A new tape posted on Glenn Beck's political website, The Blaze, purportedly shows a former Service Employees International Union official sharing plans to "destabilize the country."
In the seven-minute video, a voice that sounds like Stephen Lerner, the former director of private equity at the SEIU pictured above, details plans to "bring down the stock market," bankrupt major U.S. banks and create an environment where a weakened financial sector cedes power to union organizers and the middle class in general.
The talk purportedly happened at a closed session at Pace University over the weekend. The plan, which smacks of socialist fantasy, is to bankrupt the nation's banks by convincing students, homeowners and city and state governments to stop paying their loans in a coordinated debt strike.
Given past episodes of "shocking" recordings proving less shocking upon review, as well as The Blaze's strong conservative leanings, this should probably be taken with a deep dose of skepticism. That said, earlier this month, The Blaze did publish a fair-minded report on the misleading editing job of James O'Keefe's NPR sting, which shifted the public perception of the hit job.
Business Insider's Henry Blodget has picked the up the Stephen Lerner story though noting that he couldn't verify Lerner's voice.
What saith Media Matters, the liberal watchdog group that makes a habit out of aggressively dismissing such videos? Thus far the group is just posting stand-alone excerpts from Glenn Beck's show this morning. We'll update if anything more comes of Lerner's anti-capitalist coup plans. Here's the video:
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