October 22, 2010 2:40 PM

GOP Candidate Stephen Broden: Violent Overthrow "On the Table" if No GOP Takeover in November

By
Lucy Madison
Topics
Campaign 2010 ,
Congress

Republican Congressional candidate Stephen Broden, a Dallas minister with a history of making controversial statements, admitted in an interview on Thursday that he would not rule out a violent overthrow of the government if the November 2 elections did not produce a change in leadership.

"The option is on the table. I don't think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden said, in an interview on Dallas-Fort Worth's WFAA-TV. He added, however, that "it is not the first option."

"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," Broden said.

The minister was clarifying comments he made during a 2009 speech, when he raised the idea of an uprising before a Fort Worth audience.

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"We have a constitutional remedy here, and the framers said, if that don't work -- revolution," he said in the speech.

The candidate, who founded the Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church in 1987, has made a string of controversial comments in the past. In a series of 2009 interviews, Broden implied that the Obama administration was trying to "depopulate" the senior demographic and that the American economic crisis was an elaborate "set-up" by the administration, according to WFAA.

WFAA also reports that Broden compared the Obama administration to Nazi Germany in a 2009 interview, arguing that "in Germany when the Jews were walking into the furnaces ...they walked in because they did not believe that this was happening. They didn't believe that humanity could be so evil. I am submitting to you tonight that is where America is right now. They are our enemies and we must resist them."

When asked about these statements recently, Broden said that his views had changed.

The candidate faces incumbent and eight-term congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson in the contest to represent Texas' heavily democratic 30th District. (CBS News rates the race as a probable win for Democrats.)

And while Johnson is heavily favored for the win, a recent scandal has exposed her to unforeseen vulnerability. Over the summer, it was reported that Johnson awarded relatives and aides' children scholarships with funds provided the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. The awards were made in violation with the group's anti-nepotism rules.

Johnson has since agreed to repay the scholarship money, but some wonder if the scandal has opened the door for Broden.

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Lucy Madison
Lucy Madison is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

Add a Comment See all 135 Comments
by KingdomWatcher October 28, 2010 1:22 PM EDT
Stephen Broden has missed two appearances of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360' within this last week, as well as others, but when he failed to appear for an appearance on internet radio show "Center Stage" a Blogtalkradio Show the host had had enough. Host Kheri Hines called his campaign headquarters while live on the air and questioned a staffer on whether she should consider Mr. Broden "tardy" or a "NO SHOW." She was then told by the staffer that Broden would not be appearing. That's when things got heated. The host then began to address the radical comments that Broden had made about over throwing our government and abortion being racial genocide by eugenicist. As well as the comment by a writer that said he was "a couple of ammonium nitrate cannisters shy of being the next Timothy McVeigh." In between statements she mentioned how nice it would have been if Mr. Broden had appeared to address these comments himself. Take a listen...

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/centerstage
Reply to this comment
by karlejohn October 24, 2010 2:54 PM EDT
Mr Stephen Broden, Mr Michael Steel, and Mr Alan Keyes. How many pieces of silver were you paid? The Grand Old Republican Tea Party has hired you. You are as chickens telling us how great KFC is.
Reply to this comment
by karlejohn October 24, 2010 2:53 PM EDT
Mr Stephen Broden, Mr Michael Steel, and Mr Alan Keyes. How many pieces of silver were you paid? The Grand Old Republican Tea Party has hired you. You are as chickens telling us how great KJC is.
Reply to this comment
by rockcutr October 24, 2010 9:58 AM EDT
Ok, that is all well and good. Now how is this going to work? How do ya tell whom is the target in this revolution. Oh, goodie! We have loads of elected officials which are the clear and easy targets. WE Know who they are. Take about a week to burn them at the stake. Then what? Attack the Fed. Greenspan and all of his cronies need to be eliminated. While revolters are at it might just as well burn the IRS to the ground. OK now that we have gotten rid of the thorns in our arses, what next. We need a leader. Personally I Choose George Carlin. OH nuts...he's dead...But, wait, that's perfect...A dead president...
Speaks no lies, not capable of doing any wrong other than hanging out with Saints n Angels all day long while clearly ignoring those of us still walking about this dirty rock. Kinda sounds like more of the same stuff we already have.
Beware, as we dismantle the political neighborhood....those boys n girls with weapons of mass destruction are going to want to take over. Now we are in a world of tasteless soup. These are the professional killers we pay to kill other people under the guise of protecting our freedoms.
Either way we seem to be feeding a carniverous pony.
Try throwing meat at it. That way you don't pull back a bloody stump.
Reply to this comment
by nolapearl October 23, 2010 10:42 PM EDT
This guy is incredibly nuts! And as a minister, not very Christian.
Reply to this comment
by Mortarman329 October 24, 2010 8:33 AM EDT
Not Christian?
by whozzzzure October 23, 2010 9:43 PM EDT
These people not only can be dangerous, they ARE dangerous. Obama has had less than two years to clean up a terrible, terrible mess. What is wrong with people? Do they not realize what happened to them under 8 years of Bush?
Reply to this comment
by pnut134 October 24, 2010 6:42 AM EDT
What happened was a black President.
by Mortarman329 October 24, 2010 8:34 AM EDT
Obama isnt trying to clean up the mess. If he was, he wouldnt have done the things he has. He has only made it worse.
See all 4 Replies
by texbelle123 October 23, 2010 8:35 PM EDT
funny he should mention that, now. I've been ready to lock and load ever since the tea-party shout outs that dominated and eleminated public discussion on the health care reform laws before any votes could be taken. Shout loud enough and long enough and no body else will be heard was what they had been told by the repubs behind the scenes. So now, if we exercise our rights to vote and the shouters don't win they want to revolt??!!? The heck with that. If they don't like the way our democracy works -- where the Democrats win elections -- then let them try. I, for one, am ready for them.
Reply to this comment
by Mortarman329 October 24, 2010 8:35 AM EDT
We dont have a democracy. Never have. And dont want one.
by democracy5 October 24, 2010 10:44 AM EDT
It's a "democratic republic", Mortard! Wise up!!! People vote as PART of our system. That part IS democratic!
by robe59 October 23, 2010 6:47 PM EDT
The answer is not republican or democrat--we have ended up where we are under the " leadership" of both of these jokes at different times. Be the change that you would like to see, and you have done your part in changing the world. Are corporations willing to do that? Are WE willing to do that. No. So this will have to run it's course down to rubble, wherin we will become sickened by war and greed, and finally make the conscious choices that will heal this very sick country.
Reply to this comment
by WinstonSmith1984 October 23, 2010 3:58 PM EDT
Let us look back barely 60 days ago. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf suggested that moving or blocking the building of the Muslim Cultural Center in New York, if handled incorrectly, could fuel violence in the Muslim world, not here, but overseas. Fox News and all the right wing in America had to twist logic and his words more than a Cirque du Soleil contortionist to claim it was a radical terrorist threat. ?If you don?t let us build it, Muslims will kill you? was the mantra of Hannity, O?Reilly, Beck and the lot.

Now, Stephen Broden, the Republican and Tea Party candidate for Congress in secession-loving Texas has said that if a majority of American voters choose to keep the Democrats in control of Congress, if there is not a change of control in government, that armed uprising, a civil war is a possible option.

How is this direct, undeniable threat not worse than the comments of Imam Rauf? Why have Republicans and Tea Partiers alike not stood up and denounced him? Why haven?t they clearly stated that elections mean something and if the majority of American voters choose progress instead of regression that they will support the outcome of the election?

More importantly, why is this not the lead story on every news broadcast and on the front page of every newspaper? Is the media afraid to challenge him lest they become the target of this radical and his Republican Tea Party jihadists?
Reply to this comment
by flsunjnky October 23, 2010 3:41 PM EDT
Obama does govern by consent of the people. He was elected. This is treason. There are in law penalties for anyone who "advocates, abets, advises, or teaches" the violent overthrow of the government; publishes or distributes printed matter that advocates the violent overthrow; organizes any society with such a purpose; knowingly joins such a society; or conspires to do any of the above.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
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