A big deal was made yesterday over Rep. Clay Higgins’ response to a punk demonstrator attempting to disrupt a Wednesday press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Higgins summarily dispatched the protester but didn’t hurt him other than his feelings, and for it he’s been called every name imaginable.
But here’s what happened…
@RepClayHiggins pushing an activist for asking tough questions is supposed to be normal? pic.twitter.com/CQx6s3PCQ3
— Kristy Fogle PA-C (@kristyfoglePAC) May 17, 2023
Oh, yeah. Brutal, right?
Here’s a full review of the incident…
Activist was a 103M. Threatening. He was escorted out and turned over to Capitol Police. Textbook. pic.twitter.com/n2GXaJTspJ
— Rep. Clay Higgins (@RepClayHiggins) May 18, 2023
A 103M is police jargon for “dangerous lunatic,” and let’s face it, given today’s post-James Hodgkinson world, if you’re a Republican congressman and an obnoxious Bernie Bro runs at you in a rude fashion you are entirely within your rights to consider that a sign of danger.
We all respect the First Amendment, at least we all do outside of the Democrats who are hard at work trying to destroy it, and nobody says members of Congress are above rude questions. What this guy was asking of Lauren Boebert, for example – he was trying to embarrass her about her impending divorce and allegations she didn’t behave so well in her marriage – wasn’t particularly worse than what Alex Stein has done to AOC or Eric Swalwell.
Except nobody thinks Alex Stein is going to shoot up a press conference by the House Freedom Caucus talking about the WHO and how America would be better off without its influence given the lies and bad advice it was guilty of during the COVID epidemic. After the experience with Hodgkinson, a Bernie Bro who thought it would be a good idea to mow down the whole Republican Congressional baseball team as a fulfillment of Bernie Sanders’ call for a “political revolution” in America, it’s entirely reasonable to think a scruffy-haired punk in a blue Bernie Sanders t-shirt who takes off running at a member of Congress in the middle of a press conference is up to no good.
And Clay Higgins is a trained law enforcement officer.
What he did was actually a very professional job of crowd control. The idiot in question presented himself as a threat, so Higgins quickly and harmlessly escorted him away from the press conference and then turned him over to the Capitol police officer.
And the little Bernie Bro expressed amazement that he was detained rather than a member of Congress who escorted him away.
I am currently being detained by DC Police for asking tough questions to far right extremist Congressmen @RepGosar and @laurenboebert at a press conference. Rep Clay Higgins proceeded to assault/physically remove me from the press conference.For this, the cops detained me,not him pic.twitter.com/iX4yjCGKsZ
— Jake Burdett (@jake_burdett) May 17, 2023
It’s impossible to feel any sympathy for this kid after Hodgkinson and after January 6, when 1,000 people have been stashed in gulags all over DC for having taken part in a protest of a poorly-run election at the Capitol, most of whom hurting no one and barely saying a harsh word to a member of Congress if they had any contact with one at all. He’s lucky if he doesn’t join the Jan. 6 inmates for his escapade on Wednesday (which is not something we support at all, by the way).
We’re either going to have a standard of conduct or we’re not. And you can show up at a press conference, if you’re allowed in, and ask nasty questions to a public official, though it doesn’t mean you’re going to get an answer. But open disruptions like this have never been part of how we conduct civilized politics in America, and the Bernie Bros and the wacko Left had better get used to Republicans like Clay Higgins tolerating very little of their antics going forward.
Final thought: does the Capitol Police do much of anything? Is it so short-staffed that it can’t provide security for press conferences on the Capitol steps? Or is that now Clay Higgins’ job?