Who's Behind the Obama-Bashing Billboard?

Have you seen the hysterical/apocalyptic "STOP OBAMA" billboard on southbound I-95 just past Palm Beach International Airport? It warns people that Greek-style financial Armageddon is "COMING HERE SOON!" It's complete with images of cities ablaze, cops in riot gear, and stone-throwing mobs of face-masked anarchists. Yikes!

"Tear down that billboard!"

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More About

• Barack Obama
• Eytan Laor
• Palm Beach International Airport
• Public Finance
• National Debt

This disaster impends, the billboard implies, because of the national debt — though what the debt actually consists of, how much of it is Obama's doing, how U.S. public finances compare with those of Greece, and various other details like what it all means are left to the viewer's inflamed imagination. But the takeaway is clear: First black president = chaos in the streets.

This billboard is funded, it turns out, by Aventura-based political action committee American Principles, an Israelcentric organization. American Principles is the brainchild of one Eytan Laor, a Miami-based political operative whose fundraising goes to GOP candidates whose sole litmus test is fervent support of Israel. That leaves plenty of room for political crackpots, hotheads, screwups, and the ethically challenged (not that the categories are mutually exclusive).

Laor's favored include "most corrupt" David Rivera (R-FL), multiply-troubled Joe Walsh (R-IL), Muslim-basher Renee Ellmers (R-NC), homophobe Denny Rehberg (R-MT), whoremonger David Vitter (R-LA), and, inevitably, not-quite-clinically-insane Allen West (R-FL).

"Conservative compass" Chris Ruddy and "South Beach Diet" doctor Arthur Agatston are the highest-profile figures on Laor's donor list. Lesser-knowns include Delray Beach pain doctor Jeffrey Zipper, Boca Raton orthodontist/political activist Larry Kawa and — most striking — Hollywood's Falic family, America's foremost Likudniks.

American Principles isn't the biggest snake in the campaign finance grass by any means; the $194K it's raised this year is small potatoes in a post-Citizens United age, when superPACs raise eight-figure sums and billionaire global gambling czar Sheldon Adelson doles out $5 million a pop. Neither do we mean to say that what to do about the national debt is not fair political game. But reasoned debate on current affairs does not result from propagandistic terrorism and a panic-stricken electorate. Mr. Laor: Tear down that billboard!