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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.
As I've said before- the people drawing this stuff up are right wing Catholics(because that is who staffs conservative policy-making/writing) who do not believe there is anything special about Jews and are, currently, not fans of Israel due to some recent events in Gaza. This is about making democrats fight each other.
This seems like a really sad claim. At least "to counter illegal discrimination" would be a somewhat acceptable excuse for cutting emergency aid for tornado/fire/hurricane/earthquake victims, many of whom of course would be centrist/conservative/griller types because even the most partisan of states still tend to be like 60/40-65/35, it'd at least be for a nominal cause of reducing harm elsewhere even if I disagree that BDS is so harmful that it's worth cutting emergency aid.
But to cut aid to own the libs? That's the reason? Just seems cruel then.
Edit: Oh and just obvious thing, the Dem states could also just be like "nah we don't care about helping out the conservative areas either then" if they felt like being cruel in response and focusing their state level recovery resources on the blue areas. Hopefully they wouldn't do that, but it's very easy for them to just shrug and go "welp it's not enough of an emergency for the feds so that rural area can just deal with it themselves"
If the goal is just discrimination, why single out Israel specifically? It’s an odd flex considering that there are other trade partners that would qualify under anti discrimination rules (India, Japan, Korea, Latin America, etc.) but they don’t get the same protections. If I passed a law in North Dakota that said “no money goes to Asian countries,” it’s perfectly fine. If I do the same with South Asia, again, fine. It’s only when North Dakota says “we aren’t buying from Israel,” that anything happens.
Is it? The Constitution puts almost all powers of international relations at the federal level. States aren't allowed to engage in treaties or establish their own taxes on goods entering or leaving the country.
Arguably some states do this in practice: a few have somewhat banned certain Chinese companies (TikTok, Huawei), but most of those laws/rules at least claim to be following federal guidance.
Yes, but they are allowed to choose how to spend their own money. State governments have the same right not to trade with Israel if they don't want to that you or I do.
Per the Constitution as interpreted by SCOTUS, the right not to do business you don't want to do can be revoked by explicit legislation, but there is no such legislation in this case. In a comedic prequel to the Obamacare litigation, there used to be a law (adopted in response to the Arab boycott of Israel) mandating large multinational companies do business with Israel. Naturally, the mandate was phrased as a tax.
That seems possible as applied to state government expenditures (likely subject to federal rules like the one in question, subject to future court rulings).
We never did get a ruling on California's attempt to boycott several red states, which at least seems related. But in a world in which the court accepts Wickard, I suspect the feds would win both the domestic and foreign state expenditures questions if it makes it to court.
"The Feds" aren't a unitary actor here. The point of Wickard etc. is that Congress can regulate anything as long as it does so as part of a coherent scheme which mostly regulates interstate commerce. If Trump tries to punish states and municipalities which boycott Israel, it will be a statutory interpretation case about whether Congress did or not.
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