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