AIPAC's senator and his apparent desire to silence Americans,

 

"“This bill is unconstitutional because it seeks to impose the government’s political views on Americans who choose to express themselves through boycotts,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “The proposed changes are improvements, but the revised bill continues to penalize participants in political boycotts in violation of the First Amendment. If it is enacted in this form and takes effect, we will strongly consider fighting it in court.”

The bill seeks to prohibit companies from providing information to multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union that could be used to publicly list businesses operating in the West Bank. The latest version of the bill would make US-based companies and their employees legally liable if they “comply with, further or support” attempts by foreign countries or “international governmental organizations” to either boycott Israel or “to collect information” that could lead to a boycott."  Al-Monitor

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The ACLU says it MAY sue over this if it becomes law?  How could they not?  In its original form this AIPAC driven proposal would have subjected violators to a 20 year possible prison sentence for the expression of their opinion regarding Israel's seizures of Palestinian lands and the brutality of the IDF and Shin Bet in those territories held by Israel as spoils of war.  As originally written the law would have applied to all Americans as well as corporate America.  In other words SST would have become a criminal enterprise for the expression of our opinions and I would have been criminalized as the proprietor of this digital forum.

This current version "merely" punishes corporations and their employees for opposition to Israeli colonialism.

Can there be any doubt that Cardin's real loyalty is not to the United States? pl 

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/03/israel-anti-boycott-bill-closer-passing-senate-revisions.html?utm_campaign=20180307&utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Newsletter

Comments

[J]

Colonel

Israeli El Al airlines is seeking UN assistance to fly through Saudi airspace.

[Henshaw]

Not that Cotton doesn't mean it, but competing for attention at the AIPAC Policy Conference wouldn't be easy, with speakers trying to out-do each other in pro-Israel initiatives. When it comes to being pro-Israel these days, too much hyperbole is barely enough.
Lucky you've got that First Amendment.

[robt willmann]

As catherine noted above, there are 275 co-sponsors of the U.S. House version of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. The initial sponsor is Peter J. Roskam, a Republican of Illinois. The bill is H.R.1697 and the text is here--

https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/hr1697/BILLS-115hr1697ih.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1697/text

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1697/all-info

The Senate bill is S.720. The Congressional website lists 54 co-sponsors in the Senate--

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/720/all-info?r=1

The text is here--

https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s720/BILLS-115s720is.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/720/text?r=1

The bill is written to amend the Export Administration Act of 1979. This puts it into the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Both were introduced on the same day, 23 March 2017, and both at the present time are only in the designated committee.

mikee,

That decision by the U.S. District Court in Kansas against the anti-boycott law there is interesting.

A law was passed by the Texas Legislature and signed by Governor Abbott when it met in 2017 to prevent the State from entering into a contract with a company unless the company signs a "verification" that it does not and will not boycott Israel, and that retirement funds and the permanent school fund of Texas have to divest themselves of investments in companies that boycott Israel and cannot invest in them. The section 808 about retirement funds and the school fund divesting and not investing in companies that boycott Israel tap dances around some to try to say the investment ban is not absolute. But it prohibits any lawsuit to challenge the anti-boycott law, plus it says the State will defend and indemnify anyone sued, plus it says the person suing has to pay the attorney fees of the state or person or entity sued.

The Texas law is obviously unconstitutional, but I have not heard yet of any legal challenge to it. The Texas Constitution has both an equal rights section and a free speech section--

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/CN/htm/CN.1.htm#1.3

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/CN/htm/CN.1.htm#1.8

Fortunately, the Texas Legislature meets only every other year, from January until the end of May. Next year they will be back.

[J]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/07/schumer-denounced-absolutely-disgusting-aipac-speech

[Cee]

Anna,

https://www.youtube.com/user/IfAmericansKnewVideo

YouTube censored Weir but now she's back

[Willy B]

Ben Cardin's hysterical adherence to the Russia-meddled-in-our-elections fraud long ago convinced me that his real loyalty is to somewhere other than the United States.

[fanto]

Mikee at 29,
´not all is lost´- now comes fresh what´s fit to print so to speak - the ruling in Washington state
WA Court Dismisses Seven-Year Lawsuit Over Boycott of Israeli Goods - press@ccrjustice.org

[JTMcPhee]

Let’s reflect on the LockheedMartin company motto: “We never forget who we are working for.” Some details on what that might mean, in addition to the Fealty To The Likudniks part: https://www.corp-research.org/lockheed-martin

[JW]

Catherine, yes, those are the two 'recent' ones, although I wasn't aware of the mole hunting. Steny Hoyer seems quite proud of his work and sees little daylight between the interests of the country to which he has sworn an oath, and one that provides him with free stuff.

Can we conclude that a civil service member's prosecution occurs every couple of decades, but a regular program of investigating potential recruiters and warning their targets seems to be the counterintel agency's method of dealing with approaches to elected representatives. Very polite for law enforcement !

When the numbers of elected representatives involved reaches the level is has, it creates a momentum and allows an easily exploitable group-think to occur and be used against outliers, ie., 'all the others are in with us; are you ?'

The means to prevent this influence is a set of comprehensive legislation rendering it illegal as opposed to accountable. The use of donations and interests registers and disclosure of contributions is ineffective as it accounts for only one side of the ledger - it does not establish any causal link to favours granted in return. Until that is redressed it will be business as usual.