What Did Paul Broun (R-GA) Contribute To The Mayhem In Arizona? A Guest Post From Russell Edwards

We first came across a young attorney, Russell Edwards, last August when he was campaigning for a House seat held by radical right fanatic and John Bircher Paul Broun (R-GA). Russell wrote a thoughtful guest post for us at the time and he's written another one today. I have to admit, Blue America is trying to persuade him to run against Broun again in 2012. In November Broun took 137,263 of the votes to Russell's 66,574, a respectable first-time effort with no help whatsoever from the DCCC. In fact, Russell won in Athens (Clarke County) with 63% of the vote and did respectably well in Richmond County (Augusta). Broun spent $1,786,409 on the race and Russell spent $218,078-- just a million and a half less. We'll keep pushing him; I was encouraged by the clear-thinking behind his analysis of what happened in Tucson over the weekend. Russell Edwards:

The point-blank shot in the head received by Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords along with the murder of 6 others, including a Federal Judge, shook the nation over the weekend, leaving folks wondering how something like this could happen in America. Frankly, I believe now is a good time for us to examine the words of our Congressman and whether or not he needs to tone down his vicious rhetoric. Before you fly off the handle and claim I’m using this tragedy for political gain, please hear what I have to say.  

Paul Broun Jr. is a public official. With his office comes heightened responsibility and an expectation for a sense of decorum. However, our Rep. routinely disgraces his office by spreading conspiracy theories which threaten the existence of our democracy. His conspiratorial claim during the health care reform negotiations that “they’re going to give your grandmother narcotics until she catches pneumonia and dies” was particularly gruesome. You see, when conspiracies are propounded from an elected office, they achieve a greater sense of legitimacy-- a sense of legitimacy which can wreak havoc in the mind of a mentally unstable, fully-armed boy like Saturday’s shooter.  

Is Paul Broun Jr. fully responsible for Saturday’s tragedy? No. But do his words often, in effect, create permission for acts of violence against our democratic government? Of course. Back on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, Paul Broun Jr. attended a 2nd Amendment rally on the Mall where he said: “Fellow patriots, we have a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution, and they're right down the Mall, in the Congress of the United States... The 2nd Amendment is all about us protecting ourselves from a tyrannical government." Should Paul Broun Jr. be so shocked, as he claimed last Sunday, that someone took the life of one of the “domestic enemies of the Constitution” who voted to create “death panels?”

In the Rolling Stone yesterday Matt Taibbi asks that we also not overlook the role of the ratings-driven media in helping haters like Broun create an atmosphere conducive to this kind of tragedy. "I think," he writes, "the reason that many people are going to be criticizing right-wing rhetoric in particular in the wake of the Giffords incident is not for what people like Rush and Sarah Palin say openly, but precisely because their underlying message is suspect. I think it's pretty clear that in many cases, and especially with people like Beck, their hottest rhetoric is delivered with a conspiratorial wink, as in, "I'd be more explicit about the threat your political enemies pose, but I can't. But you know what I'm trying to say about them, and about what has to be done." Beck in particular gets his market share by going further in that direction than his competitors." And our old pal Nicole Sandler has put together a little video that demonstrates his point-- and Russell Edwards'.



More on Georgia at 10AM (PT)-- although from a very different perspective.


UPDATE: More Threats From Right-Wing Fanatics Against Democratic Congressmen (From Tucson)

In the past we've covered the violence from right-wing terrorists perpetrated against Raul Grijalva, the other Democratic congressman from Tucson. Apparently, the level of threats have increased since Saturday but Capitol Hill police hasn't increased what passes for vigilance. According to the Huffington Post, Grijalva's office has reported "at least two very credible threats" to the division, yet the Capitol Police responded by directing the office to the Tucson Police. In the past, said the aide, the Capitol Police would immediately send the FBI to investigate the source of the threat to determine its seriousness. Late Monday night, the threats division called Grijalva's office to apologize for the slow response, said the aide, but still had little interest in the threats. "It's like they don't pay attention," the aide said. "He's a very polarizing figure. He's been in Tucson politics for over thirty years. He's lived in Tucson his whole life. There are people who are gunning for him." Literally.

Do You Believe In Monsters? Allow Will Bunch To Re-Introduce You To Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)

Yesterday Will Bunch's new book, The Backlash: Right-wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama, was published. We'll call it "The Backlash" from now on and, as you can see, we put it right between Over the Cliff by John Amato and Dave Neiwert and American Taliban by Markos Moulitsas, this summer's 3 must-read political books. You might know Will as a HuffPo blogger or for his work at Media Matters, Attytood or at the Philadelphia Daily News or because of his provocative first book, Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future. Will immediately caught my attention by publishing an excerpt at Salon yesterday, The Right-wing Congressman Made For The Obama Age. "Paul Broun," he started, "is the perfect embodiment of the right-wing backlash that has greeted Barack Obama's presidency." In early August Russell Edwards, the Democrat running for the seat Broun is occupying, did a guest post here at DWT explaining why Broun is "one of the most dangerous politicians in the nation."

Will has given me permission to use some excerpt from his new book but before you start reading it, take a look at this speech Paul Broun gave at a John Birch Society gala. This is the Republican Party of Paul Broun and his cronies in Congress:

Two months after the John Birch speech, Broun joined his Georgia congressional colleague Gingrey in attending a closed-door conference supported by some of the more extreme elements of this so-called “grassroots movement.” The National Liberty Unity Summit in Washington was co-sponsored by several groups that have been cited as right-wing extremist groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That would include the Oath Keepers, who were quite active in organizing and promoting the December 2009 event, which sought to organize the disparate “Patriot” groups that were either created or were gaining strength in the first year of Obama’s presidency.

A photo from the event shows a smiling Broun posing with a key organizer, Georgia conservative activist Nighta Davis and with Maryland pastor David Whitney, a leading activist in the Constitution Party and a senior instructor for the Institute on the Constitution. The Constitution Party-- which the Southern Poverty Law Center has branded “the most extreme right-wing political party in the United States,” citing its 2004 platform that called for undoing every amendment since 1913 (that includes woman voting and the income tax) and extreme views on immigration and abortion-- was also a major co-sponsor of the conference attended by Broun. One of the featured speakers was the leader of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a group founded by Glenn Beck’s favorite extremist author Cleon Skousen in 1971 as-- in the words of Salon’s Alexander Zaitchik-- “a research organization devoted to the study of the super-conspiracy directed by the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds.” 

Others on the agenda included Walter Reddy of the Committees of Safety-- who produced a 1996 documentary calling the Oklahoma City bombing “an inside job”-- as well as Houston Tea Party activist Dale Robertson, later dogged by controversy when a picture surfaced of him bringing a sign comparing Congress to the (misspelled) N-word to a 2009 rally, and the Oath Keepers’ David Gillie.
 
These were the extreme fringes that echoed off the hillsides of Knob Creek and had animated the Oath Keepers and their paranoid fantasies about urban concentration camps and practice drills for the “Obama gun confiscation” and that rallied to the support of “Sheriff Joe” with their crude signs. Now these far-right groups that had always been way out there on the edge weren’t just growing in size since Obama’s inauguration but here were two members of the United States Congress bestowing a brand of legitimacy that was almost priceless. In return, Broun appeared as a leader, albeit not as the representative of the 10th Congressional District in Northeast Georgia but of an amorphous place that you could call Oath Keeper Nation. The risk going forward was that Tea Party anger within the gerrymandered far-right districts of Red America might lead in 2010 and beyond to a much larger political wing of Paul Brouns, and America’s paranoia-fueled political gridlock will only get worse.  

Organizers of the right-wing summit understood and appreciated the gift that Broun bestowed upon them. “He is a statesman,” Nighta Davis, who planned the event and lives within his 10th Congressional District in Georgia. He recalls Broun spending time with the summit’s 2nd Amendment Committee, which included the abovementioned Walter Reddy as well as Larry Pratt, the executive director of the Gun Owners of America, a group frequently described as “the NRA on steroids”; Pratt himself has been called “a gun rights absolutist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which also criticized him for playing footsie, in essence, with militia groups during the 1990s. It’s not known what Broun and Pratt discussed but five months later Broun will be the only one of the 435 members of the House to address a much debated 2nd Amendment March on Washington that was spearheaded by Pratt.      

“We had a nice talk, about how the 2nd Amendment is not really functioning the way the Founders intended it to,” recalls the militia enthusiast Reddy of his meeting with Broun, when contacted by phone. Apparently, Reddy didn’t get a chance to tell the congressman about his documentary purporting to expose the U.S. government’s involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing, but he did lobby for his current pet cause of establishing true state militias that would be independent from the National Guard or any federal authority.

If you don't think Paul Broun is a real danger to this country and to our way of life, you probably slept through history class. Russell Edwards has a game plan to send him into early retirement-- something every one of us should consider contributing to.

Arguably, no member of Congress has ridden anger and paranoia against Barack Obama from the back bench of the Capitol to the front of the headlines louder than Paul Broun Jr. Practically no one outside the winding tin-roof-rusted highways east of Athens had even heard of Broun, until the days that immediately followed the election of that first African-American commander-in-chief. In early November 2008, Broun -- who’d only been in office for about 18 months -- told a reporter for the Associated Press that he was worried that President-elect Obama had the potential to put America on the path to a dictatorship in the style of Marxist Russia or Nazi Germany.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base ..." Those are nine words that a congressman should never say to a journalist, but now Broun was rolling. He insisted he was alarmed by a suggestion that then-candidate Obama had uttered that summer for a national service corps, and that he was worried that such a corps could be used to take away guns from citizens. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany," he said. "I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road." The comments created a minor, brief firestorm with all the usual hallmarks -- liberal blog outrage, and Broun’s statement that he apologized "to anyone who has taken offense at that," quickly followed by his insistence that his apology wasn’t really an apology. In fact, Broun had achieved maybe the greatest accomplishment of his congressional career, which was shifting the so-called Overton window-- a political theory on how extreme statements can shift the boundaries of what become acceptable speech (adopted by Glenn Beck as the title of his 2010 novel)-- on what could be openly said about the new president.

Meanwhile, some people around the country-- joined by some voters in Broun’s own 10th District-- were starting to ask, just who is this guy, anyway? There was a time when Paul Broun Jr. asked the same question of himself. It happened in 1986, when the 40-year-old baby boomer was into booze and into his fourth marriage already-- and having problems with both. Broun was at an NFL football game and drinking heavily when he noticed the fan who was a quasi-celebrity back during the Reagan years, the guy with the crazy rainbow-haired wig who stood in the end zone seats with the sign, "John 3:16." Broun said in a speech on the floor of Congress after his election to Congress two decades later that he was captivated by this "gentleman with this big type hair wig on." A few weeks later, after another fight with his new wife, he took out a Bible, read the verse, and decided to dedicate his life to Christ. (Ironically, it was the exact same year and at the same age that George W. Bush quit drinking as well.) Broun now considers his odyssey to the corridors of power the result of Jesus’ calling. He fails to add the kicker to the story, that the wig-wearing fan, a fellow named Rollen Stewart, is currently serving three life sentences for kidnapping.

...A family doctor who treated Jimmy Carter’s relatives in South Georgia for a number of years, Broun declared bankruptcy in the early 1980s. A federal judge ruled-- according to news accounts in Athens-- that Broun "falsified financial documents in an effort to obtain a loan and misrepresented his assets and debts during bankruptcy proceedings" and ordered him to pay nearly $70,000 to an Americus bank. According to a bankruptcy complaint, the young family doctor "has a reputation of having an extravagant lifestyle evidenced by the acquisition of a number of expensive rare hunting books, expensive rare ceramic items related to hunting, safari to Africa, expensive gun collection and the acquisition of the very best in everything purchased." He had to pay more than $61,000 in back taxes to the IRS, and one of his ex-wives even took him to court for alimony and child support. There was a time when that kind of résumé would have sunk a would-be politician, but the 21st century has proven to be remarkably kind to past sinners who adopt the language of 12-step recovery-- just ask Glenn Beck how that works-- and even awards bonus points when Christianity is involved.

Broun joined the Baptist Church, sobered up, but failed dismally in his early efforts in GOP politics, losing two congressional primaries and receiving a dismal 3 percent in a 1996 bid for the U.S. Senate. Still, Broun entered a 10-candidate special election when that district’s longtime Republican congressman, Charlie Norwood, died of cancer in 2007. He gained the runoff with a surprising second-place finish, but was universally predicted to face crushing defeat by the Republicans’ handpicked candidate, a state senator named Jim Whitehead. In fact, Whitehead-- from Augusta at the other end of the district-- was so cocky that he didn’t campaign in Athens for the runoff, even after it was dredged up that he’d once joked he’d like to see all of the University of Georgia bombed, except for the football team. Broun won a stunning narrow upset thanks to 90 percent of the vote from Athens. The most liberal city in Georgia had just unwittingly elected the most conservative congressman in America. Conservative-watching journalist David Weigel, then with Reason magazine, called Broun "the accidental congressman."

Voters soon found out just how conservative Broun really was. He was one of only four member in Congress to vote against a $20 million program to help kids in drug-infested neighborhoods and even joined just two other colleagues on opposing money for a registry for Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS. Asked about that by Weigel, Broun whipped out his pocket Constitution and insisted there was nowhere that it was written that the federal government could do these things. "I’d say most of the things this Congress does, we don’t actually have the authority to do," the freshman insisted.

There was one thing, however, that the born-again congressman did think the government had the authority to do-- ban the sale of Playboy and other racy magazines on U.S. military bases. Broun’s Military Honor and Decency Act-- which an aide boosted by touting the congressman’s medical qualifications as an "addictionologist"-- was the only piece of legislation that he authored in that first term. What’s more, it turned out that Broun’s aversion to government spending applied to legislation but not to taxpayer dollars that could help him out politically. In 2008, during his tough reelection battle, Broun spent so much on taxpayer-funded mail to his constituents that his office nearly ran out of money to pay staff and maintain district offices.

Last night I got in touch with Russell Edwards. He had read the excerpt as well. He told me "Will's report uncovered important details, but the story goes on. Last Spring, Broun, Jr. received a one-man bailout after running GA's McIntosh Commercial Bank into the ground. The FDIC was forced to intervene to protect depositors, finding McIntosh to be the weakest bank in GA, with an estimated $246 million dollars in bad loans on the books." One more time: Russell Edwards; better safe than sorry. The damage Broun can do goes way beyond the borders of his Georgia congressional district.

Blue Dogs Want Blood... Fresh

Like vampires, Blue Dogs need fresh blood to survive. Yesterday several of the worst of the pack crossed the aisle into Republicanville, voting against federal aid to states seeking to keep teachers teaching, firefighters fighting fires and policemen policing. One of them, Bobby Bright, also joined Boehner and the Republicans in insisting on a paid two-month vacation in the expectation that the new Congress will be more conservative and less likely to want to do anything to help working families than the current one. (Fellow Blue Dogs Mike McIntyre, Charlie Melancon, Walk Minnick and Glen Nye, as well as corporate shill Michael McMahon, joined Bright on that one.) It's stunts like that though, which may please some Republicans in their districts, that absolutely drive core Democratic voters insane. And therein lies the problem for the reactionary Blue Dog caucus.

A few days ago we looked at how Henry Waxman was predicting how Congress would be better if without some of these Blue Dogs even if it meant a smaller Democratic majority. And then Monday Alex Isenstadt, writing at Politico, delved a little more deeply into the Blue Dog dilemma. The caucus, filled with odd men out, is hemorrhaging members, either because they eventually realize that no matter what their racist papa was, in 2010 they are Republicans, or because the voters make that realization first and they lose re-election bids, as is likely to happen to many of the worst of them in November.

Until now I only knew of one new recruit, a lackluster Florida reactionary named Lori Edwards who is likely to lose her August 24th primary battle to progressive Democrat Doug Tudor. Lately I've talked with several Democrats who the Blue Dogs may have thought they could recruit but who have made it clear that they're not interested. Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet was actually leaning towards the Blue Dogs-- he likes their purported and much ballyhooed "fiscal discipline"-- but then saw their devious role in the battle over health care reform and pulled away. And last week we met Georgia Democrat Russell Edwards who told us he didn't feel the Blue Dog caucus was a good fit either. "I am a progressive Democrat and have no plans to join the Blue Dog Caucus should I be elected. They have done absolutely nothing to help me, and I’m not courting them with talk about more tax cuts for the wealthy. I’m speaking candidly about how my District should fight to create jobs and support our schools. Issues that are important to build a strong middle class and ensure every one has a chance to live a life of dignity and respect." Others, however, primarily Southern racists, are eager to run with the pack.

Blue Dogs are throwing their support to a group of like-minded conservative Democrats that includes Steve Raby in Alabama’s 5th District, Chad Causey in Arkansas’ 1st District, Roy Herron in Tennessee’s 8th District, Trent Van Haaften in Indiana’s 8th District and Stephene Moore in Kansas’ 3rd District.

If elected, these hopefuls would join a thinned Blue Dog group in the upcoming 112th Congress. Reps. John Tanner and Bart Gordon of Tennessee, Marion Berry of Arkansas and Dennis Moore of Kansas are all retiring, while Reps. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana and Charlie Melancon of Louisiana are waging Senate campaigns. Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman who started the cycle as a Blue Dog, switched to the Republican Party in 2009 before losing his seat in a primary.

The list of outgoing Blue Dogs outpaces the 110th Congress, in which the only Blue Dog who retired was Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer. Meanwhile Reps. Nick Lampson of Texas, Tim Mahoney of Florida and Don Cazayoux of Louisiana-- all freshmen-- lost their campaigns for reelection.

Causey, a former Berry chief of staff who is running for his one-time boss’s Jonesboro-area seat, said the turnover allowed for an infusion of new leadership into the influential coalition, whose focus on fiscal conservatism has put it at odds with the national party on issues including the health care overhaul and the economic stimulus package.

“People come and people go. Sometimes it provides some fresh air into the House. It gets a little musty in there sometimes, and it lets you gets some fresh ideas onto the table,” he said.

Causey, Herron, Van Haaften and Moore, who is the wife of Dennis Moore, are looking to fill seats of departing Blue Dogs. Raby, a former chief of staff for Alabama Sen. Howell Heflin, is running for the conservative-leaning 5th District seat that had been held by Griffith and, prior to him, Cramer.

Raby and Van Haaften secured their endorsements last week after meeting with groups of local Blue Dogs, according to their campaigns. Raby huddled with Reps. Travis Childers of Mississippi, Bobby Bright of Alabama, Allen Boyd of Florida and Tanner, while Van Haaften met with Indiana Reps. Joe Donnelly, Baron Hill, and Ellsworth, whose seat he is seeking.

The Blue Dog endorsement typically provides candidates with an opportunity to distinguish themselves from party leaders.

As you can see in this ad, one of the worst and most despicable of the current batch, Joe Donnelly, was so eager to distinguish himself from "party leaders" that his ad makes it clear that Pelosi and Obama are no friends of his.



Donnelly, of course, on the DCCC's must-save-the-asshole list and they'll be spending close to a million dollars on his campaign in the hope that he will return to Congress and continue voting an anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-healthcare line, while denigrating Obama and Pelosi. That's Debbie Wasserman Schultz's brilliant strategy. Meanwhile, the DCCC won't left a finger to support any of the progressive challengers, not even official party candidates like Justin Coussoule, Bill Hedrick, Billy Kennedy, and Beth Krom running against some of the most monstrous Republicans walking the face of earth, respectively, John Boehner, Ken Calvert, Virginia Foxx and John Campbell. Blue America supports the good guys; you can too: no consultants and no Blue Dogs.

A Guest Post From Russell Edwards (D-GA)-- Who I Am: Progressive

First a little introduction of my own: In 1821, extolling the virtues of the still young Republic, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, noted that we do not go "abroad in search of monsters to destroy." That was then. And, anyway, he never said we don't search them out domestically. Not that we have to search very far. Yesterday Rep. Joe Sestak pointed out Pat Toomey's motley picks. Our own Blue America contest, There's A Republican For That, is turning up some real doozies too. In fact, we got a lot of incredible recommendations even over and above the obvious monsters like Michele Bachmann, Sharron Angle, David Rivera and, obviously, Pat Toomey. One name that came up over and over again was Georgia firebrand Paul Broun. My friend Bertis, who lives in Athens, Georgia, in the heart of Broun's district, suggested I look into the progressive Democrat running against him, Russell Edwards. So I did.

I called Edwards and asked him if, like so many white Southern Democrats, he would metastasize into some kind of a reactionary Blue Dog voting with the Republicans against the interests of ordinary working families should he, by the grace of God, find himself sitting in Congress come January. I was more than happy with his answer and asked him to write a guest post for DWT, introducing himself. If you like what you see below, please consider donating to his campaign through our ActBlue page.

My name is Russell Edwards, and I’m the Democratic Nominee for U.S. Congress from GA’s 10th District. I’m facing off against incumbent PaulBroun, Jr., one of the most dangerous politicians in the nation according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Luckily, Broun, Jr. is also a pitiful fundraiser and only has a little over 130k cash on hand. In our first quarter, we raised over 100k and are closing on him fast.

GA’s Tenth includes Athens and Augusta-- two Democratic strongholds-- along with a smattering of rural NE GA. There are strong pockets of African-American communities, helping to explain the fact that Democrats Michael Thurmond and Thurbert Baker have carried the 10th every time they have run for statewide office. Broun, Jr. won in a special election in 2007 in what the Athens newspaper called “the greatest political upset in GA history.”

Since Broun’s victory, he has fought hard to be the most embarrassing politician in America. Here’s a short vid of his greatest hits:



I am a progressive Democrat and have no plans to join the Blue Dog Caucus should I be elected. They have done absolutely nothing to help me, and I’m not courting them with talk about more tax cuts for the wealthy. I’m speaking candidly about how my District should fight to create jobs and support our schools. Issues that are important to build a strong middle class and ensure every one has a chance to live a life of dignity and respect.

The Blue Dogs perhaps lost me forever during the health care reform debate. During that time, Broun Jr. was a key apparatchik in the Republican fear-mongering machine. He told full rooms of senior citizens that “if they pass this bill, they’re going to give your grandmother narcotics until she catches pneumonia and dies.” At the same time, I launched my own forum series that focused on the need for reform and how best to achieve it. How could I possibly have sided with Broun Jr. and so many Blue Dogs who voted against the final health care reform bill? To me, it was clear the abuses of the private health insurance industry had to be reigned in. These companies were denying insurance to battered women, claiming the abuse they received was a pre-existing condition for Christ’s sake!

Growing up, I came to realize the importance of helping those in my community who were unable to help themselves. I saw the truth that people suffer everyday in our country often for reasons outside their control. Today, it seems the Blue Dogs have strayed too far from empathy-- comfortable to gain as much power as possible through corporate fundraising dollars. Why else would one vote against a bill banning pre- existing conditions? And don’t even give me that weak tea that you voted against it because it didn’t do enough-- your campaign contributions deceive you.

As we mentioned Thursday night, it looks like Henry Waxman has come to much the same conclusion. And by the way, that report Russell referred to above from the Southern Poverty Law Center... it's worth reading their whole statement on why they see Paul Broun as "an enabler" of violence and terrorism:

A medical doctor who makes house calls only to avoid "bureaucratic encumbrances," far-right U.S. Rep. Paul Broun took over Georgia's 10th Congressional District after the death of Charlie Norwood in 2007. Since then, Broun has become a pal of the antigovernment Patriot movement, warning in apocalyptic terms of a coming socialist takeover by Barack Obama and his allies.

This April 19, 15 years to the day after the Oklahoma City bombing, Broun is scheduled to join several Patriot leaders at the Second Amendment March in Washington, D.C. On the agenda that day with Broun are Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, a group that suspects the government has plans to round up Americans and put them in concentration camps, and Gun Owners of America's Larry Pratt, a fan of militias who has been criticized for ties to white supremacists.

Broun says gun rights are necessary to "prevent treason in America."

Fearmongering and fundraising with Paul Broun

Saying Broun is a fierce critic of the president would be an understatement. Broun has alleged that a civilian reserve corps that Obama proposed, and the Bush administration endorsed, might be used to establish a dictatorship. "We can't be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany," Broun said in 2008. 

A "birther," Broun has openly questioned Barack Obama's citizenship. When asked by a radio host whether Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen or a Christian, both established facts, Broun responded, "I don't know." Broun also calls Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro Obama's "good buddy."

Last year, Broun told his constituents that the health care bill was the work of a "socialistic elite"-- referring to Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid-- who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law. "They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically." At a 2009 town hall, he called Pelosi "a domestic enemy of the Constitution."

So far, Broun's legislative work has been scant. In 2009, Broun voted against a climate-change bill, calling the concept of manmade global warming a "hoax" perpetrated by the scientific community. In 2009, he proposed legislation proclaiming 2010 "The Year of the Bible." Earlier, he introduced the "Military Honor and Decency Act" that would ban sales of pornography on military installations. The bill has gone nowhere.

UPDATE: So What's The Most Famous Band From Athens?

The members of REM have not just contributed to Russell's campaign, they're co-hosting a fundraising event for him as well. Wow! It's like Hollywood! Maybe Broun can counter with Ted Nugent or get Bound For Glory to come down from Minnesota-- unless they're too busy working to reelect Michele Bachmann.