Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.
Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.
In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.
[tags]aipac, corruption, espionage, Jane Harman, representative Jane Harman, democrat, bribery, israeli agent, mossad, mosad, musad, israeli spy, spying, american israel political action committee, intelligence[/tags]
I’ve refrained from commenting on the ‘teabag’ movement up to this point, but now that the day of reckoning has come, I’ve decided to say my piece.
What you will witness today is a pathetic display from a conservative ideology lost in the woods yet still bent on making its voice heard by shouting the loudest. The conservative movement saw the writing on the wall on November 4th, and instead of reflecting inwards, it channeled its loses into an angry-at-anything expressionism that forces it further to the unpalatable right. After taking such a beating since the elections in November, it is empowering for the rage-aholic Limbaugh/Beck-devotee to make symbolic stands against various scapegoats for their irrelevance. But the relationship between the Limbaugh brand and the Republican party, exemplified by the Tea Bagging movement, is increasingly parasitic, benefiting only the pocketbooks of the apostles of xenophobic and Christian-hate hustle. In this manner, Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck, et. al. are all to happy to push the ultra-right line, even if it means the demise and irrelevance of the Republican party.
If reports and video of Teabag Meetups hold true (exhibit A), the Teabag parties will quickly degenerate into fringe protests against disparate and neurotic subjects of disdain. Varying by locale and geopolitical tendencies, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Southwest parties turn into protests against immigrants (dey took der jobs!!), the Midwest parties against homosexuals (dey took der marriage!!), the East coast against taxation and socialism (dey took der salaries!!), and the South against all of the above. However, no matter how many boogiemen the Right creates, it’s lack of influence and power can only be blamed on itself.
Michelle Bachmann, once an obscure Republican Representative from the 6th district in Minnesota, has turned into the de facto leader of out-of-power conservatives. Semi-attractive, unabashedly ignorant, and utterly impervious to the forces of rationality or reality, she is Sarah Palin with a tinfoil hat and a Botox syringe. Let’s go over some of the things she believes in:
1) She believes there is a global conspiracy among the Russian and Chinese (with Barack Obama and the liberal communist Democrats as a co-conspirator, of course!). On Glenn Beck last week:
BACHMANN: Let me tell you, there’s something that’s happening this week in Congress that could be the eventual unraveling for our freedom, and it’s this. I had asked the Treasury Secretary and Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chair, if they would categorically denounce–
BECK: I know.
BACHMANN: –taking the United States off of the dollar and putting us on an international global currency. Because as you know, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, many national have lined up now and called for an international currency, a One World currency. And they want to get off the dollar as the reserve currency.
2) That the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which would expand national community service programs from 75,000 positions to 250,000, will lead to re-education camps where youth will have to praise their great and omnipotent leader, Barack Obama. Yes, really:
“I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service… And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically-correct forums.”
3. The US Congress is filled with anti-American liberals who need to be investigated by the mainstream media (aka McCarthyism against Democrats):
MR. MATTHEWS: How many Congress people, members of Congress, do you think are in that anti-American crowd you described? How many Congress people do you serve with? I mean, it’s 435 members of Congress.
REP. BACHMANN: Right now —
MR. MATTHEWS: How many are anti-American in the Congress right now that you serve with?
REP. BACHMANN: You’d have to ask them, Chris. I’m focusing on Barack Obama and the people that he’s been associating with. And I’m very worried about —
MR. MATTHEWS: But do you suspect that a lot of people you serve with —
REP. BACHMANN: — their anti-American nature.
MR. MATTHEWS: Well, he’s a United States senator from Illinois. He’s one of the people you suspect as being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti- American? You’ve already suspected Barack Obama. Is he alone, or are there others? How many do you suspect of your colleagues as being anti-American?
REP. BACHMANN: What I would say — what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that.
4) That the United States is adopting economic policies to join a centralized, state-planned economy with education policy embracing a ‘socialist, globalist worldview’. Seriously, in an article she co-authored.
Government is implementing policies that will lead to poverty, not prosperity, by adopting the failed ideas of a state-planned and managed economy similar to that of the former Soviet Union. In economics, career, and education, government narrows individual choice. This system is based upon a utilitarian worldview that measures human value only in terms of productive capability for the “best interests of the state”. Individual freedom is subservient to a collective society.
The federal government has set in motion a restructuring of our schools, our workforce and our economy to create a new system called School-to-work or STW. Minnesota and all other states are
incorporating a central planning system to implement STW. STW places the needs of business above the needs or wants of the child.
“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.”
“Don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.”
Michelle Bachmann has become the Congressional embodiment of the Rush Limbaugh movement in the Republican Party. Unable to cope with the parties loses or the disdain for the neoconservative movement, they have turned their crusade into a witch-hunt. You see, it’s not the past 8 years of George Bush, the years of fiscal irresponsibility on Republican watch, or the hate-filled language and bigotry that have turned people off from the conservative platform… it’s the homosexual liberal communist globalist anti-American Democratic conspiracy. And that, my friends, is why we won’t see any Republicans in power for the next 8 years…
Michelle Bachmann is doing her best impression of an insane backwoods militia member from Montana. Unfortunately, she’s a god damn representative from Minnesota (what the fuck are you gophers doing?) I only have the transcript from her interview with Glenn Beck:
BACHMANN: Let me tell you, there’s something that’s happening this week in Congress that could be the eventual unraveling for our freedom, and it’s this. I had asked the Treasury Secretary and Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chair, if they would categorically denounce–
BECK: I know.
BACHMANN: –taking the United States off of the dollar and putting us on an international global currency. Because as you know, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, many national have lined up now and called for an international currency, a One World currency. And they want to get off the dollar as the reserve currency.
BECK: Most people don’t understand what that means.
BACHMANN: What that means is that all of the countries of the world would have a single currency. We would give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency. And now for the first time, we’re seeing major countries like China, India, Russia, countries like that, calling for a one world currency and they want this discussion to occur at the G20. So I asked both the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve chair if they would categorically denounce this. The reason why is because if we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose country over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom. And then we are no more, as an exceptional nation, as we always have been. So this is imperative.
Scratch that, I found two videos, one from her Glenn Beck appearance and another on MSNBC. Apparently she is going on a tour to make sure everyone is aware that we are just steps away from being ushered into sweatshop by the Orientals and the Soviets:
So, in total, what a nice little investment for AIG! Stuff a little piggy full of cash and get a bigger piggy bank in return. Don’t you love Washington?
[tags]aig, democrats, corruption, christopher dodd, chris dodd, dodd is corrupt, AIG insurer, bribery, bribary, CEO bonuses, aig bonuses, stimulus bill, democrats are just as corrupt as republicans you are just too dumb and near-sighted to realize, stimulus bill provisions, corporate executives, bonuses, wall street bonuses[/tags]
