{"id":7926,"date":"2006-07-13T13:45:03","date_gmt":"2006-07-13T17:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7926.html"},"modified":"2006-07-13T13:45:03","modified_gmt":"2006-07-13T17:45:03","slug":"steve-king-strikes-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/steve-king-strikes-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve King strikes again"},"content":{"rendered":"

If we were to make a list of the top five nuttiest House Republicans, [tag]Steve King[\/tag] would have to be near the top<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was prop time on the House floor Tuesday night when Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), making the case for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, showed a miniature version of a border wall that he “designed.”<\/p>\n

He had mock sand representing the desert as well as fake construction panels as C-SPAN focused in on the unusual display.<\/p>\n

But it got really interesting when King broke out the mock electrical wiring: “I also say we need to do a few other things on top of that wall, and one of them being to put a little bit of wire on top here to provide a disincentive for people to climb over the top.”<\/p>\n

He added, “We could also electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with [tag]livestock[\/tag] all the time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

TP has the video<\/a> of a completely-sincere King comparing [tag]immigrants[\/tag] to [tag]cattle[\/tag].<\/p>\n

King’s office disputed this interpretation, telling The Hill that King was merely “comparing a fence to a fence — a border fence to an [tag]Iowa[\/tag] farm fence.”<\/p>\n

That wouldn’t be a bad spin, were it not for two problems. One, King never actually mentioned an Iowa farm fence during his remarks on the House floor; and two, King hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to over-the-top rhetoric.
\n
\nWe are, after all, talking about a [tag]GOP[\/tag] lawmaker who:<\/p>\n

* told reporters<\/a>, “There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell [al Zarqawi is] at. And if there are, they probably all look like [White House correspondent] Helen Thomas.”<\/p>\n

* described Joseph McCarthy as “a great American hero<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

* was the chief sponsor<\/a> of the “English Language Unity Act of 2005,” which would make English the official national language.<\/p>\n

* argued that the civilian violent death rate in Washington, D.C., is actually higher than it is in Iraq<\/a>, and cited bogus data while making the case.<\/p>\n

* told Newsweek that federal courts “have defied federal law,” and he has a plan to “put the courts back in their appropriate constitutional place<\/a>,” though he wouldn’t say what the plan is.<\/p>\n

* was one of only 11 lawmakers<\/a> to vote against emergency relief funds for Hurricane Katrina victims.<\/p>\n

Maybe King didn’t mean to equate immigrants with cattle yesterday, but given his recent history of nuttiness, I’m not prepared to take his word for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If we were to make a list of the top five nuttiest House Republicans, [tag]Steve King[\/tag] would have to be near the top. It was prop time on the House floor Tuesday night when Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), making the case for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, showed a miniature version of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}