Missouri gubernatorial candidate Bill Eigel celebrates Freedom Fest by using a flamethrower to incinerate ideas he doesn't like (in effigy)

[essentialsaltes]

Censorship is Freedom!​

(alternate link, since the the filter munged the original URL)​

Missouri Republican state Sen. William "Bill" Eigel has threatened to burn "woke" and "pornographic" books if brought into the state's schools after a video showing lawmakers using flamethrowers went viral.​

The video filmed at the St. Charles County Freedom Fest fundraiser northwest of St. Louis on Friday showed Missouri Republican Sens. Eigel and Nick Schroer using flamethrowers to burn several boxes.

 

[Bradskii]

Allow me to be the first...

 

[essentialsaltes]

Allow me to be the first...

Freiheitsfestlagerfeuer!

 

[Bradskii]

Surely, I mean surely, Eigel's PR guru would have told him that this was a really bad idea. Notwithstanding that he has a German name...

 

[USincognito]

These sorts of things are what happens when you want to own the libs, but don't quite think it all the way through.

 

[Bradskii]

I keep hearing the song 'Tomorrow belongs to me...' sung by a young boy soprano as the flames rise.

 

[Occams Barber]

Allow me to be the first...

View attachment 336502

I reached for exactly the same button as soon as I saw the post,

I wonder if CF readers, or Americans generally, appreciate the disgusting significance of the act.

OB

 

[USincognito]

I wonder if CF readers, or Americans generally, appreciate the disgusting significance of the act.

Sadly we have a long and proud (for some) history of book burning in this country.

New York Society for the Suppression of Vice - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Comstock laws - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Americans used to trade postcards of lynchings, but you couldn't send a postcard describing contraceptives to your spouse in many states.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Per the article below, Eigel now states that this "clear" promise to burn books on the front lawn of the governor's mansion was a 'metaphor'.​

​

A flamethrower and comments about book burning ignite a political firestorm in Missouri​

“The slippery slope is that everything is a joke — everything can be kind of waved away,” said Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor of public communications at American University in Washington.


Hang Mike Pence! Burn these books! It's all a 'metaphor', until it isn't.

 

[returntosender]

Not much worse then destroying statues and other symbols that represented our not so wonderful history but still our history.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Not much worse then destroying statues and other symbols that represented our not so wonderful history but still our history.

Do you know of any gubernatorial candidates who have done so?

 

[returntosender]

Do you know of any gubernatorial candidates who have done so?

No, is that important to you?

 

[essentialsaltes]

No, is that important to you?

It's important to the context of the thread, which is political candidates promoting fascist and violent rhetoric.

Some criminal defacing a statue tells us nothing about the state of American Politics (the folder in which this thread is filed).

 

[returntosender]

Removing of statues had to be.at a higher authorities power it's good of you to alert the public of all of these atrocities but you alarmists never hint at how to do anything about them. Which is why you are just an alarmist. It's all about getting people riled with no real solution.
Personally, i don't like wasting my energy on something i can do nothing about which affects my health adversely.
Thanks for asking

 

[essentialsaltes]

I would have thought the guy with the flamethrower would be the worst Missouri gubernatorial candidate, but I was wrong.

Missouri GOP Candidate for Governor Was Only ‘Honorary’ KKK Member​

The name of “Pro-White man” Darrell Leon McClanahan III sits atop Missouri's gubernatorial ballot​

A 2022 article on the Anti-Defamation League's website shows McClanahan next to a man in white robes as both men give what appear to be Nazi salutes in front of a burning cross some time around 2019.

McClanahan directed us to a lawsuit he filed against the ADL and its head, Jonathan Greenblatt, in federal court in September.

In an unusual legal strategy for a man alleging he'd been defamed by assertions he is aligned with antisemites and white supremacists, McClanahan says in his own court filings that he is a "Pro-White man, horseman, politician, political prisoner-activist who is dedicated to traditional Christian values." He also says that he has had "honorary memberships" in the Knight's Party Ku Klux Klan and the League of the South.

He also writes he "did attend in 2019 a private religious Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony falsely described as a cross burning."

[Christian Identity is the idea that white people are the real Jews.]

It is not clear whether the Missouri Republican Party can reject McClanahan’s candidacy at this point — or whether he’ll be on the official ballot come August after appearing on the unofficial one yesterday. He is presumably on the unofficial ballot because the party accepted his filing fee and paperwork.

 

[Bradskii]

​

'...a private religious Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony falsely described as a cross burning.'

I just see Michael Palin and Terry Jones in sleazy character mode in a Python sketch.

'Ah, nah mate. Nah. You got it all wrong my friend. We didn't burn the cross.'
'Yeah. That's right. There was no burning'.
'That's right, innit. You gotta be careful what you say, my friend'.
'Quite right. Like, you have to get your facts right. Otherwise...
'Well, otherwise...There may be....well, a problem. Know what I mean?'
'Yeah. A problem. 'Cos we only set it on fire.'
'Yeah. We didn't burn it, did we...'

You have to look for the humour. People like this must not be treated seriously.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I would have thought the guy with the flamethrower would be the worst Missouri gubernatorial candidate, but I was wrong.

Missouri GOP Candidate for Governor Was Only ‘Honorary’ KKK Member​

It is not clear whether the Missouri Republican Party can reject McClanahan’s candidacy at this point — or whether he’ll be on the official ballot come August after appearing on the unofficial one yesterday.

Missouri Republicans try to remove man with ties to KKK from party ballot​

“The GOP knew exactly who I am,” McClanahan wrote. “What a bunch of Anti-White hypocrites.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

I would have thought the guy with the flamethrower would be the worst Missouri gubernatorial candidate, but I was wrong.

Missouri GOP Candidate for Governor Was Only ‘Honorary’ KKK Member​

The name of “Pro-White man” Darrell Leon McClanahan III sits atop Missouri's gubernatorial ballot​

It is not clear whether the Missouri Republican Party can reject McClanahan’s candidacy at this point — or whether he’ll be on the official ballot come August after appearing on the unofficial one yesterday. He is presumably on the unofficial ballot because the party accepted his filing fee and paperwork.

Missouri GOP Sues to Kick KKK-Linked Racist Off Its Ballot​

The petition says the GOP did not have a chance to vet Darrell McClanahan III and didn’t learn of his views and associations until after he filed a declaration of candidacy.

[You didn't vet your candidate? That sounds like a 'you' problem.]

In response to the Missouri GOP’s repudiation, McClanahan said earlier this month that the party “knew exactly who I am” and claimed the chairman “knew I was a Christian identist” and told him “that I should just not say anything bad about the Jews.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Missouri GOP Sues to Kick KKK-Linked Racist Off Its Ballot​

The petition says the GOP did not have a chance to vet Darrell McClanahan III and didn’t learn of his views and associations until after he filed a declaration of candidacy.
In response to the Missouri GOP’s repudiation, McClanahan said earlier this month that the party “knew exactly who I am” and claimed the chairman “knew I was a Christian identist” and told him “that I should just not say anything bad about the Jews.”

It looks like this case is yet to be decided (but soon). One key fact is that the MO GOP accepted his filing fee.

Apparently stung by this egg on their face, Missouri instituted a new vetting committee. But, reading between the lines, its goal is more about ensuring that candidates are sufficiently MAGA.

Leading to this result:

8 GOP candidates can’t run as Republicans, MO judge rules. They’d refused 'morals test'​

It began in March, when the Vernon County Republican Committee, led by chairwoman Cyndia Haggard, filed suit against the Vernon county clerk, who is also a Republican.

Haggard is a self-described pro-Trump, MAGA Republican who continues to assert that the 2020 election was “100%” stolen, a contention proven false. She is a passionate proponent of candidate vetting to weed out RINOs — Republicans in name only.

Last year, she began a nonprofit, the Republican Association of Central Committees of MO, whose website describes RINOs as “a virus that infects & destroys our party’s values. Vetting is the vaccine that stops the virus cold.”

The committee argued that, per Missouri law, the sole authority for determining who runs under the Republican or Democrat banner lies with the political parties. Although the clerk can accept the paperwork and fees, they said the law required the clerk to receive a receipt from the Republican party committee acknowledging that the individuals’ fees and their candidacies had been accepted by the party.

[KKK guy apparently has that receipt, but these 8 people don't.]

Five of the [8 rejected] candidates are current officer holders, all elected previously as Republicans

[While some like the new vetting,] Others in Vernon County, meanwhile, see vetting as a means for a group of about 30 committee members — none of whom were elected — to push their own conservative agenda by keeping tight control over who qualifies as a “true Republican.”

“This was my third term,” Banes said. “I filed for my third term. I guess the only option is to file as an independent."