Journalists’ Roundtable: 10-29-21: Kysten Sinema, Cyber Ninjas, Grant Woods

It’s time now for the Journalists’ Roundtable and for a look at some of this week’s top stories, we welcome Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services and Laurie Roberts from the Arizona Republic.

This week’s Journalists’ Roundtable covered:

• Kyrsten Sinema
• Senate vs. Ninjas
• Ninjas vs. AZ Republic
• Redistricting

Kyrsten Sinema

Howie Fischer: “It’s almost like she’s decided ‘I’m getting a lot of ink nationally’ but she’s also decided and I don’t know if she just doesn’t care about her image anymore, she’s not talking to reporters. She even got a certain amount of publicity for what she wore. But it’s a part of a larger group of things that are going on with her. Her main problem at this point doesn’t have to do with anything going on with the budget plans, she’s against the Medicare package and she’s taken a lot of money from the industry.”

Laurie Roberts: “I don’t think she walked that back very far. She has decided and apparently she has gotten President Biden to agree to a greatly slimmed down version of expenses for pharmaceuticals. It would allow Medicare to negotiate a very small number of medications given in hospitals. It is nowhere near what the majority of Americans were expecting when they elected Senator Sinema who campaigned on lowering prescription drug prices. This is nothing like that. This is a problem for her.

Senate vs. Ninjas

Howie Fischer: “There are two lawsuits and we’ll talk about both of them. The first one was filed by American Oversight which is an independent watchdog group. The problem is that they only sued the senate.”

Laurie Roberts: “I could hear the laughter coming out of Sarasota, FL, home of the Cyber Ninjas from here. They’ve made money and they’re the first thing people speak of when they think of election audits. I’m sure they’re not too worried about Senate President Fann’s threat.”