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1. Embed this notice
   Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 08:59:53 JST Erin Conroy

   AIPAC uncorks $100 million from its GOP-funded "war chest' to weaken the Democratic Party.

   Plans massive overspending in 2024 to control primary outcomes. In '22 it ousted a self-described Jewish "Zionist" b/c he also advocated for Palestinian human rights.

   United Democracy Project, AIPAC's super PAC, will target 15-20 House primaries.

   “you take money from Donald Trump donors, Nikki Haley donors, Ron DeSantis donors & then you put it to use in Democratic primaries”

   https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/03/aipac-israel-spending-democratic-primaries-00144552

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 08:59:50 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     AIPAC's UDP "has been funded overwhelmingly by billionaires & multimillionaires who are prominent backers of Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, & Nikki Haley, & it has only spent in Democratic primaries to weaken Democrats or move the Democratic Party to the right."

     "UDP has now spent $4.5 million in the race attacking Min, the presumptive Democratic favorite...The AIPAC-allied super PAC Democratic Majority for Israel is also spending in the race."

     https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/abortion-2024-campaign-emilys-list-super-tuesday-primary-california-weiss-min.html

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 08:59:52 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/aipac-gaza/

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     violetmadder (violetmadder@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 09:00:12 JST violetmadder

     in reply to

     @chargrille

     Libs freak out over Russian meddling in every shadow, but AIPAC runs openly back and forth through Congress and the media and academia etc etc gleefully tossing checks like Oprah and... *crickets*.... that's just fine apparently.

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 10:05:52 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     Overnight, AIPAC leapt to the top echelons of big money funders of US elections - but as Velshi points out in his presentation, the others are all oriented around domestic US politics. AIPAC is the sole PAC of that list whose focus is entirely on America's relationship to a foreign government (Netanyahu's RW fascist coalition).

     GOP-AIPAC funding is a new, huge threat to the integrity of Democratic elections.

     Going from roughly $20m to $100 m in expenditures is a flood of anti-Dem interference.

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 10:05:53 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     Before 2021, AIPAC spent money on lobbying members of Congress, but did not spend money in US elections to control which members of Congress got elected.

     After the GOP insurrection in Jan 2021, & with an influx of GOP cash, AIPAC began to exercise control in Democratic primaries, using that GOP cash not just to engineer a more conservative Democratic party, but to reward over 100 GOP insurrectionist MOCs.

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVIze8BR4vQ

     Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 10:05:54 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     This race echoes AIPAC's & UDP's attacks against the integrity of Democratic primaries in 2022, when they spent $4m in MI to oust one of the staunchest defenders of reproductive/abortion rights in Congress, a Jewish 2-term congressman.

     Despite his record as a self-described "Zionist," he spoke out to defend human rights & self-determination for Palestinians as the right thing & best way to secure Israel. AIPAC, funded by Republican billionaires, would not tolerate even this amount of humanity.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 10:49:52 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • hwestiii

     @hwestiii @chargrille
     I don’t much like the defeatism of that sentiment, as much as I share the frustration.

     I've never read https://how.complexsystems.fail as being about democracy before, but your comment prompted me to do that now, and I’m finding it shines an interesting light on this political moment:

     “Complex systems contain changing mixtures of failures latent within them.”

     “Complex systems run in degraded mode.”

     “Catastrophe is always just around the corner.”

   • Embed this notice
     hwestiii (hwestiii@lor.sh)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 10:49:57 JST hwestiii

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @chargrille @inthehands I think we are way past that and are well into failed state territory

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 11:01:56 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     Lee noted "AIPAC's support for scores of 'insurrectionist' Republicans who supported election denial [vs. Biden] & [who] 'shared the same goals as a mob of armed white supremacists & antisemites."

     "Now they're targeting Black incumbent champions for poor, working-class, Black folks in districts where they've never been represented,' 'These attacks add fuel to the fire of fascism tearing away the history, civil rights, & lives of Black Americans, who are the base of the Democratic party.' "

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 11:01:57 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     Five Black progressive members joined the Congressional Black Caucus since 2019 (Omar, Bowman, Lee, Bush, & Pressley). AIPAC has targeted every one.

     Lee said "AIPAC funneled money from Republican billionaires to spend $5 million attacking me with baseless lies & racist tactics," meant to keep black voters away on Eleciton Day.

     She said political ads accused her of having ties to far-right figures like former President Donald Trump, "in order to keep Black voters from showing up to vote."

     Paul Cantrell repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 11:01:58 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     AIPAC's strategy fits into a larger trend of Republicans funding Democrats to defeat progressive Democrats in the primaries, which are much cheaper wins for the GOP than generals.

     For example, "the PA billionaire Jeffrey Yass, a major donor & funder of the Israeli think tank leading the rightward lurch in the country's judiciary, also funded a PAC run by Democrats and dedicated to challenging progressives in Democratic primaries."

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 11:01:59 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     2/3 of Stevens' funding came from these outside corporate PACs.

     Our leaders need to unite to protect our party from GOP interference via AIPAC. Instead, EMILY's list, run by Laphonza Butler, joined hands with AIPAC to unseat Levin, a two-term Jewish Democratic congressman.

     [Re abortion: Levin had just been one of the 17 House Democrats arrested July 19, 2022 in a abortion rights protest outside the Supreme Court, after the leak of the Supreme Court draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade.]

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 11:02:10 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     "there’s a double deception here, really..One is where the money is coming from...Republicans, & mostly Republican billionaires, like Paul Singer & Bernie Marcus & the guy who founded WhatsApp, who — all of whom fund right-wing causes, are union busters & so forth."

     "the second part [of the deception] is...why they’re giving the money...what you have here is a real threat to the Democratic Party being able to choose our own nominees that we send to the general election in November."

   • Embed this notice
     Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 11:02:11 JST Erin Conroy

     in reply to

     Levin objected to his opponent (Haley Stevens) taking over $4 million from AIPAC & other PACS supporting insurrectionists.:"She didn’t answer the question.Y’all, this is not like some gotcha thing...Our democracy is hanging by a thread...I’m going to speak Jewishly here...it’s not halachically acceptable...as a moral Jewish person, to support people who are undermining our democracy...It’s about taking 100,000s of dollars from..corporate PACs that also are supporting insurrectionist Republicans"

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 13:04:37 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • hwestiii

     @hwestiii @chargrille
     I recommend reading the piece I linked to.

     The short of it is, “Shit’s always broken. That’s not unusual, that’s not preventible, and that’s not the question. The question is how human beings in the middle of it do the constant work of mopping it up.”

     But read the whole thing. It’s subtle.

   • Embed this notice
     hwestiii (hwestiii@lor.sh)'s status on Monday, 04-Mar-2024 13:04:38 JST hwestiii

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands @chargrille we may re-elect a man who essentially mounted a coups to remain in office. I don’t k know how else to characterize that