Here's another reason Democrats can't trust Kevin McCarthy: Incredibly, he's demanding that Dems support the far right GOP border agenda as part of the next package of aid for Ukraine.
I'm not sure people appreciate how extreme this demand truly is. 1/
Ending Biden's parole programs isn't "border security." Those programs allow migrants to apply for entry from afar rather than make the trek to the border. This isn't about the border, it's about reducing the number of immigrants allowed in. 4/
One can envision a bipartisan compromise that would help fix our asylum system. I genuinely think it could have appeal for some Republicans and restrictionist minded writers (cc @DouthatNYT), if they'd give it a hearing. Here's what it might look like. 5/
Dems have grown overly accustomed to negotiating under threat from Republicans as the normal conditions under which governing must function. Dems shouldn't play along with efforts to link Ukraine aid to the GOP's wildly extreme "border security" bill. 6/6
Trump's threat to bomb "every" power plant in Iran is the key. That leaves no doubt he's threatening war crimes. The threat to destroy "a whole civilization" only hammers it home.
The key is what happens in the aftermath of bombing all those plants. 3/
Pete Hegseth just held a prayer service in which he appealed for God's help in killing our "enemies" with maximal violence and brutality. Hegseth's bloodlust and sadism are drawing sustenance from his brand of far-right Christianity. 1/
Hegseth appears to be a devotee of Christian Reconstructionism. As one religious scholar notes, this posits that "all authority belongs to God," which renders the state’s authority wholly subordinate to a "higher category of Biblical law." 3/
Remarkable: Trump's planned migrant prison camps are hitting deep resistance in red areas. In Virginia's partly rural Hanover (+26 Trump) opposition is intense. GOP leaders in other states are opposed.
These vast prison camps would allow for the detention of 80,000 more migrants, doubling Trump/Miller's capacity for deportations. Yet resistance is breaking out in red Virginia, reddish parts of New Jersey, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Utah, and more. 2/
Stephen Miller is employing state terror in service of the open goal of shifting the ethnic mix of the country. In numerous ways he's doing this at the expense of public safety.
First, his grandmother has written an unpublished history of some of his ancestors' immigration to the US. We are publishing it online for the first time. They were attacked in terms similar to those he uses today.
Some news on Trump's doling out of most refugee slots to white South Africans: Two former State Department officials tell us basic protocols designed to determine whether this group actually merits protection have simply been scrapped. It's just whim.
Remarkable how brutal the ruling against Trump on Abrego Garcia truly is: It details malicious abuses of power all throughout. Trump and Stephen Miller were testing their ability to spread lawless state terror. But the court held the line. 1/
News --> The commander who oversaw Pete Hegseth's alleged killing of two boat bombing survivors is now likely to come in and face questions from House Armed Services Committee, ranking Dem Adam Smith tells me.
Pete Hegseth denies he gave the order to kill them all. But even some Republicans now appear to be demanding answers, so Frank Bradley, who oversaw bombings, is in talks with House Armed Services about coming in.