It's happening right in front our eyes. It's accelerated rapidly in the last 24 hours. Not sure why everyone doesn't see this.

1/ Can I take a minute to connect the dots - on how Trump is putting into action a plan to cripple our democracy in a way we may never recover from?

https://twitter.com/OversightAdmn/status/1869024591244357902

2/ He wasn't kidding when he said Democrats were the no. 1 threat to America and needed be dealt with by law enforcement and the military.

Today House Republican's referral of Liz Cheney for criminal prosecution - on made up charges - shows you the plan.
yahoo.com/news/key-repub…

That was a cataclysm. Electoral map wipeout. Senate D practical ceiling is now 52 seats. R's is 62.

Time to rebuild the left.

We are out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small.

1/ Some early thoughts: 2/ The left has never fully grappled with the wreckage of fifty years of neoliberalism, which has left legions of Americans adrift as local places are hollowed out, rapacious profit seeking cannibalizes the common good, and unchecked new technology separates and isolates us.

The story of how VP Harris worked to diffuse a transition of power crisis in Guatemala - while Trump undermined the U.S. by supporting the loser of the election - is both incredible and a sign of how ready she is to lead.

1/ Here’s the short story.
foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/28/gua… 2/ Biden gave Harris the job of reducing migration from Central America and by late 2023 her effort was showing remarkable success. Rates had come down 50%.

But a political crisis in Guatemala risked throwing that key country in chaos, potentially erasing many of her gains.

1/ Later today I am departing on a brief but important trip to Kenya. With China and Russia increasing their investments in East Africa, the U.S.-Kenya relationship is of growing importance to Congress.

I want to explain why and tell you what I’ll be doing on this trip. 2/ In many ways, Kenya is the center of gravity in East Africa. The economy is booming, full of opportunity for U.S. and Connecticut companies. Dubbed "Silicon Savannah", Kenya is also home to Africa's largest wind farm. And it has a dynamic civil society and independent media.

Lost amidst Trump’s rambling incoherence about Afghanistan today is the fact that he negotiated the withdrawal of U.S. forces with the Taliban, not Biden.

1/ Here are the facts about how Biden was handed a giant mess from Trump in Afghanistan. 2/ Trump made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. When Biden took office, he negotiated a short extension for full withdrawal to August 2021, but he could not alter the fundamental terms of the agreement.
nytimes.com/2020/02/29/wor…

There is little accountability for failed U.S. foreign policy. It's why we make the same mistakes over and over.

1/ So as Venezuela careens into another crisis, this is a moment to understand the stumbling, spectacular mess that Trump made there.
reuters.com/world/americas… 2/ The 2018 elections were marred by fraud. Trump recognized the loser of the election as president. At the time @brhodes and I applauded Trump for standing for democracy, but warned that pretending Maduro wasn't actually president was likely to backfire. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

It's important to understand what's happening in Venezuela right now, and how the Biden/Harris team helped put the brutal Nicolas Maduro in a strategic corner.

1/ First - let me be clear: the briefings I've received show Maduro lost the presidential election - badly. 2/ As we speak, Maduro is trying to steal the election, and supporters of democracy in Venezuela - including Maduro's allies in the Western Hemisphere - must join together to ensure he cannot overturnthe will of the people or maintain any semblance of legitimacy.

VP Harris was not made "border czar". That's made up.

She WAS put in charge of addressing the root causes of migration from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. A targeted but important task.

1/ And I got my hands on some data about the results that you need to see. 2/ First, what did VP Harris do? She created something called The Partnership for Central America, and convinced 56 companies to invest more than $5 billion to bolster Central American economies to address the causes of economic migration.

Just left Netanyahu's speech. I've spent my career fighting for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. I want Hamas defeated.

That speech was, as I expected, a setback for both the U.S.-Israel relationship and the fight against Hamas. The speech was more a commentary of U.S. politics, rather than a path forward for Israeli and U.S. security.

The suggestion that any American who objects to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a Hamas sympathizer was way out of bounds.

On this historic day, I want to tell you a story about Joe Biden, and what he did behind the scenes to make the historic 2022 gun bill - the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years - a reality.

1/ It starts with a phone call he made to me days after the Uvalde shooting. 2/ After the tragic Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, Biden wanted to give a prime time address to push the Congress to act.

But several of his advisors told him not to waste one of his few prime time speeches on guns. Congress will never pass a gun bill, they told him.

What I'm thinking tonight:

1/ I know it feels like the nation is unraveling. Yesterday's shooting was a watershed moment, but long before this moment, our politics had become dangerously hostile, zero sum, and too prone to violence.

The question is: what do we do? 2/ I know for many active citizens, there will be an instinct to retreat. In such a dangerous moment, better to just focus on me and those closest to me.

I begrudge no one that choice. But with our nation unravelling, I believe this is a time to lean forward.

The Supreme Court is just a cog in the Trump/Republican/corporate/billionaire power grab.

Today's decision to gut regulators' power to enforce pro-consumer laws is a watershed moment in the history of this quiet coup.

1/ Let me tell you why.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1806697278125539505

2/ For years, the Court deferred to federal agencies when interpreting a law with broad enforcement guidelines.

Congress knew this, and often intentionally wrote laws with non-prescriptive terminology, knowing the experts at the agency would implement it in the best way.

Two years ago this week I was at the White House meeting with President Biden to develop a strategy to get the gun bill passed.

1/ I want to tell you a behind-the-scenes story to show how these legislative victories would not have happened without Biden's personal involvement. 2/ Days after the Uvalde shooting, a small group of bipartisan Senators began to meet to work on a breakthrough gun safety bill. But the next week Congress was scheduled to be on recess, and we risked losing all our momentum.

As we were leaving for break, Joe Biden called me.

You want to know how the economy is rigged against working people? Here’s Izzy’s story - I ran into him along my walk and he was nice enough to walk with me for a while this afternoon.

1/ Izzy worked full time for Walmart for 17 years. 2/ He never made enough to put any money away. He lived paycheck to paycheck. But he found honor in the work. He liked helping people.

But when he got to retirement age, after working full time his whole life, he had virtually nothing saved.

Just wrapped a super energizing first session of my new initiative with Utah's @GovCox, Restoring the Common Good.

We're trying to figure out if there's a way for right and left to work together to build more common bonds between Americans.

1/ Here's what we talked about today.
2/ Our focus today was on how good, meaningful lives often are determined by healthy relationships and connection to community.

We were joined in Salt Lake City by local and national leaders on these topics of combatting loneliness and building a concern for the common good.

I have some bad news - buried in the appropriations bill being voted on this week is a terrible new gun policy rider that significantly rolls back the firearms background check system.

1/ You need to know about this - it’s bad enough that I will vote against the entire bill. 2/ Republicans (and one or two Democrats) pushed for the new rider that allows, for the first time in 30 years, veterans judged by the VA to be mentally incompetent to buy guns.

These are very very mentally ill veterans - those at the highest risk of suicide.

Minutes ago, the text of the bipartisan national security funding bill was released. It:

-funds Ukraine, Israel, and humanitarian relief
-secures our border and reforms our asylum law

1/ As the co-author of the immigration provisions, here's a THREAD on the key elements: 2/ First - it would be easy to just keep immigration and border policy as a political cudgel for another 40 years. But politics at its best is about finding bipartisan compromise on the toughest issues. That's what we've done here.

Here's a snapshot of what's in the bill.

I support Israel in its mission to seek justice for the worst terrorist attack in their history.

1/ That means providing funding and weapons. But it also means making sure they don't repeat our mistakes in Afghanistan when we invaded after our nation's worst terrorist attack. 2/ We were too permissive of civilian casualties, and we did not understand that our operations were creating two Taliban recruits for everyone we eliminated.

You cannot defeat a movement if you are constantly providing it bulletin board material for recruitment efforts.

The UAW fight is so important because it strikes at the heart of America's spiritual crisis.

The hollowing out of workers' economic power has been devastating for American families. So many people feel not in control of their lives, because they work so hard and get so little. Both parents work. Child care is outsourced to strangers. There's not enough money coming in to do anything other than pay the bills. No vacations. No college savings. One big medical bill away from insolvency. No breathing room.

It's an exhausting existence.

I attended today's meeting and will play a role in the upcoming debate. But I have concerns unique from many of my colleagues.

1/ Yes, deep fakes/job displacement worry me. But I'm more concerned with the psychological cost of outsourcing so many basic human functions to AI.

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1701946279620702633

2/ Conversation, composition, creativity, discovery, in person connection - these are the things that make us human and fill our lives with meaning and value.

What happens when AI writes our e-mails, composes our music, creates our art? What happens as machines replace teachers?

Thousands of gun dealers currently do not do background checks, allowing loads of criminals to get guns.

The 2022 gun bill sought to change that, and today Biden announced the rule to implement the change.

1/ This is a BIG deal. Let me tell you why.
msn.com/en-us/news/pol… 2/ Only people "engaged in the business" of selling firearms have to conduct background checks on buyers. In the era of gun shows and , with thousands of part time sellers making big profits off selling guns, the pre-internet definition had become outdated.armslist.com