The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC has launched its first ads attacking Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District. The ads claim that Bowman “has his own agenda” and refuses to work with President Joe Biden.
United Democracy Project, the AIPAC super PAC, bought its first set of ads this week for $1.9 million, disclosing that it planned to spend the money in a week, to oppose Bowman in the race against Westchester County executive George Latimer. The primary election takes place June 25.
Latimer, who was recruited to run by AIPAC and has received huge contributions directly from the group, has had nearly a million dollars of support from outside groups before AIPAC weighed in. Bowman also has outside support, but it’s a fraction of AIPAC’s spending so far for Latimer. Known as “independent expenditures,” outside groups can weigh in on elections but not in coordination with campaigns.
With the new AIPAC money to attack Bowman, outside groups in the race are spending nearly 10 times more in Latimer’s favor — with roughly $3 million total for Latimer and against Bowman, and Bowman supporters spending only about $285,000.
Fuck AIPAC and fuck their money. Democrats should not be working with this foreign influence operation. It’s disgusting.
If it were any other country sinking this kind of money into politics, there would be hearings, investigations, sanctions, etc.
Yeah… It is pretty crazy that a PAC explicitly intended to give influence to a foreign country is legal in any way.
Thanks 2010 SCOTUS for determining unrestricted SuperPAC money is 100% okay and unrestricted donations to a SuperPAC is 100% okay.
Citizens United and SpeechNow solidified how fucked American elections are.
While I think that the supreme Court is slanted shite, isn’t every ruling they make just a “that’s not what we think the law currently says” meaning we should instead be blaming Congress for not writing an updated law that clarifies what we want?
If there is a conflict with an interpretation of law the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause ranks federal case law (SCOTUS rulings) over federal statutes (Congressional law). The rulings essentially have to be overturned by an interpretation derived from the Constitution.
SpeechNow and CitizensUnited were argued and ruled under the 1st Amendment so any Congressional law would either instantly be ruled unconstitutional if challenged (because supremacy clause); so the law would have to somehow not run afoul of the (lazy and bad) interpretations established by the SCOTUS majority at that time. (If you read the decisions: the reasoning between the two consist of complimentary and more importantly circular arguments.)
Which means the only viable path is: a different SCOTUS could hear a new case to challenge them, ala Dobbs overturning Roe. But this SCOTUS is way worse and appointed for life and won’t change for 30+ years unless reformed.
At least we know that when bad stuff is happening, Bowman won’t hesitate to sound the alarm.
Can we get campaign finance reform or are we just going to ignore the blatant power imbalance of lobbying and political action committees in the political process.
Fair elections shouldn’t be judged based on their dollar amounts, but looky here, that’s what this whole article is about. More money on my side wins, yay! Good thing my great grandparents exploited more people when I was young and I have all the money in the world to manipulate people!
🤮
Israel is like the panicking drowning person and the US is the person that gets drowned trying to save them.
Foreign influence
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC has launched its first ads attacking Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District.
“NY-16 Democrats are united in rejecting MAGA’s threat to our freedoms, which is why Trump Republicans are funding a $1.9 million ad spend to distract us from their attempt to buy our seat,” Bowman campaign spokesperson Lawrence Wang said in a statement to The Intercept.
The pro-Israel lobby planned to spend $100 million this cycle to oust members of the Squad who have been critical of U.S. military funding for Israel and led calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Latimer’s campaign came under scrutiny when it first launched for leaving the Bronx, part of which is in the district, off of his website and only mentioning Westchester County, which is a primarily white suburb.
“While the biggest threat to Black America is white supremacist policymakers, they financially support the folks causing us the most harm,” Lee wrote.
AIPAC supported several candidates of color last cycle, including Glenn Ivey, Adam Hollier, Henry Cuellar, Shontel Brown, Valerie Foushee, and Don Davis.
The original article contains 921 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So, the party’s going to do what it did for Coathanger Cuellar and protect the incumbent, right?
