12 Candidates Who Engage in Electoral Extremism

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/12-candidates-who-engage-electoral-extremism

Greg Brannon
Running for U.S. Senate
North Carolina
Republican Party

Tea Party-backed Greg Brannon, an anti-abortion obstetrician/gynecologist with no political experience, has pushed the falsehood, common at the extreme end of the anti-abortion movement, that abortion is linked to breast cancer. He serves as the medical director for Hand of Hope (HOH), a nonprofit that operates anti-abortion “pregnancy crisis centers.” He has described food stamps as being comparable to slavery and called for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Brannon often lauds the late North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, who never renounced his support for racial segregation, as an important influence and described him as a “modern hero.” Reflecting his view that states do not have to follow federal law, Brannon spoke at a rally in favor of “nullification” — the legally groundless doctrine that states can refuse to abide by federal law that was also espoused by the defenders of slavery and segregation — which was sponsored by the neo-secessionist League of the South, a hate group that seeks a return to “Anglo-Celtic” dominance and a theocratic state. Brannon has derided public education as “Marxist,” dismissed the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the American legal system and lambasted bipartisanship. In 2009, he launched an organization called Founder’s Truth, whose blog reposted articles steeped in antigovernment conspiracy theories from websites like InfoWars.com (the group’s website is now defunct, but Buzzfeed has screenshots). Brannon has come under fire for allegedly misleading investors in a technology company he co-founded that shut down in 2011, but he is still considered a frontrunner against incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagen.

Lee Bright
Running for U.S. Senate
South Carolina
Republican Party

Lee Bright, currently a conspiracist, Tea Party-supported state senator, is working to unseat veteran Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch conservative who is moderate on a few issues. Bright introduced a radical bill in 2013 that would end all abortions in South Carolina and has sponsored others of similarly dubious legality, including one bill that would criminalize the Affordable Care Act and another that would exempt the state from federal gun laws. Bright is also an antigovernment advocate of nullification (the unconstitutional idea that states can refuse to enforce federal laws) who has declared that the federal government is a “scam.” At a 2012 “Day of Resistance Rally” in Greenville, he made the strange claim that the Supreme Court may agree to dissolve the states. He has said immigrants should “self-deport,” asserted that able-bodied people who rely on food stamps “shouldn’t eat,” and accused Graham of being a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood. Bright would also like to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, which he claims the Obama administration is training as “Brown Shirts” to enforce the Affordable Care Act. In speeches to supporters, he has promoted the idea of reigniting the Civil War, wisecracking at one point, “If at first you don’t secede, try again.”

Angelo John Gage
Running for U.S. House, District 7
New Jersey
American Freedom Party

Angelo John Gage is a former Marine who says he served two tours of duty in Iraq. An unabashed racist and anti-Semite, he has a radio show on the white nationalist multimedia website The White Voice and he posts similarly themed videos on YouTube. Gage announced his intention to run for Congress on The White Voice and his Facebook page, saying, “I think we need someone just like me out in D.C. tearing these communists apart and exposing them for what they are.” The AFP’s mission statement says “[t]he American Freedom Party is a party that represents the interests and issues of White Americans and all Americans who support our mission” and it bills itself as a nationalist party “that shares the customs and heritage of the European American people.” (The party has cynically tried to downplay its racism, but its leader once promoted an amendment to the Constitution to require the deportation of any American with an “ascertainable trace of Negro blood” and its board includes several of the nation’s leading racist activists.) In 2012, Gage wrote on the racist Web forum Stormfront that he had just recently found out about “the real Jewish question and the whole ww2 and hitler truth.” It was a shock, he said, “but EVERYTHING connects and leads back to the jews — the evil jews.” In October 2013, Gage claimed in a YouTube video that “white genocide” is under way, a result of “massive uncontrolled 3rd world immigration to white countries only.” Gage can also be found blogging at The White Voice on such topics as the evils of synthetic sweeteners, good nutrition, and why womanizing — which he claims to have been a past master at, aided by his “good looks” — is bad for you.

Phil Hudok
Running for U.S. Senate
West Virginia

Constitution PaPhil Hudok is chairman of the West Virginia chapter of the theocratic and anti-LGBT Constitution Party and a former public school teacher with a history of Christian-based activism. In 2008, he and a handful of others successfully petitioned the Department of Motor Vehicles to delete their photos from digital databases, saying they violated their religious beliefs because digitized photos contain “the mark of the beast.” In 2012, Hudok’s daughter was banned from her high school because the family refused to comply with new vaccination requirements. Hudok went to court and the school was ordered to provide home educational services for his daughter, who also was allowed to participate in its commencement ceremony. Hudok manages the website of Call To Decision Ministries, which trafficks in 9/11 conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination myths like the idea that vaccines are used to sterilize the population, derogatory claims about immigrant “anchor babies” and “homos,” and the antigovernment “Patriot” conspiracy theory about a secret plot to form a socialistic global government known as the “New World Order.” On his site, Hudok asserts that he serves “God, family, and country in that order” and says that “The New World Order is an anathema to everything I believe in.”

[mwooldri]

1. The "good" news is that Mr. Brannon lost the primary.

Doesn't mean that Thom Tillis is a better choice though. Kay Hagan had better win... or else..

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2. i can't BELIEVE that race is tied.

tillis is a nightmare.