Michele Bachmann calls American Jews sellouts

From an interview she did with SPLC-designated “hate group leader” Tony Perkins yesterday, we learned (via TPM) that

Michele Bachmann is deeply disappointed with the American Jewish community for supporting President Barack Obama, whose policies she believes will reduce Israel to “rubble.”

1. Always good to tell people in a group you aren’t part of how they should feel and whom they should support.

2. Her religious support for Israel is based upon the premise that Jesus can’t come back unless a vibrant Israel is restored…and converted to Christianity…and then destroyed by The End of The World. (Really a fair-weather kind of support, isn’t it?) So why is she complaining about Israel being reduced to “rubble”? (Also: what rubble? The settlements are bigger than ever. I know she’s talking about the Iran sanctions, but still: c’mon son.)

3. When you say AIPAC — of all possible organizations to cite — has “sold out Israel” you’re officially so far outside the mainstream you don’t even know what the concept of a stream is.
michele-bachmann-eyes

Bachmann wants to use nukes vs. a cyber attack

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) revved up a huge crowd in Minneapolis by saying the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty would limit American response options to a diverse range of threats… including preventing a nuclear retaliation against a cyber attack. Whoa there, cowboy! Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly):

To be sure, attacks on a country’s computer networks can be severely damaging. But even Bachmann, as confused as she is, has to realize that responding to a cyber attack with a nuclear bomb would be the most insane act in the history of humanity. Does she understand what a nuclear bomb does?

So to answer Bachmann’s question, no, the United States will not use a nuclear arsenal to respond to a cyber attack. That doesn’t mean we’d welcome a cyber attack; it doesn’t mean we’d let a cyber attack slide; it doesn’t mean our conventional weapons couldn’t serve as a sufficient deterrent.

 
It’s been said that the banning of above-ground nuclear weapons tests has been a major factor in an increasingly clueless American population on what power nukes really have. My entire generation and everyone after is post-Cold War, so we’re generally even more detached. The argument goes that without these tests to remind people visually of the awesome power of them, nuclear weapons become a dangerous abstraction. However, there are serious environmental and global health consequences to above-ground tests, which is partly why we don’t do them now.

But when elected officials like Bachmann start saying crazy stuff like this, I start to agree that America might benefit from one or two big, new tests just to jog the collective memory of the country.

Actual footage of Operation Castle Bravo:

You don’t screw around with nukes.

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.