Today, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the availability of the abortion pill, mifepristone, to decide whether to roll back access to mifepristone nationwide.
 
Let’s talk about it. 🧵 When Dobbs was decided, we knew chaos and confusion would be unleased across the country, and we're seeing it now.
 
Mifepristone has been safely used for more than 20 years, accounting for over 50% of all abortions in the U.S. Now, access to this pill is at risk.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether it will overturn the Chevron doctrine—a 40-year-old doctrine that's critical to a functioning federal government.

Let me explain 🧵 The Chevron doctrine recognizes the Congress delegates authority to technical experts at federal agencies selected by Congress to implement federal laws, in line with Congress’s intent.

🚨 IMPORTANT 🚨
Deadlines for federal assistance for survivors of the Lahaina and Upcountry wildfires are quickly approaching.
Applications must be submitted by:
📌 Disaster Unemployment Assistance: Sep. 25
📌FEMA Disaster Assistance: Oct. 10
📌SBA Disaster Loan: Oct. 10

Disaster Unemployment Assistance: Available to workers, business owners, and self-employed individuals working or living in Maui County who became unemployed or had their work hours interrupted because of the Lahaina or Upcountry fires.

Apply at .huiclaims.hawaii.gov/#/

I will not support the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court for the following reasons: She will vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act after being rushed on the Supreme Court in time to hear the case on November 10.

Millions of Americans will lose their health care – catastrophic in the middle of a pandemic.

Gen. Soleimani was a reprehensible figure responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American service members and thousands of innocent people around the world. His death in a U.S. airstrike further escalates hostilities and increases the potential for widespread violence in a part of the world already fraught with peril.

President Trump’s hasty, unilateral decision to withdraw U.S. troops and abandon our Kurdish allies in Northern Syria was made without consulting senior military and State Department officials. Trump’s rationale is based on lies and misinformation which are evident in his tweets. The President continues a pattern of erratic behavior that has resulted in the erosion of our long-standing alliances. It's actions like these that compelled Secretary Mattis, who understood the importance of our allies, to resign.

From Day 1 of his presidency, @realDonaldTrump has been motivated by two things: protecting himself and making money. Speaker Pelosi is right to hold this dangerous chief executive accountable. @realDonaldTrump Here's what we know so far:

-obstructed justice as detailed in the Mueller Report
-named as unindicted co-conspirator in campaign finance crime
-received money in violation of the Constitution from foreign governments
-pressured a foreign govt to investigate his political rival

My friend @timkaine and I visited the El Paso and Clint border stations today to see the conditions that migrant children and their families are experiencing. The agents at the El Paso and Clint facilities themselves called what the migrants are staying in cells. Cells. When we got to the facilities, I asked the migrants a question; what do you want for yourself here in this country? They wanted a better future for their children, to be able to attend school, to be reunited with their families. They didn’t want to live under threat of violence.

Everyone deserves to have a place to call home. But with Ben Carson in charge? Our marginalized communities will continue to struggle to keep a roof over their heads. We are in an affordable housing crisis and this administration is providing no solutions. #OurHomesOurVoices Just one day after telling the House that he had no plans in regards to transgender protections, HUD issued a rule allowing shelters to deny people admission on religious grounds or force transgender women to share bathrooms and sleeping quarters with men. #WontBeErased

As many of my colleagues and I made clear to AG Barr at his confirmation hearing, the Special Counsel’s report must be made public. Transparency is crucial to the integrity of this process and the American people deserve to know the full extent of Robert Mueller’s work. We don’t yet know what the Special Counsel has concluded about Donald Trump and his campaign’s coordination with Russian interference in the 2016 election. But we do know that the investigation has resulted in 37 indictments and seven guilty pleas from close associates of Trump.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh has not earned the benefit of the doubt. He has the burden of proof to demonstrate his ability to be independent of @realDonaldTrump and exercise unbiased and independent judgment. #WhatsAtStake (thread) .@realDonaldTrump selected Judge Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court from a list hand-picked by two organizations with a far-right ideology —the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation.

If the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court is anything like the nominees he’s been sending to the lower federal court, I expect that we will see a nominee hand-picked by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. A nominee that is intent on carrying out the right-wing ideology of the President and his most extreme supporters.

The President of the United States and his administration are playing games with the lives of innocent children. Tonight, my colleagues and I are on the floor opposing family separation and detention. Watch live here: sen.gov/RL66

#HandcuffsForAll There is nothing in the law that requires a zero-tolerance approach at the border – it was a choice that Donald Trump and his administration made. And these children are suffering the consequences. The President’s actions are unnecessary and cruel – but they aren’t surprising.

Connie Chung was the first Asian woman to co-anchor the nightly news on a major network. This #APAHM2018 & #WorldPressFreedomDay, we celebrate her contributions to journalism. Passing down the knowledge her mother taught her about Hawaiian seaweed, Dr. Isabella Kauakea Yau Yung Aiona was the first Native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in science. She became the world's leading expert in limu earning her the nickname of First Lady of Limu. #APAHM2018

Bashar al-Assad has again used chemical weapons against his own people. This is another atrocity and breach of international law, and the international community must hold him accountable. While today's action was taken in concert with France and Great Britain, the President stated that ‘we are prepared for a sustained response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.’

Last month, I asked Sec. Zinke about reports that his department removed references to climate change from documents.

Here's what he said: "I challenge you—any member—to find a document that we’ve actually changed on a report. And I read them all. I don’t change a comma." It appears that @reveal has found otherwise. If true, this report illustrates yet again that the Trump administration both disdains science and lacks integrity. revealnews.org/article/wipeou…

Over 6,500 hotels, malls, small businesses, apartments, and homes would be compromised or destroyed, and 20,000 residents would be displaced by a sea level rise. The economic cost of this damage? $19 billion. #TimeToWakeUp We need our federal agencies to invest in research that better understands climate change’s long-term impact. But Trump has appointed – and his Republican allies in the Senate have confirmed – regressive, dangerous, and extreme nominees who are undermining critical research.

I have consistently supported a clean DREAM Act, and voted in favor of the Coons-McCain amendment today that came very close to it. And while it earned the support of a bipartisan group of 52 senators, the vast majority of Republicans blocked this effort. Unfortunately, we were left with only one option to protect the 800,000 current DACA recipients and an additional one million Dreamers who the President has threatened with deportation. It’s for them that I voted for the Rounds-King amendment.

There are battles worth fighting. Protecting DREAMers, reauthorizing CHIP, funding Community Health Centers, and providing parity between funding for defense and domestic priorities – without pitting one against the other – were battles worth fighting. I’m confident that we can reach bipartisan agreement on these issues and it was completely unnecessary for the President and Congressional Republicans to force a shutdown on them.

Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, & Donald Trump turned things upside down. They’ve spent the past year working behind closed doors to take away health care from millions & pass huge tax cuts for the richest people & corporations in our country without input from Dems or the public. At the same time, they’ve ignored reauthorizing CHIP, funding Community Health Centers, protecting DREAMers, and providing parity between defense and non-defense programs. All of these issues have bipartisan support and should have gotten done months ago.

Today, I am calling on my colleague Al Franken to step aside. I’ve struggled with this decision because he’s been a good Senator and I consider him a friend. But that cannot excuse his behavior and his mistreatment of women. (thread) TIME Magazine, by naming ‘The Silence Breakers’ as their ‘People of the Year,’ is recognizing what women have always known: there are men among us who use their positions of power and influence to manipulate, harass, and assault women. What is new here is the women.