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Notes -
Rueters: U.S. states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness
I've followed the politicization of FEMA grants through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program which overwhelmingly goes to Jewish organizations. The recent Israel supplemental bill included a $390M increase to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program with $230M available through Sept 30, 2026. Schumer is pushing for an additional $500M bringing potential 2026 funding to $730M.
The timing of this is interesting also because it's in the middle of a significant back-and-forth between Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. Tucker Carlson had Candace Owens on his show, where Tucker accused Fuentes of being a fed. To justify that claim, Tucker said that Fuentes accused Carlson's father of being in the CIA which was a fact that Carlson claimed to not know until his father's death in March.
Tucker also gave a line of criticism of Fuentes that Tucker himself gave in nearly exact words to Pat Buchanan in 1999.
How does this tie in together? Where is the pushback against the clear Israeli influence in the US government supposed to come from in the Right Wing? It's only coming from Fuentes and DR Twitter. Stuff like this gives Fuentes credibility regarding his criticisms of Israeli influence- it seems Tucker Carlson is trying to ride the fine line between providing an outlet for criticism of Israeli influence among the Right Wing but still gatekeeping Nick Fuentes from going further mainstream.
Discrimination towards Israel is a convenient legal hammer for Trump to pound on adversaries.
Trump is using Israel because he needs to find a credible example of 'partial' behavior by local govts. The American system has special carve-outs for provable hate crimes. There is decades of precedent on methods for associating anti-Israel-movements with antisemitism and therefore provable hate crimes.
Trump's govt (and the project 2025 playbook[1]) are strategic about finding loopholes for executive overreach. For universities, it was provable affirmative action. For local funding, it's Israel.
[1] I have not read project Esther in detail. But at face value, it seems to be the guiding document on how to use antisemitism as a cudgel to beat opposing institutions into submission.
Israel is effectively a forward deployed state of the USA. They do the dirty work on the vanguard, and shield America from criticism. For ex: I don't believe the Israelis could have developed Pegasus without a soft go ahead from the Americans.
I would further add that making democrats spend more effort on Israel-related matters will only benefit the republicans because they fight each other when they do that, they convince talented Jews to accept much higher private sector salaries rather than work in politics(and they get replaced with incompetent and delusional shaniquas), they make the progressive wing more prominent and demanding.
Or they get replaced by even more politically talented Brahmin->Islam converts like Mamdani while clearing out the traitors in their midst at the same time.
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