Steve King of this morning turns to the Steve King of 48 hours ago:
“Hold my beer.” https://t.co/TkN8j9gsXL
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) March 14, 2017
CNN: [Warning: autoplay]
… King, a Republican, was on the radio responding to a question about Univision anchor Jorge Ramos’ comment to Tucker Carlson on Fox News that whites would become a majority-minority demographic in America by 2044, a point Ramos used to make the argument that it is a multiracial country.
“Jorge Ramos’ stock in trade is identifying and trying to drive wedges between race,” King told Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson on 1040 WHO. “Race and ethnicity, I should say to be more correct. When you start accentuating the differences, then you start ending up with people that are at each other’s throats. And he’s adding up Hispanics and blacks into what he predicts will be in greater number than whites in America. I will predict that Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before that happens.” …
In the interview on Iowa radio, King reiterated comments he made Monday to Chris Cuomo on CNN’s “New Day,” saying, “This isn’t about race.”…
But King argued that others, such as Ramos, were “celebrating” the success of a plan to make whites a majority-minority.
“Their effort here is to be celebrating because the United States is moving towards becoming, the whites becoming a minority, a majority-minority within the country according to what their plan is,” he said.
King concluded the interview by recommending that listeners read the novel, “The Camp of the Saints,” by French author Jean Raspail, a book about Europe being overcome by immigrants which has also frequently been referenced by top Trump adviser Steve Bannon….
.
See, it’s only “about race” when it’s about Not White people…
.
The fact that Ryan is worried about the political ramifications of criticizing Steve King is all you need to know about the state of the GOP https://t.co/54do4ufTug
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) March 13, 2017
ETA:
I'm willing and ready to take on @SteveKingIA again if I have sufficient support. No donation is too small. https://t.co/i0cM36D6JQ
— Kim Weaver (@KimWeaverIA) March 12, 2017
(According to her twitter feed, Iowa does not have an impeachment or recall process — he’ll have to be voted out in 2018.)
BlueDWarrior
At least we have Steve King to unite us in all saying “Fuck Rep. Steve King (of Iowa)!” regardless of whatever else might be swirling around right now.
pseudonymous in nc
The Des Moines paper says it’s time for the Iowa GOP to withdraw support for King. The local papers in his district don’t have an opinion on him. That says a lot about the persistence of this white supremacist fuckhead.
Ian G.
Is “The Camp of the Saints” going to be the new “Atlas Shrugged” where some trash novel written by a sociopath becomes an “intellectual” justification for sociopathic behavior?
Omnes Omnibus
WTF?
Mike J
@Ian G.: It’s the new Turner Diaries.
efgoldman
@pseudonymous in nc:
As I said in last night’s Pigmuck thread, i blame the ignorant, bigoted fucking assholes in his district who vote for him, just as i blame the ignorant, bigoted fucking assholes who voted for Tangerine Tumerous.
There isn’t any secret about them; it’s all right there in the open.
Fuckem
Brachiator
I’ll just wait for the movie.
BlueDWarrior
@efgoldman: another point of agreement from me; all of these racist ‘ethno-nationalists’ can only do what they do because you have people who believe that shit, or people who are wobbly enough to get sucked into the former’s tow.
The only way we get past this shit is when more of ‘us’ decide to show up and drown out ‘them’, and then we keep showing up when they try to reappear and drown them out again.
Adam L Silverman
@pseudonymous in nc: The head of the Iowa Republican Party and one of his fellow Iowan Republican Congressional colleagues both issued very meh responses to his remarks.
Adam L Silverman
@Ian G.: It has been on the white supremacist/race realist/white nationalist anti-immigrant right for some time now. It is only published by one of Taunton’s think tanks in the US. No real publisher will touch it.
schrodingers_cat
Why are we giving the King of Stupid people free publicity. He needs to be shunned and ignored.
NotMax
Seem to recall we fought a war to get rid of Kings.
Cacti
My black market white baby dealer
Is hunting around overseas
My black market white baby dealer
Brings back clean, fresh white babies to me
Clean, fresh white babies to me
-Liz Phair & Steve King
Frankensteinbeck
Woah. King PUBLICLY RECOMMENDED the Camp of Saints? That’s like explaining you’re not a bigot by recommending Mein Kampf or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I guess he thinks he can get away with it because the book is so little known.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: We fought a war to get rid of racist sociopaths, too.
Cacti
As someone observed yesterday…
Steve King, representative from Iowa, has a confederate flag on his desk.
Over 13,000 Iowans died in the Civil War against the confederacy.
Steve King is an idiot.
KS in MA
What’s the name of the Democrat who’s raising $$ to run against him, again? I’m late on sending in a few bucks…
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Both King and Bannon. And not just once, but repeatedly as if it were a sacred fetish whose very name conveys power.
Adam L Silverman
@Cacti: Yep.
Oatler.
And we’re so by- God stubborn we could stand touching noses
For a week and a half and never see eye to eye
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: No, we fought a war to keep the racist sociopaths from leaving. And freed some slaves in the process.
MomSense
If you find that you need a palate cleanser after thinking about the disgusting Rep KKKing from Iowa, I recommend checking out SirPatStew on Instagram. Patrick Stewart is fostering a pit bull and sharing the videos of the experience.
Sir Patrick Stewart napping with Ginger is the best.
jl
@Ian G.: I looked to see whether King really did recommend ‘Camp of the Saints’, but couldn’t find it in the story, but there was a note that the story was updated (edit: Was it edited out, and if so, Political covering King’s ass? You don’t want anyone finding out what is in that book. Anyone who recommends it will be deemed a racist nutcase and moron, even by your standard issue US white bigot). If King said that, man, he is one really whacked out racist idiot. ‘Camp of the Saints’ is a stupid, vicious and idiotically racist book. Really murderous and moronic. Deranged.
King can pause all he wants to try to explain it to himself, or to others, or to both, so maybe it sounds halfway semi-tolerant and not repellent, but it is.
jl
@jl: Typed Politico, but meant CNN, though hot sure there is a difference anymore.
Corner Stone
@MomSense: It’s going to be extra funny when one bites his nose like Mel Gibson did in that one Julia Roberts movie with horses and bridges and bumps and smokestacks and flooded parking garages and that one book thingie.
amk
@schrodingers_cat: Yup. Pigs gonna be pigs. This is all a distraction.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl:
Did someone mention Steve King?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: @amk: People are angry. Maybe a venue where they can vent is useful. If not, maybe the two of you can tell us which topics are worth posting about.
John Revolta
@MomSense: Is it this pit bull?
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
And black helicopters. You can’t forget the black helicopters.
I dare ya to go check out patstew and gingergurl.
BlueDWarrior
@Omnes Omnibus: Also, we keep saying that but we just elected one of the biggest enablers of this fucktardedness as President of the United States. I think we’re past the point of trying to shove them back under the rock.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: The book is really moronic and vicious. The toxic stupidity of it is hard to exaggerate. Would make great oppo ads against King, just show a pic with a caption of his quote recommending it, and read some passages, or describe the plot. Decent people would vote against him because of the vicious racism. 90 percent of self-respecting racists and bigots would vote against him because of the stupidity.
Thadeu
@BlueDWarrior:
How many times will ‘us’ show up? And for what cause?
Trumpcare passes/not passes, legislative agenda accomplished/not acomplished … all this is tangential.
The RWNJ were hesitant in 2016, because they were unsure about the power of appeals to race. Post Trump they *know*. They can grab power, they have a constituency. There is a good solid constituency in this country (and in most countries now) , across the whole economical, political and social spectrum, who will vote lockstep for a racial agenda to marginalize the minorities and monopolize the economic pie.
If Trump fails to pass his agenda, then the next election will give Trump/Bannon more power. Because the lesson the RWNJ populace will take away from 2 years of failure will be that they did not fight vicious enough in 2016 to amass the power to do what needed to be done. In 2018 they will fight brutal, and gain more power, because the opposition is still dicking around within themselves, and not united or strong-willed as them.
In Bush’s time a pretense of civilized behavior was needed. Those rules don’t apply anymore. A ‘Katrina’ can at the most bring down Trump. But the movement will be immune, and continue unabated, replacing Trump with the next goon.
This is a fight-to-death, just getting kicked off. Defeat will only heighten the RWNJ rage and the will to amass power. And with the current state of the liberal left, there is not enough will to match them. The philosophical justification and social structures to confront this vileness does not exist today on the liberal/left spectrum. Ideas and strong personalities need to show up quickly, or this will be a lost battle.
MomSense
@John Revolta:
No but that dog does look like him somehow. He and his wife are fostering a pittie who was rescued from a
dog fighting ring. Ginger is living the life now and Stewart seems to be enjoying spoiling the foster pup.
hovercraft
@KS in MA:
Kim Weaver
Omnes Omnibus
@BlueDWarrior: We shouldn’t shove them under a rock. They need sunlight. If we really are that country, it should be out in public. If it is an aberration, that should be in public too.
satby
@MomSense: I watched a few of the videos and I think Sir Patrick and Ginger are made for each other. He should adopt her.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: I was referring to the 20th century war against racist central European sociopaths. My bad for not being more specific. You are of course correct about the late unpleasantness of the 19th century domestically, however.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
“The coincidences are piling up.
After disavowing any contact with President Donald Trump last week, Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev’s state-of-the-art yacht Anna sat anchored in the British Virgin Islands on Friday night when another equally resplendent luxury liner, the Sea Owl, sidled up, according to a website that tracks the movement of yachts.
The owner of the dark-hulled yacht? President Donald Trump’s biggest financial supporter and Breitbart News moneyman, Robert Mercer.”
I would have loved to be a
fly on the wallmargarita on the bar of that encounter.Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Got it.
Ella in New Mexico
Seriously, does anyone else remember that Paul Ryan was dragged against his will into becoming the Speaker? He has no “leadership qualities”. He has no “conservative vision”. He has no “principles” other than saving his own skin. Does it surprise ANYONE he’s a fucking duplicitous asshole in over his head who’s now drowning in his own Golden Shower of incompetence and ignorance? I mean, who looks to Paul Ryan as the voice of anything?
#fucktarddumbassgrifterPOS
sukabi
@Brachiator: isn’t that the book Bannon is using as his master plan?
Anne Laurie
@KS in MA: Added her link to the main post — thanks for the reminder!
jl
@Ella in New Mexico: Ryan. One of the smoothest and most polished chickenshits in the history of US politics. A glistening chickenshit, like fine porcelain.
Anne Laurie
@Frankensteinbeck:
And the people who do know about it are raving loony bigots like himself (or appalled DFHs like us, about whom he could care less).
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: yes
MomSense
@satby:
I agree. I don’t see how he hands Ginger off to anyone else.
efgoldman
@Ella in New Mexico:
Wanna’ buy a share of this here bridge?
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: “I say old boy, do you have any Grey Poupon?”
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: She’s a well meaning Bernie voter who voted HRC in the general. She also recently accused me of being defeatist because I found Maddow’s reveal to be underwhelming.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anne Laurie: I vaguely recall hearing about this book back in 1975 when it was first published, in Time or Newsweek or both. It did garner some attention then, but it passed rather quickly.
Another Scott
I don’t know which of those sentences make my head hurt more – the CNN reporter’s preface, or King’s version.
Both are not even wrong.
Whites can’t be made a “majority-minority”. It’s a category error, and stupid, and I hope it doesn’t turn into some new “term” that everyone is supposed to agree has meaning. “Majority” means over 50%. “Majority-Minority” means that minorities – collectively – have the majority, not that one particular group in the minority is the largest. This isn’t hard. CNN shouldn’t be repeating his nonsense as if it has meaning.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Villago Delenda Est: Pish. The young ‘uns won’t get that joke.
I didn’t see a source for all this yacht-and-airplane tracking, but it has a strong scent of Louise Mensch’s ethereal perfume. That doesn’t make it false, AFAICT – just to be taken with some scepticism.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Anyone who has the slightest clue about taxes knows that a 1040 isn’t where the story is. It’s two blah pages of numbers that don’t begin to reveal much of anything. The thing is, most Americans don’t deal with anything in the realm of schedules much beyond the mortgage deduction, some reports on earned interest, and if they’re fortunate, any rental income they might have. The vast majority of their income is on a W2 (we don’t even see that with Donald’s return, as if he gets a W2) and “calculating taxes” is more of a hunt for documentation than actually having to calculate things beyond the tax table.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Really has nothing to do with whether Granny Starver’s grasping ambition to Rand-ize all of us led him to Peter Principle himself into a job he can’t handle.
GregB
Real ‘Muricans don’t read no novels by fruity foreign elitist Frenchmen with thin mustaches.
They read books by boner-fied ‘Muricans like The Turner Diaries.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: @efgoldman: I know.
Timurid
So I just got the memo… apparently I’m supposed to find some black guy and fight him?
Honestly, I like the other Steve King better…
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: The main stream publisher in the US that handled the English edition for sale here took a bath on it. It went out of publication very quickly and then got picked up by one of Taunton’s think tanks and they’ve been republishing it ever since.
Villago Delenda Est
Of course, what Donald’s 2005 1040 DOES tell us is that if he had $10 billion in assets, and he earned income of $150 million on that $10 billion, his earnings would have been better if he put all $10 billion in a passbook savings account. Which means he’s probably lying about the $10 billion in assets.
Great businessman, my ass.
danielx
@Frankensteinbeck:
Or because he knows his constituents really well.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Ella in New Mexico:
Oh, Steve King has principles… and if you don’t like those, he has others.
JanieM
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Wait, even the boats are disavowing contact now?
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: You know, and I know, and just about every last contributor here knows (because most of us don’t file 1040EZ, because we have a mortgage deduction to think about), but there are a lot of people out there who have no clue. They’ll all shrug their shoulders and say no big whoop.
sukabi
@Timurid: the one that writes horror stories…or the one who IS a horror story?
danielx
@Ella in New Mexico:
He wasn’t dragged into anything, he gave a fucking list of preconditions before he took the job. All of which are worthless at this point…but he has a Randian point of view. He read Atlas Shrugged and never got over it. His career has consisted of taking things away from one group of people to give to another and who worships plutocrats. This from a man who has never worked a single fucking day of his life except for in government, one way or another.
Anne Laurie
@Another Scott:
Too late, it’s already one of those self-pitying white nationalist catchphrases, like ‘the fourteen words’ (Hitler’s formulation on white supremacy) or ’88’ for ‘Heil Hitler’.
As they understand it, white people are nature’s default, so a “majority-minority” — too many not-white people — is a literal offense against nature / logic / decency.
At least it helps the rest of us identify the racists quicker!
Omnes Omnibus
@Ella in New Mexico: Are you really interested in a fight?
ETA: I am not.
Bill Arnold
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
There’s also the collection of dead Russians: Meet the nine Russian operatives who have dropped dead during Donald Trump-Russia scandal
As Goldfinger said, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is coincidence, same for 4,5,6,7,8 times, fuck it, 9 times is enemy action.
also
toschek
Can we get a “Fear of a Black Planet” tag up in here? Chuck D. was pretty prescient.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@JanieM:
C’mon, what do you expect from reporting by Boaty McBoatface?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@jl:
The last paragraph of the CNN story:
joel hanes
Trying to understand is the besetting liberal vice.
Nevertheless — here’s a statistical look at Odebolt, IA, the heart of Steve King country.
King lives in an even-smaller nearby town, but he goes to church in Odebolt, or used to.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Odebolt-Iowa.html
Population : 977
Percent “white alone” according to respondents: 97.5
Looks as if there’s maybe seventeen ethnic Mexicans, five people of Asian descent, one “black”, and one “American Indian”
One gay male couple willing to admit it in a survey; no lesbians.
75 % of all respondents self-identified as having a religion: ALL of them Christian
It would be difficult to imagine a portion of the country that is in reality LESS threatened with being swamped anytime soon by a wave of brown-skinned, non-Christian, non-assimilating immigrants, or LESS threatened by substantial change to its dominant culture.
And yet, these folks are angry because their 18 Mexicans still speak Spanish at home, and don’t “act like Americans”.
These folks have never met a Muslim, but they’re terrified of them, and angry because they’re terrified.
They’ve spent their entire lives in a community of people just like them, so that even the slightest difference in values or customs is therefore perceived as a gross violation of norms, unacceptable, threatening to their way of life.
“He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his own little tribe are the laws of the Universe”.
Now, I suggest, use google images and search for “odebolt iowa”
That’s where Steve King comes from, and where he learned to know his voters.
amk
@joel hanes: Yup, that’s why I am from a two-bit bigoted town pos is irrelevant.
jl
@Steeplejack (tablet): Thanks. I looked for it but didn’t see it. King is a racist loon.
Villago Delenda Est
@joel hanes: I dare say most of these people haven’t traveled any further than Omaha or Des Moines in their entire lives, too.
When I was stationed in Europe, I saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime to play tourist, and see all these places I’d only read about or seen pictures of in books or magazines. To actually stand on the Place de la Concorde was one of my dreams in high school, and my first day in Paris, I fulfilled that dream. My first night after getting off the plane I stayed in this little gasthaus in Bad Kreuznach, on the west bank of the Rhein, and it hit me that when I looked at the church down the street that it had bullet holes in it from fighting during WWII that I was steeped in history, more history than I could ever have imagined. Centuries of it. It absolutely boggled me and as I look back it was amazing how quickly the humdrum of day to day life robbed me of my wonder of that first night and the following day.
These people have never experienced that. I pity them, even as I oppose their attitudes with every fiber of my being, and dream of tasting bulgogi in Seoul again, or spaghetti on the street that leads to the gates of the Vatican, or enjoying some street food in Singapore.
Frankensteinbeck
@joel hanes:
I am fully in favor of trying to understand Republicans. The reason it goes wrong is that instead of actually doing that, too many liberals look for ways to excuse them instead. If you do not hold open the possibility that they are hate-driven racists, you are not actually trying to understand them. Don’t assume they must be some variation of yourself.
Applejinx
@Villago Delenda Est:
True, but here’s a thought experiment.
If he had $10 billion in assets, why the fuck should he gain ANYTHING from just parking it somewhere and letting it sit? How does that make any sense at all? There’s your (systemic) problem.
Think about it. ‘He has $10 billion dollars, therefore he should get paid well over $150 million for doing absolutely nothing other than existing. If he doesn’t get rewarded a lot MORE than $150 million for absolutely nothing, he is a dummy who’s doing something wrong!’.
And then, the system that set this reverse Robin Hood-ism up had better not tax away more than a shred of what is already obscene and unjustifiable, because FREEDUMS… fuck this, let him sing ‘Taxman’ because the government’s taking 95% of everything over a million and supporting his victims using it…
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
I haven’t for at least as long as GOPAC has been in existence. And they turned the dial up to 11 a long time ago, I think they’re up to 15 or 20 by now.
SFAW
@Applejinx:
You might consider having one or two cups of coffee before you start posting in the morning.
Sherparick
@schrodingers_cat: Ignoring people like King and Spencer is not a good thing. It allows people to say that they are not “racists” but are tired of all the “political correctness” that limits their ability to say, well to say racists ideas and jokes. His District, currently Iowa’s 4th District, is basically the Northwestern Quarter of the State. It is 96% White, so apparently it is the theory of immigrants, not the actual immigrants that get people excited. King’s based of support is the Evangelical Protestants and Conservative Catholics, for whom ever fetus is holy, but every non-white baby a horror. Although as corn, soybean, and wheat farmers they suck freely from the Federal teat, the good Republicans loathe all the potential moochers in Eastern cities and are full adherents of the Movement Conservative anti-tax ideology. Going back to his days in the Iowa Senate, his obsessions have been lower taxes, eliminating the estate tax, bashing the poor, pounding the Family Values Bible-Thumper line, and fearing the Other, particular the Hispanic and Black Other. (I always wonder how these people who love to claim being Biblical literalists, except they seem to skip over the whole New Testament.)
SFAW
@Sherparick:
Including Revelation? I thought the Dominionists were big into that one.
Sherparick
@Frankensteinbeck: As Driftglass says about the current Republican Party:
“We on the Left would like to sincerely thank President* Donald Trump for confirming for all the world to see every single thing we have ever said about the fundamental laziness, stupidity, brutality, paranoia, racism and deep contempt for this country that lurks at the heart of all those flag-waving fake patriots and Bible-thumping fake Christians in the GOP. We couldn’t have done it without you, Twitler!” http://driftglass.blogspot.com/
Sherparick
@SFAW: They might be big on it, but I doubt they read it.
SFAW
@Sherparick:
Po-TAY-toe, po-TAH-toe.
ETA: Your statement also indicates that they might sometimes base their beliefs/actions on “information,” without understanding that info, nor even knowing whether it’s true or false. Unpossible. (Or perhaps “Inconceivable!”)
Sherparick
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep, it was and is special opportunity to travel and live in Europe. I don’t think I ever lost it my sense of wonder in 20 years there. Above Landstuhl, there was ruins of the castle of Burg Nanstein, HQ of Franz von Sickingen, Protestant leader of the Knight’s Revolt (and the model for “the Knight” in John Osborne’s play, “Luther”) and visiting Trier and walking under the “Black Gate,” in the same place that European rulers from Constantine the Great through Charlemagne to Napoleon had stood, and where Patton had driven his jeep when the 3rd Army took Trier in early 1945. Something to remember is that for Rome the “illegal immigrant” problem was Congressmen King’s blue eyed, blond haired, barbarian ancestors.
Captain C
@SFAW: But boy do they ignore the Sermon on the Mount, which is only Jesus’ most extensive ethical statement.