I really don’t see what the big deal is with a bunch of congresspeople and their senior staff getting drunk during a trip to Israel and jumping into the Sea of Galilee. The whole article reads more like a piece in The Onion than a serious piece of journalism. Even the congressman who took off all his clothes doesn’t bother me. I can understand that it might be construed as disrespectful of the hosts, but since when is drunk skinny-dipping at religiously significant holy sites a reason to get upset? Maybe they were seeing if they could walk on the Sea of Galilee the same way Jesus did 2000 years ago. Maybe Rep. Kevin Yoder got naked so no one could accuse his wingtips of being flotational devices. And why is the FBI involved? Does the FBI normally investigate congressmen who travel abroad, drink too much, and rip off their clothes in front of dozens of co-workers? I mean, who cares? They should investigate why Rep. Yoder votes the way he does.
I guess I can see why Eric Cantor is upset. As the only Jewish Republican elected official in the known universe, he probably felt like an a-hole when he learned that his chief of staff and his then communications director got rip-roaring hammered and jumped into the Sea of Galilee. But, really, this can’t be unusual behavior in the wingnut world. You wake up the next morning, eat some greasy food, meet with Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, and then maybe go ask a clergyman for forgiveness. No one gives a shit.
Damn Cantor is a boring schmuck.
Now, if it had been a Democratic staffer, well, hang ‘im high.
Maybe. But what about if it was a woman? I think hang’n ’em high is a certainty there.
Oh no. When a woman carries on like that, it’s a stoning offense.
“since when is drunk skinny-dipping at religiously significant holy sites a reason to get upset?”
Since time immemorial, I would say.
maybe that’s the real reason Jesus was crucified. He turned water into wine, stripped off all his clothes, and went walking around on the Sea of Galilee. The gall of that man.
As far as I know, it wasn’t, and he didn’t. And yet, Eric Cantor is still a dick.
Who paid for the drunken skinny-dip in the Sea? If it was on their own dime and not on assignment as official US reps, then it’s at most a tabloid story. Otherwise…?
Answers to questions like that are what the links are for, Marie.
Didn’t really need to know that it was another Congressional boondoggle — hypocritical Republicans spending taxpayer money on themselves.
someone on twitter said it was an AIPAC “information” trip
So a trip of, by, and for assholes. I wonder if the Israelis are rethinking anything about their favorite American allies yet. If they’re offended they got what they asked for.
Who paid for it? AIPAC did – it was an AIPAC trip, solicited and paid for by AIPAC, and I doubt the AIPAC’ers are upset about the behavior in the least.
Wow, two simply lovely stories about the GOP to start the week off. Wait to stay on message, guys!
“Way to stay on message,” rather.
I really don’t care, but in the context of IOKIYAR, I do kinda want to ramp up the faux outrage just to F’with RWNJ, like Erick Erickson
Ugh, I hope this shit is rung around their necks like noose.
Erik Erickson really doesn’t get it.
We don’t care.
Most of us are more concerned with the way our Congress is co-opted by these trips than by them enjoying themselves while they are on the trips.
Not to mention, we suck at phony outrage.
My congressman, James Lankford, was on that trip. He’s a holier than thou asshole, and you can be damn sure that if a story like this came out about Democrats, he would make sure everyone in Oklahoma City knew he was offended by such BLASPHEMY. Coincidentally, he’s got a town hall tomorrow….
He’s my congressman too. Apparently he used to run the Falls Creek camp. I’ve never been there but it had a reputation for underage sexual activity–there was a rather notorious t-shirt about that.
BTW Lankford also gleefully posted pics of a ton of Chick Fil-A food in office during that whole flap. I don’t know much else about him, but I daresay he’s a dick.
In a very nice article over the Jewish heritage in “My” Amsterdam, some guy from California made a political comment. Not realizing JPost readers could come from red-neck districts, I replied. Last time I checked the likes-dislikes were evenly divided. Link to JPost article here. Not bad in a paper that let Caroline Glick communicate her opinion about President Obama and Democrats.
Friedberg from California wrote this in an earlier comment:
“… most Americans believe a black man could do just as good a job as president as a white one.”
Don’t care if Obama is black or green. He has only succeeded in making Jimmy Carter, another anti-Semite, look like a competent president. That act comes close to the coming of the Meshiach.
anti-Semite US President: a US President who reminds the Likud government of Israel about UN Resolution 242 and the multi-billion dollars in US aid in the same letter to the Israeli prime minister.
Every Israeli government since 1967 has ignored UNSC 242, not just Likud governments.
Maybe they were trying to baptize themselves? Maybe they thought they could walk on water?
More serious is ABC news this morning repeating the lie that $716 billion is being taken from Medicare to pay for Obamacare. This lie was immediately on the back of the drunken skinny-dipping story that was very past but the Obama lie was a long segment with the lie told repeatedly in a segment about “Romney finally has an issue that resonates with the American people”.
Read my diary – ‘Substantive and Rigorous’ Galilee Trip Paid for by AIPAC
An insult to the hosts?! Are you SERIOUS?
People have simply gone insane. The FBI investigates skinny-dipping?
Yoder is being investigated for corruption.
There were women in the group.
They’re not investigating the skinny dipping, it’s to do with lobbyist funding of the trip.
Who care, indeed. And yet there sure was a lot of caring when Wiener ripped of his clothes in a private internet message.
Just wondering: is there some Israeli law about not touching the Sea of Galilee? Or just not while drunk? Does nobody else go in the water? Does doing so bring on Armageddon?
We need a 3fer. The skinny dipping episodes is tossing skivvies at the Party of Decorum; the rape comment disaster has Rove pulling superpac $ from the race; Cornyn, Michael Steele, McConnell & Scarborough publicly voicing disgust.
What we need now is to follow Boo’s call and gin up pushback on the big Medicare LIE. We need a face and Ryan’s been out there lying without getting caught for too long.