McDad
I can't brain today; I has the dumb.
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- Jan 3, 2011
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I agree the "burying" in your examples are less unique and nefarious. Seems much more SOP for any lobbying group.The main examples I can think of right now are the handful of dems that lost in primaries to AIPAC-backed candidates. There was a Republican from (I think) Montana that said something about AIPAC involvement and got primaried. Thomas Massie mentioned AIPAC support across Congress and they're now running ads against him, and then AIPAC stopped campaign donations for Republicans that did not vote in favor of some of the recent emergency "aid" bills for Israel.
None of this to me is beyond standard lobbying activity (don't fund candidates that don't vote how you want, which I don't like in any case) but where I personally take issue is the fact that this looks to be one of the only operations that is heavily mixing foreign involvement and aid and this type of lobbying. I'm very much about putting Americans first, and orgs like AIPAC and other Israel single-issue groups (and, I suppose, Palestinian ones too) encourage Congress to put foreign interests first.
As I searched yesterday, I found several foreign interests (countries) which are actively lobbying our government. In that way, Israel...or Israel via proxy American citizens...isn't unique. They might be more active, better funded, and more effective but they aren't novel.