(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) As the Biden administration marches into full authoritarian mode—locking down the Capitol over the potential of a “People’s Convoy” that could spoil next week’s State of the Union address by peacefully protesting tyrannical COVID mandates and general government overreach—Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., offered what leftists would surely consider a radical proposal.
“The Capitol actually belongs to the people of America, the taxpayers, and it should be open for you to come and address your government, your elected officials,” Mooney said in an exclusive interview with Headline USA.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have other ideas.
Washington is entrenching behind a monstrous wall of steel fencing, calling in military troops with dozens of armored tactical vehicles, and recruiting extra law enforcement officers to establish a martial perimeter around the Capital grounds.
“It seems that Democrats don’t have a lot of trust in the American people,” Mooney said.
“It’s offensive,” he said. “I think they’re overreacting, to say the least. It’s insulting when you start putting up these huge fences.”
If the People’s Convoy does show up in D.C., Mooney said elected officials should listen to their criticisms and concerns, ensuring safety and law and order while rejecting an overly oppressive response.
“For the people coming in, I’d say we’re all for peaceful protesting—be peaceful, law-abiding, but certainly express your point of view,” he said.
“Conservative groups and causes should be peacefully displaying their views, added Mooney, who faces a primary election on May 10 against fellow incumbent Rep. David McKinley and three other Republicans. “We need to see that.”
Mooney and McKinley were pitted against each other after West Virginia lost a congressional district in redistricting last year. And while both candidates will have “R” next to their names on the primary ballot, Mooney said that’s about where the similarities end.
With one of the earliest primary dates in the country, the Mooney–McKinley faceoff will provide an early glimpse of Republican voter sentiment when presented with the choice between a Freedom Caucus, Trump-endorsed conservative and a middle-of-the-road, Establishment-friendly politician.
“I think he’s still stuck in the Rockefeller Republican days, where he thinks you should be a liberal Republican,” said Mooney, who has described himself as a staunch pro-life conservative, supporter of the 2nd Amendment and advocate for smaller government.
“The voters of my state,” he said, “can decide who they want the Republican nominee to be—a liberal who votes with the Democrats, or a conservative.”
In that vein, McKinley was one of only 13 alleged Republicans who voted for Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill stuffed with leftist social-engineering programs, nearly an extra $700 billion, Mooney said, and added a whopping $250 billion in national debt.
Because six far-left Democrats refused to vote for the bill, pushing instead for the even pricier Green New Deal agenda, the misguided legislation would have failed were it not for the GOP votes, McKinley’s included.
The bill, Mooney said, was rammed through in what has become typical Democrat fashion. Pelosi regularly pushes bills through rules committees, stacked with healthy Democrat majorities, bypassing actual committees.
“It doesn’t go through a committee hearing, like that Biden infrastructure package, doesn’t go through the Transportation Committee,” Mooney said.
“It goes through the rules committee and all the rules committee does is say what the rules are in debating the bill, which means there are no amendments allowed and each side has an hour [to debate the bill],” Mooney said
“They’re doing this on everything,” he said. “This is how they pass almost all of their bills.”
Mooney said he’s all for infrastructure, but not “when you’re indebting our country and having social programs put in there.”
“My opponent [McKinley] voted for it,” he said. “Even policy aside, he should have voted against it because the process was so offensive.”
Speaking of offensive, Mooney also noted that McKinley voted for the Jan. 6 commission to investigate Trump.
“That does not represent West Virginia,” Mooney said of his opponent’s abetting Pelosi’s partisan J6 inquisition. “This is a very pro-Trump state, and this Jan. 6 commission is a witch hunt.”
Trump sang Mooney’s praises in a Nov. 15 endorsement last year—touting not only his opposition the J6 committee and the infrastructure spending bill, but also his conservative stances on a range of other issues deemed crucial to West Virginia voters.
“Alex has been strong on Crime, Borders, our great Military, and a champion for our Veterans,” Trump wrote. “He will always protect our Second Amendment, and of particular importance is the fact that Alex fights for energy and beautiful clean coal—and he will never stop.”
The metal fences currently being erected around D.C., it should be noted, are clones of the same that had surrounded the Capitol grounds for nearly a year after the J6 protests, with Pelosi essentially cutting off the People’s House from the people.
Mooney said there’s a lesson to be learned that should be applied next week if the People’s Convoy arrives in D.C
“Treat people fair,” he said. “Treat conservative groups and pro-freedom groups the same way you treat left-wing groups.
“We’re a rule-of-law country,” he said. “Apply the law fairly to everybody.”
