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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As the DHS funding bill moves closer to a vote in the House, and likely a vote in the Senate (where it could be combined with DoD and other budgets), I want to spell out the dangers of a bipartisan vote to keep funding this version of DHS.
2/ I get my colleagues' desire to support government funding. Even under Trump, the government performs many vital tasks.
But not at any price. The political police force Trump is building at DHS - and their daily violation of the law - threatens to unwind our republic.
3/ What Trump is doing in Minneapolis is a test case. His goal is likely to create disruptions in cities in Democratic and swing states as a pretext to interfere in the fall elections.
Yes, he's got loads of money from BBB for this, but this budget gives him $28 billion more.
We told you the Venezuela invasion was just corruption. It took one whole week to get the proof.
Trump took Venezuela's oil at gunpoint, and gave it to one of his biggest campaign donors.
1/ But when you learn the details, it's even worse. A short🧵on this corruption story.
2/ John Addison donated a stunning sum to Trump's election campaign: $6 million. And then, as the Venezuelan operation unfolded, his company, Vitol, asked Trump for a license to trade Venezuelan oil - before their competitors.
3/ And then, just days later, Trump selected Vitol for the first sale of Venezuelan oil - at a discount that will likely allow Vitol to make a huge profit when it sells it to secondary buyers.
5 years ago today, our Capitol was attacked. A year ago, Trump pardoned the worst attackers as a reward for their violence.
You should know them.
1/ Let's start with David Dempsey - he was out for blood: pepper sprayed officers, stomped on their heads, beat them with poles.
2/ This is DJ Rodriguez. He posted: "There will be blood. Welcome to the revolution". He beat officers with a wooden pole, tasered an officer in the neck causing a heart attack.
3/ Here is Thomas Webster. He led the charge to break into the Capitol. He beat officers with a metal pole, held one down so rioters could brutally kick him.
2/ In a classified briefing to Senators this week (that contained scant secret info), Sec. Rubio and Sec. Hegseth told us that the military strikes in the Caribbean were a counter-drug mission, NOT designed to overthrow the Venezuelan government. thehill.com/homenews/senat…
3/ That made no sense. The drug killing Americans is fentanyl. There's NO fentanyl coming from Venezuela. Venezuela exports cocaine and 90% of it goes to Europe, not the U.S.!
2/ We funded Pennsylvania's student-led Project 26. They just hosted a day of action and food drive at 6 college campuses encouraging students to contact their members of Congress to ask them to lower their costs and revive Trump's dead economy.
3/ This year @DownHome_NC - a group we funded to organize rural voters in North Carolina against Trump's cost increases - reached 52,676 (WOW!) voters no one else was able to reach across North Carolina, mainly by knocking on people's doors. downhomenc.org