Steve King is an Iowa Republican Congressman. He was scheduled to host a $100 a plate fundraiser for Fourth Congressional District GOP candidate Cory Gardner this weekend in Hudson but his appearance was canceled after he told G. Gordon Liddy that the President was a racist who favored black people over white people. The remarks will come as no surprise to people who know King at all or who have followed his career in Congress.
The radio show remarks:
When you look at this administration, I’m offended by Eric Holder and the President also, their posture. It looks like Eric Holder said that white people in America are cowards when it comes to race. And I don’t know what the basis of that is but I’m not a coward when it comes to that and I’m happy to talk about these things and I think we should. But the President has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race — on the side that favors the black person.
King anecdotally and even perhaps mathematically rates as one of the most incendiary members of Congress– and has done for the last decade. He has also put forth legislation that has overwhelmingly failed to pass into law. Mostly his bills seem intended not to make policy but to make political points.
He has sponsored bills to repeal the 16th Amendment, for example, which would end the government’s power to levy income taxes. He has sponsored bills and resolutions promoting the English language and recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith. He has sponsored a long list of bills meant to target illegal aliens that also have failed to gain traction.
One amendment he proposed would have banned Speaker Nancy Pelosi from using government funds to travel to “terrorism sponsoring states” like Cuba and Iran and North Korea. The amendment didn’t however ban Republican House members from traveling to the same countries, which some of them had done. King had no explanation for why he wrote the amendment the way he did.
“How can anyone take this amendment seriously, especially when it comes on the same day that Bush administration officials are in North Korea?” said a Pelosi staffer asked for comment. “And why would anyone think it is responsible to restrict the ability of the speaker of the House to bring the concerns of the American people to foreign leaders? It is part of the speaker’s job.”
King has been a regular in the news less for his perplexing– some might say throwaway– legislation than for his talk-radio style pronouncements.
King was one of the most outspoken critics of ACORN, which he said was a scandal bigger than Watergate. “It’s thousands of times bigger than Watergate because Watergate was only a little break-in by a couple of guys,” said King. “By the time we pull ACORN out by its roots America’s going to understand just how big this is.” He described the ACORN scandal as “the largest corruption crisis in the history of America.”
ACORN meanwhile has been found to have committed no crimes by a series of judges, who also almost all suggested that it was the activists who secretly taped the ACORN workers who were likely guilty of committing crimes. Indeed, James O’Keefe, the man behind the videos that led to the scandal, which ended in an unconstitutional defunding of the low-income housing and voter registration organization, this year plead guilty to misdemeanor charges after entering Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans under false pretenses.
In addition to his Liddy-show remarks, also on Monday on the floor of the House, King said illegals could be profiled by their grooming habits. Later in the week he called for Pres. Obama’s aunt to testify before a congressional panel to address “the public perception that favoritism played a role” in the fact that she was granted asylum. At the end of May, he called efforts to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell a “risky experiment in social engineering.” He has said “Obamacare” and freedom are incompatible. He said Arizona U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, who decried the new controversial immigration law passed in his state, was “advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law” and that Grijalva had essentially ceded his district to Mexico.
None of this is shocking on the talk-radio right. Yet this is the man who was suddenly dis-invited by the Gardner campaign to attend a tea party event and fundraiser in the Fourth District this weekend. The Gardner campaign has given no reason for the dis-invitation but the perception is that King had suddenly become a political risk for being too controversial in his public views. Anyone remotely familiar with Steve King couldn’t be blamed for thinking that his controversial public views are what led Gardner to invite him in the first place.
[Photo via Iowa Independent]
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