“Federal Election Commission records show Stein paid $100,000 in July to a consulting outfit that has worked with Republican campaigns, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid. The firm, Accelevate, is operated by Trent Pool. The Intercept reported that he appeared to be part of the mob that breached the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021. The Journal hasn’t independently verified the reporting.”
I know what AIPAC is. Your claim is that they have direct funding from the government of Israel. That’s illegal. You are allowed to set up a lobby group in the US that supports another country as long as the funds are obtained from within the US.
I know this might come as a shock to you, but there are many jews living in the US that happen to support Israel. You are welcome to set up any lobby group you want. Go ahead and set one up for Lebanon. But FARA is very clear about the source of the funds.
If youre not familiar with FARA take some time to acquaint your self? Or talk to a lawyer maybe? I don’t know.
Your argument in favor of foreign interests interfering in US elections is essentially “well, it’s perfectly legal, and if you don’t like it, help another foreign interest interfere in US elections.”
Are you doing it on purpose? It seems you’re trying really hard. Like really hard.
That’s not my argument. I think it’s clear to everyone else reading you’re doing it on purpose so I’m out. Cheers.
Then what is? It’s fine to buy candidates as long as your PAC has the fig leaf of US funding when it operates on behalf of a foreign government? Because that’s what happened. Israel didn’t like the incumbents. AIPAC spent loads of money on their challengers.
Back in 2022, we were told that when the party propped up the anti-choice, pro-nra, anti-labor Henry Cuellar against his progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros, it absolutely wasn’t because he was a centrist and she a progressive. It was that the party protects its incumbents in order to maintain the incumbency advantage and the proven track record for winning.
But we just saw the party do absolutely fucking nothing at all to protect the progressive incumbents Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, while their opponents took boatloads of cash from AIPAC to sink them.
As far as I’m concerned, the party supports Netanyahu’s ongoing genocide, and in exchange AIPAC spends heaps of money in opposition to progressive incumbents that party leadership refuses to protect.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but you’ve mixed in 3 different topics into a blender to build up a narrative. This is literally a gish gallop and it’s intentional.
The only thing I pushed back was that AIPAC was taking money directly from Israel and circumventing FARA, which is a common conspiratorial talking point.
Now in addition to addressing FARA, you want to talk about
incumbent advantage and popularity of these candidates
dems support for genocide,
the influence of lobbying in elections.
Ok, let’s both take a step back here, I ask that you humor me for a moment. Could you please quote where I said that Israel directly funded AIPAC in contravention of FARA? I don’t recall making such an assertion, but you seem to be arguing as though I did.
Accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist for noticing that AIPAC spent loads of money to essentially buy candidates is low. Calling it a gish gallop when I expanded on it is lower still.
Isn’t the implication here that Israel - a foreign entity - is directing an american Lobby directly?
They can do that without so much as a dime of Israeli funds.
I don’t know if you are doing it intentionally. The alt right uses AIPAC funded by Israel extremely often as an Anti-semitic talking point and also as a method to minimize any Ukraine involvement. Whether intentional or not, your initial claim insinuated this heavily as if Israel and the deepstate are pulling the strings on our politicians. The reality is there are many Jews living in the US, and those jews are sympathetic to Israel. It also happens that Israel has been a longstanding ally of the US (whether that’s ethical or not is a different discussion). If you want to make the claim that AIPAC has influence in politics that’s significantly different than a foreign entity crossing FARA and directing US policy. The world is not so black and white.