Jamie Weinstein reports at the Daily Caller:
“You know, he’s an unpatriotic guy,” Democratic political strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders said of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in an interview in The Daily Caller’s offices. ”We’re going to attack his patriotism.”
The “we” Saunders is referring to is he and his “horse” to take on Cantor for his Virginia congressional seat, lawyer and retired Army Colonel Wayne Powell. Asked to defend his dramatic charge against Cantor, Saunders — who served as a campaign strategist for Southern Democrats like Jim Webb, Mark Warner and John Edwards — threw out all sorts of allegations.
“First, anybody who bets against the United States economy, bets against their own country, as far as I’m concerned, is unpatriotic,” Saunders said.
… I mean, you can just go on and on. His association with Jack Abramoff.”
…Saunders is also fond of taking shots at Cantor’s association with billionaire casino mogul and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson
I am sure that Saunders knows about this: After the Republicans took the House in the 2010 elections, Cantor’s office stated that he would fight the Obama administration on behalf of Israel, per a report by Laura Rozen.
“Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” [Cantor's office later reported.] “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”
Rozen also noted that a “veteran observer of U.S.-Israeli relations Ron Kampeas said he found that statement ‘an eyebrow-raiser.’” “I can’t remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president,” Kampeas wrote
Cantor in Time Magazine last April:
At this perilous moment, Prime Minister Netanyahu is the right leader for Israel — and the right partner for America.
Thanks to Peter Voskamp.
Another crack in the Wall. Wednesday’s Democracy Now! has discussion of the investigation of Sheldon Adelson’s possible ties with organized crime in Macau. Includes discussion of his ties to Israel.
As Senate GOP Blocks DISCLOSE Act, Top Donor Sheldon Adelson Probed for Bribery and Mob Ties
link to democracynow.org
Rachel Maddow focused on this the other night. Prof Juan Cole over at Informed Comment
Mudcat on Maddow. This is his Can Cantor site:
link to cantorsmillions.com
Maybe even more important is that ProPublica just published a worthy read on this:
link to propublica.org
From the above article on the massive Macau money washing machine:
A decade ago gambling magnate and leading Republican donor Sheldon Adelson looked at a desolate spit of land in Macau and imagined a glittering strip of casinos, hotels and malls. …Where competitors saw obstacles, including Macau’s hostility to outsiders and historic links to Chinese organized crime, Adelson envisaged a chance to make billions. …
“Much of Mr. Adelson’s casino profits that go to him come from his casino in Macau,” Sen. John McCain noted in an interview last month with the PBS “NewsHour.”
“Maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American political campaign,” said McCain, an Arizona Republican.
The questions raised by McCain and others have not prevented Adelson, the self-made son of a Boston cabdriver, from emerging as a powerful political figure in both Israel and the United States. A longtime backer of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel, Adelson created a free daily newspaper, now Israel’s largest, that supports the policies of Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
The GOP in the US (and much of Israel) is a huge benefactor to what is obviously now international organized crime. What changes?
His transgressions would be far more severe had they been isolated
Instead we’ve been treated to the spectacle of watching senior Democratic leader after senior Democratic leader take to the podium at AIPAC and slam the President they ostensibly serve a mere day after he spoke and completely undercutting his arguments vis-a-vis settlements.
Even Nahum Barnea, Israel’s most respected columnist, wrote of the fact that row after row of Jewish donors sat in silence and intently watched their congressmen in how they behaved towards Bibi during his speech.
His column is here: link to ynetnews.com
So we should keep this in mind, that when those same Democratic congressmen get up round after roud to applause Bibi, it isn’t as much about him as the fear that their major donors are watching from above.
So in this situation, does Cantor’s behaviour mean anything? If anything he can be blamed for being a natural in a situation that he should at least be uncomfortable with.
krauss, i didn’t listen to the aipac speeches this year. which dem leaders were publicly slamming obama at the conference? did we cover that here?
I think this election should be all about Israel…..yep…all opponents to Israel firsters should start attacking them on their unpatriotic loyalty to a foreign country instead of trying to out love them on Israel.
I would pay to see a knock-down-drag-out fight against these traitors if it were ever to be televised! But, I am afraid that day is still far from today. Oh please, let me be wrong!
Extremely interesting, if Cantor is indeed at all vulnerable. The kind of criticism of Israel that appears on this blog, or is done by high level academics like W & M, is extremely well modulated and nuanced. But in a rough and tumble campaign? In any case, a political story well worth following.
i do not know if he’s vulnerable, but he’s the highest ranking gop congressperson and being groomed for the long haul. if he could be unseated…
…or even just made to fight hard.
First, that would eat up funds that would otherwise go to support clones, and second, it might implant the idea that it’s not so great to be too big a fan of Israel.
Cantor won in 2010 with 59% of the vote. Could be worse…
Inquiring minds would wonder about the vulnerability factor since the Sheldon Adelson team has pledged 5million to the Young Guns Pac, a politically independent organization (of Cantor, Ryan, et. al.) headed by one of Cantor’s former head honchos. Review of his tax filings, contributions as well as
ads run by opaque Citizens United groups could yeild a metric.
This is great. Cantor needs to be targeted for his trangressions. Spot on
Listening to the Ed Schultz radio program. (12-3 every week day) Talking about Cantor. Ed will be having Wayne Powell on his MSNBC program this evening. Going to do a job on Cantor tonight.
Just realized I met “Mudcat” in South Carolina during the John Edwards campaign. Great guy.
Mudcat is politically savvy. He knows what he’s doing taking this on.
You mean Ed Schultz knows like the Jewish mafia guy, Dutch Schultz knew?
Wasn’t talking about Schultz. Talking about Mudcat Saunders.
“He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”
Michael Hudson (the economist who at age 25 fired Alan Greenspan for falsifying documentation) had a great definition of a parasite. It applies here.
[Here's the firing Alan Greenspan clip if you want to watch it. link to michael-hudson.com ]
Cantor allies himself with israeli PM Netanyahu over our own president and Netanyahu has been outed in the israeli press (see it anywhere in the US press?) as having an active role in smuggling nuclear triggers out of the US for israel, an act of espionage almost as bad as Pollards (and punishable by death) … if ever the term “israel-firster” was applicable
Do you have a link to this with translation? This would be a great candidate to make viral.
A US representative pledging to work “on behalf of Israel” sounds like a traitor to me.
Let’s pray to whatever deity/God/celestial body/etc that is becomes campaign fodder. I won’t be holding my breath though.
So Cantor is a Virginia Republican. The big news in Virginia this last 60 days was the crucifixion and resurrection of Teresa Sullivan as President of the University of Virginia. BIG news. The big question strangely left unanswered in that debacle was, what did the Governor know and when did he know it. There were emails suggesting that Goldman-Sachs-related, hedge-fund- running billionaires ganged up to oust Sullivan, with one of their principal objectives being to replace the German Department and the Classics Department with online courses taught at more elite institutions like Harvard, and had the Governor’s secret blessing. When the thing blew up, the board of visitors reinstated Sullivan, and then, inexplicably, the Governor reappointed the Rector who had led the abortive coup, despite her having been originally appointed by his predecessor of the opposite political party, and despite her having blundered in historic proportion and ignited a firestorm of opposition to her personally, laid a turd in the UVA fishbowl, to coin a phrase. In their “exhaustive” recaps of what happened, the NYTimes and WaPo went blow by blow for pages and pages, but never seriously examined why the Governor reappointed her. One surmises that the Governor must have blessed the action in the first place, and agreed to indemnify the rector, if it blew up. Why would two people do such things? Well, political money for the governor and eleemosynary money for the university would explain everything. Why would the two leading papers ignore the obvious question? Perhaps Phil and the other journalists on this site could turn their spotlight on this question. Is there a connection to the issues Mondoweiss covers as no other source does? Does it touch Eric Cantor? Only Mondoweiss can answer such questions.