Spare me the make believe indignation from Republicans about the Afghanistan evacuation.
1/ Here's the story of the relentless Republican effort (led by President Trump) to undermine and destroy the programs that help bring Afghan refugees to the U.S.
2/ Over the last decade, Republicans have pushed to intentionally create a massive backlog in the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program - the one we use to bring Afghan partners to America, by putting onerous conditions on the applications.
3/ In 2016, Obama asked to increase the cap for the SIV program. Senate Republicans objected.
Then, the Trump Admin started slowing down SIV processing. When Biden took over, there were 10,000 unfilled visas, despite 17,000 applications in the pipeline.
4/ This dovetailed with the assault by Trump and Republicans to destroy other refugee programs that bring Afghans to the U.S..
Obama admitted over 2,700 Afghan refugees. Trump admitted 400, bc he had dismantled the refugee system. Biden had to rebuild it.
5/ And today Trump Republicans are making it clear they will oppose bringing more Afghan refugees to the U.S..
Steven Miller: "Resettling [Afghans] in America is not about solving a humanitarian crisis; it’s about accomplishing an ideological objective to change America,”
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We aren't on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We are in the middle of it.
But I worry people don't see the whole scheme. They just pay attention to each new daily outrage. So I went to the Senate floor to explain Trump's plan.
Here's a 🧵of the speech. It's important.
Step 1 of the plan:
Turn the justice system into a political witch hunt operation that punishes critics for free speech and immunizes loyalists for actual criminality.
Step 2 of the plan:
Use government power to compel the media to tell only the regime's narrative and to silence critics.
The Kimmel suspension is a much bigger deal than you know.
It's really about a growing alliance between Trump and the companies that own America's local TV stations - like Nexstar - to turn local TV into Trump propaganda.
1/ Let me tell you the short story. It's chilling.
2/ In August, Nexstar announced they wanted to buy another TV station company, Tegna.
But that's illegal - because it would give Nexstar control of stations in nearly half the country. FCC rules prohibit ONE company from having THAT much control over local TV content.
3/ Why? Because one company shouldn't control local speech in half the country.
Also, we want our local TV stations to be run by local actors to preserve local identity and prevent our culture from becoming soullessly flattened - which Nexstar was already doing!
The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent.
2/ Leaders across the political spectrum have spoken out about the need to depoliticize our fight against violence. GOP Governor Spencer Cox has led the way.
3/ Here is the latest post from Laura Loomer, who clearly has the ear of President Trump, calling on Trump to use dictatorial powers to destroy his political opposition. This kind of rhetoric is gaining traction in MAGA world, and Trump is now echoing it.
1/ The beating heart of a free society is the ability for citizens to engage in political life with no fear of violence. Once we lose this freedom, few will step forward, and our entire democratic experiment unwinds into chaos and recrimination.
2/ Political violence in America is spiraling - January 6th, the attempting assassination of President Trump, the beating of Paul Pelosi, the murder of the Minnesota legislators, the shooting of Brian Thompson, and now the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
3/ We can spend today arguing who is at risk more - the right or the left. Or we can decide that our entire democratic enterprise is at risk if we don't draw a line in the sand today. What does that exercise look like?
1/ Republicans think they are going to hide all the hospital and clinic closures due to throwing 17M off their health care to pay for their billionaire tax cuts.
We won't let them.
I'm starting an effort to track all the closures - @HospitalsCrisis. We launched it this week.
2/ My organization, American Mobilization Project, is funding and working with @ProtectOurCare to build this tool tool that tracks the damage done to health care centers in real time.
Every time a hospital closes or is at risk of closing because of the GOP bill, we'll know.
3/ When your local hospital eliminates its maternity delivery unit, or your parent’s nursing home closes, you should know why.
It's the direct result of a choice that Republicans and Trump made to choose tax cuts for the rich over health care for normal Americans.