The parallel imagery being projected by the administration cannot be ignored. Demonstrators across the United States today recommit to the rejection of kings, and tyrants - thugs who betray liberty and suppress dissent through intimidation and violence. #nokings #nokingsday (2/2)

As the administration makes harmful spending cuts under the guise of reducing government waste, remember this $45m birthday party. Remember their priorities, and pay close attention to the subtext: 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐤𝐞. #nokings (4/4)

That number, specifically allocated to anticipated road repairs, is just a portion of the total cost of the King's Birthday Parade misuse of resources planned for this weekend. Per the Army's own estimates, the final bill could be as high as $45m. (3/4)

Correction: The Army has budgeted for 𝐬𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐬 of taxpayer money to repair the damage to public roadways that is anticipated when a procession of heavy military vehicles rolls through Washington, D.C. this weekend. (2/4)

Chuck Schumer, NY
Dick Durbin, IL
Angus King, ME
Catherine Cortez Masto, NV
John Fetterman, PA
Gary Peters, MI
Kirsten Gillibrand, NY
Brian Schatz, HI
Maggie Hassan, NH
Jeanne Shaheen, NH

When the senators listed below get another opportunity to make a stand later this year, it will be too little too late for millions of people who held the line and kept them in office with the singular mandate of protecting against the very thing this CR now empowers. We won't forget.

It is a decision to treat this budgetary process as business as usual while the institutions that rely on the checks and balances built into the constitutional order are being lit on fire. There will not be another opportunity like the one thrown away this evening.

Walking away from the single most meaningful tool at the disposal of the Senate in a way that Republican Senators have never shied away from, is a choice not to resist.

No matter how true the convictions of Senator Schumer's break-away Democrats may be, no matter how impassioned their reasoning is communicated, running on the intent behind a vote that empowers all the insult and injury to come is a losing strategy.

This is what the people of the State of California expect of you. Leave the purse empty.

Unless and until your Republican colleagues are prepared to protect the public interest and do their constitutional duty, it will be up to Democrats like yourself to go it alone and make the difficult choices that make a stand against a fledgling tyranny.

Congress has no choice but to use the power the Constitution vests in it to reign in these chaotic impulses in the Executive.

What the administration is showing the American public is that the President, in the authority he claims for himself, may do as he wishes with the money available to the federal government because he alone has a mandate of the people; he alone decides what is executed, appropriations laws be damned.

Funds already lawfully appropriated by Congress are being misused, diverted, and obstructed in an open, unlawful, and unapologetic fashion that dismisses the constitutional order as little more than a silly suggestion.

There is nothing ordinary about this budget, because there is nothing ordinary about the agenda which it seeks to fuel. Already, the American people have seen how this administration plays its tricks, manipulates, and overreaches to cause chaos and to siphon power towards itself.