 Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I've applauded the squad for being courageous and brave in standing up to the Biden administration because he offers unconditional support to Israel while they commit atrocities in Gaza. So it's important to give them credit where it's due. I believe in positive reinforcement, but I also believe in objectivity. And when they let us down, when they aren't courageous and bold, I think we also have to point that out as well. And this issue that we're going to talk about is explicitly the fault of a couple of members of the squad who at the last moment chose not to hold strong, chose to buckle under pressure. So the founder of the Civil Rights Corps, Alec Caracad-Sanis, gives us the details about what happened in a threat on Twitter. A major scandal is happening right this moment on the House floor, and he wrote this on May 20th, by the way, mainstream Democrats are quietly trying to ram through a $1.9 billion budget increase to the Capitol Police, military, and DHS supposedly because January 6th showed that they need more funding. For those of you who are new to this, of the many things that went wrong on January 6th, insufficient funding for Capitol Police and bloated military bureaucracy was not one of them. This is part of a long pattern. Police work with liberal reformers to use their own violence, waste, brutality, and incompetence to justify increased budgets. All people of good will must speak out against the latest attempts by the Democrats to waste money expanding state bureaucracy, violence militarization, and surveillance. All of these instruments will be turned against the most vulnerable people in our society. Some of the only people opposing this violent nonsense are Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Presley, Corey Bush, AOC, Jamal Bowman, and Rashida Tlaib. So I just want to pause and give you some further context. These things that lawmakers know will be unpopular, that they try to rush through, I mean this is just shameless. But now thankfully we have principal progressives who are willing to stand up and block these sorts of things from getting passed. I mean when you see something that's really harmful and egregious, I think that you have a responsibility to speak up and stop it if you're aware of it. Sometimes lawmakers vote on things that they don't even know about, right? But here thankfully they caught it and they stopped it from happening. They had the votes to stop it, or so we thought from passing. But unfortunately, I like chimed in with an update that is just devastating and quite frankly depressing. Devastating news. This dangerous bill passed 213-212 with representative AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Jamal Bowman abandoning their positions and voting present instead of against it. They're supporting giving cops more money and weapons to use against the most vulnerable people. I want to repeat that. It passed 213-212 and it's because three members of the squad caved. Had they voted against it rather than voting present, they would have effectively blocked this. This is absolutely inexcusable and it shows a real lack of courage and an unwillingness to lead. Now, first of all, let me just give credit to Ayanna Presley, Corey Bush, and Ilhan Omar for standing strong here. There was no reason to buckle. They had the votes to stop this, but because of their refusal to stay strong, it passed. I mean, what were they thinking? I mean, there has to be some sort of explanation here. Why they backed down, were they promised something? I mean, this really is one of those instances where I'm not going to be overly charitable here and try to justify their actions. There's really no excuse for this. You let us down, period. You let us down at a time when we needed you. And now the military DHS, Capitol Police, they're going to get more funding because you chose to vote present rather than voting against it. Now let me remind you of a correct criticism of Tulsi Gabbard when she voted present when it came to Donald Trump's second impeachment. This is what AOC said, today was very consequential and to not take a stand one way or another in a day of such grave consequence to this country is quite difficult. We're sent here to lead, she said. And guess what? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was 100% correct right there in her criticism of Tulsi Gabbard. It was a cowardly stand to vote present then, and this is very cowardly right now. So I think that because the left supported these members of Congress and helped them get elected, it is important that they explain to us why at the time when they really could have flexed their muscle, they let us down and they voted present when they could have easily defeated this effort to increase funding to the military and DHS and Capitol Police. I mean, it's just, it's really disappointing, this is damaging not just because of the policy implications of what they just let happen, but also because new justice Democrats will be running for Congress in 2022 and people who have funded your campaigns are no longer going to want to fund the campaigns of new progressives because they're going to think, oh, well, if you're just going to cave when we need you the most, what's the point of giving my hard earned dollars to these new progressives? So they have to be bold and they have to prove to people that them being in Congress is useful and it is useful, right? They just demonstrated how courageous they were over the course of the last couple of weeks when they boldly denounced Israel and the Biden administration when Rashida Tlaib confronted Biden to his face over his support for Israel. But now, less than a week later to do this and cave, it's just, it's deeply, deeply discouraging and I hope that they truly learn from this experience and do better because this ain't it here and this is hurtful long term to the movement and electing more, electing more progressives overall. So this is absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable and I hope that they address this and I hope that a journalist actually who has the ability to ask them about this does question them here because this is something that absolutely cannot stand. You were sent to Congress to represent the interests of the people and you ran against increases to the military for our police state and for you to do this is absolutely a betrayal that I hope they apologize for and correct.