 Anti-Palestinian super PACs have been pumping millions and millions and millions of dollars into Democratic Party primaries across the country in an effort to crush progressives. Now, they're not always successful. For example, last week in the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, Summer Lee won even though they spent millions of dollars trying to boost her opponent, Steve Irwin, who's a corporate Democrat. Now they've also been pumping a lot of money into the race in the 28th Congressional District in Texas between Henry Quayar and Jessica Cisneros, and we'll find out if that is going to pay off because that primary actually takes place tonight. So be sure to stay tuned for our video on that. But what they're doing is they're trying to kill progressives who might be sympathetic towards Palestinians and who would speak out against the apartheid of the Israeli government. And it's just, it's essentially leading to this climate in politics where you either have to be pro-Israel vehemently so and unapologetically so, or you have to shut your mouth. And that's just not acceptable. So Bernie Sanders knows this and he's actually speaking out against these super PACs and he's declaring war on them, essentially. So he's not only calling out all the money that they're spending and the effect that that's having, but he's also spotlighting their hypocrisy here. So as Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times explains, this is a war, Mr. Sanders said in an interview for the future of the Democratic Party. APAC has long been a bipartisan organization and its entry this year into direct political spending has included giving to both Democrats and Republicans that has earned the ire of Mr. Sanders and other progressives because the group's super PAC has also run ads attacking Ms. Lee as an insufficiently loyal Democrat. Quote, why would an organization go around criticizing someone like Summer Lee for not being a strong enough Democrat when they themselves have endorsed extreme right-wing Republicans, Mr. Sanders said? In my view, their goal is to create a two-party system, Democrats and Republicans in which both parties are responsive to the needs of corporate America and the billionaire class. Mr. Sanders specifically called out the committee for donating to congressional Republicans who refused to certify the 2020 election, while at super PAC, the United Democracy Project has framed itself as a pro-democracy group that just exposes the hypocrisy Mr. Sanders said. Yeah, and that really tells you all that you need to know. They're running these attack ads on progressives saying, oh, well, they're not real Democrats. They're not loyal enough Democrats. Meanwhile, they're funding insurrectionists. Yeah. So they don't actually care about the substance in these races. They're choosing to get involved with people who will carry out their agenda. And it's not just a pro-Israel agenda, but that's a large part of it. They want to make sure that they bully people into compliance. So anyone who might be sympathetic to the BDS movement or who might dare condemn the war crimes that Israel's government is committing against the Palestinian people, they don't get into Congress. And the reason why they're ramping up their effort is because back in 2021 when Israel had another incursion into Gaza and slaughtered hundreds of people. Well, you saw members of Congress for the first time that I can remember actually condemning it, calling it what it is, an apartheid war criminal regime. And this is, you know, Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American who said this, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Corey Bush, AOC. So they know that if more people who get elected say this and tell the truth about the situation, then the US government perhaps might feel a little bit more pressure to not support Israel in what they're doing, to not give them weapons that they will use to slaughter innocent civilians with impunity. But if you don't comply with these apartheid apologists, then they're going to spend millions and millions of dollars against you. So it creates this incentive to where you really if you don't want all this money spent against you and you want to get elected to Congress and do good things, you kind of have to be quiet about Israel Palestine. You can't vocalize support for the human rights of Palestinian people. Otherwise, these packs will come after you. This is what happened with Nina Turner and Chantelle Brown. And twice these packs spent overwhelmingly in favor of Chantelle Brown, who's pro apartheid and Nina Turner, you know, she wasn't like the loudest defender of Palestinian human rights on the planet, right? But she just had the correct position on this particular stance. But that wasn't enough, even just quietly signaling support for the human rights of human beings gets millions of dollars spent against you. So there's this incentive for progressives to just be bad on this issue. I mean, John Federman, for example, he won the Democratic Party primary in the Pennsylvania Senate race, and he did this by, you know, being bad when it comes to the issue of Israel Palestine. Now, he's good on a lot of other issues, not every issue. He's also bad on fracking, but he didn't get this money spent against him because he pledged his allegiance to all of these packs. He pledged his allegiance to a foreign government and said, all of the war crimes that they're committing, I'm not going to speak up and I may even support it, right? So that's what you have to do. And it's sickening. It's absolutely sickening that lawmakers or people running for Congress are bullied into silence when they should be speaking up the loudest in favor of human rights. Now, you know, the leader of one of these groups, D.M.F.I. Democratic Majority for Israel, Mark Melman. He responded to Bernie Sanders criticism here. And what he says is so condescending because he knows he has all the power. This is what he says here. I understand Senator Sanders grudge against us, said Mark Melman, the president of Democratic Majority for Israel PAC. We helped prevent him from winning Iowa and the presidential nomination. Then we helped stop his campaign chair from winning a house race in Cleveland. Honestly, I wouldn't be happy with us either if I were him. So understand what he's saying. Yeah, we know that you don't like us because we're trying to crush progressives. But what are you going to do about it? You don't like it? Tough shit. We're going to keep doing it. Fuck you. Now, it's interesting because if they see anyone who condemns the actions of the Israeli government, they call that anti-semitic anti-semitism. But with Bernie Sanders, they can't say that because Bernie Sanders is a Jewish man. So it'd be absurd to say that he's anti-semitic. But here they are attacking a Jewish man saying, we helped you lose. I know why you hold a grudge and I would hold a grudge, too, if I were you. I mean, if I were dishonest, I would say, well, doesn't that seem anti-semitic? But it doesn't seem anti-semitic. It's all about politics, right? But I mean, if you wanted to actually be a deceitful person, you could claim that this group is actually anti-semitic for attacking the most prominent Jewish senator in America. But nobody on the left is making that argument because it's absurd. But that doesn't stop them from crying anti-semitism whenever somebody condemns the actions of the Israeli government. It's absurd. Now, when it comes to APEC and DMFI, this is really a microcosm of a bigger issue. And Bernie Sanders acknowledges that it's not just that they spend a lot of money to crush progressives. It's that all of these super PACs have so much power and influence that our democracy is dying because of their influence. He adds, Mr. Sanders also railed against the crypto billionaires who are pouring money into Democratic primaries, including more than 11 million into a single house seat in Oregon. Outrageous, he said. In a letter this week to Jamie Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Sanders urged the party to reject super PAC spending more broadly, at least in primaries. What we have to do is not just talk the talk. We've got to walk the walk, he said, and he's absolutely correct. But, you know, this isn't going to make a difference, unfortunately, because the DNC chairman, Jamie Harrison, doesn't give a shit. In fact, he agrees with these PACs, probably. So, you know, this is why it's impossible to get anything done because our entire government has been captured by special interests. And certainly it's important to highlight the way that these pro-Israel groups are spending lots of money to defeat progressives. But if it wasn't them, it'd be some other industry who's trying to defeat progressives, the fossil fuel industry. They are trying to do that, the health care industry. They're definitely trying to do that. So, you know, until we get campaign finance reform, then this is going to be the norm in this country. But the problem is that how do you convince a government who's been bought and paid for to do reforms that would make them unbought? Right. How do you how do you do that? We see the effect that this is having on our democracy. A 2014 Princeton University study by Drs. Gillens and Page found that normal Americans have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes, whereas business elites and special interests, they actually dictate what gets passed and what doesn't get passed. Because guess what? They hold all the cards and when I say cards, I'm talking about money. So, you know, I'm glad that Bernie Sanders is speaking up. But unless more lawmakers speak up, then nothing is going to change. And even if everyone spoke up, it probably still wouldn't change because that's the climate of US politics. Our institutions are fundamentally broken and corrupt to their core. But still, there needs to be more focus on this. So at least the American people understand who's pulling the levers of Congress. It's not these politicians individually. It's the special interests, the anti-Palestinian lobby, the oil and gas industry, the health care industry. That's really important. And unless people understand that, they will not know why things are so broken in the United States. Do you enjoy watching independent news shows like the Humanist Report, the Rational National and the Majority Report? But oftentimes YouTube doesn't deliver our videos to your subscription box. Well, I've got a solution for you. It's called the Optout app available right now in the iOS app store coming soon to Android. Optout is an app made by and for progressives where they take all of the most popular independent news shows and they put them in one convenient location. You'll find all your favorites on there like the Humanist Report, the Rational National, the Majority Report and the app is updated multiple times per day. So your news feed is constantly up to date. If you enjoy watching independent media, this is the app to get downloaded today.