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Under cover of the coronavirus chaos and amidour national uprising, Republicans have quietly uprooted some of their most controversial right-wing members of Congress only to replace them with even more radical contenders for federal office, including devotees of the nonsensical QAnon conspiracy theory, ahead of this fall's election.

More than 10years after the Tea Party movement gave rise to the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus by targeting longtime incumbent Republicans who were deemed insufficiently right-wing, a recent set of wins by insurgent candidates over some of the most radical Republicans in Congress makes clear that the GOP has now passed every off-ramp on the road to extremism. While the mass Republican retirements ahead of the 2018 midterm elections greatly weakened the GOP, this cycle's purging of incumbents in safe red districts, will likely serve to further radicalize the GOP caucus.

On Saturday, in a novel case of voter suppression, a small group of Republicans in Virginia's 5th district voted to oust Rep. Denver Riggleman, a far-right Freedom Caucus member who voted with President Trump nearly 95% of the time since winning a competitive 2018 race amid a Democratic wave.

An Air Force veteran who favors the legalization of marijuana, but can hardly be described as a moderate, Riggleman ran afoul of his fellow Republicans when his libertarian leanings led him to officiate a same-sex wedding ceremony for two former campaign volunteers last year.

"I'd have been a coward if I didn't," Riggleman told NPR. "The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln, we're the party of individual liberty."

"The Republican Party, when you look at the creed to protect civil liberties and religious liberties, could be the most inclusive party in the country," Riggleman said on the campaign trail. "And you know, why aren't we a big-tent party? Why aren't we looking at liberties first? Why aren't we allowing people to live the way they want to live and stopping the government from reaching into every aspect of our lives?"

Instead, after losing every statewide race in the past decade and losing the entire General Assembly, Virginia Republicans decided that fighting equal rights for the LGBTQ community was the hill to die on, during Pride month no less. Due to the coronavirus, and in a process Riggleman claims was engineered to hurt his campaign, roughly 2,500 party activists cast ballots in a drive-through format in a parking lot. Although the district is larger than New Jersey, Republicans only allowed voting at one location a church in the winner's home area.

Bob Good, who defeated Riggleman in that primary, is a fundamentalist zealot and aformer athletics director at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Good essentially ran for office because he was upset by Riggleman's involvement in a gay wedding, calling Riggleman "out of step with the base of the party." A born-again evangelical Christian and staunch social conservative, Good wants to end birthright citizenship and opposes abortion for any reason even if the mother's life is in danger.

Republicans have a six-point registration edge in Virginia's rural 5th district, so in all likelihood Good will take office as an extremist backbencher who introduces wild bills that go nowhere. But there is a slim chance that Good won't even make the general election ballot this fall, as the Washington Post explains:

Good missed the Tuesday deadline for filing a key form related to his candidacy, but he hand-delivered the form to the state elections office on Friday afternoon, election officials said. The board of elections routinely offers extensions in cases like these, and changing election dates due to the coronavirus may have created confusion about the deadline.

This may just be Republicans shooting themselves in the foot. The district has been re-gerrymandered to offset declines in rural populations and growth in urban populations in the last two cycles because it's been harder and harder to maintain as a "safe" seat for the GOP each cycle. After Riggleman's loss this weekend, the Cook Political Report announced it will movethe Virginia 5thfrom "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican." If the GOP had just left this seat alone, it would have taken a lotfor a Democrat to unseat Riggleman, even in another wave election. Good winning this primary means that there's a slightly better chance for this seat to flip than there was before. It's also conceivable Rigglemanruns as a write-in Libertarian candidate, even just to play spoiler since he views the primary process as so rigged.

The notorious Rep. Steve King of Iowa is another right-wing incumbent who has already been booted from office this cycle. King, who has represented Iowa's 4th district in the northwestern part of the state since 2013, suffered a nearly double-digit defeat at the hands of state Sen. Randy Feenstra, who outraised King in the first quarter of the year by nearly $400,000.

It was the first defeat of King's career, who has long been outspoken about his radical views. He warned on Twitter that "cultural suicide by demographic transformation must end" and cautioned that Americans cannot "restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

After winning re-election by only three points in a deepred district in 2018, the nine-term Republican congressman was finally removed from three committee assignments by the leaders in his own party after he questioned the offensiveness of the term "white supremacist" in an interview with The New York Times.

Feenstra did not attack King forhis racism, however, instead touting his A+ rating from the National Rifle Association and endorsements from the Chamber of Commerce, former Iowa governor Terry Branstad and the National Right to Life Committee. With King's loss, the chances for a Republican pick-up appear further out of reach.

Republicans also appear poised to send at least one QAnon believer to Congress this fall. Roughly 50 QAnon supporters are running for Congress this year, according to Media Matters.

In May, Jo Rae Perkins won the Republican Senate primary in Oregon with more 49% of the vote against three other candidates. Shetold the New York Times, referring to the "Q" conspiracy theories,that "as people put together more and more pieces of the puzzle, they can see, yeah, this is real." She's been endorsed by Republicans in the state legislature and by the Republican candidate vying for Oregon's 4th congressional district.

"Q is a patriot," said Marjorie Taylor Greene in a YouTube video posted in 2017, referencing the anonymous seeder of the online theory that DonaldTrump is waging a secret war against a cabal of pedophile political elites.

On Tuesday, Greene beat six Republican candidates running for the seat left vacated by retiring Rep. Tom Graves of Georgia, qualifying for an August runoff against an an opponent she led in the first round by 20 points. The district is a safe Republican seat, and Greene claims to have the endorsement of Rep Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the leading House Republicans.

These Republican candidates who believe in a satanic, pedophile deep state, and want to purge any member who even participates in a same-sex wedding are supported by Republican officials andleadership, as well as the party'svoters. Forget what that says about these particular individuals and their campaigns what does it sayabout the Republican Party?

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GOP purges right-wing members from Congress to replace them with even more radical candidates - Salon

George Floyd's death at the hands of the Minneapolis police has sparked nationwide protests against police brutality. Anew consensus is forming around the urgent need for criminal justice reform.

Six years ago, after the police killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, just 43 percent of Americans believed that such incidents indicated a systemic problem. Now, though police killings have remained level since 2014, 69 percent of Americans agree that "the killing of Floyd represents a broader problem within law enforcement."

To better understand this shift and to get a sense of what changes would be most effective, Nick Gillespie sat down withWashington Post opinion writer Radley Balko, a former Reason reporter who covers police abuse, the drug war, and criminal justice reform. His Reason coverage of Cory Maye, a black man in Mississippi put on death row for killing a police officer during a no-knock raid, helped bring about Maye's acquittal, and his books Rise of The Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist document widespread problems with law enforcement, expert testimony, and media coverage of crime.

More:
Radley Balko on George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the Libertarian Case for Criminal Justice Reform - Reason

Last Tuesday, I tweeted out a photo of a truck parked in downtown Washington, DC, not far from the White House and the protests against police brutality and the killing of George Floyd that had engulfed the city.

It was the bumper stickers on the back of the Toyota Tacoma that made me do it. They showed what seemed to be a political evolution of sorts, mirroring one that many Americans may be having in 2020: from a 2000 sticker for John McCains failed presidential campaign to a sticker supporting Mitt Romneys candidacy in 2012 to ones supportive of then-Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson in 2016 and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2020.

And in the middle, a handwritten sign stating Black Lives Matter.

I had a lot of questions about this truck, some simple: Whose truck was it? Was the BLM-supportive sign real or just put there to fend off possible thieves? And some not so simple how did this person get to this place? How did their politics change over time, and why? Or did they?

This week, 26-year-old Nathan, the owner of the truck, gave me the answers.

Nathan is a Korean-American self-described libertarian-leaning Republican who has never been a fan of the two-party system. But President Donald Trump was something of a breaking point for him.

I have pretty much felt politically homeless since 2016, he told me. Its been fucking internal screaming for almost four years.

Hes a Texas-born 2016 Virginia Military Institute graduate whose job search in Washington has been stymied by the coronavirus pandemic. He had never attended a street protest before last week, but he told me that being in Lafayette Park when Park Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters radicalized him. I just had to fucking show up after that, he told me.

Now hes attending anti-police brutality protests outside the White House every day. Wearing a hard hat emblazoned with quotes from Mahatma Gandhi and Mr. Rogers, he carries a broom and dustpan and tidies the streets as he walks, because he wanted his form of protest to be a peaceful contribution.

We spoke on Saturday before he headed back to the White House to protest. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Nathans last name has been withheld to protect his privacy.

I moved around a lot. Virginia is the longest Ive lived anywhere. My story: born in Plano, Texas, near Dallas, and I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, [then] Seattle, Hong Kong, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

I wanted to join the military. So I asked my parents to send me to a military high school to see if military college was something I could hack. I liked it. And then I went to the Virginia Military Institute. My life goal was to be an infantry officer, a cavalry scout officer, or an armor officer so, like, a guy in a tank.

[I got a] medical disqualification and never got to serve. I worked for [a transport company] in Pennsylvania; life sucked, hated that. Quit that job, went to get my shit together in Oregon, worked in a restaurant. I was just cleaning dishes, cleaning tables. [At the time I thought,] I got a degree from, I thought, a fairly reputable institution, now Im doing this. I needed a calling.

I was always a libertarian-leaning Republican, still consider myself a Republican fighting within [the party]. So the son of a bitch I voted for president in 2016 [former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson] decided to run for Senate. I was willing to just go for something that I thought had meaning. And that felt like that was doing something worth doing. I was willing to go for free and just live off my savings from [the transport company]. But I got hired by an organization called Young Americans for Liberty, went out, knocked on doors, made a positive impression. A few months later, they invited me back working full time.

I had a blast, went, Im going to try Congress. I dont think Im gonna reveal who I worked for, but I ended up being on the Hill for a while [before I was] let go. And then two weeks later, coronavirus hit the US, and every job I applied for replied back with, We are no longer hiring. I did some side hustles online, managed to pay rent that way. And then this all happened.

Can we stand up and look at the back of your truck? I think a lot of folks were interested in that. So you mentioned [in our Twitter messages] that John McCain was one of your heroes.

In 2008, I watched [the campaign] and I was like, I like that guy. The reason for the stickers is what I do is I just [think], who did I like all the years? Cause Im just a fan. I put them up.

I found an original Ross Perot sticker. I slapped on that one [on my old truck]. And that one was just me rebelling against a two-party system. Im a guy who happened at that point to just vote Republican. But Ill vote for a Democrat you know, who gets in shouldnt fucking matter. As far as Im concerned, Id like to see the destruction of the two-party system, frankly.

But I liked McCain, I liked his campaign against George Bush. W, you know, I didnt put him up [on my truck]. I think in terms of a compassionate person, he definitely is. But as far as Im concerned, I think he should have been impeached for the Iraq War and leading us into that.

And then Romney was your first vote.

Yeah. First vote in 2012. Him, [Paul] Ryan. Those were the kind of Republicans I really identified with.

[On Sunday, Sen. Mitt Romney marched in a protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In a direct message, Nathan asked me to add how extremely proud (he is) to see my man Mitt out today.]

Bipartisanship is not a dirty word to me. [Former House Speaker John Boehner] didnt do everything right. But I liked that he was willing to try to get that grand bargain with Obama. [Some of my colleagues have debated Boehners interest in bipartisanship.]

Then [theres] 2016, when I was chairman of the College Republicans at VMI, and thats like the most conservative school you could be at. And then the moment [Donald Trump] came down that escalator and talked about, you know, hes sure some Mexican people are okay, I was like, No, Im not. I cant. I wasnt going to vote for Trump. I couldnt.

And we all know what happened. So [for 2020,] I made a custom Joe Walsh, I guess, fine sticker. I had that up for a while and he dropped out. Then there wasnt a Republican primary. I couldnt vote. I was like, I guess I can do [Joe] Biden. But for a while, I thought I was staring down the apocalyptic scenario for me and a lot of moderates, of Trump versus Bernie Sanders. And that was like my nightmare.

And thats why you were supportive of Mike Bloomberg?

I mean, stop-and-frisk, you know, theres plenty of shit I can say. I was trying to pick between shooting myself in the fucking head and shooting myself in the foot, and that was an obvious preference for me. And he [Bloomberg] had appeal; hes a moderate and a centrist. And it looked like he was going to do it until Elizabeth Warren spanked him on live TV.

I have pretty much felt politically homeless since 2016. Its been fucking internal screaming for almost four years.

Do you think that this protest has given you a chance to get some of that out or speak out in some way?

It feels nice to do something. Id tell people that if you care about shit, just bitching on Facebooks not going to change anything; go out there. I guess trying to film and getting footage was my toe into it.

But here I am now, [and] its odd. I mean, Im still, I can vote for centrist Democrats, but Im too right of center. Im definitely not progressive, but, I mean, theres always overlap. Ive always thought that the militarization of police has been a bad idea. The drug war has been catastrophic, as far as I can see. I think if states want to legalize [drugs], thats up to them. I wouldnt do it, but Id even say psychedelics should be legal now. But it was weird because when I was at VMI, to [Republicans], I was a libertarian and then I worked with libertarians, and to them I was a statist cuck. You probably get this if youve been paying attention to right-wing stuff, but every libertarian agrees on two things: that theres only one libertarian and its them.

So whats your plan for the rest of the day?

All I do is clean the streets; thats it. Thats how I choose to protest. Trying to bring that energy. Like yesterday, I filled maybe three trash bags.

Everyones self-organized; its a beautiful thing. Im not far out enough where the people are saying abolish the police, Im not there, theres a lot of places that [other protesters and I] dont overlap, but Ive always thought where theres overlap, why fight it? Which I think they should do in Congress.

So whats your plan after this, after these protests?

Ive had five-year plans. Theyve all blown up in my face. I thought success at first was just chasing a fat paycheck. But Ive found out that doing this stuff out here, interacting with people, the activist stuff, was super rewarding. This is rewarding, Ive seen. [But] Im going to start applying for work.

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Read this article:
Protests: Meet the Romney-Gary Johnson-Bloomberg voter embracing Black Lives Matter - Vox.com

George Floyd's death at the hands of the Minneapolis police has sparked nationwide protests against police brutality. Anew consensus is forming around the urgent need for criminal justice reform.

Six years ago, after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, just 43 percent of Americans believed that such incidents indicated a systemic problem. Now, though police killings have remained level since 2014, 69 percent of us agree that "the killing of Floyd represents a broader problem within law enforcement."

To better understand the shift in calls for police reform and what sorts of changes would be most effective, Nick Gillespie sat down withWashington Post opinion writer Radley Balko, a former Reason reporter and editor who covers police abuse, the drug war, and criminal justice reform. His Reason coverage of Cory Maye, a black man in Mississippi put on death row for killing a police officer during a no-knock raid, helped bring about Maye's acquittal, and his books Rise of The Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist document widespread problems with law enforcement, expert testimony, and media coverage of crime.

Edited by John Osterhoudt.

Photo: Radley Balko by Gage Skidmore

Excerpt from:
The Libertarian Roots of Police Reform: Q&A with Radley Balko - Reason

The Air Force staff sergeant suspected of killing a Santa Cruz sheriff's deputy last Saturday and wounding another, as well as fatally shooting a federal security officer in Oakland on May 29, had been ranting on social media and making references to an extremist group that espouses anti-government, anti-law-enforcement views.

32-year-old Steven Carrillo is being arraigned today in Santa Cruz Superior Court, and on Thursday he was formally charged with murder, lying it wait, attempted murder, and multiple other charges and enhancements. He faces life in prison for the killing of 38-year-old Santa Cruz Sheriff's Sergeant Damon Gutzwiller.

According to court documents, per the Mercury News, Carrillo had recently been posting libertarian, anti-law-enforcement rhetoric on social media, and he seemed to have a particular vendetta against law enforcement in general. According to a former friend and fellow Air Force officer, Justin Ehrhardt, Carrillo specifically had aligned himself with the so-called "Boogaloo" movement, a far-right, citizen militia group composed partly of current and former military people who believe that an armed conflict with the government is on the horizon. And Ehrhardt speculated further that watching police use of force against unarmed demonstrators on the news during the week of George Floyd's death may have finally pushed Carrillo over the edge.

Federal prosecutors reportedly believe that Carrillo was also responsible for a shooting in Oakland on the night of May 29, during the height of protest activity there though the targets were two Homeland Security officers stationed outside the federal building in downtown Oakland who had nothing to do with the quelling of protests by police a few blocks away. 53-year-old David Patrick Underwood of Pinole was killed in that shooting.

Underwood, who was black and the sibling of Southern California congressional candidate Angela Underwood-Jacobs, was working as a federal security officer, and the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement calling the shooter an "assassin," and characterizing the act as "domestic terrorism."

Underwood-Jacobs, who is a Republican, complicated the political lines in the current national unrest in testimony earlier this week before the House Judiciary Committee. She spoke out against police brutality and the death of Floyd, but went on to condemn calls for defuning the police. And she said, it is "blatantly wrong to create an excuse out of discrimination and disparity, to loot and burn our communities, to kill our officers of the law."

My brother wore a uniform," she said, "and he wore that uniform proudly. Im wondering, where is the outrage for a fallen officer that also happens to be African American?"

Federal charges against Carrillo in the killing of Underwood and the wounding of another officer are expected to be filed in the coming days, but federal prosecutors have yet to confirm that Carrillo is a suspect in the shooting.

The only information that was publicly released in the case, along with a surveillance image, was that the shooter fired shots out of a white cargo van like the one that Carrillo owned, and like the one he ambushed the Santa Cruz officers with last Saturday.

Carrillo, who was stationed at Travis Air Force Base, was living with his father in Ben Lomond, where officers confronted him. They were responding to a call from a resident who said they had seen explosives and weaponry inside Carrillo's van.

Carrillo was heard by witnesses after the shooting, before he was detained, talking about being "tired of the duality." He scrawled a similar message (using the word "duopoly," possibly in reference to the two-party system) in blood on a vehicle before his arrest. He also wrote the word "boog," and the phrase, "I became unreasonable," which is a meme used by the Boogaloo group, referring to anti-government icon Marvin Heemeyer.

Previously: Air Force Officer Named In Killing of Santa Cruz Sheriff's Deputy May Be Linked to Killing of Federal Officer in Oakland

Read the rest here:
Santa Cruz Shooting Suspect Preached Libertarian Ideals, Was Pushed Over the Edge By Police Actions Against Protesters, Friends Say - SFist