🧵1. What happened yesterday at @KCCouncil when asylum seekers showed up to testify about how they would be w/o a place to sleep in one of the richest areas in the country was extraordinary. Councilmembers Perry, Mosqueda, Baron, Zahilay welcomed them & ensured they cld speak.

https://twitter.com/LillyAFowler/status/1765164212366835798

2. After everyone had spoken but asylum seekers were not leaving b/c they had nowhere to sleep that night, council members began calling around to help fill the 2-week gap before county money could get disbursed. Perry called Muslim leader Mubarak El-Amin as one of her calls.

America must call for a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities. After forcing people in north Gaza to go south, Israel just launched enormous set of strikes on the south. This is now collective punishment. 5000+ Palestinians now dead, at least 40% children. washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/… We have 500+ US citizens + families in south Gaza, trying to get out. Hamas reportedly blocking efforts to get them out, but Israel is bombing in the very area that people have been told to go to for shelter. Israel also blocking fuel & attacking basic infrastructure.

🧵Two years ago today, the American Rescue Plan was passed into law. This was a transformative piece of legislation that got shots in arms, money in pockets, and did so much more, including: ✅ Expanding the Child Tax Credit to cut child poverty in HALF
✅ Lowering health care premiums by $800 for 13 million Americans
✅ Giving states an easier pathway to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage for a full 12 months

🧵The IRS just reported that thanks to the $$ we put into the Inflation Reduction Act to boost IRS officers, 89% of taxpayers calls are now being answered….by agents! Why is this important? A primary way that GOP undermines faith in govt is to make it unable to respond to YOU. The best way to make govt unable to respond to you is to cut the funding so there’s no people to do the critical work that they are supposed to do. Please understand: this is a strategy of the right. The GOP regularly cuts the budgets for critical programs like IRS, Soc Security

🧵My reaction to the Administration's Title 42 announcement:

This is a momentous day for immigrant rights activists, immigrants, and refugees everywhere. Title 42 was a cruel and discriminatory policy that circumvented U.S. law, preventing people from accessing protections. Today is the product of years of advocacy from both inside and outside Congress. I’m thrilled to see the Biden Admin do the right and moral thing by ending this extremely harmful, xenophobic, and shortsighted policy that disproportionately impacted Black and Brown migrants.

I'm just leaving the White House after meeting with President Biden on the Build Back Better and infrastructure bills.

My takeaways 🧵👇🏾 We had a very productive and necessary conversation about the urgent need to deliver long-overdue investments — not only in roads and bridges but also in child care, paid leave, health care, climate action, affordable housing, and education.

Between 1866 and 1890, there were NINE landmark civil rights laws enacted by Congress.

None of them received bipartisan votes but all of them were popular, urgent, and necessary for taking critical steps towards equality, justice, and opportunity for Black people across America. They were:
✅The 1866 Civil Rights Bill
✅The 14th Amendment
✅The 15th Amendment
✅The 1870 Enforcement Act
✅The Klu Klux Klan Act
✅The 1872 Enforcement Act
✅The 1875 Civil Rights Bill
✅The 1875 Enforcement Act
✅The Lodge Bill

We promised people that if we won the Senate, we would send out $2,000 survival checks. They delivered us to victory—and now we MUST deliver.

“Targeting” checks to a smaller group fails to do that. People need help like never before, and we must put money in their pockets. “Targeting” checks isn’t just bad for people, it’s bad policy too! It’s not humane, it's not smart, it’s not effective, and it’s not even fiscally responsible. Not to mention that it doesn't meet the scale of this crisis.

Help me spread the word about 4 obvious reasons why:

I just received a positive COVID-19 test result after being locked down in a secured room at the Capitol where several Republicans not only cruelly refused to wear a mask but recklessly mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one.
jayapal.house.gov/2021/01/11/cov… Only hours after Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic—creating a superspreader event ON TOP of a domestic terrorist attack.

Big news: Bold progressive champions inside and outside of Congress just unveiled The People’s Agenda!

This people-first legislative roadmap for the first 6 months of 2021 is an urgent, brave, and just agenda. It's the way forward. And we're ready to make it happen. Take a look: 1⃣Provide COVID-19 relief that actually meets the scale of this devastating crisis and addresses the disproportionate harm to BIPOC and other vulnerable communities. This includes protecting essential workers, sending grants to businesses, and putting money in people's pockets.

THREAD on health expertise in @JoeBiden's Cabinet. US has 15 mm cases & 3,000 deaths PER DAY. Racial injustice is rampant.

1. Cabinet MUST have multiple public health experts. Current structure: 5 econ & 3 climate positions. HHS Sec is SOLE health pos. Elevate SG & add 1 addl. 2. Nominate HHS Secretary who is public health/medical expert. @vivek_murthy, former Surgeon General, is exceptionally qualified & trusted. Our HC system has failed us & HHS Sec needs to understand & CHANGE this.

Being a progressive means being first to the best, most just idea. Our policies are so often slandered as crazy or radical or far-left before we build the movement across America that makes them the law of the land.

There are many examples, but today's is legalizing marijuana.

https://twitter.com/RepBarbaraLee/status/1334279435864977408

In 2012, WA and CO became the first states to legalize marijuana. Over the next 7 years, 9 states joined us. Last month, voters in 4 more states—red and blue—brought the list to 15. And TODAY, the House is debating the MORE Act to legalize marijuana at the federal level.

Five major takeaways from Trump's tax returns:

😡He paid NO income taxes in 10 of past 15 years. In 2016 and 2017, he paid only $750. Even in our broken tax system where the wealthiest never pay their fair share, the average person in top .001% paid about $25 million. Takeaway #2 from Trump's tax returns:

🤯He personally owes a lot of people ALOT of money--hundreds of millions of dollars--that has to be paid up in the next four years. That makes him a prime target for anyone who wants something--including dictators or other foreign enemies.

America not only lost a historic member of the highest court but a trailblazer for women everywhere. From her passionate advocacy on behalf of women to her decades on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg served with grace and brilliance while fighting for equality and justice. As some looked out for corporations and the powerful, she lifted up families and the most vulnerable. With every case she deliberated on, she was guided by the promise of the very words carved above the Supreme Court: equal justice under law.

Yesterday, I was briefed by attorneys representing women who were subjected to forced, invasive procedures by a gynecologist connected with a private, for-profit detention center in GA. It has become clear that the initial reports are likely part of a horrific pattern of conduct. There may be at minimum 17 women who were subjected to unnecessary procedures from just one doctor, often without appropriate consent or knowledge, and with the clear intention of sterilization. It's possible there are similar cases for individuals who were already deported.

Millions of people have lost their jobs, housing, and health care during COVID-19. We must respond with policies that match the scale of this unprecedented crisis. The new Republican bill in the Senate FAILS to do that.

RT to share 6 reasons why: To help people withstand this crisis, we must renew expanded unemployment assistance by the FULL $600 a week.

✅The House plan does this

❌The Republican bill fails to do this (it actually slashes benefits in half, which then expire in December)

BIG NEWS: A House committee is voting on my South Asian Heart Health Awareness & Research Act TODAY!

This bipartisan legislation will raise awareness about the alarming rate of heart disease in South Asian communities while investing in strategies to reverse this deadly trend. As the first South Asian American woman ever elected to the House of Representatives, I know how urgent this is for families across the country. South Asians in the United States continue to experience a dramatic rise in heart disease.

This #LaborDay, COVID has only highlighted the fact that workers are the backbone of this country. I'm grateful for workers across America, and I'm proud to fight alongside them for good wages, strong benefits, full workers' rights, the right to organize, and dignity on the job. I'm thinking of frontline workers—heroes who have ALWAYS kept our communities going. I refuse to allow them to be called essential but treated as expendable. That's why I'm fighting for hazard pay, paid leave, Medicare for All & the passage of my Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Not just unlawful but also a prime example of Trump's failed leadership and desperation. Amidst COVID, people in Seattle & across America need more federal funding—not less. Yet he would prefer to turn your attention away from these real crises by fearmongering & fanning racism.

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1301314853747990530

Instead of levying partisan attacks at cities across America and attacking those powerfully protesting police brutality, this president should be focused on attacking COVID and the devastating economic crisis we face with millions having lost their jobs, housing, and health care.

As the House prepares to vote on fully restoring USPS operations, I'm thinking about those of you who have emailed and called—deeply concerned about how the Trump administration's sabotage of the Postal Service is hurting your families.

Here's what you've told me: You've told me that an attack on the USPS is an attack on health care as millions of families get their prescriptions and medications in the mail.

"The President was also scoffing at the Postal Service, calling it a joke, while a large number of our employees were dying daily as they struggled to perform our mission, during a deadly pandemic."

-David C. Williams, Former Vice Chairman of the USPS Board of Governors "We are now seeing infrastructure cuts that are destroying the Postal Service’s commitment to service delivery standards and the beginning of the price increases that the President threatened."