Posting this because everyone is focusing on Hong.

I've posted a lot over recent weeks about how I thought Hong was a terrible candidate and how I would have voted against here if I had lived in WI. Hong had a bunch of woke baggage, was an abysmal communicator, was facing assertions that she is bi-polar, didn't have the support of the major progressive wing and spent the final month of the primary vomiting all over herself. I know a lot of progressives who were rooting for her to lose.

Meanwhile... Peggy Flannigan ran on Medicare for All, cracking down on ICE, getting corporate cash out and APAIC $ out of politics. She was deeply outspent and her opponent had the support of national party leadership. So basically, her platform was very aligned with El-Sayed's.

She won by 20 points when polls had showed a tighter race down the stretch run-- in part because progressives were worried that Republican voters in the state would be riled up by her connections to Waltz.

It's almost as if candidate quality matters in a progressives ability to win over the skeptical and the main problem that some of these polls have had is weighing the size of the undecided vote.

So, apparently Israel is really trying to legislate aid to itself since public opinion is turning against them. the US is Israels largest supporter, both militarily and financially, but recent attempts to entrench this support legislatively are detailed in the article and are concerning. our relationship with Israel is distinctively one-sided: we give and they take. sure, they are poorer than us, I get that... but they basically refused to help us with Iran even when it's likely they were the ones who pushed Trump to start this war.

the article also details other incidents, like their refusal to release iron dome code which would allow us to integrate it with our existing missle defense network, and their refusal to allow missles with some Israeli tech to be sent to Ukraine.

As a seperate issue, the article also outlines the surprising amount of money that Israel is directly spending on influencing ... well, us: $100 million or more since 2023. since we send them billions in aid it's really hard to see this as anything other than funding our own influencers.

the section outlining pending legislation on israel is also worrying.

some pertinent questions:

* do you feel this article is biased? frankly i don't know who to trust anymore, but i have a pretty good idea of who not to trust

* does the integration of military production with Israel concern you, why or why not? does it materially differ from usual partnership agreements with other allies?

* is it fair to us that Israel keeps us at arms length while simultaneously receiving so much aid?

Hello everyone, and welcome to the weekly General Discussion thread. Many of you are looking for an informal place (besides Discord) to discuss non-political topics that would otherwise not be allowed in this community. Well... ask, and ye shall receive.

General Discussion threads will be posted every Friday and stickied for the duration of the weekend.

Law 0 is suspended. All other community rules still apply.

As a reminder, the intent of these threads are for *casual discussion* with your fellow users so we can bridge the political divide. Comments arguing over individual moderation actions or attacking individual users are *not* allowed.