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For Immediate Release
December, 14 2021, 04:33pm EDT
Contact:
Debt Ceiling Vote Shows What's Possible for Voting Rights Legislation
Congressional leaders reached deal last week to bypass filibuster, avert default.
WASHINGTON
Today, the Senate passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling with a simple majority after congressional leaders created an exception to the chamber's 60-vote threshold.
Sean Eldridge, President & Founder of Stand Up America, commented on the significance of the debt ceiling vote:
"With a simple majority vote, the Senate averted economic catastrophe and demonstrated that the only way to break through Republican obstruction and deliver for the American people is to bypass the filibuster. Now, it's time for the Senate to apply the same standard to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which are equally critical to our nation's future."
If 50 votes are enough to protect our economy, then 50 votes should be enough to protect our democracy and our freedom to vote."
Stand Up America is a progressive advocacy organization with over two million community members across the country. Focused on grassroots advocacy to strengthen our democracy and oppose Trump's corrupt agenda, Stand Up America has driven over 600,000 phone calls to Congress and mobilized tens of thousands of protestors across the country.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Alarm That Trump Has No Plan for Iran, Critic Contends None 'Could Possibly Justify This'
"The war is wrong and illegal and needs to stop now—that's it, that's the line," said journalist Adam Johnson.
Mar 11, 2026
Several Senate Democrats on Tuesday came out of a classified briefing about the US-Israeli assault on Iran warning that President Donald Trump "can't defend this war in public" and top officials have even failed to explain behind closed doors "what the endgame is or what their plans are."
Media critic and political analyst Adam Johnson responded to such comments on social media early Wednesday, reminding leaders on Capitol Hill and beyond that "the war is wrong and illegal and needs to stop now—that's it, that's the line."
Experts around the world have argued that the US assault is unconstitutional, given congressional authority to declare war, and runs afoul of the United Nations Charter, which bars the use of force unless it is a "necessary and proportionate" act of self-defense or is authorized by the UN Security Council. Despite that, nearly all Republicans and a short list of Democrats in Congress have blocked war powers resolutions in both the GOP-controlled Senate and House of Representatives.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) voted for the resolution and was among the senators sounding the alarm after Tuesday's briefing. He wrote in a five-part thread on X that "the war goals DO NOT involve destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program," and Pentagon and White House officials "confirmed 'regime change' is also NOT on the list."
The primary goal of Trump's war on Iran seems to be "destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories," according to Murphy. "But the question that stumped them: What happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war."
"And on the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN," he said of the key waterway Iran has shut down, cutting off the flow of fossil fuel exports and other products. "I can't go into more detail about how Iran gums up the strait, but suffice it say, right now, they don't know how to get it safely back open. Which is unforgivable, because this part of the disaster was 100% foreseeable."
Responding to Murphy in a pair of posts, Johnson argued that "we don't need 9,000 tweet threads consternating over an alleged lack of 'plan.' We also don't need another take criticizing the regime change war for not being sufficiently regime change-y."
"Criticizing Trump for a lack of a 'plan' implies the existence of a plan that could possibly justify this," he continued. "There isn't any, so what does a plan, or lack thereof, have to do with anything? The war is fundamentally unjust, illegal, and immoral regardless of nominal 'aims' or 'goals.'"
Since disrupting diplomatic talks on a new nuclear deal by bombing Iran a dozen days ago, Trump and his top officials, including Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have publicly sent mixed signals on aiming to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, regime change, how long they expect the war to last, and how much it will cost US taxpayers.
As The Washington Post reported, the Pentagon told Congress on Monday that it "burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions during the first two days of its military assault on Iran."
That disclosure came after a Washington, DC think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, put the estimated cost of the war at $891.4 million per day, but also said the figure may drop if the US moves to "less expensive munitions."
Casualties have swiftly stacked up, with over 1,300 Iranians slaughtered—including around 175, mostly children, killed in an apparent US bombing of a girls' school—according to Iran's government. The Lebanese prime minister's office said that Israel's related bombing of Lebanon has killed 570 people and wounded 1,444.
Iran has retaliated with drone and missile attacks on Gulf nations and US military bases in the region. The Pentagon confirmed that seven US service members are dead and around 140 have been injured. Additionally, The New York Times reported Tuesday that "at least 12 civilians have been killed in attacks across the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain."
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New Leader of College GOP Group is ‘Avowed and Overt Supporter’ of White Nationalist Nick Fuentes
A recent poll of young right-wingers also showed that 54% of Republican men under 50 deny the Holocaust, while around a third of young Republicans self-identify as racist.
Mar 11, 2026
The new political leader of the College Republicans of America is an "avowed and overt supporter" of one of the nation's most infamous white nationalists, Nick Fuentes, according to a disturbing report compiled by the group Right Wing Watch.
The College Republicans of America (CRA) was created in 2023 amid an ugly split with the more mainstream College Republican National Committee (CRNC), which it has accused of becoming overly bureaucratic and poorly managed. It describes its mission to "replace the CRNC and to aid the GOP in cultivating the next generation of Republican activists, staffers, and leaders."
While CRA is newer and less directly embedded within the national Republican Party structure, it claims to be "America’s largest national College Republican organization,” with more than 300 active chapters at schools around the country—roughly four times that of competing campus GOP groups, according to the organization.
Last week, the group announced that it had chosen a new political director, Kai Schwemmer. As Kyle Mantyla, a senior fellow at Right Wing Watch parent group People For the American Way, explained:
Schwemmer is an overt 'groyper,' which is the term used by followers of Hitler-loving racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic, Christian nationalist, fascist, white nationalist, Nick Fuentes.
Schwemmer, who goes by the nickname "Kai Clips," has his own show on Fuentes' invitation-only streaming platform Cozy.TV, and was featured as a special guest at Fuentes' 2022 "America First Political Action Conference" in Orlando, which was held as a more explicitly white nationalist counter to the Turning Point USA conference.
That same year, Schwemmer described himself as someone "affiliated with America First," Fuentes's political movement. He also appeared in a 2022 pro-Fuentes documentary titled "The Most Canceled Man in America."
In a clip of that documentary, which Right Wing Watch posted to social media, Schwemmer explained that an episode of Fuentes' nightly program, titled "Demographics or Destiny," introduced him to the conservative movement and "woke me up on immigration."
Fuentes, who once described himself as "just like Hitler," has called for the mass deportation of nonwhite immigrants and has said he favors a "whites-only immigration policy" to sustain "white demographics."
Schwemmer said Fuentes' shows are "a little bit controversial" and "hyperbolic," but "obviously humorous." He added that Fuentes is "deeply politically engaging," as "behind every joke is some commentary."
Ben Lorber, an extremism researcher for Political Research Associates, explained in a social media post on Tuesday that "Schwemmer was in Fuentes' inner circle in 2021, and since then has strategically downplayed his support to avoid controversy."
He pointed out that Schwemmer still has a long history of questionable online activity, including posts and messages glorifying the Unabomber and boasting about his meeting with the antisemitic author E. Michael Jones. He has also shared jokes insulting Jewish people and mocking the Holocaust.
During the second presidency of Donald Trump, especially, the radicalization of young right-wingers has been brought to the forefront, as leaked group chats from college Republicans in several states—including New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont have revealed members trafficking in overt racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and other forms of vile bigotry that often veered into calls for violence and genocide against minority groups.
Just last week, The Floridian reported that the secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party was involved in a WhatsApp group chat nicknamed after what one member described as “Nazi heaven.”
Participants in the group, which included members of the head of the Florida International University Turning Point USA chapter and the then-recruitment chair of FIU's college Republicans, "used variations of the n-word more than 400 times, regularly described women as 'whores,' used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people, and mused about Hitler’s politics," according to later reporting by The Miami Herald.
Recent polling of young right-wingers conducted by the conservative Manhattan Institute has suggested that these sorts of views are increasingly becoming common.
About 31% of Republicans under the age of 50 said they themselves express racist views, while 25% said they express antisemitic views. Just 4% of those over 50 said they expressed each of these views in the December 2025 survey.
More than a third of all Republicans who answered the survey, 37%, said they share Fuentes' view that the Holocaust was "greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe," with a majority of men under 50, 54%, expressing this view.
Schwemmer, who appeared as a guest of Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) at last month's State of the Union address has said he does not use the same sorts of extremist, often overtly genocidal, rhetoric that Fuentes does because he has "more authentic political aspirations" and does not want to create "angles of attack" for his opponents.
Schwemmer has not denounced the views espoused by Fuentes and says there is "absolutely a place and a value behind making those kinds of jokes, saying those kinds of words, trying to push the envelope socially and trying to remove the lens of political correctness from our lives."
"This seems to be Schwemmer's role in the movement," Mantyla said. "Putting a moderate face on America First's racist, antisemitic, and radically authoritarian agenda."
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Spain Withdraws Ambassador to Israel Over Unprovoked War on Iran and Gaza Assault
"Every country with a single ounce of decency should do the same," said one academic.
Mar 11, 2026
Doubling down on its commitment to saying, "No to war" as Israel and the US bombard Iran in a widening conflict of choice that has also included Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the Spanish government on Wednesday formally withdrew its ambassador to Israel, Ana María Sálomon Pérez.
“At the proposal of the minister for foreign affairs, the European Union, and cooperation, and following deliberation by the Council of Ministers at its meeting on March 10, 2026, I hereby order the termination of Ms. Ana María Sálomon Pérez’s appointment as ambassador of Spain to the state of Israel,” a communication from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in the official state gazette read Wednesday morning.
The Foreign Ministry told Reuters that the Spanish Embassy in Tel Aviv will be led by a charge d'affaires.
"Every country with a single ounce of decency should do the same," said UK-based researcher Philip Proudfoot.
The decision to terminate the appointment of Sálomon Pérez comes more than a week after Sánchez denounced the United States' and Israel's assault on Iran as "unjustified, dangerous, and outside international law," and said the countries would be barred from using Spanish military bases to launch attacks on Iran.
Spain has also been outspoken in its condemnation of Israel's US-backed war on Gaza, which began in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Last September, the prime minister announced an arms embargo on Israel, noting that its attacks on Gaza—which have now killed more than 75,000 Palestinians, according to peer-reviewed studies—has been described as a "genocide" by experts, including the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Sánchez also announced Spain would formally recognize Palestinian statehood in May 2024, angering Israel and prompting the country to recall its ambassador to Spain.
Last week, Sánchez gave a 10-minute address saying he was not intimidated by President Donald Trump's threat to impose a trade embargo on Spain in retaliation for its refusal to allow the US and Israel use its military bases. He reiterated that Spain's view on Iran is, "No to war."
"Spain stands with the founding principles of the European Union. It stands with the charter of the United Nations. It stands with international law and therefore with peace and peaceful coexistence between countries," said the prime minister.
In an interview with El Diario on Tuesday, Sánchez called on other European countries to "raise the rules-based international order and the defense of renewed multilateralism."
The war against Iran "has been a war unilaterally driven by two nations," he said. "We are consistent with the foreign policy we have maintained during these almost eight years of government. We will not resolve the situation of instability in the Middle East with such flagrant illegality."
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