Allen West may be the nuttiest of the nutjob Republicans elected last week, and it took him negative-55 days in office to register his first controversy. West signaled his intention to hire a Florida conservative talk-show host as his chief of staff. After criticism of her and some of her comments (calling Nancy Pelosi “garbage,” basically calling for armed insurrection to take back the government), West dropped her, with the talk-show host, Joyce Kaufman, saying she would not be used in an “electronic lynching” by liberals. (West is black, by the way.)

But the case doesn’t appear to be that cut and dried. Kaufman may have incited a threat against Broward County schools, which is probably more the reason she won’t be running a Congressional office in Washington.

The radio host who made comments that may have triggered a threat against Broward County schools has announced she’s stepping down as chief of staff for a recently elected conservative congressman. Meanwhile the phone call warning of the attack that led to a three-hour lockdown has been traced to a caller outside South Florida, Pembroke Pines Police said Thursday [...]

Police said the call that came into WFTL 850 AM was made by a woman from outside South Florida, who said her husband was planning to carry out a mass shooting in Broward County.

Because the threat involved government buildings and because it was made from another part of the state, the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have joined the investigation.

The caller was either inspired by Kaufman’s anti-government rants or upset by her treatment in the media. So they threatened to attack schools, of course. And this necessitated the firing, not merely the media coverage.

This will not be an isolated incident, I gather. Some conservatives are brimming with confidence that their extreme rhetoric was actually celebrated by the electorate last week. If they’re sore losers, they’re even worse as winners – and they’ll continue to spew vitriol at anyone who opposes them. And we now see where that can lead.

But don’t expect this to tone down the rhetoric from Kaufman or her never-was-a-former boss Allen West. He’s the guy who tortured an Iraqi police officer not so long ago.