Tag: allen west
January 6 Capitol insurrection.

The Grand Old Party Is Now The Party Of Violence

A Republican running for Northampton County executive in Pennsylvania gave a heated address on August 29 about mask mandates in schools. Steve Lynch is tired, he said, of providing his school board arguments and data (he apparently thinks the data support letting kids go maskless), but the important thing about his rant is the threat of force: "Forget into these school boards with frigging data. ... They don't follow the law! You go in and you remove 'em. I'm going in there with 20 strong men."

That's the kind of language that Republicans are now employing. Lynch has not run for public office before, but he did attend the January 6 rally in Washington, D.C., and has posted on social media that the violence that day was a false-flag operation meant to discredit Trump supporters.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina spoke last week at an event sponsored by the Macon County Republican Party. He delivered the kind of lies that have become routine among some Republicans. The election was stolen — and not just the presidential contest but also that won by Gov. Roy Cooper (who defeated his opponent by a quarter of a million votes). Cawthorn told the crowd that vaccines are harmful to children and urged them to "defend their children." A woman asked what he plans to do about the "535 Americans who have been captured from January 6." Cawthorn, who has apparently heard this before, thundered, "Political hostages!" When someone in the crowd asked, "When are you gonna call us back to Washington?" he replied, "We are actively working on that one."

Insurrection talk is becoming Cawthorn's specialty: "If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it's going to lead to one place — and it's bloodshed."

Naturally, former President Donald Trump has endorsed him for "whatever he wants to do."

In neighboring Tennessee, the Williamson County school board was disrupted by anti-mask parents. As doctors and nurses testified that masks would help limit the spread of COVID-19, people cursed and threatened them: "We will find you!" "We know who you are!"

In Georgia, a mobile vaccination site had to be shut down after anti-vaccine protesters showed up to threaten and harass health care workers. "Aside from feeling threatened themselves, staff realized no one would want to come to that location for a vaccination under those circumstances, so they packed up and left," a spokeswoman for the state health department told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

A survey of the rest of the country yields yet more examples.

We are all old enough to remember a time when election workers were public-spirited citizens, usually elderly, who volunteered their time (or got very modest compensation) to sit for hours at polling sites scanning names from lists of voters and handing out little stickers. That America is gone, driven out by a radicalized Republican party. A number of states with Republican majorities have passed laws that would impose criminal fines of up to $25,000 for "offenses" such as permitting a ballot drop box to be accessible before early voting hours or sending an unsolicited absentee ballot application to a voter.

But that's not the worst of it. Election workers have been hounded and threatened. Bomb threats have been emailed to election sites. "You and your family will be killed very slowly," read a text message sent to Tricia Raffensperger after her husband, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, declined to "find" enough votes to flip the state to Trump. As many as 1 in 3 election workers has reported feeling unsafe, and thousands are resigning.

When Rep. Liz Cheney made the principled decision to vote for Trump's impeachment, she noted that one reason more Republicans might not have chosen to join her was that "there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives."

Republicans talk incessantly about other people's violence. The rioters who burned buildings after George Floyd's death. The criminals who make Chicago a murder capital. Immigrants who supposedly terrorize their host nation (they don't).

Criminal violence is a problem, but the kind of violence Republicans are now flirting with or sometimes outright endorsing is political — and therefore on a completely different plane of threat.

Kyle Rittenhouse, an ill-supervised teenager who decided to grab an AR-15 and shoot people at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, riot (killing two and wounding one) was lionized by the GOP. His mother got a standing ovation at a fundraiser in Waukesha. Ashli Babbitt has become a martyr. Allen West, former chair of the Texas GOP, speaks approvingly of secession. Former National Security Adviser and Trump confidant Michael Flynn suggests that we need a Myanmar-style coup. Some 28 percent of Republicans respond affirmatively to the proposition that "because things have gotten so far off track" in the U.S., "true American patriots may have to resort to violence" to save the country.

Maybe that's not so bad? Not even a third. Another poll framed it differently: "The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it." Fifty-six percent of Republicans agreed.

They are playing with fire. Nothing less than democratic legitimacy is on the line. These menacing signals suggest that Jan. 6 may have been the overture, not the finale.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her most recent book is Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com

Secession And Martial Law Obsess Right-Wing Media Outlets

Secession And Martial Law Obsess Right-Wing Media Outlets

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

After the Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to overturn the election, many far-right pro-Trump media figures, social media personalities, Republican Party officials, and former congressional candidates expressed support for secession from the United States or the use of the military to overturn the election which President Donald Trump lost.

The lawsuit sought, in a "seditious abuse of judicial process," to invalidate the election results from several swing states that contributed to President-elect Joe Biden's victory. This extreme attempt to overthrow our democracy garnered mainstream Republican support, with 17 GOP state attorneys general and more than half of House Republicans signing on in support of it.

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Allen West

Enraged By Supreme Court Defeat, Texas GOP Chair Suggests Secession

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

After the Supreme Court decisively shut down a lawsuit attempting to overturn the 2020 election, Texas GOP chair Allen West issued a disturbing statement floating the idea of possible secession over the result.

The case was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, though it was widely panned by legal experts. Some believed that Paxton, currently under investigation by the FBI, was using the lawsuit as a vehicle to win President Donald Trump's favor and obtain a presidential pardon. Despite its lack of merit, the president and his allies rallied behind the lawsuit, with Trump himself calling it "the big one" — apparently trying to distinguish it from the more than 50 additional failed election lawsuits filed on his behalf.

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Former Rep. Allen West (R) Slams ‘Cowardice’ Of U.S. Sailors: They Should’ve Started A War With Iran!

Former Rep. Allen West (R) Slams ‘Cowardice’ Of U.S. Sailors: They Should’ve Started A War With Iran!

Give some credit to Allen West, the former one-term congressman and ultra-hawk, for at least being consistent on the recent situation involving the U.S. Sailors taken into custody (and quickly released) by Iran. While most conservatives have lambasted the Obama administration for allegedly showing weakness, West knows who’s also to blame: The troops!

West is an Iraq War veteran whose military career ended when he tortured an Iraqi policeman to obtain a false confession — after which, he emerged as a star of conservative politics. In a blog post published yesterday, he railed against the U.S. personnel who didn’t further escalate the situation when they were in Iranian territorial waters.

West seemed to cast doubt on the official story that the boats had accidentally ended up in Iranian waters. “First of all, I find it odd that these Riverine craft were operating on an excursion from Kuwait to Bahrain. Why were they not hugging close to the coast line?” And if engines really malfunctioned, then a call for help should have been put in immediately.

But from there, West went on, all efforts should’ve been made to secure the boat and fight against any Iranians attempting to intercept them:

I find it rather disturbing that any Iranian watercraft were able to approach these two heavily armored assault boats. My question would be, was the on-board radar equipment operable? If so, then the approaching enemy craft would have been detected. That being the case, the officer in charge should have reported contact, verified that they were not friendly, and taken action to defend his position, his boats. That means warning shots should have been fired, if not heeded, and then the full power of these assault boats levied against the enemy watercraft — with situation reports being sent to higher command. We need to know why exactly those actions were not taken — and if the young officer in charge was told to not take any action. And if so, by whom.

The result of two U.S. Navy vessels being boarded and seized by an enemy — which is what the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy is — is disturbing. The images and video they took depicting our sailors on their knees in the position of surrender is damning. This, folks, is an act of war, and our sailors were captured. Let’s not try and use “nuanced” language.

Now, I’m sure there are those progressive socialist detractors who would say, Col. West, you would have started a war. And that is the exact example of cowardice from which the Iranians are now benefitting.

West also listed out the clauses of the U.S. military Code of Conduct, which include pledges to never surrender under one’s own free will, nor to cooperate with captors. (The troops participated in a televised message in Iran, saying that they had been treated humanely, and apologizing for their intrusion. It is not yet known whether they were under any duress.) West continued:

I did not make this up, and this is the code by which I lived for my 22 years in service — and would still do today. This whole episode is not in keeping with the Code of Conduct. But before we go and demonize a young naval officer, we need ask, did he take orders from someone else? There can be no doubt, after watching the video and the words spoken, there were countless violations of this code. Our honor calls upon us to fight, to resist, not surrender. The ramifications of not doing so means (sic) our honor is now being mocked and we’re seen as nothing more than cowards on our knees. Say what you wish, but that’s the perception in the Middle East, especially to our enemies.

He concluded by decrying the U.S. negotiations that secured the service members’ release, which was done so quickly and peacefully — part of a further pattern of weakness, West said, and he also somehow connected to the new policy changes to allow women in combat positions:

This is not as John Kerry, a former naval officer, stated. We showed no strength in our ability to negotiate. Our strength should have been in reporting that Iranian naval vessels attempted to seize two U.S. naval vessels, were engaged and then sunk. Our sailors recovered several Iranians from the sea who are being held. That is the message that should have been sent.

Instead the message is that the Americans surrendered and we also got $150B from them — ain’t that a daisy!

I pray this is not the result of the neutered Navy under the auspices of SecNav Ray Mabus, who’s more concerned about gender neutral duty positions. One thing for certain, there is one word to describe all of this.

FUBAR!

The phrase “FUBAR” is a military slang acronym, meaning “F*cked Up Beyond All Repair.”

(Hat tip The Hill.)

Photo: Former Rep. Allen West (R-FL), via Facebook.