politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
That only works when Congress intentionally leaves a loophole, in this case allowing weapon sales but not donations.
What sale? We fund Israel. They do not pay us anything and never will. At least Ukraine is promising repayment for the weapons we supply and are backed by the World Bank. Israel, on the other hand, recieves billions from us annually and will continue to be our welfare recipients long after the Gazan genocide is complete.
Also, sale or no sale, we are openly participating in genocide now. We should not be supplying jack shit to Israel under any financial circumstances.
The OP is about Biden selling weapons to Israel, which they had to pay for.
Originally they were supposed to receive billions in emergency funding instead. That funding is stalled in Congress, partly due to Israel's conduct in this war.
They are "paying" for these weapons with the billions we give them every year. They can call it a "sale" all they want, but it's still very obviously a gift.
Our annual military aid is in the form of free equipment, not free cash. So if they want more equipment, as in this case, then they have to spend their own money.
I disagree. I believe it is given as liquid currency and Israel is free to spend it as it sees fit. While it is intended to aid their military and is usually spent on U.S. arms, purchasing exclusively from the U.S. is not a requirement of the current agreement.
Here is a BBC article from 2021 that breaks down some of the ways Israel chooses to spend the funds we send them.
Notable from the article:
No, it's not liquid currency.
Military aid to Israel funds two programs. The smaller part buys parts for their Iron Dome system, as sort of an ongoing field test. The larger part goes through the Foreign Military Financing program.
You can find the details of the FMF here, but basically Israel orders equipment and the US pays for it (up to a certain dollar limit of course). The equipment must be purchased from US contractors (though some exceptions apply):
It's kind of like health insurance. They don't send you money, but they pay your bill (or maybe not if it's out-of-network).
The goal is twofold: support US defense contractors and support American allies. And there is a potential ulterior motive: recipient countries are more likely to buy additional equipment from US contractors.
Excellent data. Thank you.
So neat watching the mountains of excuses evaporate into nothingness when there's a genocide to fund.
It only seems extraordinary because you just tuned in.
Presidents have recently used loopholes in the past to ban Muslim immigrants, build a Southern wall, require masks in airports, require hospital employees to get covid vaccines, halt evictions, cancel student debt, and now sell weapons to Israel. All without an act of Congress.
But not everything has a loophole. There is an equally long list of things that they thought they could do without Congressional approval, but actually couldn't. For example require other employees to get covid vaccines, stop oil drilling, forgive farm loans, and cancel even more student debt.
No. It seems like the most mundane shit ever, honestly. When centrist Democrats don't want to raise the minimum wage, they let the parliamentarian get in their way. When centrist Democrats don't want to codify Roe or pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, they let the filibuster get in their way.
When centrist Democrats want to fund a genocide, all their mindless devotion to procedure and decorum is nowhere to be found.
If it were that simple, then the $14 billion aid bill to Israel would have already passed.
Instead it's going nowhere, Israel has to actually pay the US for weapons, and they are getting less than 1% of what everyone expected.
How do you explain that outcome in your black-and-white worldview?
You seem so disappointed.
You interpret emotions as poorly as you interpret politics.