The
candidates are coming! The candidates are coming! The next presidential
election is three years away, but already the fringe hopefuls are coming out of
the woodwork to visit NH to test the waters. Or cast the maple leaves. (Note to candidates: careful with maple
syrup. Ask Rick Perry.) Or maybe just to fatten their PAC funds. In any case,
it’s time to make a fresh batch of popcorn and settle in to take a look at the
first round of hopefuls who have
no chance of reaching the White House.
Former
Florida Congressman Allen West will be the keynote speaker at the Nashua
Republican Committee’s annual “Steak Out” fundraiser in August. West is a big
favorite of the Tea Party crowd. West is indeed a colorful character, so much
so that he lost his GOP seat in Florida, of all places, to a Democrat. These
days, he’s a paid commenter at Fox News. He recently told Sean Hannity that we
should elect someone who has been “called” to be president. Voices in his head?
God? Wrong number? Stay tuned.
In the wake of President Obama’s remarks
about racism in the US, West was quick to say he’d never experienced any such
thing as a boy in inner city Atlanta, because HIS parents brought him up to be
respectful. His respectful nature fails when it comes to women. In 2011 he
called colleague Debbie Wasserman Schultz, “despicable, vile, and not a lady.”
Before being elected to Congress, West was a monthly contributing writer to a
biker magazine that regularly featured misogynistic material, including one
article asking readers to imagine having sex with the aforementioned
Congresswoman. Other pieces referred to women as “oral relief stations.” If
Allen West were coming toward my car, I would lock the doors post haste.
West
was forced to retire from the Army after he admitted to watching his men beat
an Iraqi policeman that West suspected of planning an ambush. West fired a gun
near the man’s head to scare him into divulging the details of the alleged
ambush. There weren’t any. There was no plot, as all investigations revealed,
despite West’s claims that his actions saved lives. Far from being repentant,
he campaigned on being proud of his actions. In some circles, torture and
detainee abuse is something to be proud of, along with Islamophobia.
That
leads us to noted Islamophobe, Congressman Peter King of NY, who will be
speaking to the Carroll County Republicans in August, and the Strafford County
GOP in September. King is considering a run for president because he wants to
push a national dialogue about the need for a more robust national security.
Given that we are currently shoveling 58% of our federal discretionary budget
at the Dept. of Defense, one wonders how much more robusticity we can afford.
Rep. King was the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. The Dept. of
Homeland Security is one of two cabinet level federal agencies that are unable
to pass an audit. The other is the Pentagon.
King
was quite annoyed with Senator Aqua Buddha’s recent filibuster on drone
strikes, calling it a “trivial and unimportant debate.” King also recently
called for the prosecution of journalists who report on classified information.
He doesn’t seem to think that we have the right to know about the US surveillance
programs that came to light thanks to Edward Snowden. King would like to make
sure that you don’t sully your pretty little head with any knowledge of what
kind of things the government is up to in your name.
Tea
Partier Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is coming to headline a NH GOP fundraiser in
late August. He’s also going to be the keynote speaker at a Florida Tea Party
event hosted by the Koch Bros. funded group Americans for Prosperity.
Cruz
was elected to the Senate last year. This is the first time he’s held office. Cruz
was born in Canada to a father who was a Cuban citizen and an American mother.
There are some questions as to whether he’s eligible to be president on those
grounds. The rest of us have other questions about his eligibility.
Cruz
is a proponent of the Tea Party/John Bircher tin foil hat brigade on the issue
of Agenda 21. Cruz thinks it’s a plot by George Soros who is leading the UN to
eliminate golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads. Senator Cruz
apparently slumbered through 2008, and thinks that turning the Social Security
Fund over to Wall Street is a good idea. He also believes that Sharia law is an
“enormous problem” in the United States, despite a lack of any evidence that
this is so. It’s GOP standard issue Islamophobia.
Cruz
is definitely a big bagful of nuts. He recently said that marriage equality would
lead to hate speech laws and the imprisonment of pastors who support
traditional marriage. Again, there’s no evidence that any group is moving
toward any such thing – but a lack of fact or evidence doesn’t seem to deter
the folks on the far right.
NH
GOP Chair Jennifer Horn calls Cruz, “one of the most principled and exciting
new leaders in the Republican Party.” This
is the same Jennifer Horn who has also said that the philosophy of the Free
State Project “is something that’s right in line with the Republican Party.”
The Free State Project is a group of libertarian anarcho-capitalists moving to
NH with the goal of taking over the state, dismantling state government, and
threatening to secede. They’re hoping to move 20,000 of their fellow Rand
worshippers to NH in time to swing the 2016 election. As people in some towns
and counties (notably Carroll, Strafford, and Belknap) can attest, they’re
already doing some very real damage. In a video of a panel discussion of Free
State office holders, Rep. Mark Warden said, “The Republican Party asked Carol
McGuire (also of the FSP) to recruit more FSP candidates.”
The
NH GOP has obviously learned nothing from their last round of electoral
defeats, and has every intention of continuing to merge with the fringiest of
the fringe. This first round of presidential wannabes are straight from the Mad
Hatter’s table.
Pass
the popcorn.
© 2013 sbruce
published as a bi-weekly column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper
© 2013 sbruce
published as a bi-weekly column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper
2 comments:
I'm looking forward to the 2016 republican primaries. They have a high bar to surpass the hijinks and shenanigans of the 2012 crowd, but I have faith this will be yet another reality show winner. I'm buying a case of popcorn.
My biggest concern is that elections, particularly the Presidential are not in fact fair and "democratic" but are "fixed" and have been for quite sometime. Going through the motions of voting is I believe merely that. A routine to make us believe our votes are actually valid. The fact that it has been virtually impossible to distinguish between Republican and Democrat is I feel further proof. We are now a one party nation headed into the abyss. Hail to heroes such as Snowdon and pray for his safety.
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