards the project costs if the grant application for the requested amount is successful,” Amtrak CFO William Feidt wrote in the October letter that was submitted with the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant application. “Before Amtrak will fulfill this contribution, a comprehensive financial plan and accompanying commitments by relevant states and BNSF for the remainder of the infrastructure investments and associated additional maintenances costs for this route in New Mexico must be completed,” Feidt added, referring to the BNSF Railway. Democratic lawmakers from New Mexico announced in March that Colfax County had received a $16 million TIGER grant for the project, aimed at rehabilitating the Southwest Chief line, which operates from Chicago, Ill., to Los Angeles, Calif. But Amtrak is insisting the other parties pitch in financially and develop a strategy for “long-term financial commitments” to rebuild the route operating from Hutchinson, Kan., and Albuquerque, N.M. “A piecemeal approach to solving this problem that leads to higher operating costs and new capital obligations for Amtrak’s long distance routes isn’t sustainable, especially as we face vast needs for fleet, station and infrastructure improvements across the National Network,” Amtrak spokesperson Marc Magliari said in a statement to The Hill. “We stand prepared to consider any such plan as we consider alternatives for this portion of the route.” Reps. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M), Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) also signed the Thursday letter, in which lawmakers say it’s “essential” that the funding be utilized to sustain “the Southwest Chief on its current route.”