AIPAC and the 2012 US Presidential election - a report from Al Jazeera

What role does AIPAC play in US elections?

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The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US, is holding its biggest annual conference yet with around 13,000 delegates in Washington.

For all those bidding to become the next US president, it has become an essential campaign stop. The group has strong ties to the religious right and evangelical voters. And it is a very influential force in Washington politics.

Demonstrators from the occupy movement held a small protest outside the event urging no war on Iran and no US tax dollars for Israel.

On Sunday, Barack Obama, the US president, took to the stage and told the audience that Israel had never had a better friend in the White House. But he did not support Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear facilities - at least not yet.

"If Obama treated Israel like Reagan did, he'd be impeached. Former President Ronald Reagan's confrontations with Israel were harsh and personal, yet Republican conservatives revere him and the Jews remember him as a great friend."

- Chemi Shalev, an Israeli journalist and political analyst

Three of the four Republican candidates bidding to unseat the US president addressed the conference on the biggest day of the nomination battle so far - 'Super Tuesday'.

Rick Santorum flew in especially for the event before heading back to Ohio, while Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich appeared via satellite link.

A number of Republicans have sought to attack the US president over his administration's relationship with Israel. And the Republican presidential candidates have all tried to paint Obama as an undependable partner for Israel who is weak on Iran.

Mitt Romney said: "We've heard a lot of words from the administration. Its clear message has been to warn Israel to consider the costs of military action against Iran. I don't believe we should be issuing public warnings."

And Newt Gingrich said: "If an Israeli prime minister decides that he has to avoid the threat of a second holocaust through pre-emptive measures that I would require no advance notice to understand why I would support the right of Israel to survive in a dangerous world."

So what role do pro-Israel lobby groups, and AIPAC in particular, play in the US election and why are they courted by those competing to be the next US president? How do Barack Obama's dealings with Israel compare with those of his predecessors, including Republicans?

To discuss these issues presenter Anand Naidoo is joined by: John Mearsheimer, the co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy; Larry Greenfield from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; and Hillary Mann Leverett, a former White House and US state department official.

the u.s. is so in bed with israel...

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James Howard Kunstler: The banking system is just blowing smoke up the shredded ass of what's left of the economy

kunstler takes on the rantings of the unhinged repubs and compares them to the equally unhinged democratic denials of reality...

[I]t's especially gratifying to see the Republicans sail off the edge of their own flat earth on the winds of religious idiocy. For forty years it has not been enough for them to just be a conservative party. They had to enlist the worst elements of ignorance and reaction, and they found an endless supply of it in the boom regions of the Sunbelt with its brotherhood of TV evangelist con-artists and a population fretful with suburban angst.

[...]

Just as there is a place for conservatism in civilized life, there is also a place for the progressive impulse, let's call it - for making bold advance in step with the mandates of reality and an interest in justice for all those along on the journey.

The Democrats under Obama don't want to go to that place. They want to really go to the same place as the fretful Sunbelt fundamentalists, but by a different route - and that place is yesterday, by means of a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. Mr. Obama is pretending that an economic "recovery" is underway when he knows damn well that the banking system is just blowing smoke up the shredded ass of what's left of that economy. He pretends to an interest in the rule of law in money matters but he's done everything possible to prevent the Department of Justice, the SEC, and a dozen other regulatory authorities from functioning the way they were designed. He has never suggested resurrecting the Glass-Steagall act, which kept banking close to being honest for forty years. He never issued a peep of objection about the Citizens United case where the Supreme Court tossed the election process into a crocodile pit of corporate turpitude (he could have proposed a constitutional amendment redefining corporate "personhood."). He declared he'd never permit a super-PAC to be created in his name, and now he's got one. Mr. Obama represents a lot of things to a lot of people. He is mainly Progressivism's bowling trophy, its symbol of its own triumphant wonderfulness in overcoming the age old phantoms of race prejudice. Alas, that's not enough. Where exactly is the boundary between telling "folks" what they want to hear and just flat-out lying?

when people are afraid, they will listen to just about anything that they think can reduce their fear...

if the world as i had always known it was coming down around my ears and i had no idea what was going to happen next, i would be VERY receptive to anyone and everyone who presented themselves as having a solution at hand...

whether it's the repubs promising that they will vanquish all society's great "evils" - brown people, gay people, non-christian people, poor people, uppity women, uppity presidents, uppity countries, the list goes on - or the dems promising a return to the go-go economy, people who live in fear will be very responsive...

the one thing fearful people DON'T want to hear is anyone spouting reality...

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This is your democracy on meth

post title courtesy of timothy egan in the nyt...

Newt’s Shop of Horrors

ari berman in tomdispatch...

Tomgram: Ari Berman, The Politics of the Super Rich

[T]he super PACs on both sides of the aisle are financed by the 1% of the 1%. Romney’s Restore Our Future Super PAC, founded by the general counsel of his 2008 campaign, has led the herd, raising $30 million, 98% from donors who gave $25,000 or more. Ten million dollars came from just 10 donors who gave $1 million each. These included three hedge-fund managers and Houston Republican Bob Perry, the main funder behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, whose scurrilous ads did such an effective job of destroying John Kerry’s electoral prospects. Sixty-five percent of the funds that poured into Romney’s super PAC in the second half of 2011 came from the finance, insurance and real estate sector, otherwise known as the people who brought you the economic meltdown of 2007-2008.

[...]

Before Citizens United, the maximum amount one person could give to a candidate was $2,500; for a political action committee, $5,000; for a political party committee, $30,800. Now, the sky’s the limit for a super PAC, and even more disturbingly, any donor can give an unlimited contribution to a 501c4 -- outfits defined by the IRS as “civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare,” and to make matters worse, that contribution will remain eternally secret. In this way, American politics is descending further into the darkness, with 501c4s quickly gaining influence as “shadow super PACs.”

so, the u.s. has now officially joined the ranks of third world countries whose super-rich elites have routinely bought and sold the national assets of their people to the highest bidder, the common good be damned...

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The cartoonist tries to figure out what's funny about the Republican candidates

i guess it's only funny insofar as any of us find bigotry, deliberate ignorance, pandering, denial, delusion and lying funny...

equally not funny is that they are being paid attention to as if they had anything worthwhile to say...

and to think that one of them - most likely the pathetic one-percenter from massachusetts - will be our next president...

and, even if the incumbent is re-elected, we'll simply have to continue dealing with this...



i just don't know how i can handle this kind of excitement...

we are s-o-o-o-ooo screwed...

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2012 election

no comment necessary...

mr. fish...

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Ooooooooo, NEWT...! You're SUCH a bad boy...!

“The public would be much better served to have another attorney general,” said Newt Gingrich.

we-e-e-e-eelll, i don't think so... i think the public would be MUCH better served by having gonzo hang on until the entire bushco ship of fools is engulfed in flames... now, THAT would be a public service...!

(thanks to think progress...)

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Spanish is the language of the ghetto

from the man who is thinking of declaring as a presidential candidate...

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday described bilingual education as teaching "the language of living in a ghetto," and he mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.

[...]

"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. . . . We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," [he said.]

so, english is the language of prosperity and spanish is the language of the ghetto, eh, newt...? if you run and, god forbid, get the nod for the nomination, i suggest tom tancredo for your running mate... he hasn't traveled much either...

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Go wash your mouth out with soap, Mitt

a few thoughts here... one, mitt romney isn't going to come within a country mile of being nominated and having to face the challenge of picking a vice presidential running mate... two, mitt's plummeting credibility will insure he will have very little to say in whoever WILL be the running mate of whoever IS nominated... three, the mere thought of newt gingrich running for vice president on ANY party's ticket EVER simply insures i will wake up later tonight with acute indigestion... four, if there is EVER AGAIN another bush on ANY national ticket, i may well have to renounce my citizenship...

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday dropped some names of potential running mates in the 2008 race, but added such speculation is a bit premature.

Among those Romney mentioned for the second slot on the Republican ticket were three Southerners: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH...!

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Wrong, Hillary, m'dear

they don't FEAR your candidacy... they are TURNING HANDSPRINGS at the thought of you as the democratic presidential candidate... you are the stuff of their wet dreams... they can't wait to tear you limb from limb, and drag your bludgeoned body through the streets of every city and town in the united states... if you believe that they're saying they FEAR your candidacy because they actually DO, you are dumber than advertised...

Karl Rove fears the presidential candidacy of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a report at the website The Politico. The news was based on a statement by the candidate herself in a New Hampshire campaign trail appearance.

Carrie Burdoff writes that Senator Clinton observed the fear of many in the Republican establishment of her candidacy for president.

"I know what Gingrich tells people privately, I know what DeLay tells people privately, I know what Karl Rove tells people privately," Burdoff quotes Clinton stating. The remark was paired with her assurance that she and her husband had defeated the Republican establishment twice for the nation's highest office, and that she would be able to do so again.

we don't need you, hillary... stick with your day job...

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