Keyno said:
policywonk98 said:
Keyno said:
policywonk98 said:
Keyno said:
nortex97 said:
Massie made it a referendum alright, but I will defer to Scott here as he is more eloquent than I am.
Just like I said- the GOP partisan shills are going to gaslight everyone into thinking this was about Massie going against Trump and totally memory hole that fact that it was the israel lobby which funded Gallrein.
That doesn't really make any sense. It was very clear Massie had multiple issues with Trump, several having nothing to do with Israel and the conflict with Iran.
What % of Gallreins campaign was funded by this so-called "Israel lobby".
Yes Massie went against Trump on some things. But that isn't why he was primaried. He was primaried because he also went against Israel with his opposition to the American money to Israel and the foreign war for Israel. As well as the Epstein thing. This is why AIPAC, Miriam Adelson, and the Republican Jewish Coalition dumped tens of millions of dollars to defeat him.
GOP partisan shills are going to gaslight everyone into thinking it was NOT about that.
I'm sorry, but who is doing the gaslighting here? The stuff that Massie was saying about Trump and his own party was very unusual for a party caucus member to say and he was saying it ALOT. Lots of airtime and lots of chirping. As I already argued in an earlier post. There is the path that a Rand Paul has taken on these issues in his career and there is the path that Massie took. Not dissimilar to Adam Kinzinger. Who I can assure you would have faced a very expensive primary battle himself had he not chosen not to rerun for Congress.
The path that Massie took was disclosing that all of our GOP politicians have "AIPAC handlers". This is information you are not supposed to be aware of. And obviously he went against Israel after that as well. This is why the israel lobby pumped tens of millions of dollars to primary him
I'm well aware of how special interest group politics works. I worked in the industry. I'm sorry if you are under some grand illusion that there aren't tens of thousands of people assigned to influence congress on legislation for literally thousands of different interest groups.
The question I've had for some time is, who are the people behind Massie and others, trying to convince citizens that obviously don't know how special interest groups work, that AIPAC is somehow engaging in methodologies that aren't also used by most other major special interests.
In case you aren't aware, there are literally thousands of special interest groups. Every single one of them is trying to influence congress for their interests. And no, they are not these groups of dark billionaire forces aligned with the interests of their one true allegiance of Israel. These thousands of groups collectively represent the various interests of hundreds of millions of Americans. AIPAC happens to be one that represents millions of Americans. Some interests groups represent the interested of a smaller group of Americans, some more. Some represent corporations or entire industries. Sometimes they band together when they have mutual interests in order to influence members of Congress and their staff.
This is all pretty normal stuff. People being blackmailed or honey potted is not the norm. The norm is people with things they are passionate about, meeting with the staff and/or member of Congress in order to persuade. And yes, every member is assigned someone and "targeted" in some form or fashion based on some very simple and some complex strategies to influence. Again, all normal.
Now, you don't have to like the system. You don't have to like specific groups like AIPAC. I don't like the system and I don't like 90% of the groups that exist. And it's an ugly business in alot of ways. But AIPAC isn't operating outside of the norms of the system. And one of the "ugly" parts is the part that marxists became very good at doing starting in the 1970s. Where they do hatchet jobs on their adversaries trying to convince the world that the adversary is operating in some deep dark sinister way that is not the norm, that is illegal or unethical. This is not to say illegal or unethical things don't happen in the industry. But AIPAC isn't the poster child of that activity. They are operating in the same ways that all well funded interest groups with millions of members operates.
We can have a discussion of destroying the special interest group system. It's been had off and on for 20 years around here. I'm a big proponent of its destruction since I saw it from the inside, but I hate to break it you, the pro-Israel lobby didn't invent the system and they certainly are not operating outside of its norms for a group their size. The only way to break the special interest group system is to reduce the power of the government. The only way to reduce the power is to reduce its size. By my estimates, it needs to be cut by roughly 75%. We should have a government that spends about 5-8% GDP during peacetime, not the 25-28% we are at.
Massie is a proponent of that kind of thinking. I admired him for that and he could still be in congress fighting for those things had he not gone way over the line in his rhetoric against his own party and its current leader in the WH.
