June 17 (Reuters) - Two key Democrats in the U.S. Congress have agreed to support a major arms sale to Israel that includes 50 F-15 fighter jets worth more than $18 billion, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing three unnamed officials.
Representative Gregory Meeks and Senator Ben Cardin have signed off on the deal under heavy pressure from the Biden administration after the two lawmakers had for months held up the sale, the Post reported.
I guess. The republicans signed off in it months ago though.
The whole point of voting Democratic was not to get Republican policies.
Right now the point is to not get all of them, which would allow Republicans to get even worse. You think they couldn’t be worse?
Work with your local organization that is promoting, advocating, and implementing ranked-choice, approval, or literally any other voting scheme than first-past-the-post. It’s the only way we’ll start to see third parties become viable options. There’s a lot of other work: getting rid of the electoral college, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, proportional representation in Congress, gerrymandering law reform; of those, the NPVIC is the closest, needing states with a mere 74 more electoral votes to come into effect. But voting reform, while a long way from the General Election, is making constant gains at the state level; once it’s common among states, people will start talking about changes at the national level, which could go fairly quickly.
Anyway, back to your point. One party is going to cut off both your hands; the other will only cut off one hand. Are they equivalent?
The majority want a ceasefire. Why can’t the Democratic Party just give its voters what they want and secure for itself the next election as well?
If the Democratic Party knows what the people want but refuses to give it to them, I think it is time for people to find another party to represent their cause.
Democrat voters have already surrendered all power. They make no demands of their party and just vote forDemocrats no matter what
The party is under no obligation to respond to the voters’ wishes. They can always scare them that the Republicans will be worse.
Yeah exactly
That’s encouraging; I haven’t seen those polls, and it’s great they’re moving in the right direction. Thank you for the link.
While I would never say the US can’t influence policy in Israel, you are implying that Netanyahu is some sort of hand-puppet that the president of the US can control. A dozen US presidents have worked to achieve lasting peace in the region and have failed; all that effort has led to this situation: Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza. Decades of US presidents have failed to prevent the slow theft of land by Israeli settlers in the Gaza strip. Why do you think that Biden could wave his hand and stop the Israeli invasion? The Presidency is not a Royal kingship; it’s one of three controlling powers in the US, intended to be balancing each other. And yet everyone blames Biden as if he had the sole discretion - even if Israel was a puppet state we could control. Which they aren’t.
Well, two things.
First, opinion polls - especially in recent years - are notoriously unreliable. They’ve failed to accurately predict national elections, and even Nate Silver has said they’re broken and untrustworthy, and new sources are necessary. Importantly, they fail to tell the while story, and in this case, there are a bunch of mitigating factors: Israeli lobbying and funding; decades of partnership essentially opposing Arabic interests in the region; and the very real that that America will get itself re-involved in another Middle East conflict in the near future and well need Israel’s unwavering support.
Second: I utterly agree with you. We do need third parties, better voting systems, changes to how elections are handled, and even changes to how Congress is composed. However, I don’t believe there is a feasible path. Jill Stein will not be president; her only agency in the coming election is as a spoiler to take votes from Biden, thereby improving Trump’s chance of winning. And Trump is no option, not if you care about Palestinians. Trump would, and has, encourage Israel to accelerate the genocide of Palestinians.
So, what’s your suggestion? We’re months out from the general election - how do you purpose we fix this, and get a president in office who will fight congress to cut off aid to Israel unless they withdraw? He can’t unilaterally cut off aid, you know. It has to be negotiated with Congress, which is almost exactly 50% full of people in the House who are controlled by Trump and would like to see Israel building gas chambers, and over 50% in the Senate. What’s your solution?
she can’t take votes from biden, because they don’t belong to biden. they belong to voters, and it is up to politicians to earn their votes
Your pedantry aside, I’m referring to the spoiler effect.