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Young patriot helps keep wildfire smoke away from pristine U.S.
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And Brush Therein: The Losingest Loser At Work or Play

In "almost Shakespearean grotesquery," our cringe Buffoon-In-Chief just thrust himself into the World Cup final only to be unceremoniously booed, snubbed and cropped out of team photos. Then he again assailed Canada for smoke from their wildfires, though ours are much worse and they've often helped us with them. Still, our ever-gracious northern neighbor launched a new initiative to dutifully sweep the Rockies, vacuum the forests, hand-rake pine needles. Its acronym: F.U.C.K.O.F.F.

The headlines for Trump's Sunday gatecrash of another major sports event that really, really didn't want him there tells the vainglorious and mortifying tale: "Most Universally Hated President In History Mercilessly Booed," "Crowd Boos, Player Snub and Failed Photobomb: Trump's Big World Cup Day Out," and "Confused Old Fuckwit Imagines He's Won the World Cup." The Guardian also wins a Snark of the Year Award for the caption to its photo of FIFA's Infantino deep in conversation with a clueless Trump, both men standing under a blizzard of confetti, after he literally had to drag him off-stage: "Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump he is not part of the Spanish team."

Some of the over 82,000 fans at New Jersey's Met-Life Stadium, where Spain trounced a listless, chaotic, often-thuggish Argentina 1-0, had earlier made their feelings clear when video briefly showed Trump ensconced in his glass-encased VIP digs and scattered boos rang out. By the time he finally lumbered and waddled stoop-shouldered onto the field at the end, it sounded like all 82,000-plus had reconsidered and joined in to jeer. Trailing behind him, looking like hostages trying to keep a safe distance to not catch any cooties, were Mexico's and Canada's leaders, the tournament's purported, far-less-despised hosts. Implausibly given....everything, but thanks to Infantino's long gross obsequiousness, Trump got to hand out awards.

And he did, though not without some drama: Several players hesitated, recoiled or refused to shake his hand. Then it was time to hand out the (seductively gold) World Cup. Little needy Donnie, a malignant narcissistic lump, swooped in to awkwardly “help” Infantino carry it like a five-year-old hungry for the feckin' ice-cream cone his dad is holding, “a lonely, grasping figure refusing to release a trophy he didn’t win.” Once they handed it to Spain’s captain Rodri, Trump, “malice wrapped in vanity,” painfully lingered in the limelight - camera! also person, woman, man TV - as Infantino struggled to yank him away for the iconic team hoist photo: "OK, grandpa, time to get back to your chocolate pudding." In the end, a patient Rodri gently nudged him out of the shot, but cringingly not off the stage, where he stood dazed and wobbling, our national farce and tragedy.

Steve Schmidt noted the clumsy resulting image's era-defining power, its display of the "breathtaking psychological fragility" of a "President Norma Desmond...incapable of understanding that the greatest office in the world confers responsibility, not ownership." "The character has been devoured by the caricature," he wrote of "self-parody made flesh," the small man so consumed by the need for adulation that, "Every trophy is his trophy. Every triumph is his triumph. Every stage is his stage." Later, in photos released both by FIFA and the Spanish team, Trump had mercifully, miraculously disappeared from both shots, because this is why God and Al Gore invented photoshop.

The awkward bit of theater with Spain came, lest we forget, in the wake of Trump's weeks of vilifying the nation and their prime minister Pedro Sánchez - first, for their refusal to allow the U.S. military to use Spanish bases to help illegally bomb Iran, then for the alleged failure of "bad" and "hopeless" Spanish people to pay enough for NATO defense spending. Despite Trump's ugly threats to "cut off all trade" with a longtime ally unforgivably following the law, it all suddenly vanished before the cameras, where Trump congratulated "a great team," even though they speak Spanish, and claimed there was "no tension" with the country’s leadership. Actually, he smirked, "I have no tension with anybody."

Tell it to Canada, which Trump has been moronically berating for "Willful Negligence," aka inexplicably allowing smoke from over 800 wildfires raging across some of Canada's 347 million acres to drift over our pristine shores. A few days earlier, joined by equally stupid MAGA lackeys, he raged the U.S. "is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air" at an "incalculable" (a big word he probs didn't write) cost, and "maybe they should pay us some damages" or billions more in tariffs, and he'd call Carney "to find out what they are going to do about it." "We are holding Canada responsible," he thundered, "for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein."

Like his long-ago claim during California wildfires that Finland's president told him they rake their forests and have no such problems - Finland when asked: "WTF" - this is an idiot's fever dream. Facts owe: This year, America has seen over 40,000 fires burn roughly 3.9 million acres, 157% its ten-year average. There are now over 70 uncontained U.S. fires being fought by nearly 18,000 people, with much of the Northwest - Colorado, Oregon, Washington - at National Preparedness Level 5, the highest, and up to 58 new fires a day. Air quality alerts affecting a million Americans are due to those fires, to blazes across 70,000-plus acres in Minnesota, and to 3,600 fires across 1.8 million acres, below the five-year average, in Canada.

In the face of politely unnamed U.S. pols mindlessly "chirping away," notes Ontario Premier Doug Ford, he has already asked for firefighters or "anything they can send" to help fight nearly 200 fires, some of which have crossed into Canada from Minnesota, that have forced entire First Nations to evacuate and many residents to sleep in their cars. Rather than complain maybe send help, he adds, "because we have done the same thing for our American friends," again and again. Even as Canadian officials issue air quality warnings from U.S. fires drifting north, a 56-year-old Canadian helicopter pilot from B.C. just died in a crash battling a fire in Colorado, the fourth firefighter death there this summer.

Meanwhile, a mindless, science-denying MAGA has ended support for dozens of climate initiatives, dismantled our largest climate research center and pushed for more fossil fuel carnage. On Sunday, with much of his country visibly on fire, Trump attacked the National Academy of Sciences - chartered by Abe Lincoln mid-Civil War "because even a nation shooting at itself understood it needed scientists" - because it's "run by Radical Left Dumocrats” who published costly, "fraudulent," “totally discredited” climate change manuals, which he ordered "Suspension and Debarment" officials to review. Also - cue dumbest timeline ever - Repubs jumped in to decry DEI-loving advocates who (gasp) may have tried to stop blessed oil and gas projects.

Still, Canada is a tolerant, peace-loving nation that tries to accommodate all comers, even a malevolent asshole who's never gotten any closer to a "forest" than Central Park, if even there. It also values its natural resources, including a 270-million-acre boreal forest, much of it roadless, whose vast ecosystem serves as a global carbon sink to purify air and water, regulate climate and offer a safe breeding ground to billions of birds. And if some random asshole neighbor to the north chides its inadequate forest management, Canada seeks to rise to the occasion - to, as it were, Be Better. Thus was born a bold new initiative from its Department of Forest Tidiness, which is now "pleased to confirm the message has been received loud and clear."

Canada's Forest Undergrowth Clearing & Kindling Operation for Foreign Friends, aka F.U.C.K.O.F.F., renders every able-bodied person ages 16 to 65 responsible for removing leaves, twigs, moss, bark, sticks, branches, pine needles, deadfall and shrubs deemed "insufficiently tidy by Congressional observers." After receiving government-issued rakes, gloves and safety vests, they must arrange all debris "into neat bilingual piles," to be painstakingly inspected by forestry officials. Further actions may include sweeping the Rocky Mountains, power-washing the Canadian Shield, vacuuming deserts, raking California, installing smoke-detectors across the Yukon and mandating that all fires contain and respect clearly marked provincial borders.

In Ontario, workers will be assigned 6.7 acres (40 NHL hockey rinks) of dense untracked country and a 26-hour work week; elsewhere, shifts surge to a hefty 18.3 acres (110 rinks) and 70 hours a week. Morning commutes start with a three-day canoe trip and 15-km hike through swamp; on-site, workers will hand-groom 300 billion trees, hand-rake an infinity of pine needles, make local beavers submit environmental impact reports and dodge grizzlies as needed. Finally, it notes, "Canada thanks Congress for sharing their extensive knowledge of forestry, wildfire behavior, climate science, geography and upkeep of a country containing 9% of the world's forests, and looks forward to receiving further practical advice from Washington."

Online, many Americans, after reportedly snorting their coffee through their noses, thanked Canada "for being great neighbors and allies," and apologized for - hands held hopelessly wide - "all this." "We are so, so sorry," said one. Another: "We're so incredibly sorry." Canadians joined in: "I'm in Alberta - I'll send water," "In B.C., have to get my mountaineering gear first. Sorry. eh?" and a generous offer to add a new organization, Canadian Undergrowth, Nature, and Tree Services: "I believe that with your cooperation, F.U.C.K.O.F.F plus C.U.N.T.S could really show Americans we take their health and well-being seriously." Organizers estimate their work will be completed "somewhere between Thursday afternoon and the collapse of human civilization," which should be any day now.

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Environmental and Native American activists rally
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Indigenous and Climate Campaigners Decry 'Deep Betrayal' as Michigan Issues Key Enbridge Line 5 Permits

Anti-fossil fuel campaigners on Wednesday emphasized that Michigan state regulators had issued key permits for the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac on the same day that "wildfire smoke from climate change blotted out the Mackinac Bridge from view" and as the US and other countries faced extreme heatwaves.

Despite the mounting evidence that—as energy and climate experts have long warned—continued fossil fuel extraction is heating the planet and causing dangerous extreme weather, Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy handed down a permit Wednesday to allow the Canadian company Enbridge to construct a tunnel that EGLE officials acknowledged will likely have "significant impacts" on threatened or endangered species and Indigenous burial ground in the Straits.

“The magnitude of impacts to recognized historic and cultural values of this proposed project exceeds that of any other that EGLE has reviewed,” said EGLE in its statement on the permits.

Enbridge has sought to build a tunnel around its Line 5 pipeline in the Straits for years, following a massive oil spill from its Line 6B pipeline in the Kalamazoo River. Line 5 has been struck by ships' anchors numerous times, heightening concerns.

EGLE said in its explanation that the oil spill risk was found to be "unacceptable" and that the need for the tunnel outweighed its risks.

But opponents who have argued that Line 5 should be permanently shut down, including the Bay Mills Indian Community, condemned the agency for "rewarding" Enbridge with new permits even after its fossil fuel infrastructure has caused hazardous oil spills.

“Enbridge has spilled oil, committed safety violations, trespassed on lands, shattered ecosystems, pierced aquifers, violated our laws, and repeatedly shown contempt for tribal sovereignty," said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community. "They have left devastation in their wake, and now they’re being rewarded with responsibility over one of the most precious and sacred resources in our state. The Great Lakes are not safe in their hands. This decision is a deep betrayal of our Great Lake State, and we will confront it immediately, fiercely, and without hesitation.”

The state Department of Natural Resources also issued a permit following EGLE's decision, granting permission for the tunnel despite its potential impact on rare plants and animal habitats.

According to Michigan Bridge, about 1.53 acres of wetlands in Mackinac County would be impacted by the tunnel project, as well as 0.17 acres of Lake Michigan bottomlands in Emmet County, where Enbridge is expected to build a water intake structure.

The environmental legal organization Earthjustice, which has helped represent the Bay Mills Indian Community in its legal challenges against Enbridge, said that with the permits, the company will "transform the Straits of Mackinac into an industrial construction zone for at least six years, destroying views, displacing wildlife, and interrupting tourism dollars."

“Our environmental laws, the looming climate crisis, and simple common sense tells us that an oil pipeline doesn’t belong in the Great Lakes,” said Earthjustice managing attorney Debbie Chizewer. “Today’s decision is a setback, but we’re not giving up. A future without oil in the Great Lakes is still possible.”

EGLE is also expected to rule by September 30 on an Enbridge request to discharge millions of gallons of treated wastewater per day into Lake Michigan while it is constructing the tunnel, and the Michigan Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit brought by four Tribal Nations, including Bay Mills, alleging that the Michigan Public Service Commission improperly issued a key tunnel permit in 2023.

The state is also fighting Enbridge over Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's 2020 order to shut down Line 5 over oil spill concerns. She had campaigned in 2018 on a promise to shut down the pipeline. A federal judge ruled last year that the state had no authority to terminate the use of the pipeline, and the state appealed that ruling.

Advocates expressed anger on Wednesday at Whitmer as her government issued the permits.

“It’s incredibly disappointing that a governor who ran on a commitment to the climate and protecting the Great Lakes has now decided to instead endorse a Canadian industrial tunnel project that still threatens the Great Lakes and will contribute fossil fuels to the climate,” David Holtz, coalition coordinator for the anti-Line 5 group Oil & Water Don’t Mix, told Bridge Michigan.

David Gover, managing attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, said that "the Straits of Mackinac are not a piece of Enbridge oil infrastructure; they are the heart of creation for Anishinaabe people and a vital source of life for all who depend on the Great Lakes."

“We will pursue every legal avenue," Gover said, "to defend treaty rights, protect drinking water, and preserve tribal lifeways from another Enbridge disaster.”

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Top Finance Committee Democrat Rips Trump's New Canada Tariffs as 'Yet Another Shakedown'
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Top Finance Committee Democrat Rips Trump's New Canada Tariffs as 'Yet Another Shakedown'

Critics are piling on President Donald Trump for once again picking a fight with the United States' top trading partner by moving to slap 50% tariffs on certain imported Canadian goods.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Tuesday that Trump's latest broadside against Canada was "yet another shakedown that will raise the cost of living for Americans, their families, and small businesses across the country."

Wyden also said that Trump has "abused every trade authority at his disposal" and vowed to soon release a bill "to rein him in and put Congress back in the driver's seat" in crafting US trade policy.

Wyden wasn't the only Democrat to take a shot at Trump over his new economic attack on Canada.

Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) called Trump's new tariffs "really dumb" given that they violate a trade deal that Trump himself negotiated with Canada and Mexico during his first term.

"You cannot negotiate a trade agreement, sign it, celebrate it, then blow it up and expect anyone to trust the next deal," said Levin. "And who actually pays? American importers and American families. Tariffs are a tax on us."

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) predicted that US consumers would once again pay the price for the president's trade war.

"We're the ones who will eat the cost," wrote Huffman. "That's what happened with Trump's last tariff spree and it will happen again. Trump's failed foreign and economic policies are making life worse for hardworking people."

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on Tuesday published an analysis trying to make sense of the justifications for Trump's latest trade war with Canada, but he came up mostly empty.

"The White House fact sheet claims that the new tariffs are a response to Canadian policies that discriminate against US products," explained Krugman, "notably the moves by most Canadian provinces... to stop importation of US alcoholic beverages. But these policies were themselves a response to the tariffs on Canadian goods Trump had previously imposed."

Krugman then noted that Trump shifted his justification for the tariffs, saying they were designed to punish Canada after smoke generated by wildfires in Ontario billowed into the US last week.

However, Krugman found this explanation even more absurd.

"Blaming Canada for not controlling fires that are, in reality, largely a consequence of global warming," Krugman remarked, "is unutterably idiotic."

Krugman concluded his analysis by arguing that "whatever the real motivation for these new tariffs, they are almost surely illegal," noting that they run afoul of Trump's own North American trade deal.

Trump on Tuesday indicated that the tariffs on Canada were not actually a response to the wildfires, though he said his administration was looking at separate measures to punish the Canadian government for purportedly doing a poor job of managing its forests.

Several studies have found that Trump's tariffs, which he kicked off in April 2025, have cost US businesses and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars, as importers pass most of the increased costs imposed by the tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

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SEIU Members Call on Congress to Fund "Healthcare Not Hate"
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As Trump Renews Assault on Iran, Dems Prepare Another War Powers Resolution

Democrats introduced another war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday that they hope will strengthen their efforts to stop President Donald Trump from continuing to escalate his war with Iran.

Both houses of Congress already passed a war powers resolution in June, but it was not signed by Trump and lacked the force of law.

Trump has refused to comply with its order to withdraw troops from hostilities in the region, claiming that his renewed attacks on Iran this month constitute a new conflict that resets the 60-day countdown before Congress can intervene.

According to Politico, Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expects the resolution to come to the floor for a vote on Thursday, just before Congress adjourns for a five-week summer recess.

The resolution, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Wednesday, is expected to have the support of every Democrat, as well as Reps. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who voted for the last resolution.

A co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Col.), said on Wednesday that Democrats, as well as these "Republicans of courage and conscience," were united in their goal of sending "a message that this war has got to stop."

Jayapal said recent developments, including the deaths of four US soldiers over the past week, had raised the urgency of ending the war now.

"This war has killed 18 US service members, cost billions of taxpayer dollars, and displaced millions of civilians," she noted.

A new resolution may also strengthen a separate effort by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), who is planning to introduce legislation that would block any additional federal funding for attacks against Iran not authorized by Congress. He also said he was preparing a lawsuit challenging Trump's continuation of the war without congressional approval, which he has called "legally baseless."

As the administration requests tens of billions more in military spending in order to fund the war, Democrats in the Senate last week blocked debate on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The House passed the NDAA on Wednesday with limited Democratic support, though it did not contain the separate Iran War funding package.

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Family members hold photos of their loved ones, who have been missing at sea since January 20, 2026, when their fishing boat "went up in smoke" in international waters.
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Rights Group Demands US Investigation Into Reported Bombing of Ecuadorian Fishing Boat

Amnesty International is calling for a full investigation by the US government into the alleged bombing of an Ecuadorian fishing boat, the Fiorella, last January, as the family members of eight disappeared fishermen have spent months demanding answers about what happened to their loved ones in the midst of the Trump administration's boat bombing campaign in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

In "Operation Southern Spear," which the Trump administration has said is aimed at stopping drug trafficking from Latin America and in which at least 221 people have been killed in more than 60 bombings, US Southern Command has frequently announced strikes in the region since they began in September.

In the case of the Fiorella, the US military did not issue an announcement of a bombing after the boat "went up in smoke" on January 20, after which eight fishermen who were on board went missing in the midst of Operation Southern Spear.

Amnesty noted on Monday that in the case of two other Ecuadorian fishing vessels, Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca, which were reportedly struck by drones in March and whose surviving crew members said they were captured and tortured by US forces, US Southern Command also did not publicly acknowledge the strikes, "despite reports from survivors stating that both vessels were allegedly sunk by unmanned aerial vehicles bearing markings attributed to the United States."

"If it were confirmed that the United States was responsible for the strike on the Fiorella, as well as for the strikes against the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca, the total number of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations associated with these operations could be much higher than previously estimated," said Amnesty.

The group's Evidence Lab used a vessel monitoring system to reconstruct the route covered by the Fiorella, finding the boat set sail from Jaramijó with 10 crew members on January 15.

The boat lost its internet connection shortly after setting out and went in and out of international waters, also sailing in the Galapagos Exclusive Economic Zone, between January 15-19.

"During the first days of the trip, no major incidents were reported," said Amnesty. "However, from the fourth day onwards, the Fiorella was allegedly subjected to sustained monitoring by aircraft, patrol boats and drones bearing United States markings. Juan Carlos Valencia, the fishing boat’s captain, sent daily satellite messages to his family expressing his growing concern about the surveillance."

On the morning of January 20, the boat sent two skiffs out with baited hooks, and at around 1:00 pm the two crew members on one of the boats saw "a large column of smoke in the distance in the direction of the Fiorella." The two crew members on the skiff were rescued by another fishing boat two days later, but "nothing more has been heard of the Fiorella or the second skiff since," said Amnesty.

Three months after the Fiorella disappeared following the apparent attack, the local organization Standing Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reported that the 36 crew members who had been aboard the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca had been detained by US personnel after their boats were struck by drones, before being eventually returned to Ecuador.

Amnesty International, which met with the families of the disappeared crew members from the Fiorella, said the relatives suspect their loved ones may also have been captured and transferred to another country by the US.

“The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International. "The US and Ecuadorian authorities must confirm or deny whether state agents from either country were involved, take all necessary steps to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of the victims, and provide reliable evidence showing what happened to them."

Family members reported that Ecuadorian officials have alluded to allegations that their loved ones were involved in drug trafficking and were therefore attacked by the US as part of Operation Southern Spear.

“The commander said to us: ‘You know what they went to do, so why are you looking for them?’" the daughter of one missing fisherman told Amnesty. "This made me really angry, and I said to him: ‘I’m here to look for my dad, all they did was go fishing. You should show some compassion and tell us the truth.’ The next day we went again [to the port authority] and they simply closed the door on us.”

The Ecuadorian Public Prosecutor's office has not submitted a formal request to the US for information to complete an investigation into the Fiorella's disappearance, said Amnesty.

“It’s as if the ship simply vanished and no one cares how it happened or what became of the people on board. Perhaps it just flew away? More than six months on from the disappearance, the Ecuadorian authorities must provide a clear account of what actions they have taken to establish the facts, what they know, what they do not know, and how they intend to address the legitimate demands of the families of those disappeared. The criminal investigation into these events must continue until those potentially responsible are identified and brought to justice,” said Piquer.

She added that "the Department of Justice and the investigative authorities of the US armed forces must investigate and establish possible criminal responsibility not only in relation to the Fiorella, but also for all other strikes on vessels on the high seas."

"Similarly, the US Congress must drive a parliamentary inquiry into this serious incident, with hearings and reports designed to establish the facts and determine the possible involvement of public agencies or private entities under its authority," she said. "In addition, all states must suspend international cooperation on intelligence and military equipment that could be used in such illegal operations."

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Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Holds Rally In Detroit With Sen. Bernie Sanders And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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Ahead of NDAA Vote, AOC Warns Amendment to Integrate US and Israeli Military Is 'Existential Threat'

With a US House committee refusing to include a bipartisan amendment to strike the integration of parts of the Israeli and American militaries from the National Defense Authorization Act for the coming year, the chamber on Wednesday was set to vote on a bill that progressive opponents including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said would threaten US "sovereignty."

Section 219 of the 2027 NDAA, said the New York Democrat, "is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy."

"Every member of Congress must vote NO," she added.

Section 219, which originated as a bipartisan proposal pushed by Democratic Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, directs the secretary of defense to designate an "executive agent" at the Pentagon who would oversee a new United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.

The program, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to as "my plan" in June, would integrate American and Israeli research and development by pushing for US military systems' use of Israeli-manufactured technology. The initiative would "shift the framework for US-Israeli defense cooperation from aid to partnership," said Netanyahu.

As Military.com reported, Section 219 would integrate US and Israeli counter-drone, missile, and air defense, artificial intelligence, and cyber and electronic warfare systems.

At Responsible Statecraft in May, Ben Freeman wrote the fusion of the American and Israeli defense sectors would "bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the US beyond what it already has" by giving the Israeli government "the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in US politics: jobs in the US."

"By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on US soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie," wrote Freeman. "The result could well be a US political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the US into military conflicts in the Middle East."

The NDAA is set to be voted on in the House on Wednesday, as numerous recent polls have shown public approval of US military aid to Israel plummeting as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continues its assault on Gaza that began in October 2023, as well as ramping up attacks in the West Bank and pushing for the US to join in attacks on Iran.

Nearly half of Democratic members of the House voted to cut off military aid to Israel last week in what was called a "seismic shift," with lawmakers apparently responding to voters' clear condemnation of US support for the IDF. Last August, three-quarters of Democratic voters said in a Quinnipiac poll that they opposed continuing to arm Israel.

Progressive political candidates such as Michigan's US Senate contender Abdul El-Sayed in recent months have framed the issue as one in which voters are demanding more government investment in US schools and healthcare, rather than in Israel's military.

"While Americans are focused on other things, like how to make ends meet in the face of a rapidly rising cost of living, the House will vote to merge our military technology and supply chains with Israel’s,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a statement Tuesday after the amendment he put forward with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to strike Section 219 was denied a floor vote by the House Rules Committee. “Our founders would be appalled at what Congress is doing now.”

Other lawmakers who joined Massie and Khanna's effort to eliminate the provision include Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Don Beyer (D-Va.), Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii), Derek Tran (D-Calif.), and Joe Courtney (D-Conn.).

The House is allowing consideration of two amendments that Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) submitted, including one that would remove the word "integration" from Section 219. Josh Paul, a former Biden administration State Department official who resigned over unconditional US military aid to Israel after the IDF began bombarding Gaza in October 2023, emphasized that Luna's amendment does not eliminate the proposed program.

The amendment "has no meaningful impact on the bill," said Paul, co-founder of the lobby group A New Policy. "The goal here is to try to make it a tough vote for people, for members of Congress who don't want to see US and Israel integration, but they should rest easy because that's not what this amendment does."

Massie and Khanna said they would attempt to eliminate Section 219 from the bill in the House and Senate conference after the House vote. The Senate's defense authorization package includes a similar provision called Section 1217.

"It's shocking that this even has to be explained," said Khanna on Tuesday. "It's about American sovereignty... We do not even have a chance to vote in the House to stop Israel and the United States from co-producing weapons. We need to now fight to strip this amendment in the conference between the House and the Senate."

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