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Israel/Zionism See other Israel/Zionism Articles Title: How AIPAC Operates Excerpted from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Rep. Thomas Massie: Israel Lobbyists, the Cowards in Congress, and Living off the Grid : Tucker Carlson (TC:) So what’s AIPAC? Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY (TM:) AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And they didn’t start out as a PAC in the sense of a political action committee, but now they have a political action committee. Ostensibly, it’s a group of Americans who lobby on behalf of Israel. They’re for anything Israel. And they’re a very effective lobbying group. … I bet I may be the only Republican in Congress who hasn’t done homework for AIPAC. … They just want to know that you’ll do something for them. And if you’ll do something for them as a candidate, you’re more likely to do something for them as a congressman … when they saw I was going to win, that’s when they tried to get me to do the term paper. They didn’t have a political action committee at the time. They couldn’t spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars against me at that time. It was just sort of like a whisper campaign … at that point, they sensed I wouldn’t do what they wanted when I got in. … People think it’s a grassroots movement in Kentucky. It’s actually a top-down movement from AIPAC so that people who aren’t even Jewish will feel like they’ve got to support Israel, you know, no matter what. … TM: I vote my conscience, which they won’t tolerate. So they ran with their 501(c)(4) before they had a super PAC. They were running educational advocacy ads against me saying that, you know, I’m bad on Israel. … Let me explain to you. I’m a libertarian leaning Republican. I don’t vote for foreign aid for anybody. So don’t be offended when I don’t vote for your foreign aid. I don’t vote for wars anywhere. So don’t be offended if I tell you that. … The situation went from bad to worse. This election cycle they spent $400,000 against me. … even though my election is over, they’re still running hundreds of thousands of dollars of negative ads. … TC: It’s a little weird though, … Why not just let Thomas Massey be Thomas Massey in Northern Kentucky? Like why, why the need to crush you? TM: I don’t know. I think it’s, they don’t want one horse out of the barn. If one person starts speaking the truth, they’re afraid it could be contagious … They were going to drive it over to the Senate and ask for unanimous consent. But now the senators are saying, wait, why wasn’t this unanimous in the house. Why should we do it unanimously in the Senate? … TC: What I find interesting is it’s not just that they disagree with your views, … But they’ve called you a bigot and they call you an anti-Semite and say you’re a hater and try to destroy your character. … TM: Right. There’s no need to do that. I’m not anti-Semitic. … I think it’s short-sighted on their side … it used to be just me voting against some of these resolutions. But recently, where they tried to ban passages in the New Testament, I think we got like almost two dozen Republicans who said, “Wait, hold on there.” … TM: to understand AIPAC, I think it’s easiest to model them as a military industrial lobby. Their biggest thing is they want more equipment, more military equipment from the United States going to Israel. … every single penny of the 3.8 billion that they nominally get, now they’re getting way more than that, but what Israel nominally gets goes to US military contractors.” … I think sometimes they [AIPAC] advocate for things that even Israelis wouldn’t advocate for. … Like, they would, I think, be okay with a war with Iran, like an all-out apocalyptic war with Iran, whereas there are people in Israel saying, “Whoa, hold on a second. We’d rather not have a war with Iran.” … But AIPAC does things that lead us in that direction. … TM: I have Republicans who come to me on the floor and say, “I wish I could vote with you today. Yours is the right vote, but I would just take too much flack back home.” And I have Republicans who come to me and say, “That’s wrong what AIPAC is doing to you. Let me talk to my AIPAC person.” By the way, everybody but me has an AIPAC person. TC: What does that mean, an AIPAC person? TM: It’s like your babysitter, your AIPAC babysitter who is always talking to you for AIPAC. They’re probably a constituent in your district, but they are firmly embedded in AIPAC. … I’ve had four members of Congress say, “I’ll talk to my AIPAC person.” And it’s clearly what we call them, my AIPAC guy. … TC: Why have I never heard this before? TM: It doesn’t benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they’ve basically got a buddy system with somebody who’s representing a foreign country? … TC: Have you seen any other country do anything like this? TM: No. … Not only do they not have a Putin guy. They don’t have a Britain guy. They don’t have an Australian guy. They don’t have a Germany dude. … I guarantee there’s some spreadsheet at AIPAC where the AIPAC dude who’s matched up with the congressman is there, and then all the congressman’s votes on the issue. Has the congressman been to Israel? They pay for trips for congressmen and their spouses to go to Israel. … I’m probably one of a dozen that hasn’t taken that trip… Poster Comment: Massie strikes me as an upstanding decent person. I don't know enough about him to guarantee no skeletons in the basement, but to be honest a lot of higher up Republicans creep me out. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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