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papaver-decervicatus · 1 year ago

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“Under No Circumstances…”

How Farah ended up just beneath Gromsko and Soap on the “Under No Circumstances Allowed to Use a Rocket Launcher” list. 1.5K words, rated Teen, Gromsko POV.

CW: Medical Procedures, The Lord of the Flies (awful I know).

A/N. This is just a quick silly Drabble between the three because Gromsko does not get enough love in the fandom! Thanks to everyone who enjoys the headcanon pages I put out, your enthusiasm has really inspired me!

The nearest table is littered with palpable annoyances, from gauges in the fake wood where one Simon Riley stabbed hunting knives in frustration (which, in his defense, it would be rather frustrating to wake up to pissed in tac-boots, offender still at large,) to pen-marks scribbling in games of tic-tac-toe between Reyes and Chuy (which culminate in a perfect 5 win, to 5 draws, to 5 win ratio,) and even a perfectly Kleo shaped bite mark (she was overdue on her shots and that never goes over well,) out of the bottom left corner. The sound of tweezers hitting a small glass vial consistently rings out, along with the gentle splutter of matter dropping into alcohol.

On Farah’s abdomen, there is a 3-inch gash, approximately 1.25 centimeters deep. It was made by a shrapnel blast that cut through her gear, pieces of cloth and metal remain to be picked out. Her head is nestled in the area just beneath Soap’s crotch on the table. Gaz sits cross-legged beneath the table that she and Soap recline on. Her hair cascades downwards into Gaz’s soft and patient hands, idly doing then undoing her trailing braid. Soap prattles endlessly while holding her shoulders down.

“And then, the fucking eejits go huntin’ it. Goes to show, Brits and their violence…” He sneers and Gaz huffs.

“They are like. Thirteen, mate. The book’s a satire for Chrissake!” Gaz responds. Farah winces when he pulls on her hair a little too hard, and he apologizes with a hushed ‘Oh, sorry.’

“They worship a pig's head on a stick the way you worship your damn Queen, Garrick. No fucking satire to me.”

Gromsko continues his work, picking debris out of the wound, as the two men continue to bicker animatedly about their latest disagreement (and since when did Soap care about British literature, or The Lord of the Flies?)

“How much longer?” Farah wheezes underneath the disagreement above her.

Gromsko takes one last look through his surgical loops. The wound appears to have nothing foreign left in it. He hums in satisfaction at his work.

“Not much, Kochanie.” Gromsko soothes in the sort of quiet voice he summons on instinct when working with Farah. Something in the furrow of her brow always tells him she would appreciate a quiet sort of kindness, that is, when she even allows herself to be helped. She seems thankful when she throws her head back into Soap’s crotch and his rant is cut short by a winded noise. Gaz falls over laughing at the realization she’s just headbutted him in his… particulars. Gromsko takes the opportunity of her momentary levity to catch her unawares with the first stitch.

It’s been approximately 38 minutes since a dazed Farah was rushed into his makeshift office with a frazzled Soap. In between explanations of a misfired explosive, frantic apologies to the woman hanging off his shoulder, and labored insistences that she receives stitches, Gromsko barely gave the two time to blink before he had sprung out of his cot and had started laying out his supplies. Within 4 minutes, the wound was assessed. Within 3 minutes of the assessment, Soap had dragged a still groggy Gaz to Farah’s side saying something about Alex’s preference that he be there should she get hurt. Gromsko paid it very little mind as he typically did. Anything to make a patient more comfortable.

The wound was far from life-threatening in any sense of the word. It was, however, in a position where standard stitches would likely get ripped from friction with tac-gear. A medium-level challenge, but certainly no challenge at all to a medic like Gromsko.

“You are doing well, Farah.” He says. She turns her head in frustration at the lingering pain as he goes in for the third and what will likely be 17 total stitches. “Do not fall asleep on me, kotku,” he smiles when her face scrunches in disgust. “Concussion protocol.” She sighs.

“There is nothing kitten about this situation, medic.” Farrah spits, Soap keeps his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from bucking upwards to claw at Gromsko, now rethreading a suture needle.

“There is, this scratch, it is a kitten’s scratch. It will heal easily.”

The encouragement seems to lighten her mood. When Gromsko tunes back into Gaz and Soap’s conversation, he elects to immediately zone back out when Soap tries to swat at the man beneath him for implying he couldn’t read.

She yells something at the two, and while Gromsko does not know any Arabic, he figures he knows what it means when the two immediately stop their horseplay and go back to bickering, albeit at a much quieter level.

With the distraction of Gaz and Soap, Farah’s stitches go by much quicker than she seems to have suspected. Gromsko makes use of one of his medic tricks (the one his old commander taught him about squeezing the flesh 4 inches to the left of the wound to calm the patient) and much like a kitten, Farah does indeed soothe.

Her whole face brightens when Gromsko finishes the last stitch and goes to toss out his sterile gloves.

“Ya done, doc?” Soap asks, hopeful as ever.

“Hmph,” he nods his head. Gaz scrambles off the floor and examines the stitches on Farah’s abdomen. He lets out a quick whistle in appreciation.

“All that in under an hour? You’re a magic man, Gromsko.” He gives a curt nod which Gromsko returns. Gromsko goes to the metal folding chair that was holding part of his supplies and tenderly picks up Farah’s shirt (which Soap had folded perfectly while awaiting medical instruction,) and hands it to her. She smiles and shrugs it on.

“I am sure I don’t need to inform you of heading instructions, do I?” He asks, his sarcasm unusually quiet. Farah just gives a dry laugh.

“I’ve been through worse.” She claims, chest full of pride. She’s always one of the worse to corral into medical attention, he’s learned from his months with SpecGru. She wears battle scars like medals and hates to admit to anyone, even a medic, that she may need any special treatment. He’s just happy she let him get to the wound at all.

“But-“ her face visably sours as he continues. “Concussion protocol, no sleep for the next 6 hours.”

She sends an irritated look to Soap and Gaz who both put their hands up in defeat, likely aware of what happened the last time someone didn’t listen to the man’s medical demands. (If Ghost wasn’t pulling his stitches out all the time, maybe, just maybe, those tac boots of his wouldn’t have gotten the treatment that they did… not that Gromsko knows anything about it, of course.)

“I have sentry in 4 hours,” Gaz offers weakly, genuine sadness in his voice that whether or not he wants to, he will be unable to care for his friend through the duration of her mandatory awake period.

“Fine. Sleep. And if Alex is back by then, tell him I ordered you to leave.” Farah says, voice firmly intoned back into its comfortable commanding sound. Gaz gives a faux salute and leaves with the haste of a man who’s forgotten what a bed looks like for months checking into a hotel room. Soap looks at Farah expectantly.

“You too-“ She starts.

“Nope.” He finishes.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean ‘no.’ I’m not leaving yer side until you can rest. Not gonna happen.” He shrugs nonchalantly. Ever the faithful soldier, no man or recently-concussed-woman left behind.

Farah looks at Gromsko, apparently expecting him to save her from being babysat. He laughs louder than he has all night. He feels the tension of the situation melt away as he returns to his usual volume.

“Don’t look at me like that, kotku,” she mocks throwing up at the pet name, “I would order him to as well. You do not have a good track record of listening to doctors orders.” She pouts much like a child denied a night home alone with her friends when her parents are away. It reminds Gromsko of an argument his older sister got into with his mother when he was 13. Farah smiles the same way as that sister, she shows the same amount of teeth, he noticed. “Alex is not here. Soap will do.”

Farah looks entirely displeased by this assessment and brings a hand to thumb at the bottom of her now French braided hair. “We’ve finished all of our assignments before we went out. What is there to do?”

Gromsko looks to the armory outside.

Gromsko looks to Soap. Soap looks to Gromsko.

Soap looks in the direction of an unattended car he is more than capable of hot wiring.

Gromsko looks to the direction that the abandoned training maze that Price put a demolition order for.

Gromsko and Soap look to Farah.

“Doncha worry Bonnie,” Soap smiles the way fire meets Gasoline. Gromsko is already putting his fire-resistant jacket onto her shoulders and ushering Farah out the door. “We got just the thing.”

When two days later Alex returns from his own assignment and asks why there is now a large picture of Farah, Gromsko, and Soap outside the armory with the inscription “UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE ROCKET LAUNCHERS ALLOWED TO THESE THREE.” Gromsko just laughs in his face.

“Anything for a patients comfort.” He supplies as though it makes perfect sense. Alex’s frown displays his confusion, but Gromsko is not one to give away the secrets of another.

When he got scolded by an irate Price the day before, Gromsko just remembered Farah’s smile with fire reflecting in her eyes 6 hours previous when he and Soap were put on toilet scrubbing duty.

He remembers that smile now, as Alex stares him down while he walks away.

Worth it.

#cod gromsko #gromsko cod #cod mw fanfiction #farah karim #farah Karim cod #kyle gaz garrick #gaz cod #soap mctavish #john soap mactavish #soap cod #cod mwii #navigation -> headcanon tag

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thesimulationswarm · 1 year ago

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Balsam, Chapter 5: Mountain Chickadee

This is a story about trauma. What trauma does to a person, and what trauma does to a community. And how, in the midst of it, people find their way to joy, delight— even love.

Pairing: Joel Miller x original female character Summary: After the events of tlou, Joel and Ellie try to establish a “normal life” in Jackson, but neither of them are any good at normal. A town doctor tries to care for residents who have experienced unspeakable trauma, and struggles to overcome her own past at the same time. Joel finds himself drawn to her, as their lives become increasingly intertwined. Meanwhile, outside Jackson, troubling things are happening… Rating: explicit 18+ MDNI Wordcount: 5.5k Warnings: some problematic language around race/ethnicity that would be expected from characters whose understanding of social justice stopped in 2003, condomless PIV sex, v brief mention of infertility, angst, trauma/PTSD symptoms, painful adolescent social dynamics, LGBTQ issues, the Miller clan trying to figure out how to be a family, Joel struggling with getting old

Series Masterlist

It was 6 AM and Ellie was sitting in the dark, looking out the front windows, as Joel’s figure disappeared down the street. The faintest light was coloring the sky to the east and starting to extinguish the smaller stars. She’d been curled up there for a long time, feeling the chill radiate through the pane of glass, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light. There were a surprising amount of animals out there as the dawn started to break— rabbits, squirrels, little birds. She saw how they stilled suddenly when Joel walked by.

She could imagine how the little animals felt, holding themselves like statues, tiny hearts twitching furiously against their ribs. Not daring to breathe until the threat disappeared around the bend in the road.

She hadn’t gone downstairs to say goodbye, and she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe just that she didn’t want him to know she was awake still, didn’t want him to worry. He’d stuck his head in around midnight and told her to stop reading and go to sleep. He’d fallen asleep on the couch for a while after dinner, and his hair had been a wild, off-kilter mess. Standing there like that, bleary-eyed, in a ratty pair of sweatpants and t-shirt, made him look different— older, more…domestic. Like a hapless dad from a cheesy old movie.

He’d pointed at the creased paperback she was holding. Stephen King’s It, borrowed from the eccentric little Jackson Library.

“Sure you should be reading that before bed?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She gave him a hard look.

“’S just— I’ve never read it, but it’s pretty scary, ain’t it? And you’ve been havin’ trouble sleeping…”

Ellie raised her eyebrows and flipped to the copyright page. “It’s from 1986. It’s about an evil clown. Not exactly the kind of thing that haunts people’s dreams these days.” It was true— the book felt quaint, almost cozy. Hard to imagine what it would be like to live in a small town in Maine and run around with a band of misfit kids. The guy who wrote it thought he was pointing out how everything had a dark underbelly, but a dark underbelly sounded pretty fucking good to her. She was used to towns that were just plain dark.

But Joel looked skeptical. She could see the pinched anxiousness in his eyes, and it made her squirm. She didn’t want him to feel guilty. She didn’t want him to think she was sick or fucked up or weak, and she didn’t want him to pity her.

She’d sighed, tossed the book aside, and turned off her lamp. Curled on her bed, turning her back to Joel.

But she didn’t sleep. Not because of It, but because she was sick of nightmares. She’d had nightmares her whole life, but over the past year or so they’d only gotten worse. There were just more and more things to have nightmares about. Recently, it was like some kind of switch had been flipped in her head, and the only dreams she was allowed to have were nightmares. She felt weird and sad about Brandy and Chuy, but that wasn’t it, really. Maybe that had just been enough to tip her over the edge.

She worked so fucking hard not to think about her bad memories. Not to talk about her bad memories or to acknowledge them in any way. But as soon as her higher brain shut off, they were set free, and she had nowhere to hide. Nothing she could do except stay up as much as possible, until her body ached and her eyes felt gritty and raw. Until, eventually, the dark tide of unconsciousness overpowered her. And hopefully by then she would be too exhausted to even dream.

The morning was pleasantly quiet, especially compared to Nina’s last patrol with Isaac. Joel had barely spoken a word to her as they packed their gear and tacked up the horses, but she was keenly aware of his presence. She watched him in her peripheral vision, appreciating how, despite the substantial shape of him, he moved with a sort of grace.

The sun was just rising above the hills when they road out of the gates, the horses huffing clouds of steam in the cold air. Joel was reserved but polite, following her lead when they hit territory that was unfamiliar to him. As they went deeper into the mountains and further from Jackson, she felt a tension melting away that she’d only been partially cognizant of.

She needed Jackson. The life she had now would not be possible anywhere else. And yet, she was trapped there. Dependent on it, and on its people. She’d lived in other places and in other ways before, and it wasn’t something she wanted to experience again— ever.

That left her vulnerable in a dizzying, sickening way. And instead of doing what the other, sensible people of Jackson seemed to do— instead of leaning into it, letting herself soften into that web of dependency— she chafed at it.

She’d wanted to lash out all week. At smug Linda Hayes, who looked at her like some kind of witch when she picked up supplies at the butcher shop. At chatty old Jack Auden, who came by her clinic to get a tonic for his sister, but clearly just wanted to check up on her, draw her out of something she didn’t particularly want to be drawn out of. At Brandy Burkholder, with her grating adolescent tough-girl posturing.

Her jaw hurt from clenching it shut, from the effort of fixing her face into something like neighborly politeness.

She’d even restrained herself from starting shit with Marisa Robinson, yesterday in the dining hall, when she’d ladled up a bowl of soup for her and then loosed a fat glob of spit right in it, before setting it roughly on her tray. The girl had stared right into her eyes the whole time, her message clear as day.

But Nina had just walked away, picked at the rest of her lunch, and gone back to her clinic.

She had no doubts anymore about who Starkey had been fucking. Which presented another problem— how to get Marisa treated for gonorrhea, when she wanted Nina’s head on a pike. Maybe when they got back she could talk to Maria, get her to have a heart to heart with the girl.

They stopped for food around noon in a sunny patch on the edge of a pine thicket. Nina watched Joel pace around, shaking out his stiff, cold limbs, before sitting down on a rock a few feet away from her. She passed him a packet of jerky and dried berries, and he nodded a thanks.

The sun was high now in a cloudless sky and the air was starting to warm her face. She leaned her head back and looked up at the wide expanse of blue, edged with scraggly tree tops. A round little bird darted from one branch to another and whistled a sweet, three-beat song.

“Mountain chickadee,” she said, pointing at the branches.

“Hmm?”

“They’re a good omen. At least according to the Shoshone.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess.” Joel paused, chewing the tough meat. “Is that what you are? Shoshone?”

She couldn’t help it— she burst out laughing. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his expression darkening. “None of my business.”

“No, no,” she said. “I don’t mind. But that’s the wrong kind of Indian. I’m the dot kind, not the feather.” She took a sip from her canteen. “At least my mom was. My dad was Irish Catholic.”

Joel nodded slowly. “I’m half too. Dad was white, but my mama was born in Mexico. Michoacán.” He looked at Nina and didn’t exactly smile, but he stopped frowning for a moment.

“You and Tommy have the same problem I do. White name, brown face.”

She studied him for a moment, appreciating the warm, deep eyes and strong nose. The rough, wary good looks. He was watching her, with that simmering intensity he had, and she had a sudden urge to run her hand through his untidy curls.

She had a feeling he would let her.

But they had a long day’s ride ahead. Maria’s face flashed in front of her, that warning look she’d given her when Joel had agreed to come on this trip. She knew her friend worried about her taste in men. And she knew Tommy’s brother had a reputation--irascible, violent, unfriendly Joel Miller. The kind of guy she shouldn’t be drawn to, and yet always, despite her best judgement, was.

“I found a book about Shoshone beliefs a while back, on the old University of Eastern Colorado campus.” When she mentioned the campus, Joel’s brow furrowed. “It was full of details on the traditional medicines they used, which was huge for me. It’s not always easy to get medical supplies around here, as you might have noticed.”

“You’ve been to the university?”

She nodded. “I came up through there, when I first came to Jackson.”

He looked down and shook his head. “Pretty rough area.”

“Believe it or not, it used to be worse. I heard that after the Fireflies arrived they cleaned things up a bit.”

Joel stood up abruptly and wiped his hands on his jeans. “We better get movin’ again.”

Tommy watched Maria’s strong fingers gliding expertly over the deck of cards. She riffled, she bridged, she did a series of rapid overhand shuffles with a percussive flourish, all while barely glancing at the movements of her hands. The way she handled the cards reminded him of guys he’d known as a teenager, the sort of macho shit they pulled down in Burnet, Texas, to impress the girls. The sort of shit he’d tried to pull, sometimes successfully and sometimes not— shooting coke cans, throwing knives, hitting the baseball out of the park.

Maria, though— she was the real deal. That finesse wasn’t an act, and neither was her toughness. And instead of impressing Dee Ann Schaefer after homecoming, she was impressing him and Ellie.

The girl’s eyes were sparkling as she followed Maria’s moves. He could practically see the gears turning in her head, and he had no doubt she’d be asking to practice with the card deck tomorrow.

Good.

She needed something to do other than mope around in her bedroom all day. She hadn’t wanted to go to the dining hall for a single meal today, instead opting to hang back and read some old X-men comics that Tommy had scavenged. Maria’d made her promise she would eat something at home, but there was only a single empty can of pears in the sink when they came back after dinner.

Joel’d warned him that she wasn’t doing so great, but he’d been too distracted by everything going on lately to pay it much mind. She’d seemed a little quieter than usual when he saw her around town, and apparently she’d stopped hanging out with the other kids. Some kind of falling out.

But now he could see there was more going on than just that. Ellie had lost a few pounds and was walking around with dark circles under her eyes. It reminded him of when she and Joel first came back to Jackson. He knew only the rough outlines of what had happened out there, but what he knew was awful. And it made him feel terribly guilty, knowing he’d sent Joel out there with the her all alone.

“Kids really didn’t play poker in Boston?” Maria raised her brows as she began to deal.

Ellie shook her head. “I’ve heard about it. But all we ever played at FEDRA school was euchre.”

“Euchre?!” Tommy almost spit out his drink, and a wide smile cracked across Maria’s face.

“What’s the matter with euchre?” Ellie fixed them both with an indignant stare, as Tommy choked back a laugh.

“Sorry, kid. It’s just— my gramma played euchre. Never knew it to be popular with young folks.”

Ellie rolled her eyes at him. “Sorry we weren’t cool enough for you.”

“No, it makes sense,” Maria said with a thoughtful nod. “You probably never had a full deck of cards, did you?” Ellie shook her head no. “They’re surprisingly hard to come by.” She looked down fondly at her yellowed old deck. They were classic red Bicycle cards, the kind with naked cherubs riding down the backs, and Maria was very protective of them.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Tommy felt like he’d missed something.

Now it was Maria’s turn to roll her eyes at him. “If you’d ever payed attention to your grandmother, Tommy, you’d know you only need half a deck to play euchre.” She gave him a fond smile, reaching out to run a hand through his curls. “With a marker and a little creativity, you could use any random set of 26 cards.”

He smiled at her back, getting lost for a second in her rich dark eyes. She was so much smarter than him it wasn’t even funny, but she didn’t seem to mind. I’ve known a lot of men who couldn’t handle a smart, strong woman, she’d told him once. But you don’t have a problem with it. I love that about you.

The doorbell rang while Maria was in the middle of a discussion of which hand beats which. Tommy got up to answer it, not wanting to interrupt the two of them.

He wouldn’t have noticed the path if Nina hadn’t shown him. It was narrow and unmarked, and blocked from the road by strategically placed brush. They carefully arranged the boughs behind them to hide the path again, and walked their horses single file, below the low branches, into the darkening woods. The little A-frame cabin was about a mile in, down a rocky ravine and back up to another ridge.

Nina swung the door open. “It’s probably not wise to make a fire this close to the road, but we’ll be out of the wind at least. The loft is rotten so we’ll have to stay down here.”

Joel looked around at the room, small but clean, with an ancient four-post bed on one end and an enamel wash basin on the another. A pile of heavy blankets was heaped on the floor. “I’ve slept in worse, that’s for sure. I’ll take the floor.”

She looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. “No you won’t, old man. I’ve seen how stiff you are when you get up in the morning after a night on the ground.”

He winced at the ‘old man’ comment, even as he knew it was true— his body wasn’t what it used to be, and she’d certainly feel the effects of the floor much less than he would. But he didn’t think his pride would let him sleep on a mattress while Nina curled up on the floorboards. He paused, still standing by the doorway.

“Look,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “If I was a guy, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. If you’d let Tommy take the floor, there’s no reason not to let me.”

She was right, but he didn’t like it. And he felt embarrassingly disappointed to hear her call him out for his age. Jesus, what did he expect? Like she wasn’t gonna notice he was pushing sixty.

He exhaled heavily, took a few steps forward, and threw his pack down on the bed. “Suit yourself,” he huffed. If she wanted to treat him like an old man, then fine— he’d at least enjoy a night in a bed after a long day’s ride.

Ellie didn’t want to talk to Chuy, but Maria wasn’t budging. She put down the deck of cards and refused to go on with their game until Ellie at least went to the door and thanked him for coming by. As if that was something people actually did. Maybe in nineteen forty or whenever the fuck she’d grown up.

Chuy looked a little awkward, standing on the front stoop with Coco, talking to Tommy. His dark hair flopped over one eye.

“Hi Ellie,” he greeted her with a small smile.

“Hey,” she offered. Her voice sounded weird to her ears. She didn’t know what to do with herself, so she knelt down to rub Coco’s head, scratching the soft fur behind her ears.

“Do you wanna come out for a little walk? It’s a full moon tonight.”

“Uh, sure.” She tried to look casual as she stood, shoving her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. She wasn’t sure why Chuy was here, and the whole thing was making her feel very weird. But part of her was happy to see him, in spite of herself. She’d enjoyed having friends for, like, three weeks.

“Good to see ya, Jesús, “ Tommy said, giving Chuy a pat on the shoulder before he turned back inside. “Ya’ll don’t stay out too late.”

As the door closed behind her, Ellie raised her eyebrows. “Jesús?”

“It’s my full name. Usually just go by Chuy for short.” They fell into step beside each other, walking down the walk and into the empty street.

“In what world is Chuy short for Jesús?”

“Same world where Billy is short for William and Jack is short for John.”

“Okay, that’s a good point.” Something about walking side by side was making things easier. She didn’t have to look at him, for one, and it was much less awkward that way. And when they both fell quiet, she could occupy herself looking at the stars and the luscious silver disk of the moon. They walked a few blocks without talking, just listening to the rhythmic brush of their shoes on concrete.

Coco found a particularly interesting-smelling bush, and they stopped for a minute to let her sniff around it.

“We’ve missed you at the barn,” Chuy said cautiously, turning to look at her face. Ellie looked down at the ground, rocking her weight back and forth on the thin soles of her shoes.

“I’ve just been busy.”

“That’s fine. But you can come by any time you’re free, you know?”

“Mmhmm,” she replied noncommittally.

After a few moments of silence, Chuy spoke again.

“I’m really sorry.”

Ellie turned toward him, startled. “What do you mean?” Her voice came out sharper than she intended, and it was Chuy’s turn to look away.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but… I guess you know that Brandy and I…” He trailed off.

“Yeah, so?” Ellie gave her best impression of nonchalance. Her heart was pounding against her chest, and she had a fleeting urge to just take off running into the night.

“Well, you like her, don’t you?” He must’ve seen the panic in her face, because he quickly added, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell her. Or anyone else, I promise.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and slowly let out her breath. Fuck.

“Was I that obvious?”

Chuy shook his head emphatically. “No, not at all! It was just because I felt the same way about her, you know? You looked at her the same way I did.”

They were both silent for a moment, then Chuy laughed. “Holy shit, I’m so relieved I was right. This would’ve been so weird if I was wrong.”

“Oh, you think this isn’t weird? Because this is pretty fucking weird for me.” Her heart still felt like it wanted to leap out of her throat, but she found herself smiling at Chuy. Grateful to him for being so chillabout this.

But, god— would he really not tell anyone? Her smile faltered.

“Hey, um, I actually haven’t told anyone... about me. So please don’t say anything, okay?” She looked at him pleadingly, biting into the skin of her bottom lip.

“Of course not.” His voice was soft and sincere.

She looked up at the sky again, feeling the cold wind brush the hair back from her face, watching a thin stream of clouds blow gauzily over the moon. The relief crackled through her like an electric current.

When Joel closed his eyes, he felt like he was still swaying on top of the horse. He lay there, warm under the wool blankets, waiting for his exhausted body to give into sleep. But it wasn’t coming.

He felt like an idiot. Nina’s voice echoed in his head: old man, old man, old man. Yes, he was old, and getting older. His body never let him forget it anymore— stiff joints, spasming muscles, bone-deep aches when the weather changed. Those spells he got sometimes, when his ears rang and his breath stopped and it felt like his heart was gonna fucking explode. He should probably ask Nina about those episodes, but he’d rather swallow glass than admit to her how feeble he got sometimes. Not that she couldn’t see for herself.

She could see just fine. Old man, old man, old man. And what was he thinking coming on this trip? He’d had some good reasons to do this, but there had been a lot of good reasons not to.

After Nina mentioned the University of Eastern Colorado, he’d been dogged by unwanted thoughts as they rode into the woods: visions of being shanked and the religious nut jobs and Ellie running hard across the bloody snow. The drive of his knife through skin and sinew, the frantic fear that he would always be too late to save her. As much as he bristled at being trapped in Jackson, at least he could keep an eye on her and do what he could to keep her safe. Now he was a full day’s ride away, and soon he’d be further still— the furthest he’d been from her since that day in the QZ when Marlene had talked Tess and him into smuggling the girl. What felt like a lifetime ago, in a whole other world.

He had to remind himself that Jackson was safe and that Ellie was in good hands with Tommy. She’d be just fine when he came back, aside from her attitude and her foul mouth. Which weren’t likely to change any time soon.

He shifted around, adjusted his pillow, sighed heavily.

He tried not to think about Nina lying a few yards away, and what he’d dreamed about the last time they slept in a room together. He felt a heavy pulse of blood in his groin, at nothing more than the memory. Well, at least his dick still worked right.

He could hear her breathing, turning occasionally as she tried to get comfortable on the floor. He felt like an asshole for letting her sleep there, although he also would have felt like an asshole for insisting on giving her the bed. Goddamn her.

He heard her shift again, then the rustling of blankets falling to the floor. Then the creaking of floorboards.

She was getting up.

He sat up halfway, on alert, tilting his head to angle his good ear toward the window. Had she heard something or noticed something he hadn’t?

His rifle was within reach, and his arm slid silently across the bed toward the wall where it rested. It was dark, but he could see her remarkably clearly by the moonlight coming through the windows.

His heart was beating in his throat as she walked toward the bed and stood beside him.

“What—what is it?” he stuttered in a whisper, confused.

“Can I?” She asked, as she leaned down, pulling on the hem of his blanket. At first he thought, dumbly, that she’d changed her mind about taking the floor. Then she pressed her palms against his chest and gently eased him back down into the mattress. She slid under the blanket, moving her body top of his, until she was straddling his legs.

Oh.

“Yes,” he breathed, and she dipped her head down toward his.

It was so much like his dream that he wandered briefly if he’d fallen asleep. But no, he could feel every little thing too acutely: the scratch of the wool covers moving across his skin, the salty taste of dried sweat as he pressed his lips against hers.

They started out tentative. He sampled her soft lips and gently parted them with the tip of his tongue. She tasted like the baking soda she used to brush her teeth, like salt, like something animal and wild. She tasted good.

His hands had moved up to cradle her face. The cut of jawbone, the whorl of ear against his palm. There was something teetering inside him, a thread perilously close to breaking. All the want he’d been holding in around her, tamping down, was rising up. He felt like he might snap.

He dropped his hands, ran them down the dip of her waist and the wide flare of her hips. Dragged her body up against his until her strong thighs were split open above his groin and his hardening cock could find friction on her. She felt him and rutted forward, moaning softly into his mouth.

Not enough. He flipped her over, his weight spreading her legs wider and pressing her down into the old mattress. His hand snaked up below her sweater and skated across belly, ribs, and there— the soft mound of a breast filling his palm, and she was arching into him, groaning.

“Joel,” she moaned against his ear as he slid rough kisses down her neck. Her voice shook something loose, the nagging thought in the back of his mind— Why the fuck was she doing this?

He broke himself away and sat up on his knees. His chest heaved as he looked down at her. His eyes traced the soft curves of her splayed body. Her words echoed in his head again: old man.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?”

“I’m sure, Joel.” She sat up a bit, propping herself on her elbows to look at him. It was dark, but not too dark to see her expression: eyes narrowed, studying him. She looked, like she usually did, fully in command of herself.

“Are you sure?”

He almost laughed. He wanted to say, I’ve been sure from the moment I first saw you. He didn’t say anything though, just slid down onto his belly between her legs. He nuzzled his face against the fabric of her pants as he started to unfasten them, and she gamely lifted her hips to help.

And—fuck—her underwear was drenched, her arousal turning the pale fabric translucent. He rubbed his finger along the cloth, tracing the dark shape of her cunt underneath. She mewled, pushing herself against his hand. Then he was yanking the underwear roughly, scraping them down her thighs and away.

She tasted amazing there, too— like he knew she would. Sweet and musky, with that electric tang that always reminded him of licking a 9-volt.

She gave him instructions— right there, harder, again, faster— and he complied. He liked a woman who knew what she wanted. And she wanted this, he could tell, as she gripped his hair harder and her thighs shook against him. He worked his jaw frantically, trying to get it right for her. He needed to make her feel good.

When she finally came she called out his name. He slowed down but kept going as she shuddered, coming apart underneath him, until finally she pulled him away from her over-sensitized clit.

He rose up and she grabbed his face to hers. She licked her juices hungrily from his lips and chin, her breath fast and hot against his skin.

“Baby,” he said, running his hands through her thick curls. “I want you so bad.”

She grabbed the waistband of his jeans and peeled down his fly, pulling him loose from his boxers. He was painfully hard, desperate to be touched. And she obliged. When she wrapped a hand around him, he couldn’t help thrusting into her grip, feeling the shuddering relief of her palm stroking down his length.

“I can’t get pregnant. In case you were worried about that.”

He stared at her for a second. Actually, he hadn’t been thinking about it at all, although he should’ve fucking been. He had a sudden flash of how reckless he was being.

But there was no way, no goddamn way he was going to stop now.

He was pressing into her sweet cunt almost before he realized it, his hips drawn into her heat like a moth before a lightbulb. She was arching up to meet him there. Her muscles contracted snugly around him and, Jesus fucking Christ, it had been too long since he’d felt this.

“That’s it,” she breathed as she lifted her legs to bring him in even deeper. “Now fuck me.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. He started out slow— he was too excited and he wasn’t ready for this to be over yet. Holding himself up on one arm, he looked down and watched how his cock slid beautifully in and out of her, the length of him glistening with her arousal. He looked at her face and saw she was watching too, the two of them mesmerized by the machinery of their bodies.

He grabbed her hand and pulled it down. “Touch yourself while I fuck you, baby.”

She obeyed, rubbing rhythmic circles against her clit. Biting her lip as she looked up at him.

She began whimpering with each thrust and he couldn’t hold back. He fucked her harder and faster and she lifted her legs even higher to accommodate him, driving him home.

He was getting there, and he knew he couldn’t hold back for long. “Nina, you feel so good. So fucking good,” he panted. He looked at her pleadingly, trying to will her to come again before he lost control completely.

“I want it, Joel,” she gritted out. “Come for me, baby. Don’t stop now.” She moved in tandem with him, snapping her hips up to meet each thrust.

That was it. He slammed against her roughly, faster and faster as he felt his orgasm bloom outward from the base of his spine. “Fuck, oh— oh baby,” he groaned and buried himself deep inside, the first pulse shooting out of him so hard it was almost painful.

“That’s it, yes, yes,” she moaned, rubbing herself even harder as she felt him throbbing against her.

When the waves of pleasure finally ebbed, he was spent, exhausted. But he held himself up by his shaky arms and stayed inside her, watching as she brought herself to orgasm. Watching how his come leaked out around him and slicked the tips of her fingers, as she circled them hard and fast against her swollen clit. He wanted to burn the image into his brain so he’d never forget.

“That’s it, darlin’,” he whispered hoarsely. “Make yourself come for me. That’s so fuckin’ beautiful.” He coaxed her until she let out a jagged cry and he felt her contracting around him.

He collapsed down to the mattress and pulled him to her, wrapping his arms around her soft body.

Nina sat up straight, spine long, feeling the smooth slide of her horse’s gait as they moved through the woods. Watery morning light slanted through the branches, catching on clusters of new green leaves. She felt fucking amazing. Better than she had in a long time.

This was their forth day on the road, and she and Joel had been going at each other madly for the past three. Her cunt ached with it, pressed against the hard leather of her saddle. She knew she would enjoy Joel, but she had not anticipated how much. How enthusiastic he would be, and how focused on her pleasure. Doing things like eating her out on a bed of pine needles, on the forest floor, during their lunch break. He’d barely climbed off his horse before he was kneeling in front of her, licking a stripe hungrily down the denim that covered her crotch, unfastening the button at her waist. And she’d felt herself already soaking through her panties as she looked down at his dark unkempt curls, buried between her thighs. They had found a rhythm with each other that undeniably worked.

When she dissociated, she left her body. In sex like this, she became her body. Today, she was here. She was alive to the world. She knew it wouldn’t last forever— it never did— but for now she basked in it.

When they weren’t fucking, he was just as quiet as he ever was. He was a man of extremes— taciturn and careful as he groomed his horse, built a fire, hunted a rabbit for their dinner. Then whispering sweet filth in her ear as soon as they’d crawled into a shared sleeping bag. And that was just fine with her. She wasn’t looking for attachment.

Even without attachment, things could get complicated, she knew. Tonight they’d be in Lava Hot Springs, with Mo and his men. An excess of men— men with guns, men with knives, men with pride and schemes and swinging dicks. She was acutely aware of the danger in this. Of the danger in taking her current lover along for protection, as she orchestrated a trade with her charming, amoral ex.

Taglist: @anoverwhelmingdin @blueseastorm @wannab-urs

#tlou fanfiction #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller x original character #tlou fic #the last of us fanfiction #Ellie Williams #Tommy Miller #Maria Miller #tlou fluff #tlou show #tlou #tlou angst #tlou smut #the last of us

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loveaetingkids · 2 years ago

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Buckle up folks cus me and the @skimpilydressedwithanaxecame up with a new AU- mashup of an Owl house and the Book of Life.

Here’s every characters profile:

Hexide students

(All art was done by @demonofthesouppot) Manolo- son of a famous beast tamer Carlos Sanchez

•studies in bard coven(much to Carlos charging)

•has bull palisman

•favorite pupil of La Muerte

Maria-daughter of a leader of Emperors coven General Posada

•studies in beast keeping(despite her father's wishes to see her in healing coven)

•Chuy is her palisman

•does broom racing in her free time

•favorite pupil of Candlemaker

Joaquin-son of a diseased Guard Captain Joaquin Mondragon Sr(who fell in battle against Chakal-a wild witch who opposes Emperors rule)

•studies in abomination coven;has hawk palisman

•got a pet-griffin named Plata

•competes with Maria on the title of the #1 fastest broom racer

•favorite pupil of Xibalba

Hexide teachers

La Muerte(or Catrina,as they call her in this Au)-teaches bard magic

•uses bard and potions magic

•has puma palisman

•big history nerd,(puts her at edge with Emperors coven)

•married to Xibalba

Xibalba-teaches illusion

•uses illusion and potions(or in his case, poison) magic

•has a winged serpent as palisman

•collects curses

•married to Catrina

Candlemaker-teaches oracle magic

•uses oracle magic

•collects ancient books,befriended one(aka Book of Life)

•is close friends with La Muerte and Xibalba

Family members

Carlos Sanchez-comes from a family of beast tamers

•uses cruel methods of domestication believing that he continues family traditions,wants to pass his mantle to his son,who’s against it

General Posada- Head witch of Emperors coven

•being close friends with late Mondragon Sr,he promised him to raise and train his son to go to the Emperors coven

•neglects his daughter and her talents

Plot summary:

La Muerte, Xibalba and the Candlemaker, as most respected teachers in Hexside, have their favorite students: Manolo, Joaquim and Maria.Seeing potential in kids,they decided to take care of them,each in their own way:Catrina helped Manolo with bard magic,teaching him how to put all his emotions into music,so that he would “play from his heart”;Xibalba,despite not having abomination magic,trained Joaquins fast reaction in combat-after all,his abilities are exactly what this morons coven needs; and Candlemaker just spent time with Maria,gushing over books or hiding her from General Posada in his library after two had fights about her coven choice.

These three teachers are often ranting about how their favorite pupil is better then other ones(at least Xibalba and Catrina do,while Candlemaster’s just chilling,knowing that Maria doesn’t need to be warped up into this;she’s the most talented witch without those competitions)pulling up their talents and making non-extreme wagers.But then it got out of hand because Manolo and Joaquin,hearing or at the very least knowing of their status as “chosen ones”, take their competivness more radically.Maria,also being aware of the case,takes Candlemakers stance thinking that it’s stupid; besides,why are these grown ups so obsessed with kids school scores?However Joaquin and Manolo,having not the best influences at home(Carlos Sanchez and General Poasada) take into their heads that in order to “get” Maria,they should push themselves harder.

Before the witch duel of sorts,Joaquin,being afraid of losing(fearing Generals judgement and Xibalbas disappointment) takes one of Xibalbas curses from his collection and uses it on Manolo,making him cursed much like Lilith did with Eda.Manolo would resemble the souls of killed bulls in the last sequence of original film,if not more humanoid.The poor boy,being scared and confused,runs away; Xibalba and La Muerte,realizing where this curse came from,interrogated Joaquin,who bust into tears,saying that he didn’t know that the curse will affect Manolo so badly.

Meanwhile,during her daily tasks at animal shelter, Maria stumbles upon an unusual monster, the like of which she had never seen. Trying to soothe the creature, she came to the conclusion that music has a calming effect on it. But before finally establishing a connection with her “new” friend,Carlos Sanchez bursts into the school grounds with orders from Emperor to capture the bull-like creature.With the screams of Manolo in grasp of Carlos,Maria runs to Candlemaker demanding to free this mythic animal.

Later on,when Catrina,Xibalba and Joaquin meet with Candlemaker and Maria,they embark on a journey to release Manolo,all the while Joaquin opens up about his insecurities,while Maria tells about how shes not the prize to be won.

During the raid of the Emperor's palace, the teachers, out of curiosity (mostly Candlemaker and Catrina,being history nerds) went to the main archive and found out that this whole idea about covens was nothing but a lie, a manipulative tactic to weaken the witches and help the Emperor rise to power.

After the break at Emperors palace was known,Carlos guarded the newly captured Manolo,and after a while,realized with drawing horror,that it was his son.Soon,Maria and Joaquin joined him,and after series of arguing,young Posada showed confused Carlos how to put Manolo at ease.After two parties were reunited,they fought the Coven’s guard,and the end,the Emperor himself(not Philip in this AU btw).During the battle,General Posada tried to shame Joaquin into joining him,threatening with estrangement,but Joaquin held his ground,and later on,kicks his butt with Maria(although he loses an eye during it;the wound is tended by apologizing Xibalba).Afterwards the battle,teachers inform Carlos and kids that the only way to subdue the curse effects is if someone split the burden:Joaquin agreed immediately,wanting to make Manolo’s life easier and apologize for cursing his friend.But then Carlos steps in. He knows that no matter how strong Maria and Joaquin are, these two are still children.So as a way to make amends with Manolo after all he had done to him,Carlos takes the mantle,returning his son to his witch form.

Yadda-yadda,the Emperor is no more,witches are free to use wild magic,Joaquin goes to live with Xibalba,Maria-with Candlemaker,Carlos quits beast taming and apologizes to his son as best as he could,learning the perks of living as cursed,and everything ends well with three main characters being in love.

#owl house #owl house au #book of life #book of life au #owl house x book of life #manolo sanchez #carlos sanchez #maria posada #general posada #joaquin mondragon #la muerte #xibalba #candlemaker #tbol #tbol au #tres leches

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theculturedmarxist · 1 year ago

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A Big-Money Operation Purged Critics of Israel From the Democratic Party

How the Israel lobby moved to quash rising dissent in Congress against Israel’s apartheid regime.

The following article is adapted from the new book, “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution,” out December 5, 2023.

In May 2021, the Israeli government began pushing ahead with evictions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It was one more creeping step forward in an occupation and annexation process that had been under way for decades, but what was new this time was the reaction of Hamas, the government in Gaza. If Israel didn’t back off its plan to evict the families and the Palestinian Authority wouldn’t stand up for the homeowners in Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas announced, they would do it themselves.

The Israeli government did not back off, as was to be expected, and Hamas responded by launching rocket attacks into Israel, attacks that were intercepted by the U.S.-built Iron Dome air-defense system or that otherwise crashed to the earth. Israel launched an assault on Gaza, and what became known as the Gaza War of 2021 broke out.

In Gaza wars past, the Washington ritual had always been repeated. Israel had “a right to defend itself,” each statement began, even if the support for that right was occasionally caveated with a hope that Israel might decide to respect human rights and, perhaps, if it saw fit, limit civilian casualties.

This war was different. In the United States, the tenor of the coverage was far less sympathetic than it had been, with images of Israeli police attacking protesters in East Jerusalem and reports of widespread casualties from the Israeli strikes. Mark Pocan, the Madison, Wisconsin, congressman who’d previously co-chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus, reserved an hour of time on the House floor on May 13, and Democrats paraded through to denounce the assault.

It was like nothing the U.S. Congress had ever seen. Ilhan Omar, standing in the well of the House, bluntly but not inaccurately called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “ethno-nationalist.” Rashida Tlaib added, “I am a reminder to colleagues that Palestinians do indeed exist.”

Omar recalled her own experience as an 8-year-old huddled under a bed in Somalia, hoping the incoming bombs wouldn’t hit her home next. “It is trauma I will live with for the rest of my life, so I understand on a deeply human level the pain and the anguish families are feeling in Palestine and Israel at the moment,” she said.

Ayanna Pressley, the elder of the Squad and the least inclined to challenge the status quo on Israel-Palestine, spoke directly to the political guardrails put up around members of the House of Representatives—and then ran right through those guardrails. “Many say that ‘conditioning aid’ is not a phrase I should utter here,” she said, “but let me be clear. No matter the context, American government dollars always come with conditions. The question at hand is should our taxpayer dollars create conditions for justice, healing, and repair, or should those dollars create conditions for oppression and apartheid?”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit hard, too. “Do Palestinians have a right to survive? Do we believe that?” she asked, reminding the House that Israel had barred Omar and Tlaib from traveling to the country. “We have to have the courage to name our contributions,” she said, referring to the U.S. role in perpetuating and funding the fighting.

The clerk of the House addressed Cori Bush: “For what purpose does the gentlelady from Missouri rise?”

“St. Louis and I today rise in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Bush responded.

What made the moment dramatically different, however, was that the Squad wasn’t isolated, but instead was part of a sizable group pushing back. Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota rose to slam the assault on Gaza, as did Reps. Andre Carson of Indiana, Chuy Garcia of Illinois, and Joaquin Castro of Texas.

As chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, McCollum had influence over U.S. foreign military aid. “The unrestricted, unconditioned $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid . . . gives a green light to Israel’s occupation of Palestine because there is no accountability and there is no oversight by Congress,” McCollum said. “This must change. Not one dollar of U.S. aid to Israel should go toward a military detention of Palestinian children, the annexation of Palestinian lands, or the destruction of Palestinian homes.”

Castro thanked Tlaib for her presence, agreeing with her statement, “My mere existence has disrupted the status quo.” He seemed to address Israeli leaders directly when he said that “creeping de facto annexation is unjust.” “The forced eviction of families in Jerusalem is wrong,” Castro said from the floor, offering what would have been an uncontroversial assertion most anywhere else, but that was a foreign one to the House floor.

Marie Newman, who had been beaten by the combined force of No Labels and AIPAC donors in 2018, had come back and won in 2020, and she joined her colleagues on the floor. In January 2021, she spoke out publicly against Israel’s unequal distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine, demanding that the country vaccinate people in the Palestinian territories it was occupying and allow the vaccine to get to Gaza through the blockade. She organized a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding that he act. “They ended up negotiating that the vaccine would go through. And so, as a freshman, that was kind of a big coup,” she said. “Never before on any matter that engaged on Palestine, on any letter, resolution, legislation, did you get 23 or 25 members of Congress to sign up something, it just didn’t happen. So, we felt like, Oh, gosh, this is so good. Then that’s when the DMFI [Democratic Majority for Israel] first was like, ‘Oh, shit, she’s a pain. She’s a problem.’”

Newman was warned that being outspoken on the issue would come with a cost. “A couple of folks in my delegation, and then a couple of folks in Congress that were Democrats—more conservative than I am, said, you know, you need to be careful, because it’s really going to ruffle some feathers,” she told me. Speaking against the Gaza War on the floor brought out more opposition. “That’s when I started getting donors that had given to me in 2018, and even some of them in 2020, saying, ‘This is going to really hurt you, Marie, just so you understand.’ And it did; they were correct.”

The hour of speeches critical of Israel’s bombing of Gaza was a sloshing together of watery metaphors—a high-water mark and also a watershed moment, one that unleashed a flood of money that would erode the foundation on which the Squad had built its power to date.

After the success of the first Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Democratic politicians began to recognize that voters were in a progressive mood. This early recognition had saved Ed Markey’s Senate seat and produced the environment in which progressive Democrats—and groups like the Sunrise Movement—had so much influence over legislation. If Sanders had led a self-described political revolution, the Gaza speeches galvanized the counterrevolution and brought tens of millions of dollars off the sidelines and into Democratic primaries, with the express purpose of blunting the progressive wave. “We’re seeing much more vocal detractors of the U.S.-Israel relationship, who are having an impact on the discussion,” Howard Kohr, head of AIPAC, told the Washington Post in a rare interview. “And we need to respond.”

Throughout the 2020 cycle, AIPAC had been content to let DMFI run the big-money operation in Democratic primaries. To encourage support for it, AIPAC donors were even allowed to count money given to DMFI as credit toward their AIPAC contributions, which then won them higher-tier perks at conferences and other events. But the unprecedented display of progressive Democratic support for Palestinians amid the Gaza War, as seen on the House floor, was triggering. AIPAC would go on to spend well over $30 million against progressive candidates in the coming cycle, potentially upping that to $100 million in the 2024 race. Their first target was Nina Turner.

The problem, Kohr said, was “the rise of a very vocal minority on the far left of the Democratic Party that is anti-Israel and seeks to weaken and diminish the relationship. Our view is that support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is both good policy and good politics. We wanted to defend our friends and to send a message to detractors that there’s a group of individuals that will oppose them.”

A Controversial Vote

In September 2021, Congress prepared to cut Israel a fresh check. It was considering its latest bill to both avoid a government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling—a legislative maneuver needed to avert both default on the debt and a global financial crisis—and Pelosi decided at the last minute to add a billion dollars in new money to the bill to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome, which had been depleted by the Gaza War. The round number had a symbolic, slapped-together feel and was well out of whack with what the United States had previously provided, representing 60 percent of the total funding given to the Iron Dome over the entire last decade. Sen. Pat Leahy, who chaired the Appropriations Committee, which doles out the money, told reporters the request wasn’t remotely an urgent one. “The Israelis haven’t even taken the money that we’ve already appropriated,” he said. Democrats, though, were making a billion dollar point, whether the money was needed or not.

But so was the Squad. Jayapal, backed up by the now six members of the Squad and by Minnesota’s Betty McCollum and Illinois’s Marie Newman, threatened to take the bill down if the money were included. Pelosi relented and pulled the bill from the floor on a Tuesday. The Washington insider outlet Axios described the stunning development for its readers: “Why it matters: There has never been a situation where military aid for Israel was held up because of objections from members of Congress.”

Mark Mellman’s client Yair Lapid, not yet prime minister, was serving at the time as Israel’s foreign minister. According to a readout later provided by the Israeli government, Lapid called Steny Hoyer to demand to know what had happened. Hoyer assured him that it was a “technical” glitch and that the House would get Israel its money quickly.

Making good on his promise, Hoyer moved to schedule a new vote, suspending the House rules so the bill could hit the floor on Thursday of that week. Omar spoke with him the night before and pleaded for a delay, arguing that a spending increase that large needed to at least be discussed and that there were other ways to move the legislation. Why use this moment, Omar asked him, to force a fiery debate on the House floor? Doing it this way would put a target on the backs of the opponents, she said—with part of her aware that this was the precise purpose of hurrying with the vote. “Israel wants a stand-alone vote to show the overwhelming support for Iron Dome,” Hoyer told Omar.

Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez both lobbied Hoyer for a delay or for a different legislative vehicle, but both were told the same thing. The vote was going ahead. In a floor speech, Rep. Ted Deutch charged Tlaib with anti-semitism for accurately referring to Israel’s government as engaged in apartheid. Pelosi made an unexpected appearance to claim that the proposed money was part of a deal President Obama had cut with Israel to fund Iron Dome. Voting against the funding, speaker after speaker said, would be tantamount to killing innocent Israeli civilians. “All of this framing starts to cross a new line—that we are now removing and defunding existing defense, when the bill is actually just shoveling on more,” Ocasio-Cortez texted from the Capitol, trying to lay out her frame of mind. “Meanwhile the vitriol started to really heat up—AIPAC has escalated to very explicit, racist targeting of us that very much translates to safety issues. This is creating a tinderbox of incitement, with the cherry on top being that Haaretz’s caricature of me holding and shooting a Hamas rocket into Jerusalem with Rashida and Ilhan cheering on.” Back at home in New York, she said, rabbis from City Island who were typically progressive and on her side were sending out mass emails warning that her vote would put people’s lives at risk. She had even been banned from attending High Holidays in her district.

Ocasio-Cortez walked onto the House floor and voted against the Iron Dome funding. She and Bowman, in the neighboring district, had gotten a barrage of calls and emails to their offices urging them to support the funding, but almost nothing at all from constituents telling them to vote it down. “Those on the ‘yes’ side were very clear, and very loud, and very consistent with why they believed the vote needed to be ‘yes,’” Bowman told me. “And that’s why I’m saying there needs to be much organizing on the left around this issue and others.” But back in the cloakroom, Ocasio-Cortez was shaken. For the first time in her life, she had been trailed that week by her own private security detail, the Capitol Police having refused to offer protection, even as the FBI was investigating four credible threats on her life, one of them a still-active kidnapping plot.

The other three members of the original Squad—Pressley, Omar, and Tlaib—had all cast “no” votes. The two newest additions, though, were split, with Cori Bush voting “no,” but Bowman voting to approve the funding. In the cloakroom, AOC began to tear up while telling Omar and Tlaib that she felt she had to go out there and change her vote.

“Alex, it’s fine,” Omar said, embracing her. “Just don’t go out there and cry.” Omar was a big believer in the mantra that you couldn’t let them see they’d hurt you.

Tlaib cut in. “Ilhan, stop telling people not to cry!” They all laughed, knowing Rashida’s penchant for letting her emotions flow freely down her cheeks.

It may have been good advice from Omar, but Ocasio-Cortez didn’t put it into practice. On the floor, she saw Pelosi, who knew AOC was angry at being forced to vote on the funding. Pelosi approached her, telling her she hadn’t wanted this stand-alone vote, that it was Hoyer, who controlled the floor schedule, who had forced it. “Vote your heart,” she told Ocasio-Cortez.

AOC broke down, this time on the floor, with tears flowing in full view of the press and her colleagues, some of whom gave a shoulder of compassion, others giving awkward back pats as they slid past. She switched her vote to “present.”

Speculation about the tactical designs behind the vote quickly shot through the press. Did this nod toward the pro-Israel camp mean AOC was angling for a New York State Senate bid? Was she worried that redistricting would bring heavily Jewish New York suburbs into her territory? Or was all of it just becoming too much?

Her “present” vote was the epitome of Ocasio-Cortez’s effort to be the consensus builder and the radical all at once. Voting her heart, she felt, would have permanently undermined her ability to serve as a peacemaker on the issue. “While I wanted to vote NO[,] the dynamics back home were devolving so fast that I felt voting P[resent] was the only way I could maintain some degree of peace at home—enough to bring folks together to the table[,] because all this whipped things up to an all out war,” she said.

Omar and Tlaib held firm, though, and the threats of violence ratcheted up. “For Muslim members of Congress, it’s a level no one understands,” Omar messaged me when speaking about the death threats the next day. “The anti-American rhetoric is a violent beast and our vote yesterday makes it 10x worse.”

Marie Newman also faced serious pressure after she had announced her opposition. Ahead of the vote, she said she got a call from a member of party leadership, and from other from rank-and-file members, urging her to reconsider. Pressure had been applied in the run-up to the vote, too. “I was like, well, it is what it is. It’s done. And I feel good about it,” she said. The resistance was fiercest on the floor during the vote. “I got bullied on the House floor. Two of AIPAC’s members—congressional members—came over and literally yelled at me,” she said, demanding to know why she had voted the funding down. “First of all, my husband is an engineer, and from an engineering standpoint, there’s no way that battery system costs a billion dollars,” she told them. But also, she said, her district was opposed to it and would rather the billion dollars be spent here, in the United States.

The next day, Ocasio-Cortez sent a long note of apology to her constituents. “The reckless decision by House leadership to rush this controversial vote within a matter of hours and without true consideration created a tinderbox of vitriol, disingenuous framing, [and] deeply racist accusations and depictions,” she wrote. “To those I have disappointed—I am deeply sorry. To those who believe this reasoning is insufficient or cowardice—I understand.”

Then Came the Money

Amid the 2021 war in Gaza, Nina Turner was setting on a 30-point lead in a special election when DMFI and an allied organization, called Mainstream Democrats, decided to make an example of her.

Mainstream Democrats PAC, backed by LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman, and DMFI were effectively the same organization, operating out of the same office and employing the same consultants, though Mainstream Democrats claimed a broader mission. Strategic and targeting decisions for both were made by pollster Mark Mellman, according to Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Silicon Valley executive who serves as the political adviser to LinkedIn’s Hoffman. DMFI also funneled at least $500,000 to Mainstream Democrats PAC. Together, Mehlhorn and Mellman controlled the kind of money that could reshape any race they targeted.

“Our money is going to the Mainstream Democrats coalition, which we trust to identify the candidates who are most likely to convey to Americans broadly an image of Democrats that is then electable,” Mehlhorn told me, saying he relied on the consultants linked to DMFI to make those choices. “I trust them. I think Brian Goldsmith, Mark Mellman—they tend to know that stuff.”

The super PACs came in with a deluge of money and swamped Turner, electing Shontel Brown instead. On election night, she thanked supporters of Israel for her victory.

Mehlhorn, Hoffman’s right-hand man, was explicit about his purpose. “Nina Turner’s district is a classic case study, where the vast majority of voters in that district are Marcia Fudge voters. They’re pretty happy with the Democratic Party. And Nina Turner’s record on the Democratic Party is [that] she’s a strong critic,” he told me. “And so, this group put in money to make sure that voters knew what she felt about the Democratic Party. And from my perspective, that just makes it easier for me to try to do things like give Tim Ryan a chance of winning [a U.S. Senate seat] in a state like Ohio—not a big chance, but at least a chance. And he’s not having to deal with the latest bomb thrown by Nina. So anyway, that’s the theory behind our support for Mainstream Democrats.”

Mellman, in an interview with HuffPost, acknowledged that his goals extended beyond the politics of Israel and Palestine. “The anti-Biden folks and the anti-Israel folks look to [Turner] as a leader,” Mellman said. “So she really is a threat to both of our goals.” His remark was itself a case study in the strength of Washington narratives to withstand reality. The party’s right flank, led by Manchin, Gottheimer, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, was actively undermining Biden’s agenda, while Turner’s allies in Congress were the ones fighting for it.

In response to DMFI’s spending in 2020, the group J Street, a rival of AIPAC that takes a more progressive line on Palestinian rights, launched its own super PAC to compete. Its leaders guessed DMFI would spend somewhere between five and ten million dollars. If the advocacy group could cobble together $2 million, said J Street’s Logan Bayroff, that would at least be something of a fight, given that AIPAC and DMFI had to overcome the fact that what they were advocating for—unchecked, limitless support for the Israeli government, regardless of its abuses—was unpopular in Democratic primaries.

But then AIPAC itself finally stepped into the super PAC game in April 2022, funding what it called the United Democracy Project. It would go on to spend $30 million, with its first broadside being launched against Turner in her rematch against Brown.

The constellation of super PACs and dark-money groups around No Labels, the political vehicle for Josh Gottheimer and Joe Manchin, kicked into gear, targeting progressives in primaries around the country. And then came the crypto. Hoffman’s super PAC spent heavily, while crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, his Ponzi scheme having yet to collapse, chipped in a million dollars against Turner. SBF, as he became known, seeded his Protect Our Future PAC with nearly $30 million and began spending huge sums.

“We’re always gonna expect the right to have more money, given that they’re operating off of the basis of big donors. But that’s a little bit more of a fair fight,” he said of the disparity between J Street and DMFI. “But now you add to what DMFI is doing, 30 million [dollars] from AIPAC—that’s just in a whole other realm,” he said. “It’s been a radical transformation in the politics of Israel-Palestine and the politics of Democratic primaries.”

Going into 2022, Turner was joined by the biggest number of boldly progressive candidates running viable campaigns in open seats since the Sanders wing had become a national force. There was Gregorio Casar in Austin, Delia Ramirez in Chicago, Maxwell Alejandro Frost in Orlando, Becca Balint in Vermont, Summer Lee in Pittsburgh, Nida Allam and Erica Smith in North Carolina, Donna Edwards in Maryland, Andrea Salinas in Oregon, and John Fetterman and Mandela Barnes running for Senate in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — both, coincidentally, their respective state’s lieutenant governor. Also in Oregon, Jamie McLeod-Skinner was challenging incumbent Kurt Schrader, one of the most conservative Democrats left in Congress, who had made it his personal mission to block the Build Back Better Act and to stop Medicare from negotiating drug prices.

Redistricting had also produced two progressive-on-centrist primaries between sitting Democratic members of Congress, as Marie Newman and Andy Levin were both crammed in against centrist incumbents. On January 31, kick-starting the primary season, Jewish Insider published a list of fifteen DMFI House endorsements, nearly all of them squaring off against progressive challengers.

“In Michigan and Illinois, Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Sean Casten (D-IL) are, with support from DMFI, waging respective battles against progressive Reps. Andy Levin (D-MI) and Marie Newman (D-IL), who have frequently clashed with the pro-Israel establishment over their criticism of the Jewish state,” the Jewish Insider piece read.

In January, DMFI released its first list of fifteen endorsements, the start of the year’s battle to shape what the next Democratic class would look like. The constellation of progressive groups that played in Democratic primaries scrambled to respond. Their loose coalition consisted of J Street, Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement, Indivisible, the Working Families Party, the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, and Way to Win.

Because Justice Democrats had been unable to form a collaborative relationship with the Squad, it hadn’t been able to raise the kind of small dollars that AOC or the Sanders campaign could. This meant it was increasingly relying on the small number of left-wing wealthy people who wanted to be involved in electoral politics and were okay angering the Democratic establishment. This left the organization without many donors, but with enough to stay relevant.

Collectively, the groups would be lucky to cobble together $10 million, up against well more than $50 million in outside spending, and that’s before counting the money that corporate-friendly candidates could raise themselves. Remarkably, the Squad and Bernie Sanders were conspicuously absent from this organized effort to expand their progressive numbers.

In the summer of 2020, facing down their most intense opposition from within their party, the four members had created a PAC called the Squad Victory Fund. But in the 2022 cycle, it raised just $1.9 million, and a close look at the finances show that it spent nearly a million dollars to raise that money—renting email lists to hit with fund-raising requests, advertising on Facebook, and so on. The remaining million was doled out mostly to the members of the Squad.

Had the Squad worked collaboratively with the coalition of organizations—lending their name, attending fund-raising events, and the like—several million dollars could have been raised. If Sanders had turned on his fire hose, the resources available to the left would have been considerable. As it was, the left had to find a way to even the playing field, and, to a handful of progressive operatives, Sam Bankman-Fried seemed like the only path left.

After SBF was arrested, he texted with a reporter at Vox, saying his effective altruism evangelism and woke politics was all a cover. “It’s what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those who got fucked by it,” he said in a series of direct messages the reporter published, “by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shib[b]oleths and so everyone likes us.”

John Fetterman was locked in what threatened to be a tight primary race with Rep. Conor Lamb for a Senate nomination, and Lamb’s campaign was openly pleading for super PAC support to put him over the top. Early in the year, Jewish Insider reported, Mellman had reached out to Fetterman with questions about his position on Israel. “He’s never come out and said that he’s not a supporter of Israel, but the perception is that he aligns with the Squad more than anything else,” Democratic activist Brett Goldman told the news outlet.

Mellman said the Fetterman campaign responded to his inquiry and “came with an interest in learning about the issues.” Following the meeting, the campaign reached out again. “Then they sent us a position paper, which we thought was very strong,” Mellman said. But it wasn’t quite strong enough. Jewish Insider reported that DMFI emailed back some comments on the paper, which “Fetterman was receptive to addressing in a second draft.”

In April, Fetterman agreed to do an interview with Jewish Insider. “I want to go out of my way to make sure that it’s absolutely clear that the views that I hold in no way go along the lines of some of the more fringe or extreme wings of our party,” he said. “I would also respectfully say that I’m not really a progressive in that sense.” Fetterman, unprompted, stressed that there should be zero conditions on military aid to Israel, that BDS was wrong, and so on. “Let me just say this, even if I’m asked or not, I was dismayed by the Iron Dome vote,” he added. DMFI and AIPAC stayed out of his race.

During the Gaza War in 2021, Summer Lee had once posted support for the Palestinian plight. “It was really one tweet that kind of caught the attention of folks,” she said. “Here, this is it, we got you. And it was really a tweet talking about Black Lives Matter and talking about how, as an oppressed person, I view and perceive the topic. Because the reality is—and that’s with a lot of Black and brown progressives—we view even topics that don’t seem connected, we still view them through the injustice that we face as Black folks here and the politics that we see and experience here, and are able to make connections to that.”

Lee had written on Twitter: “When I hear American pols use the refrain ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ in response to undeniable atrocities on a marginalized population, I can’t help but think of how the West has always justified indiscriminate and disproportionate force and power on weakened and marginalized people. The US has never shown leadership in safeguarding human rights of folks it’s othered. But as we fight against injustice here in the movement for Black lives, we must stand against injustice everywhere. Inhumanities against the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated or justified.” That was the extent of her public commentary on the question.

But the comment was shocking to some in Pittsburgh. Charles Saul, a member of the board of trustees of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, was later quoted by the paper saying he was concerned about Lee because “she’s endorsed by some people I believe are antisemites [sic], like Rashida Tlaib.” He went on: “Another thing that worried me was her equating the suffering of the Gazans and Palestinians to the suffering of African Americans. That’s one of these intersectional things. If that’s her take on the Middle East, that’s very dangerous.”

In January 2022, AIPAC transferred $8.5 million of dark money to the new super PAC it had set up the previous April, United Democracy Project. Private equity mogul and Republican donor Paul Singer kicked in a million dollars, as did Republican Bernard Marcus, the former CEO of Home Depot. Dozens of other big donors, many of them also Republicans, along with more than a dozen uber-wealthy Democrats, kicked in big checks to give UDP its $30 million war chest.

On May 11, Israel Defense Forces sparked global outrage, first, by killing Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and then, again, days later at her funeral procession, by attacking her mourners and pallbearers and nearly toppling her casket.

Primary Elections

That Tuesday in May was a day that DMFI, AIPAC, and Mainstream Democrats had been hoping would be a death blow to the nascent insurgency that had been gaining traction in the primaries. In April, AIPAC had begun its furious barrage of spending, tag-teaming with DMFI, Mainstream Democrats, and Sam Bankman-Fried to make sure Nina Turner’s second run against Shontel Brown never got off the ground. Turner was smothered. Reid Hoffman’s PAC had spent millions to prop up conservative Democratic representative Kurt Schrader, who was facing a credible challenge from Jamie McLeod-Skinner in Oregon.

Nida Allam, a Durham County commissioner and the first Muslim woman elected in the state, ran for office after three of her Muslim friends were murdered in a gruesome Chapel Hill hate crime that drew national attention. AIPAC would spend millions to stop her rise. Elsewhere in the state, it spent $2 million against progressive Erica Smith in another open primary. United Democracy Project, for its part, began hammering away at Summer Lee, whose Pennsylvania primary was held the same day as North Carolina’s.

Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, Indivisible, the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, and the Sunrise Movement worked in coalition with J Street on a number of races in which DMFI and AIPAC played. Where the progressive organizations could muster enough money, the candidates had a shot. “If you look at the races we lost, we were outspent by the bad guys six, eight, ten to one. If you look at Summer’s race, it was more like two to one,” said Joe Dinkin, campaign director for the Working Families Party.

AIPAC and DMFI did manage to win their rematch against Marie Newman, who had beaten the incumbent Democrat Dan Lipinski in 2020. That win had been critical, as Lipinski would certainly have been a “no” vote on Biden’s Build Back Better and the Inflation Reduction Act. In 2022, Newman was redistricted out of her seat, with much of her former area being sent to a new district, the one Ramirez claimed. Illinois Democrats carved up the Palestinian-American stronghold and split it into five separate districts, diluting its strength. This forced Newman into an incumbent-on-incumbent contest with a centrist. AIPAC and DMFI also knocked off the synagogue president Andy Levin.

Nida Allam lost a close race, and Erica Smith, who also faced more than $2 million in AIPAC money, was beaten soundly. And in Texas the following week, Jessica Cisneros was facing Rep. Henry Cuellar in a runoff she would lose by just a few hundred votes. But McLeod-Skinner knocked off Schrader, and progressive Andrea Salinas overcame an ungodly $11 million in Bankman-Fried money through Protect Our Future PAC to win another Oregon primary.

The marquee race, however, was in Pittsburgh, where AIPAC and DMFI combined to put in more than $3 million for an ad blitz against Summer Lee in the race’s closing weeks. In late March, Lee held a 25-point lead before the opposition money came in—and that amount of money can go a long way in the Pittsburgh TV market. As AIPAC’s ads attacked Lee relentlessly as not a “real Democrat,” she watched her polling numbers plummet.

But then she saw the race stabilize, as outside progressive groups pumped more than a million dollars in and her own campaign responded quickly to the charge that she wasn’t loyal enough to the Democratic Party. Her backers made an issue of the fact that AIPAC had backed more than one hundred Republicans who had voted to overturn the 2020 election while pretending to care how good a Democrat Lee was.

“When we were able to counteract those narratives that [voters] were getting incessantly—the saturation point was unlike anything you’ve ever seen—when we knocked on doors, no one was ever saying, ‘Oh, hey, does Summer have this particular view on Middle Eastern policy?’ Like, that was never a conversation. It was, ‘Is Summer a Trump supporter?’” she said. “We were able to get our counter ad up, a counter ad that did nothing but show a video of me stumping for Biden, for the party. When we were able to get that out, it started to really help folks question and really cut through [the opposition messaging].”

On Election Day, Lee bested Irwin by fewer than 1,000 votes, winning 41.9 percent to 41 percent, taunting her opponents for setting money on fire. Had she not enjoyed such high popularity and name recognition in the district, AIPAC’s wipeout of her 25-point lead in six weeks would have been enough to beat her.

John Fetterman, meanwhile, was able to face his centrist opponent in an open seat for the U.S. Senate without taking on a super PAC, too, and won easily. In Austin, Casar and the progressive coalition behind him had known he was within striking distance of clearing 50 percent in the first-round election, which would avoid a May runoff—and avoid the opposition money that would come with it. They spent heavily in the final weeks, and Casar won a first-round victory, another socialist headed to Congress. Once sworn in to the House, one of his first major acts as a legislator was to support Betty McCollum’s bill to restrict funding of the Israeli military. He quickly became one of the leading progressive voices critical of U.S. adventurism abroad, likely producing regret among DMFI and AIPAC that they had allowed him to slip through.

The big-money coalition had not gotten the knockout win in the spring it had hoped for. But AIPAC itself posted impressive numbers. It spent big against nine progressive Democrats and beat seven of them, losing only to Summer Lee and an eccentric, self-funding multimillionaire in Michigan. Without their intervention, Turner, Donna Edwards (who saw AIPAC spend more than $6 million against her), Nida Allam, and, potentially, Erica Smith would have joined the progressive bloc in Congress, in districts that are now instead represented by corporate-friendly Democrats. And many of the ones who did make it through had been forced to moderate their stances on the way in. Still, the Squad of AOC, Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, Bowman, and Bush was being joined by Summer Lee, Delia Ramirez, Greg Casar, Maxwell Frost, and Becca Balint. On a good day, that was ten. But what kind of ten?

Summer Lee, reflecting on her near-death experience, was pessimistic. I asked if the amount of spending had gotten into her head and influenced the way she approached the Israel-Palestine issue. “Yes, absolutely, and not just with me. I see it with other people. I see people who are running for office or thinking of running for office in the future, and they feel deterred because this is a topic that they know will bury them,” she said. “There’s absolutely a chilling effect . . . I’ve heard it from other folks who will say, you know, we agree with this, but I’ll never support it, and I’ll never say it out loud.”

More broadly, though, it makes building a movement that much more difficult, Lee added. “It’s very hard to survive as a progressive, Black, working-class-background candidate when you are facing millions and millions of dollars, but what it also does is then, it deters other people from ever wanting to get into it,” she said. “So then it has the effect of ensuring that the Black community broadly, the other marginalized communities, are just no longer centered in our politics.”

Her narrow win, coupled with some of the losses, began to crystalize into a conventional Washington narrative that the Squad was in retreat and that voters wanted a more cautious brand of politics. “It’s a way of maintaining that status quo,” Lee told me. “But also it’s just disingenuous when we say that we’re not winning because we’re not winning on the issues. No, we’re not winning because we’re not winning on the resources.”

Israel’s Rightward March Continues

Whatever the fears of hard-line Israel hawks, the rise of the Squad did not materially slow the expansion of Israeli settlements into occupied Palestinian territory. In 2019, the Squad’s first year in office, Israel added more than 11,000 new settlement units. In 2020, the figure doubled to more than 22,000, many of them in East Jerusalem and deep into the West Bank. “As stated in numerous EU Foreign Affairs Council conclusions, settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible,” said an EU representative to the United Nations in a report chronicling the increase. The settlement expansion included multiple “outposts”—seizure of farmland and pasture—which puts any semblance of Palestinian independence or sustainability farther out of reach. In 2021—despite Israeli prime minister Lapid’s campaign promise not “to build anything that will prevent the possibility of a future two-state solution”—settlement expansion in East Jerusalem doubled in 2021 compared with the year before, threatening to fully slice the remaining contiguous parts of Palestinian territory into small, prisonlike enclaves.

On August 5, 2022, without the support of his cabinet, Lapid launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip, agreeing to a truce on August 7. Palestinian militants fired more than a thousand rockets, though no Israelis were killed or seriously wounded. The three-day conflict left forty-nine Palestinians dead, including seventeen children.

Israel’s initial denial of any role in the killing of reporter Abu Akleh gradually morphed under the weight of incontrovertible evidence into admission of possible complicity. Partnering with the London-based group Forensic Architecture, the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq launched the most comprehensive investigation into her death. On the morning of August 18, at least nine armored Israeli vehicles approached the group’s headquarters in Ramallah and broke their way in, ransacking it and later welding shut its doors. An attempt by the Israeli government, headed by Mellman ally Yair Lapid, to have the European Union label Al-Haq a terrorist organization was rejected by the EU, which reviewed the evidence Israel provided and found it not remotely convincing.

With the primaries over, Bankman-Fried’s PAC, AIPAC, and DMFI had mostly stopped spending to help Democrats. In September 2022, the Democratic National Committee refused to allow a vote on a resolution, pushed by DNC member Nina Turner and other progressives, to ban big outside money in Democratic primaries. Leah Greenberg, cofounder of Indivisible, said it was absurd that Democrats continued to allow outside groups to manipulate Democratic primaries even though they clearly had little interest in seeing the party itself succeed. Their goal is to shape what the party looks like; whether it’s in the minority or majority is beside the point. “For a group called Democratic Majority for Israel, they don’t seem to be putting much effort into winning a Democratic majority,” Greenberg said.

Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia whose race was listed as “key” by AIPAC, had been one of the organization’s most outspoken and loyal allies since her 2018 election and had regularly teamed with Gottheimer as he made his various power plays. Her first significant act as a member of Congress had been to join him in confronting Rashida Tlaib with their white binder of damning quotes. Still, AIPAC’s United Democracy Project had declined to help her, and Luria was among the few incumbent Democrats to lose reelection in 2022.

Instead, AIPAC’s first foray into the general election had been to spend its money in a Democrat-on-Democrat race in the state of California. According to Jewish Insider, “a board member of DMFI expressed reservations over [David] Canepa’s Middle East foreign policy approach, pointing to at least one social media post viewed by local pro-Israel advocates as dismissive of Israeli security concerns.” The allegedly dismissive message, which Canepa posted on May 13, 2021, as the Gaza War raged, had read, “Peace for Palestine.”

But AIPAC saved the rest of its energy for Summer Lee. Because the Republican in the race had the same name, “Mike Doyle,” as the popular retiring incumbent Democrat—deliberately, no doubt—voters thought that a vote for Doyle was a vote for the guy they’d known for decades. After spending millions of dollars attacking Lee for not being a good enough Democrat, AIPAC spent millions in the general elections urging voters to elect the Republican. Lee won anyway.

At the end of 2022, Bibi Netanyahu, at the head of a right-wing coalition so extreme that mainstream news outlets had dubbed it fascist, was once again sworn in as prime minister, ousting Yair Lapid, the prime minister backed by DMFI’s Mark Mellman.

Disclosure: In September 2022, The Intercept received $500,000 from Building a Stronger Future, Sam Bankman-Fried’s foundation, as part of a $4 million grant to fund our pandemic prevention and biosafety coverage. That grant has been suspended. In keeping with our general practice, The Intercept disclosed the funding in subsequent reporting on Bankman-Fried’s political activities. A nonprofit affiliated with Way to Win, called Way to Rise, has donated to The Intercept, facilitated by Amalgamated Foundation.

#ilhan omar #alexandria ocasio cortez #rashida tlaib #israel #palestine #democrats #democratic party #ayanna pressley #no labels #aipac #us congress

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