Norms.

I don’t know if part of the rationale for yesterday’s kinda’-sorta’ out-of-left-field announcement that the Pentagon is lifting the ban on women serving in direct combat is supposed to be some kind of barrier-breaking, legacy-building last hurrah for Leon Panetta, but if that’s the case, I’m not sure that that legacy will be a very [...]

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He'll be back.

One of the last Election Day questions has been answered after two weeks of fumbling by official in St. Lucie County, Florida.  The recanvasses and recount of the vote has left Rep. Allen West over 1900 votes short of victory, and early this morning West conceded the race to Patrick Murphy: Florida Rep. Allen West — the [...]

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Irregularities

I’m sure glad that election is finally over, aren’t you? Now we can move on to the pressing issues facing the country. Or… maybe not. In Florida, (yes, the same Florida) the 18th congressional district is still slugging it out as Representative Allen West struggles to hang on to his seat. The initial count had [...]

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Pending.

Rep. Allen West and perhaps-Rep.-elect Patrick Murphy (he’s already on Capitol Hill for orientation-type stuff this week, anyway) fought a hard race for West’s House seat out of his newly-redrawn Florida district — it turned out to be the most expensive House race in the country, and it went right down to the wire — [...]

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Contrast.

Col. Allen West leads Democrat Patrick Murphy by 11 points in the latest polling on Florida’s 18th Congressional District, 52-41. The poll was commissioned by West, and shows progress over a Murphy-commissioned poll from August, which showed the race statistically tied. The poll has a 4.9 percent margin of error. West is also leading his [...]

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Instincts.

This was before the press conferences from both Romney and the President this morning and the ensuing fallout, but I thought Rep. Allen West‘s reaction last night to the U.S. embassy’s apology to rioters in Egypt was, like Krauthammer‘s, right on point. I think it’s an absolutely horrible thing, because what you have to understand [...]

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Let's do this

Down here in the trenches at the Republican National Convention today, we were fortunate enough to have Congressman Allen West of Florida stop by for a brief, but interesting interview. In it, he gives a nod to all of his supporters at Hot Air, shares a few thoughts on the Romney Ryan ticket and where [...]

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"Vile."

Rep. Allen West (R-Florida) is running a hard race for reelection to Congress this November, and last week, he made it known that he was somewhat less than amused with a questionable ad created by a PAC largely funded by his opponent’s father. Never one to suffer an assault without fighting back, West released an [...]

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"It plays on stereotypes and fear to divide Americans..."

Via the Shark Tank and the Blaze. The cliched boxing metaphor and cartoonish animation make it seem more cornball to me than sinister, but read this piece from a few days ago to get a sense of the sort of racially-tinged insanity West has to deal with from his Democratic colleagues in the House. Go [...]

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Sorry I'm not sorry.

Rep. Allen West (R-Florida) came under fire last week for a few choice comments about liberal racism, as well as about President Obama actively engendering a culture of dependency. I really feel that it is demeaning to me to think that I need some individual to justify me and my existence. Look, I went through [...]

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"The last time we had this was with King George III, and we didn't like it too much."

The GOP is somewhat less-than-pleased with President Obama’s Friday announcement that he plans to take the United States’ deportation policy into his own hands and issue young illegal immigrants work permits allowing them to stay in the country legally, and several Congresspeople had some fightin’ words for the president on the House floor on Monday [...]

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Insults.

Even reds have standards, my friends. No, I’m kidding. They’re indignant on behalf of the Democrats, not on behalf of themselves. Although … that’s kind of strange, no? You would think a commie’s reaction to congressmen being accused of communism would be, “What’s wrong with that?”, not “How dare you?” “I just think it’s an [...]

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Wise of West to say?

This story has already gotten a lot of comment action in Headlines, but, given all the talk about Allen West for vice president, it seems to merit a full-fledged post, as well. At a town hall event in Florida yesterday, West warned his constituents that he’s “heard” that as many as 80 House Democrats are [...]

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Ticking off names on the Tea Party checklist.

Just in case Sarah Palin’s initial endorsement of Allen West as a “rogue” pick for vice president wasn’t enough to establish him as the Tea Party VP pick, other Tea Party voices have added their praise of West to hers. Most recently, Herman Cain said he thinks the fiery Florida congressman would make an “excellent” [...]

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'Course he would.

Florida Republican Rep. Allen West, who’s been cited by both Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley as a potentially “good” vice presidential nominee, told CNN’s Kyra Phillips he’d strongly consider the VP nod if he were offered it. The future is hard to predict, he noted, but he said he’d find it humbling to be considered [...]

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"Romney is going to have a hard time picking."

While Paul Ryan’s plausibility as Mitt Romney’s running mate increases, two Mama Grizzlies push an equally attractive alternative — the irrepressible Allen West. Shortly after Sarah Palin issued generic advice to the eventual GOP nominee to “go rogue” in his selection of a vice presidential candidate, she backed that advice up with a specific mention [...]

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Allen West on shooting: "This is an outrage."

As one White House correspondent noted on Twitter, President Obama’s response to a question about the Trayvon Martin shooting was unusual in that he doesn’t usually respond to shouted questions from the press corps. Clearly, Obama wanted to talk about the incident after several days of debate over the killing of an unarmed teenager in [...]

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Patriotism.

Sarah Palin suggested it and, now, Allen West says he’d consider it. On Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien this morning, the Florida Republican Congressman recounted his unexpected and relatively quick journey to his present position of prominence and said he’d be equally willing to take on a vice presidential run. “As far as the Vice President [...]

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Happy Friday!

Has this always been a trend? Politicians and pop performances? From Jon Huntsman’s “Hit the Road, Jack” to Herman Cain’s “Impossible Dream” to Mitt Romney’s “America, the Beautiful” to Barack Obama’s “Let’s Stay Together,” a light musical snack seems to be the appetizer du jour on the campaign trail these days. Allen West isn’t running [...]

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"Mr. West is ... not representative of the African-American community or of the Republican Party."

Via Mediaite, does Moran mean West isn’t representative of blacks generally or that he wasn’t representative of them specifically when he said Obama, Pelosi, and Reid should “get the hell out of the United States of America”? He’s on the right network and the right show for cheap racial demagoguery aimed at a minority conservative, [...]

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Strategy.

If he’s leaving Congress, he’s not leaving without a fight. Javier Manjarres had it first, now WaPo has details: Tea party firebrand Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) announced Tuesday that he will switch districts and run for reelection in Florida’s new 18th district… Rep. Tom Rooney’s (R-Fla.) decision earlier Tuesday to run in the open and [...]

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Musical chairs.

Via Legal Insurrection and our own J.E. Dyer in the Greenroom. According to WaPo, the new congressional map under consideration in Florida’s legislature would make West’s district four points more Democratic than it is now — a tough haul for a guy who lost that district by nine points in 2008 before riding the big [...]

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And race has nothing to do with it.

Why Newt Gingrich naming Barack Obama “the food stamp president” ever generated controversy is more than a little perplexing — and how race was ever brought into the issue is even more perplexing. As Gingrich has repeatedly pointed out, the food stamp rolls have dramatically increased under Obama’s tenure as president. Strictly speaking, the term [...]

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No argument with that.

Candidly, the story of a handful of Marines videotaping themselves urinating on dead Taliban fighters is a subject I’ve feared to broach because it is heart-breaking to think those men so lost their sense of shared humanity — if only for those minutes — as to do what they did. Rep. Allen West has given [...]

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Is Holder getting desperate?

Attorney General Eric Holder told The New York Times this weekend that “the more extreme segment” of his Fast and Furious critics are motivated by — you guessed it — racism. But Florida Rep. Allen West will have none of it. In remarks to The Daily Caller, West interpreted Holder’s shameless rhetorical tactic as a sign [...]

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