The Biden administration once again bypasses Congress on an emergency weapons sale to Israel
pbs.org
For the second time this month the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel as Israel continues to prosecute its war against Hamas in Gaza under increasing international criticism.
So why tf can’t we do this for Ukraine?
Israeli genocide campaign
So hot right now
Because Joey is a Zionist.
My guess would be that there are many decades of existing treaties and legislation that allows the executive to do this for Israel. Ukraine's troubles are just under 2 years old
The war in Ukraine started in 2014.
You're absolutely right, and while the person you're responding to is wrong about the Ukraine timeline, they're pretty accurate regarding how far back the US relationship with Israel goes.
A big part of it is probably the US being the first country to recognize Israel as an independent state in 1948, and there's just been a relatively close relationship between the two ever since.
Agreed. The thing is we’ve been supporting Ukraine for a while now- helping build up their military and supply against the Russian invasion.
Sure it’s a blink in them eye compared to Israel, but then Israel is established extremely well defended. Remember how Trump held up aid meant for Ukraine?
Oh I agree entirely, I wasn't meaning to sound as such. US government post the year 2000 has always seemed like its stuck in "old ways" of thinking. While Donald Rumsfeld moaned about "lack of imagination" and "unknown unknowns" in respect to 9/11, the reality is the US government and political class do lack imagination, and are largely stuck in routines set down in the 70s/80s/90s that aren't really compatible with the modern world.
A re-assessment of our relationship with nations like Israel should have been done long ago, and if we're going to continue to be the biggest weapons producer in the world (which is something else I have issue with but is a whole screed of its own), the absolute very least the US could do is actually try to put weapons and training in the hands of people who really need it, who are at the mercy of despotic regimes trying to take over. Which in this instance would be Ukraine.
Israel doesn't need those weapons, and it can easily be argued that Palestine does.
I was trying to provide an honest, helpful answer about the probable reason why the executive branch can take unilateral decisions about arms to Israel but not to Ukraine.
The current arrangements for arms supplies to Ukraine go back 2 years.
the current agreement with Israel doesn't even go back that far. Things change. We've been treating Ukraine as an important partner since at least the Obama administration. Bush Jr wanted them in NATO back in 2008. Nobody is contending that Israel has been an ally for longer. But Ukraine isn't exactly some rando, either. they're a key partner- and were, at least, an up-and-coming regional power house. a power house that Russia saw moving increasingly westward in it's political affiliations. (and Ukraine has historically been one of the world's largest grain suppliers. during the Soviet Era, they produced all the grain for the Soviet Union.)
The history lesson is great. But are you claiming that the treaties and procedures that allow the US executive to supply arms to Israel without congressional say-so and the procedures for supplying arms to Ukraine are the same?
Because I’m saying that is unlikely- and largely accounts for the current disparity
Does the Ukraine have oil?
Yes
Your own link suggests a Maybe at best.
It then goes on to say it would cost about 20 Billion dollars to put in the infrastructure to even begin refining/piping the oil.
Israel is already pumping and exporting oil. It's also already in bed with the US. From a corporate greed perspective, the choice is easy.
His link says yes, this is an intentionally incorrect response. Either that or you are an idiot speaking with confidence. But your description of Israel as a major oil producing state makes it pretty certain you are lying intentionally.
Because Republicans are stonewalling aid for Ukraine right now. At the same time, they fast-tracked an aid package to Israel. Know where their priorities lie.
Israel is officially a US Ally, Ukraine is not.
Bullshit semantics.
Don't be antisemantic, bro.
Lol.
Genocide Joe could easily do it he just doesn't want to
Bro, it's like they wanna lose so badly next year election. Listen to the people voting for you, for fuck sake.
Are you new here, or did you miss when the Democratic party shut down Bernie Sanders twice in a row because he was gaining momentum and they were like "fuck, we can't have a person who actually cares as President, we might not have as much money!!!"
Because this is par for the course.
Not the best comparative argument, since the voting public was quite clear in that regard and the conspiracies claimed were debunked pretty easily.
I, for example, was someone who voted against him because of his long-standing anti-science stances and his promotion of pseudoscience (such as him personally using his Senate position to host an "alternative medicine" conference).
You mean when they destroyed the Iowa caucus and handed the victory to a nobody loser candidate who never won another state?
Not like it fucking matters. He showed his true colors when the Party gave him his marching orders. Bend the knee to the nominee, support the President no matter what, and for what? Clout? Social Democrats are the moderate wing of fascism.
the democratic party is controlled opposition
What even is the conspiracy there? Buttigieg won. Narrowly, but he won. And both he and Sanders demanded recounts for several of the counties, which was done. Incompetent county level people, often because they have no experience and are even volunteers for much of the vote counting, is fairly common. The complicatedness of Iowa's procedure, where non-viable candidate voters get to re-vote for the viable ones makes errors even more likely.
And errors were made in favor of both Buttigieg and Sanders, which were later corrected.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Clinton and her campaign literally were so full of hubris that they thought beating Trump was a shoe-in and went out of their way to help him become the presumptive nominee because they were so sure of this.
I will never forgive anyone involved in the Clinton campaign for this, and if you refuse to see how the scales have been tipped for corporate friendly Democrats at the expense of Democrats who actually give a shit about things like unions and working people, I don't know what to say.
I mean for fucks sake, Biden is why Student Loans aren't dischargeable in bankruptcy but we're supposed to give the guy a handy for trying and failing to barely wipe any student debt away. He definitely didn't just go back in time and take his vote back, and he definitely didn't push congress to write new legislation to make it dischargeable in bankruptcy again.
But sure, it was just a big fucking accident that Clinton lost to Trump and it's just a big fucking accident that Biden keeps going around congress to send money to Israel.
https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/
Why even make such an argument if you can't just prove you didn't do such a thing instead of being like "actually, it's totally legal for us to do that, so you need to be okay with it?"
This is literally just like Trump. He's not denying he tried to do a coup in court, he's quibbling about fucking wonky bullshit like whether or not the President is an "office" of the US. It's a bunch of talking out of both sides of their mouth.
If they could defend what they did, they wouldn't have turned to this defense in court. The fact that they did always speaks to them not giving a shit.
We were talking about 2020. What does any of the block of text you've wrote have to do with voting conspiracies?
The original statement made by me referenced that this happened twice and this was the first of those two times that I referenced. Just because you decided to only talk about 2020 doesn't mean that's the only one I was referring to. I wonder if you didn't want to talk about the other because of the literal mountains of fucking evidence behind it?
If you want to do a run-around and act like previous behavior from a major political party shouldn't be used to judge their current behavior, you're just not arguing in good faith.
I mean, if we're going to pivot to conspiracies from the 2016 vote, we can bring up the coin toss thing. Brought up repeatedly as a conspiracy by Bernie supporters, they always seemed to leave out that there were multiple coin tosses across counties in that state and...Bernie won more of them than Hillary did. He just lost the vote so badly in total in that state that that didn't give him enough delegates to win the state as a whole.
But, for some reason, Bernie and his supporters only talk about a single one of those coin tosses.
Cool, so when I bring things with documented evidence your response is to bring up things that were a joke when it was happening?
What next, the Cisco Wireless White Noise Generators?
Address the evidence presented, not the conspiracies you want to shut down and I am not personally bringing up.
Nothing of what you posted was even a claim one way or the other. Yes, Clinton's campaign did try and prop up Trump over the other Republican candidates because they thought he would be an easier opponent because of how insane he is. They were wrong on how insane the general public is as well.
Those are just known facts.
So when people point out that Trump isn't even arguing that he didn't do an insurrection and coup in court, rather that it was legal for him to do it, people point out how absolutely fucked up it is that he argues that.
When I point out that the Democrats didn't even bother to argue that they didn't put their finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton, but rather argued in court that it was legal for them to do it, it's fucking crickets and people acting like those are materially different things.
They are both political operatives arguing in bad faith because they can't actually prove they didn't do those things.
Trump doesn't claim he didn't do an insurrection or coup in court for the same fucking reasons the Democrats don't claim that they didn't put their finger on the scale for Clinton, rather arguing that it was legal for them to do that.
The reason is neither has proof. Trump has no proof he didn't try to pull off a coup, and the DNC has no proof they didn't tip the scales for Clinton.
The one difference is that, yes, technically it is legal for a private organization to write their own rules. However, it's still the issue of: If they could have proved in court they didn't do that for Clinton: Why didn't they? Why did they opt to just be like "Nah, it's legal for us to do that, actually?" Because they aren't actually interested in representing US citizens opinions, they're interested in the continuation of the Corporate Wing of the Democratic Party. They couldn't prove they didn't put their finger on the scale for Clinton, so they turned to this argument in court, which is plainly arguing in bad faith and arguing that it's totally okay for the DNC to ignore the will of the people and choose their own candidate. That's fucked up and not what any rational political party that wasn't up to scummy shit would argue.
You make that kind of legal argument when you cannot actually defend the facts, like the fact that the DNC essentially chose Clinton, choosing to ignore public opinion. They never made the legal argument that they did not do that for Clinton, because they fucking did and knew they couldn't prove otherwise in court.
Once again, when Trump does it, we know it's clear he's making shit up and throwing whatever he can at the wall to see if anything sticks, but when Democrats do it... fucking crickets from y'all.
I totally thought you guys were talking about whenever they gave her all of the questions before hand
The questions they also gave to Bernie? His own senior advisor admitted when asked that they were also given the questions about Flint, ect.
Do you have a source for that? I can't find one. I found plenty of sources saying she gave the questions to the Clinton campaign in advance, apologized for it, and then resigned. But none of them mention giving them to the Sanders campaign.
You got a link for that?
The AP itself doesn't trust the results enough to declare a winner.
Shadow Inc., which both Buttigieg and Biden payed for services in 2019, shat the bed and ruined the caucus. Those results and the recanvass were riddled with errors and inconsistencies, ranging from bad math to bad handwriting to bad head counting. It's not trustworthy.
Now, for my speculation: the Party sabotaged the Iowa caucus to stop an outsider from getting momentum in Iowa. Maybe the plan was always to just crash the caucus so it didn't matter, maybe Iowa was always supposed to be sacrificed, but if Bernie had won Iowa and then proceeded to win all the states leading up to South Carolina I don't think Biden would have won. There's a clear motive.
And what we do know is Obama played kingmaker by getting almost the entire field of candidates to drop out, including the supposed Iowa winner Buttigieg, to endorse Biden and keep the outsider from recovering after South Carolina.
Part ordinary party-politics, part suspicious dealing with Shadow Inc., and the outsider was kept from winning. I know is there's no hope for me in that party, because if another outsider comes they will be stopped because the party will circle the wagons.
Especially now Iowa has been discarded. No more first in the nation, no more caucus, we're just another trash redstate to be ignored.
That is, at least, a conspiracy. Not one that stands up to scrutiny though. Shadow Inc did screw up. Unfortunately, if you look at state level things in many, many prior elections, that's not uncommon. State level voting systems are tacked together, poorly funded crapshoots.
And your claims about Obama doesn't have anything to do with the voters. If the people who supported those candidates supported Bernie as a replacement, then that's how they would have voted. But they didn't. He in fact lost worse than in the previous election.
The fact that the earliest states in the primary have long been those that don't represent the general Democrat voting public has been a complaint for years, if not decades. So changing what states are at the beginning has been something pushed for for years as well.
So your argument is "all state level elections are fucked and Iowa isn't special". That's actually a reasonable counter argument! Maybe all states look shady and corrupt and broken whenever anyone looks at them as closely as people looked at Iowa after the caucus imploded. If that's the case, though, then that's just a further argument for not trusting the elections!
And to clarify, I wasn't claiming Obama playing kingmaker was a conspiracy (although it was in the literal sense of the word i.e. multiple politicians conspiring together to make Biden the nominee by endorsing him). That's actually just normal party politics. It just shows that there's actually no hope for an outsider to win a party nomination, which is to be expected.
I've decided I'm just not voting next election. I'm sick of all the drama and lies, The US is fucked anyway, might as well not leave it on life support. Between constant wars, inability to handle the most basic of citizens needs and each party being a pissing contest I just decided there's no point in doing so. Not like either candidate follows their user bases values anyway and it's super unlikely anyone else will win. I'll change my mind when I see evidence that says otherwise. I've given it 8 years and seen no real big change.
I don't blame you. It's exhausting to see American leadership spending the minimal amount of political capital to please the ruling class while working class Americans suffer and we see our tax dollars funding wars and genocide abroad. I've decided to vote for Claudia and Karina on the PSL ticket. It will be the first time ever voting for PSL but I am so done supporting conservative Democrats offering last minute concessions after flopping through the entirety of their term.
https://votesocialist2024.com/our-program
For those reading this and think third party votes are "A wAsTE oFA vOtE"
It's a waste of your vote to vote for someone you don't want in office, just because you dislike the other likely candidate more.
A third party votes move to change main party platforms. If enough people vote for a third party, a major party is more likely to take up those stances to get those votes. Your vote isn't always abouting winning.
Your choice is between killing some or killing them all. Trump has said he will deport all Muslims as dictator on day 1. He expressed no sympathy for Gaza instead saying he wants it to play out.
It's the lesser of 2 evils. The world isn't fair. But you have the power to stop the worse evil.
LMFAO. Vote for Trump. That'll surely help the Arabs....who he fucking banned from America on his first day in office last time. Super big brain move by the pro pally crowd if they pull that one off.
I'm already not voting for Joey.
Never voting for the lesser evil again.
The entire world can burn in hell, for all I care. It's what we deserve for constantly pussy-ing out.
So instead of just not voting and pussy-ing out encourage yourself and others to do more than just abstain. Voting is only one basic step for a society, we need to take real actions to make the change we want. Part of pussy-ing out is the idea that voting is all we can do, and now that voting seems useless we are just boned. There have always been people on the ground agitating for the real progress.
Lots of us believe in Israel's right to defend itself. You're on Lemmy, so it can seem that this isn't a divided or divisive issue, but I assure you it is--especially among people who know their history. Another reason the bulk of the 18-24 group is making up a lot of the Hamas sympathizers.
Not looking to debate it eith you, but I PROMISE, if you get out of the Lemmy bubble you'll find it's not a cut and dry situation like you framed it.
This is one of the dumbest dogwhistles in existence. Everyone knows that's not the actual point of contention.
Setting aside your defense of genocide, it's a divided issue, but support for Palestine is higher among democrats, and especially young democrats. Biden is actively losing young voters moment by moment, and that will lose him the election if he doesn't fix it.
Soooo fucking naive.
A lot of us believe in Palestinian's right to defend themselves as well. I work in a city, among many people that have no idea what Lemmy even is, there is a Palestinian flag on my work's building and we feel grief at the atrocities committed by Israel. You're right it isn't cut and dry, but the support for Israel is at the lowest I have ever seen in my life.
Let these people think this is public opinion. Let them vote for Trump. They hate dissenting opinions, they're about to find out what that looks like when you support Hamas because the GOP is looking at them like they wrote the playbook. This is a clear case of the Left having the leopards circling and looking for some faces. They're starting on university campus and will keep eating lol.
These people are just so gullible.
You're absolutely right that outside of "the lemmy bubble" you may find a shitload of unintelligent dumbasses. People incapable of critical thinking or the ability to form a thought of their own.
The absolute refusal to look at the mountain of video evidence of genocide is appalling.
They do see it. They know. They're enacting this genocide because they want to. The US government is and always has been genocidal.
People saying how can the US support genocide, the question is how can we stop them from supporting a genocide?
I feel like I once again have to ask why? Why does Israel need these weapons so badly that you have to bypass even Congressional approval? Republicans wouldn't exactly oppose such an approval, they haven't shown any lack of support for supporting Israel, just Ukraine. And Israel certainly doesn't need the weapons for defense, as claimed by the State Department in the article.
Israel is very handedly and with minimal resistance killing thousands of Palestinians. They don't really need any additional arsenals.
Unless this is in preparation for Netanyahu's claimed invasion of Lebanon and beyond? Is Biden openly supporting the expansion of the conflict?
This is my question as well. Is Israel running out of weapons? Maybe they could stop blowing the fuck out of hospitals and shit.
I've been awfully understanding of the complexities of geopolitics for Biden. Publicly supporting an ally isn't a deal-breaker for me, but to do an end run around Congress to give more weapons and money to one of the best armed countries in the middle east so that they can commit more atrocities is a really bad look.
Still voting for him because fuck Trump and fuck fascism, but this is really hurting my opinion of him.
I'm really hoping someone runs against him in the primary. I would say anyone, but then I remember anti-vaxxer extraordinaire RFK Jr is planning on running and also orb lady is still out there. So maybe not anyone, but there's plenty of actually good candidates that could run against Biden.
I don't think any of them have a realistic shot at beating a sitting President in a primary. I'm voting not Trump no matter what, and I'll be happy to vote for someone other than Biden, but realistically this is the match up. Biden will get the nomination and the supreme court will eventually rule that Trump can't be kept off the ballot. I've accepted it.
At least I think it will be really fucking hard to campaign or raise funds from the hot seat in a criminal court pretty much every day leading up to the election.
I honestly think if Trump was put in prison it would increase support and donations from average fans of his, it helps seal the idea that he is a persecuted outsider fighting against the deep state.
The end goal of the money, besides grifting, is to get him elected. That's just not going to happen if he's convicted. I really don't think it will happen because he'll be so busy with 3 or 5 or whatever criminal trials that he just won't have the time or ability to campaign effectively.
So honestly I'm so for these saps throwing their money at him to set it on fire. Better trump than someone competent.
Even RFK Jr is a staunch Israel supporter too, so no escape there
Better the devil you know. Unfortunately, I know both devils intimately well.
Israel has more influence over the US than American citizens.
So why can't Biden sign an executive order to cancel student debt?
Zionism is more important
Regarding the "it's not aid, it's a sale" point that some have brought up, we give israel billions of dollars every single year and biden has pledged 100+ billion more since the ramping up of the genocide. Whether they're paying for it now or not, they're doing it with our money.
Question, if I vote for Biden and he wins and keeps supporting genocide, does that make me partly responsible for these kids dying? Don't love the prospect of having dead inocent children's blood on my hands.
Your choice is is kill a little or kill a lot. Trump has promised to deport all Muslims and in response to Palestine deaths, said he wants to see how it plays out.
just to be clear is Biden the kill a little option or the kill a lot one?
I guess as guilty as not voting for Biden and arms sales continuing regardless of who is in power. Your tax money still foots the bill and the cheque is in your collective names.
No wait if whatever I do child murders stay the same then it's not my fault, I'm only responsible for stuff that I have control over, by definition. I'm worried about how much influence I personally have over how many innocent Palestinian kids are murdered.
A little bit, like saying German citizens were responsible for the holocaust for not standing up against the Nazis. They should have but when faced with violent repression you don't necessarily blame them for not doing more. There is widespread knowledge of the military-industrial complex and the global stream of death for profit, but how many people are blocking ports to stop weapons shipments? We can vote for whoever but there is so much more that needs to be done.
Which is kind of true right? I mean aren't German citizens a bit to blame for the holocaust? And in my hypothetical case we'd be even worse since we'd be actively voting to keep the holocaust alive not just being passive observers.
I think so, at least partially, average German citizens did know what was happening, plenty of people did resist, especially earlier on, with the brutality of the Nazis it's hard to say if they could have done more.
Today I don't think there is a politician who would have much of a chance to win that wouldn't support Israel at least as much as Biden, so I would say a person doesn't share much blame just for voting. We can vote for whoever but there is more we can do, like boycotting companies that support Israel or organizing actions aimed at stopping arms shipments.
US elections are very much a “best worst choice” as the candidate is chosen by the party machine, and selected to best meet the party’s need and win by at least 1 vote.
If you voted for Obama, your responsible for the drone bombing deaths of children.
If you voted for Bush, you're responsible for the children who died in Iraq.
If you voted for Trump, you're an idiot but I digress. If you are an American who votes, you've elected people who authorize military action that leads to civilian death.
Yeah that's all accurate. Also under increasing pressure from Biden. Not sure how anyone serious can blame Biden for Israel's response, though. They have a national mandate similar to the US after 9/11. You think the president of France or something could have called off George W. from Iraq?
No. At any rate, even if the current right wing leadership on Israel literally genocides every Palestinians, the US is not going to let Israel deplete its readiness for war with Iran . If anything, America will likely use this opportunity to increase Israel's defense preparedness, just as we have been doing with Kiev and Taiwan. After all, right now, doing so is a proportionate response, from Iran's vantage, to Iran's sponsoring of Hamas.
I agree Israel's ongoing prosecution, to such extent, is out of proportion. Unfortunately, Hamas has apparently erected tunnel warfare capabilities that were beyond what US and Israeli intelligence knew of, according to NYT reporting, and also, and this is the big one, America doesn't control Israel's national defenses.
The middleeast is undeniably the single most important region of the world as far as global security and Israel is undeniably the only (flawed) democracy in the region.
I don't know what card sheep in this thread think Biden has to play with Israel, here. There is literally no appetite in Washington from anyone to abandon Israel as it will 100% lead to an Iran-Israel war that might kill a hundred million people. Like let's get real about the stakes here. There aren't, 5,000,000 people in all of Palestine. That's half of Iran's capital city, which Israel will turn into a parking lot before it surrenders to the "supreme leader" of the backwards ass shithole of conservative nationalism that is Iran.