Karla Avalos

Southern AZ Director for Senator Mark Kelly, formerly District Director for Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick AZ-02, Fitness fanatic, book worm.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

A month of negotiations with Iran produced a page and half deal that nobody's allowed to look at. As a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, I need to see the actual text to believe we have a deal, not just a tweet.

[KGUN 9 @kgun9]

The Tohono O’odham Nation has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, seeking to block construction of a border wall on tribal lands along the U.S.-Mexico border. https://t.co/spNFdMKGWD

[VoteVets @votevets]

Trump tried to jail him. Hegseth tried to demote him. But Mark Kelly isn't backing down from this fight. They picked the wrong guy.

Don't give up the ship ⚓

[CSPAN @cspan]

.@SenMarkKelly: "Last year, I said something that the President didn't like…That service members need to follow the law … The President said I should be prosecuted and hanged. Then he tried to throw me in jail…I can't think of anything that's more un-American."

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

Today is Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Awareness Day. Indigenous women go missing and are murdered at far higher rates than any other group, and their cases go unsolved a lot of the time.

Arizona is home to 22 tribal nations, their communities have suffered this injustice for too long. These women deserve better and their families deserve answers.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

I asked DHS for answers to their ICE facility plans in Arizona months ago and heard nothing. No transparency, no community input, and 16 people dead in ICE custody so far this year. I will keep demanding answers.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

Instead of focusing on me, Donald Trump should do his job.

[Captain Mark Kelly @CaptMarkKelly]

The President and his Administration have already failed twice in court trying to intimidate me, and he's still not letting up. Just more proof that he'll do anything it takes to silence those of us willing to call him out. I'm not backing down — ever.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

Tonight, as many Americans are struggling to keep up with rising costs, Senate Republicans are trying to push through billions more for ICE.

After all of the abuses by ICE that Americans have witnessed this year, it’s clear there needs to be a serious overhaul before they get another dollar.

I’m here fighting to stop this and get us back to work on lowering your costs.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

Trump called cutting food assistance going after 'waste, fraud, and abuse.' Here's what it actually looks like: 400,000 Arizonans off SNAP, including 180,000 children — the highest rate in the country. Kids going hungry is just wrong.

[Angry Staffer @Angry_Staffer]

“He didn’t literally mean he would wipe out an entire civilization”

Then he shouldn’t have fucking said it.

He’s the President of the United States. He has sole launch authority over the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, and words mean things.

[Ruben Gallego @RubenGallego]

Republicans passed a law that gives ICE agents a $10,000 bonus every year for the next four years. Those same Republicans are blocking a vote to pay TSA officers anything at all.

[Democrats @TheDemocrats]

Republicans control all 3 branches of government.

Democrats introduced 7 bills to fund TSA.

Each one was blocked by Republicans.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

I can't imagine how much courage it took Dolores Huerta, Ana Murgia, Debra Rojas, and others to speak out about the abuse they suffered at the hands of Cesar Chavez. They have carried this trauma and pain for decades, some since they were children. It's awful, and I stand with them and all victims of his abuse.

In the last 24 hours, so many members of our community in Arizona and across the country have been absolutely devastated by this news.

The fight for farmworkers rights has achieved so much and was built on the backs of thousands of men and women, not one person. Their work continues and improves the lives of Americans every day.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Here is what’s really going on with regard to the funding stalemate in Congress.

ICE agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens on the streets of Minneapolis.

Democrats then said: before we write you another check, agree to the same rules every police department in America already follows. Judicial warrants before entering homes. Visible ID. Body cameras. No raids at schools and hospitals.

We immediately pushed for votes to fund TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA.

Republicans blocked it.

We tried to fund FEMA alone.

Republicans blocked that too. Their position was to fund ICE with no strings attached, or shut the whole thing down.

So DHS shut down.

Then yesterday, the White House sent a letter admitting we were right. But they still won’t agree to judicial warrants or to take the masks off, which means agents can still break down your door without a judge’s approval and you still can’t see their faces when they do it.

We’ve been ready to fund your airport security since day one, not to mention Coast Guard, FEMA and the rest. Republicans chose to protect ICE from accountability instead.

#FundDHSFreezeICE

[Angry Staffer @Angry_Staffer]

GOP: the mail is secure enough to receive your photo ID, social security card, your debit and credit cards, your stimulus checks, and your tax returns

Also GOP: the mail is not safe enough for voting

[Ilan Goldenberg @ilangoldenberg]

Three weeks into the war with Iran, a number of observations as someone who spent years war-gaming this scenario.

1. The U.S. and Israel may have produced regime transition in the worst possible way.
Ali Khamenei was 86 and had survived multiple bouts of prostate cancer. His death in the coming years would likely have triggered a real internal reckoning in Iran, potentially opening the door to somewhat more pragmatic leadership, especially after the protests and crackdown last month. Instead, the regime made its most consequential decision under existential external threat giving the hardliners a clear upperhand. Now we appear to have a successor who is 30 years younger, deeply tied to the IRGC, and radicalized by the war itself – including the killing of family members. Disastrous.

2. About seven years ago at CNAS, I helped convene a group of security, energy, and economic experts to walk through scenarios for a U.S.--Iran war and the implications for global oil prices. What we’re seeing now was considered one of the least likely but worst outcomes. The modeling assumed the Strait of Hormuz could close for 4–10 weeks, with 1–3 years required to restore oil production once you factored in infrastructure damage. Prices could spike from around $65 to $175–$200 per barrel, before eventually settling in the $80–$100 range a year later in a new normal.

3. One surprising development: Iran is still moving oil through the Strait of Hormuz while disrupting everyone else. In most war games I participated in, we assumed Iran couldn’t close the Strait and still use it themselves. That would have made the move extremely self-defeating. But Iran appears capable of harassing global shipping while still pushing some of its own exports through. That changes the calculus.

4. The U.S. now finds itself in the naval and air equivalent of the dynamic we faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a recipe for a quagmire where we win every battle and lose the war. We have overwhelming military dominance and are exacting a tremendous cost. But Iran doesn’t need to win battles. They just need occasional successes. A small boat hitting a tanker. A drone slipping through defenses in the Gulf. A strike on a hotel or oil facility. Each incident creates insecurity and drives costs up while remind everyone that the regime is surviving and fighting.

5. The deeper problem is that U.S. objectives were set far too high. Once “regime change” becomes the implicit or explicit goal, the bar for American success becomes enormous. Iran’s bar is simple: survive and keep causing disruption.

6. The options for ending this war now are all bad. You can try to secure the entire Gulf and Middle East indefinitely – extremely expensive and maybe impossible. You can invade Iran and replace the regime, but nobody is seriously going to do that. Costs are astronomical. You can try to destabilize the regime by supporting separatist groups. It probably won’t work and if it does you’ll most likely spark a civil war producing years of bloody chaos the U.S. will get blamed for. None of these are good outcomes.

7. The other escalatory options being discussed are taking the nuclear material out of Esfahan or taking Kargh Island. Esfahan is not really workable. Huge risk. You’d have been on the ground for a LONG time to safely dig in and get the nuclear material out in the middle of the country giving Iran time to reinforce from all over and over run the American position.

8. Kharg Island can be appealing to Trump. He’d love to take Iran’s ability to export oil off the map and try to coerce them to end the war. It’s much easier because it’s not in the middle of IRan. But it’s still a potentially costly ground operation. And again. Again, the Iranian government only has to survive to win and they can probably do that even without Kargh.

9. The least bad option is the classic diplomatic off-ramp. The U.S. declares that Iran’s military capabilities have been significantly degraded, which is how the Pentagon always saw the purpose of the war. Iran declares victory for surviving and demonstrating it can still threaten regional actors. It would feel unsatisfying. But this is the inevitable outcome anyway. Better to stop now than after five or ten more years of escalating costs. Remember in Afghanistan we turned down a deal very early in the war with the Taliban that looked amazing 20 years later. Don’t need to repeat that kind of mistake.

10. The U.S. and Israel are not perfectly aligned here. Trump just needs a limited win and would see long-term instability as a negative whereas for Netanyahu a weak unstable Iran that bogs the U.S. down in the MIddle East is a fine outcome. If President Trump decided he wanted Israel to stop, he likely has the leverage to push it in that direction just as he pressured Netanyahu to take a deal last fall on Gaza.

11. When this is over, the Gulf states will have to rethink their entire security strategy. They are stuck in the absolute worst place. They didn’t start this war and didn’t want it and now they are taking with some of the worst consequences. Neither doubling down with the U.S. and Israel nor placating the Iranians seems overwhelmingly appealing.

12. One clear geopolitical winner so far: Russia. Oil prices are rising. Sanctions are coming off. Western attention and military resources are shifting away from Ukraine. From Moscow’s perspective, this war is a win win win.

13. At some point China may have a role to play here. It is the world’s largest oil importer, and much of that supply comes from the Middle East. Yes they are still getting oil from Iran. But they also buy from the rest of the Middle East, and a prolonged disruption in the Gulf hits Beijing hard. That gives China a real incentive to help push toward an end to the conflict.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Sen. Mark Kelly: "You could pick a random group of people off the street tonight here in Washington DC and they could probably do a better job than our government is doing right now. They don't have a goal, there's no strategic plan. And what this is likely to lead to is, again, a long war with a lot of dead Americans."

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

Today a federal court made clear Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said.

This is a critical moment to show this administration they can't keep undermining Americans' rights.

I also know this might not be over yet, because Trump and Hegseth can't admit when they are wrong.

[Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney]

BREAKING: Judge Leon *rejects* Secretary Hegseth's bid to punish @SenMarkKelly for advising troops to ignore illegal orders.

https://t.co/7qVMJN8QG7