Tag: war declaration

Joe Walsh issues death threat against President Obama and Black Lives Matter activists

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This blog post contains a screengrab of a death threat made by a former elected official against the current President of the United States. The author of this blog post strongly condemns violence and all threats of violence.

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who represented parts of the Chicago suburbs for one term from 2011 to 2013, took to Twitter to declare a race war and issue a death threat against President Barack Obama and activists of the Black Lives Matter movement. Walsh has since deleted the tweet, but here is a screengrab of it:

It’s worth noting that the death toll last night’s mass shooting in Dallas, Texas is, as of the writing of this blog post, at five.

Walsh has (rightfully, in my opinion) received a lot of criticism online for threatening to kill the president, with lots of people calling for WIND-AM, a Chicago radio station that employs Walsh as a right-wing talk radio host, to fire Walsh, as well as for the Secret Service, which is legally responsible for protecting the president, to detain Walsh:

Joe Walsh, who was voted out of office in 2012 after repeatedly making vile, rude, and bigoted remarks, declared a race war against America and the values America stands for, and he also threatened to kill President Obama and people who are active in the Black Lives Matter movement, a non-violent movement that seeks reforms to law enforcement and criminal justice practices that are discriminatory against black people. WIND-AM should fire Walsh immediately, and all appropriate law enforcement agencies should detain Walsh, and, if it can be proven that Walsh was plotting to kill anyone, he should be arrested and charged with all appropriate crimes. Walsh is a disgrace to my state and my country.

Rand Paul, who criticizes Democrats for being war hawks, is trying to declare war on ISIS

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is trying to find a way to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate and run for president simultaneously despite being legally prohibited from doing so in his home state of Kentucky, tried to get an Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic militant group ISIS (also known as ISIL and Islamic State) attached to a completely unrelated bill pushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Paul pulled his proposal in exchange for a vote on an AUMF against ISIS before the new Congress is sworn into office next month:

A surprise move by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is driving action on an issue that many in Congress, and the White House, were hoping to punt into the next year: war.

Paul tried to force a vote on legislation declaring war against Islamic State militants during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday. He offered his measure as an amendment to an unrelated water bill about to get voted out of the committee.

After hearing loud resistance from fellow Republicans, who urged more time for debate on the matter, the Kentucky senator pulled his proposal. But he had achieved what he actually wanted: a promise from the chairman, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), to schedule a broader debate on the issue next week, along with a vote on a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) on Wednesday.

This is the same Rand Paul who once criticized Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. Secretary of State who is one of several individuals who are considering running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, for being a war hawk. While it is an indisputable fact that Hillary is a war hawk, Rand Paul is a total hypocrite for complaining about Democrats being war hawks when he’s trying to declare war against ISIS.