(via Eric Kleefeld at TPM: Allen West Campaign: He Specifically Called The Congressional Progressive Caucus ‘Communist’ | TPM2012)

Rep. Allen West’s (R-FL) campaign is disputing a media report that he said there were 80 members of the Communist Party among congressional Democrats, without naming any. Indeed, West’s team has given a more complete video clip to the Daily Caller, showing the full context: He did name them.

The unedited video shows West’s declaration at a town hall event. “I believe there are about 78 or 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party,” he said, followed by a long, dramatic pause, during which there were assorted moans and whispers in the audience.

After about 30 seconds, West unfurled his deadpan punchline: “The answer to that: It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

The Progressive Caucus is, of course, an internal grouping of the most left-leaning members of House Democrats. Current and past members have included Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who relinquished her membership after she became House Democrats’ leader in late 2002), Rep. Barney Frank, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, and many others.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has done it again.

At a campaign town hall event on Tuesday, the Palm Beach Post reports, West declared that he’s “heard” that up to 80 House Democrats are members of the Communist Party. However, he would not name any specific people.

This is just the latest in a long line of provocative statements that West has made, which have helped to build up his notoriety — and his campaign coffers. In addition, Sarah Palin andHerman Cain have each suggested in recent days that West should be the Vice Presidential nominee on the 2012 Republican ticket.

West became a star of conservative political circles, and subsequently launched his political career, after his military career ended when he fired a pistol next to the head of an Iraqi policeman during an interrogation. West said this was done in order to stop an impending attack on his unit, but no evidence of such a plan was found based on the policeman’s coerced confession.

Since then, West has become known for declaring that America’s enemy is not just militant radical Islamism, but Islam itself.

Following his election to Congress in 2010, and a controversy involving anti-government comments by a woman who had been his first choice for chief of staff, he said that in Congress he would remain focused that “this liberal, progressive, socialist agenda, this left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine that’s out there is soundly brought to its knees.”

He has also called President Obama, whom he makes sure to refer to as “Barack Hussein Obama,” a “a low-level socialist agitator,” and he responded to an attack by DNC Chair and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz by sending her a letter that declared she had “proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”

He has also said that Democratic Party has created what he calls a “21st-century plantation”over black voters, with appointed African-American politicians to act as “overseers” — the men who committed the day-to-day atrocities of ruling over slaves in the antebellum South. “So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman, to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad, away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”

Allen West is yet another GOP moron.

In a floor speech last night, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) attempted to expound on the Republican party’s record of defending personal freedom over the past 150 years. However, as often happens when West speaks, the rhetoric quickly turned nasty.

West turned the subject away from the GOP’s record to the Democratic Party’s supposed dislike of equality, saying that the Democrats’ support for a robust social safety net amounts to “the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today”:

“Our party firmly believes in the safety net,” West said in a late Wednesday floor speech. “We reject the idea of the safety net becoming a hammock.

“For this reason, the Republican value of minimizing government dependence is particularly beneficial to the poorest among us,” he continued. “Conversely, the Democratic appetite for ever-increasing redistributionary handouts is in fact the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today, and it does not promote economic freedom.”

West is either unaware or callously dismissive of the fact that there are an estimated 12.3 million actual forced laborers around the globe, according to the International Labour Organization. Among them are many sweatshop workers held illegally and paid very little, girls and women forced into prostitution, and many others.

The issue of slavery, while legally settled in the United States, has not been solved globally.

Allen West is a complete scumbag.

In four short years in the U.S. House of Representatives, congressman Allen West has earned a reputation for making the most irresponsible statements which are clearly intended to attract media attention, spark debate, and fire up his most fervent right-wing supporters. West may be running in a new (more conservative) district this fall, but he’ll still be running on his old record of divisiveness and discord. To refresh everyone’s collective memory about who Allen West is, ThinkProgress has compiled a list of his most outrageous quotes (and it’s anything but pretty):

(1) “YOU ARE NOT A LADY”: In July 2011, West responded to a perceived slight from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (R-FL) with a fiery letter in which he threatened her and scolded, “You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!” West later said he had apologized, but Wasserman-Schultz said she had not received one.

(2) JOSEPH GOEBBELS WOULD “BE VERY PROUD” OF DEMOCRATS: In December, West told reporters, “If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine.” The link to Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945, drew criticism from several members of Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, and others.

(3) LIBERALS “GET THE HELL OUT”: Speaking at the Palm Beach County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner in last month, West said of liberals, “Take your message of equality of achievement. … You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.” West later tried to walk back the statement, claiming he was only referring to “the message” and not liberals themselves.

(4) “A THREAT TO THE GENE POOL”: In a July 2011 post on the website Red Country, West wrote, “I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”

(5) “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU”: Before running for Congress, West had a 22-year career in the military, but left after he abused an Iraqi detainee: “This is it. I’m going to count to five again, and if you don’t give me what I want, I’m going to kill you.” He then fired a shot “a foot” over the detainee’s head.

  (6) “NUTS!”: West has often clashed with opponents over the issue of Islam. In August 2011, a chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked West to sever ties with anti-Muslim activists. In response, West sent a letter which read only, “I am writing to you with regard [sic] your recent letter: NUTS!” Why West chose this response is a mystery, although he might have been quoting a World War II general who responded that way when the Nazis told him to surrender.

(7) “WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE OUR MEN BECOME SUBSERVIENT”: In April 2011, West told a conservative women’s conference that liberal women “have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness — to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do. Because if you don’t, then the debt will continue to grow…deficits will continue to grow.”

(8) “BLINDLY FOLLOWING A COMMANDER IN CHIEF”: Talking with radio host Mark Levin last month, West said Generals “have to be very careful about blindly following a commander in chief that really does not have the best intent for our military.” What West did not mention was that officers are constitutionally bound to follow the President’s orders unless they are illegal.

(9) I AM “THE MODERN-DAY HARRIET TUBMAN”: Speaking with O’Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham in August 2011, West said the Democratic party is a “21st-century plantation.” He added, “So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman, to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad, away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”

(10) “LET THEM GET SHOT AT”: In May 2011, the House narrowly defeated a proposal which would have required President Obama to submit a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Of those who voted for the bill, West said, “I would take these gentlemen over and let them get shot at a few times and maybe they’d have a different opinion.” This was just months after the shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords.

(11) “WE ALSO SHOULD BE CENSORING THE AMERICAN NEWS AGENCIES”: In response to the whistleblower website Wikileaks releasing thousands of pages of diplomatic cables, West declared: “And I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled [Julian Assange] to do this and also supported him and applauding him for the efforts.” West laterclaimed he only called for “censuring” the media. Either way, it would be a First Amendment violation.

(12) “I DON’T KNOW IF IT WAS A KIDNAPPING ATTEMPT”: When West first ran for Congress in 2008, the Arab news network Al Jazeera asked for an interview. West recalled, “But my b.s. flag really went up when [Al Jazeera] said they wanted my address, to pick me up at night. They said they would send a car but wouldn’t tell me where it was going. I don’t know if it was a kidnapping attempt. But I am not going to entrust Al Jazeera with my life. I said, ‘Cancel the interview!’”

(13) RELIGIOUS COEXISTENCE “WOULD GIVE AWAY OUR COUNTRY”: During a March 2011 town hall, West talked about the “Coexist” movement, saying of their bumper stickers: “Every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are.”

(14) “GEORGE BUSH GOT SNOOKERED”: During the same town hall, Westclaimed: “George Bush got snookered into going into some mosque, taking his shoes off, and then saying that Islam was a religion of peace.”

(15) DEMOCRATS SUPPORT “MOST INSIDIOUS FORM OF SLAVERY”: Just yesterday, West accused Democrats of supporting the worst form of slavery known today. “The Democratic appetite for ever-increasing redistributionary handouts is in fact the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today,” West said.

(via Adam Weinstein at Mother Jones: Allen West to Obama, Reid, and Pelosi: "Get the Hell Out of the United States" (Video) | Mother Jones)

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), the firebrand tea party House freshman, told a crowd of Palm Beach Republicans on Saturday night that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz should leave the country. But West may be the one sent packing soon: His own fellow Republicans in Florida, possibly fed up with his fiery rhetoric, are close to redistricting him out of a job.

Holding forth at the GOP's Lincoln Day Dinner in Palm Beach's tony Kravis Center, the ex-lieutenant colonel who resigned his Army commission under less than honorable circumstances, gave the crowd a militarist stemwinder to remember. "This is a battlefield that we must stand upon," he said, referring to Florida's status as a contested electoral state:

And we need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee [Debbie Wasserman Schultz], we need to let them know Florida ain't on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America."

After a standing ovation, West added, "Yeah, I said 'hell'...I will not allow President Obama to take the United States of America and destroy it."

West's defenders in the right-wing blogosphere are fervently talking conspiracy theory, and Weatherford is in the middle of it: He's also a big supporter of Mitt Romney, the "moderate" Republican choice, and he appeared at the GOP presidential debate's spin room in Jacksonville last week to defend Romney against the party's more conservative insurgents. The blogs are now attacking the redistricting plan implicating West as a Romney plot to water down Republicanism. The Shark Tank's Javier Manjarres, a respected Florida conservative blogger, quoted a "very high ranking member of the Florida Legislature" as telling him, before the redrawing process started, that "Allen West is screwed." Another bloggercomplained: "The GOP elites keep screwing over Conservatives. It really is time for Conservatives to rethink their allegiance to the GOP." So hot is the temperature online that Politico dedicated an entire story Monday to aggregating the bloggers' pro-West, anti-GOP frustration.