Kokesh “proud to stand with the gun-toters”

Adam Kokesh, a Libertarian-leaning Republican running for Congress in the 3rd Congressional District, has used Twitter to effectively reach supporters. So far he’s held several “twown halls” (Get it? Twitter+town hall?) during which he took questions from people on Twitter and answered them for a half hour to an hour. But there’s more, much more, to be gleaned from Kokesh’s tweets.

Today, Kokesh tweeted: “Town Hall Crazies! I’m proud to standing with the gun-toters. (It’s good security policy too) http://bit.ly/6SQLUj.” So Kokesh stands with the gun-toters. OK. Who are those gun-toters?

The link in Kokesh’s tweet goes to a Talking Points Memo post from yesterday titled, Town Hall Crazies: Where Are They Now? It mentions Kokesh in relation to an image he posted on his Facebook page, a photo of himself with a man who brought an AR-15 assault rifle to an Obama event in Arizona. Kokesh and the gun-toter, Christopher Broughton were snapped at a screening of “For Liberty,” a documentary about the presidential campaign of libertarian-leaning Texas Rep. Ron Paul, whom both men supported.

CNN reported that Broughton said at the event that he was “prepared to resort to forceful resistance against the Obama administration.”

So who does Broughton, the gun-toter, stand with?

Nativists. According to the Arizona Republic, Broughton has “ties to several anti-government or Nativist groups,” including some that “involve individuals tied to White supremacist activities.”

Nativists in the Southwest are largely focused on preventing illegal immigration, but the Southern Poverty Law Center reported this fall that some nativist groups are converging with Tea Party Patriots:

In a mid-April mass E-mail to followers, [head of the San Diego Minutemen, Jeff] Schwilk linked his group’s resistance to “the invasion from Mexico” with the greater cause of thwarting the “socialist takeover” of America. In the same E-mail, Schwilk announced the formation of the Patriot Coalition, made up of 23 organizations including Minuteman factions, tax-protest groups, pro-gun rights groups and two anti-immigration outfits listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The pastor who prayed for Obama to die. The day before he brought the AR-15 to the Obama event, Broughton attended a church sermon, during which his pastor said he would “pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.” The pastor later told Talking Points: “I’m praying for him to die just so he gets what he deserves.”

Another one of the gun-toters at that event was Ernest Hancock. CNN reported that Broughton went to the Obama event in Arizona as part of an event staged by Hancock, a local Libertarian talk show host, who brought his 9mm pistol to the event.

Who does Hancock, the gun-toter, stand with?

The Viper Militia. Hancock was a prominent, vocal supporter of the Viper Militia, an Arizona group arrested in 1996 for plotting to bomb government buildings around Phoenix. (The Southern Poverty Law Center included these guys in a chronicle of 30 right-wing plots called “Terror From the Right.”)

What else can be gleaned from Kokesh’s tweets?

Also today, Kokesh sent out this tweet:

RT @infocyde: @adamkokesh help trend #FireJennings | Get Rid of Safe Schools Czar Jennings http://is.gd/5qDHT #tcot

(For all you Twitter n00bz, the RT at the beginning of the post means that a user called @infocyde posted a snippet of information on Twitter–a tweet–referencing Adam Kokesh, whose username is preceded by the @ symbol. Kokesh re-tweeted (RT), or reposted, the snippet, presumably because he thought it was interesting enough to share with the 1,200+ people who follow him. #tcot is a hashtag for “top conservatives on Twitter.” Got it?)

What is this tweet all about? There is there a movement among some conservatives, spearheaded by the Big Government blog, to pressure President Obama to fire Kevin Jennings, the “Safe Schools Czar,” essentially because 1) He’s openly gay, 2) He was involved with the edgy anti-AIDS activist group ACT UP, 3) He thinks it’s OK for teens to be gay and 4) He said so out loud.

Jennings was the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a sort of grandaddy of all student gay-straight alliances, which “strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.”

As Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent wrote of the Jennings controversy:

Jennings’ foes have consistently grabbed the most controversial sex-positive pamphlets and presentations from GLSEN, Jennings’s old group — a longtime target of social conservatives — and accused Jennings of approving all of it, even, when he took steps to shut it down.

Weigel also wrote the profile of Kokesh which appeared in the New Mexico Independent today.

The liberal fact-check group Media Matters has debunked more than a dozen fantastic claims made about Jennings and GLSEN, including those made in the link in Kokesh’s tweet. Last month, Fox News was forced to retract some allegations made against Jennings.

Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert  described the movement to fire Jennings as a “gay-baiting hate campaign,” with the ultimate goal of having Jennings “driven from Washington, D.C., preferably by a pitchfork-waving mob.”

These are just two tweets we noticed today. Most of Kokesh’s tweets are responding to other Twitter users espousing Libertarian ideals or tweets that promote him and his campaign (Kokesh is, after all, a politician).