United States Congress 5: Still Looking for a Spine

[formergothardite]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I think the GOP is terrified of the damning information that is in those tax returns, and they don't want to be blindsided. They will need to prepare a response, which could be an attempt to defend, but could also very well be an abrupt distancing from the presidunce

Yes. If the democrats have his tax forms they GOP doesn't want to be left in the dark over what exactly Trump has been hiding. Many will defend him no matter what, but there are some who are going to be working out a way to distance themselves from Turmp in the taxes are too damning. 

IMO there is no way that the taxes won't be leaked out if the democrats get them, find evidence that they make Trump look bad and Trump manages to stop them from being able to release them legally. The taxes are going to come out no matter what IMO. 

[mamallama]

I think by now the congressional Repuglikans are looking for an out.  I'm sure they'd rather have Pence at the top of ticket at this point and it's looking like it can only get worse.

[fraurosena]

Because of course he did!

 

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[fraurosena]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Fake facts are strong with him 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Daily 202: ‘The last election was a wake-up call.’ Why GOP leaders are turning on Steve King."

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: The top three Republicans in House leadership each rebuked Rep. Steve King on Thursday after the Iowa Republican wondered aloud how the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” became “offensive” during an interview with the New York Times.

“Steve’s language is reckless, wrong and has no place in our society,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. “Everything about white supremacy and white nationalism goes against who we are as a nation.”

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said it was “offensive to try to legitimize those terms.” He credited King for issuing a statement after the story published that said, “I reject those labels and the evil ideology that they define.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who just became No. 3 in GOP leadership by winning the race for conference chair, tweeted: “These comments are abhorrent and racist and should have no place in our national discourse.”

“Both McCarthy and Scalise were silent in October when asked for comment on incendiary remarks King had made then,” Felicia Sonmez notes. “At the time, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), then the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, was the only member of House GOP leadership to rebuke King.”

-- “Mr. King, in the interview, said he was not a racist,” Trip Gabriel reports in the Times. “He pointed to his Twitter timeline showing him greeting Iowans of all races and religions in his Washington office. (The same office once displayed a Confederate flag on his desk.) At the same time, he said, he supports immigrants who enter the country legally and fully assimilate because what matters more than race is ‘the culture of America’ based on values brought to the United States by whites from Europe. ‘White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?’ Mr. King said. ‘Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?’ …

“Last week, as the new Congress was sworn in, Mr. King sat on his side of a chamber sharply delineated by demographics,” the story concludes. “The Democratic majority included record numbers of African-Americans and women, including the first Native American and the first Muslim women. Mr. King’s side was mostly people who look like him. ‘You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men,’ he said.”

-- King is not some random backbencher. In the most recent Congress, he chaired the House Judiciary Committee’s prestigious Constitution subcommittee. More than that, though, the Times story lays out King’s influence on President Trump and his role in bringing the debate over a border wall into the mainstream.

“Mr. Trump’s preoccupation with the wall and anti-immigrant politics reflects how he has embraced the once-fringe views of Mr. King,” Trip writes. “Mr. King may have been ostracized by some Republicans over his racist remarks and extremist ties, but as much of the nation debates immigration, his views now carry substantial influence on the right. … Early in Mr. Trump’s term, the president invited Mr. King … to the Oval Office. There, the president boasted of having raised more money for the congressman’s campaigns than anyone else, including during a 2014 Iowa visit, Mr. King recalled in an interview with The Times. ‘Yes, Mr. President,’ Mr. King replied. ‘But I market-tested your immigration policy for 14 years, and that ought to be worth something.’”

-- Indeed, King has a long history of making inflammatory comments related to immigration that predates the Trump era. “In the fall, he voiced support for Faith Goldy, an unsuccessful Toronto mayoral candidate who has promoted the baseless notion that a ‘white genocide’ is underway,” Isaac Stanley-Becker notes. “Shortly thereafter, reports surfaced that King had met in August with members of an Austrian political party founded by former Nazis, during a trip funded by a group that promotes awareness of the Holocaust.”

He’s routinely questioned the value of nonwhite diversity. “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about,” he told Esquire in 2016. “Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”

In 2013, he told Newsmax that for every immigrant in the country illegally who becomes valedictorian, there are “another 100 out there that — they weigh 130 pounds, and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

The Weekly Standard reported in November that King jokingly referred to Mexican immigrants as “dirt” while bantering with supporters before a campaign event. When King denied it, the conservative magazine released audio that backed up its reporting. When the publication was shuttered a few weeks later for reasons that had nothing to do with the piece, King celebrated its demise.

-- During a Daily 202 Live interview last June, Scalise ripped Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for her incendiary comments about confronting Trump’s aides but demurred when I pressed him about King retweeting a self-professed “Nazi sympathizer” and then refusing to delete it. “I haven’t seen the tweet,” Scalise said, despite it being in the news for several days. “I have not seen the tweet, and you know, maybe we’ll go take a look at it and talk to Steve and see what’s going on there.”

As the conversation moved to other issues, Scalise circled back to say that it’s important to condemn Nazi sympathizers but stopped short of chastising King. “We need to be very vocal about condemning that kind of viewpoint, because there are still people out there that try to go under the false impression that the Holocaust didn’t exist,” he said. “I mean people say that, and it’s wrong.”

-- In addition to the substance of King’s comments, there are eight other factors that might explain why Republican leaders are more willing to publicly break with him than they have been in the past:

1. The midterms showed King could be defeated. He won his ninth term in November by only three percentage points, even though Trump had carried the district by 27 points in 2016. That was without national Democrats investing any resources to support Democrat J.D. Scholten, a former independent-league baseball player.

During the run-up to the midterms, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) declined to remove King as the co-chair of her campaign for a full term. “I can't be held responsible for everyone's comments,” she told reporters, adding that she “strongly disagreed with the comments that he’s made.”

This week, Reynolds announced that she will not endorse King in 2020. “The last election was a wake-up call – for it to be that close," she told the Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO on Wednesday. “That indicates that it does open the door for other individuals to take a look at that. … I will stay out of the primary. I'm not going to weigh in.”

2. King now faces a credible primary challenger, which he has not in the past. On Wednesday, Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra (R) – an assistant majority leader and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee – announced that he will take on King for the GOP nomination. Feenstra argued that he can be more effective at advancing the Trump agenda. “Today, Iowa’s 4th District doesn’t have a voice in Washington, because our current representative’s caustic nature has left us without a seat at the table,” he said in a statement. “We don’t need any more sideshows or distractions.”

Last night, Feenstra sought to raise money off King’s latest comments, which he described as “another embarrassment”:

King’s son, who manages his campaigns, responded to Feenstra’s announcement by highlighting Trump’s previous endorsement of King as “the world’s most conservative human being.”

A second Republican, Army veteran Bret Richards, also announced that he will run this week. “I’m hearing there may be at least one more GOP challenger who hasn’t yet announced as well,” said Kathie Obradovich, the opinion editor at the Des Moines Register.

3. Forcefully condemning King now could dissuade him from seeking a 10th term. Strategists in both parties agree that the odds of the GOP holding the northwest Iowa seat go up dramatically if he doesn’t run again.

Notably, the new chairman of the NRCC, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), declined to say Thursday whether the party will back the incumbent in 2020. “It's too early to think about campaigns, I mean that's two years away,” Emmer told the Hill, arguing that the committee does not typically “play in primaries.” Regarding the Times story, the chairman said: “I disagree with the statements as they've been characterized, as I understand them, and it's not helpful.”

4. Iowa will be a battleground again in 2020 for president, Senate and House – and King could be a drag on the rest of the GOP ticket.

Democrats picked up two of Iowa’s four House seats in November, and Republicans promise to target both of them again next year. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is also seeking a second term, and she is considered one of the three or four most vulnerable GOP incumbents in the country. Ernst’s press office did not respond to my request for comment yesterday on whether she still backs King after his comments to the Times.

Veteran Iowa political journalist David Yepsen thinks Scholten’s chances of being able to beat Ernst in the Senate race are higher than beating anyone but King in the Fourth District. “Arguably less of a long shot,” he posted on Twitter. Interestingly, Scholten retweeted that.

5. Republican presidential aspirants have been reluctant to cross King in the past because he commands a loyal following among the devoted grass-roots activists who attend low-turnout caucuses in outsize numbers, but there’s no nominating fight to worry about in 2020. At least right now.

6. Because they now control the majority, House Democrats can force Republicans to take a position on King. Several Democrats, led by Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), are calling on leadership to quickly take up a resolution that would formally censure King for his comments. It could pass with a simple majority. It would force every Republican to take an on-the-record position about their colleague. Ryan’s staff is drafting a censure resolution for him to introduce.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) voiced interest in the effort, per Politico.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who was born in Iowa and has been testing the waters for a potential long-shot bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination, also seized on the issue.

Some rank-and-file Republicans appear open to a vote for censure. Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), for example, blasted King’s comments to the Times. “The embrace of these terms and philosophies are fundamentally wrong and offensive and have no place in Congress, our nation, or anywhere,” he tweeted.

Another Michigan Republican, Rep. Justin Amash, added: “This is an embrace of racism, and it has no place in Congress or anywhere.”

Suggesting that he recognizes the underlying political dynamics have shifted, King sounded less defiant and combative yesterday than he has during previous firestorms. In addition to a news release, he gave a sit-down interview to NBC News. “I reject white nationalism. I reject white supremacy. It's not part of any of my ideology,” he said in his Capitol Hill office. “I reject anyone who carries that ideology.”

7. The donor community and the business world have turned on King. Corporate America, which has long been more supportive of immigration than other elements of the GOP coalition, has become more activist in the Trump era under pressure from employees and customers. During the home stretch before the midterms, several corporate PACs pulled support for King. Among them: the chipmaker Intel, pet-food-maker Purina, the dairy Land O’Lakes and the ham producers at Smithfield.

8. Conservative thought leaders are ready to write King out of the movement. The model is William F. Buckley’s legendary crusade against Robert Welch and the John Birch Society in the pages of National Review. Rich Lowry, now the editor of NR, called King’s comments yesterday “simply contemptible.”

Stephen Hayes, who as editor in chief of the Weekly Standard made the call to publish the audio of King joking about immigrants as “dirt,” said yesterday: “What sane, thoughtful conservative would choose to remain in a party home to such an unapologetic bigot?”

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, the editor in chief of the Daily Wire, who publicly appeared with King last March, broke with him yesterday and urged followers to donate to Feenstra. In March 2017, when King tweeted that “we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies,” Shapiro rallied to his defense. “The deep desire to paint Republicans as racists rather than defenders of Western cultural superiority leads the media to lie,” he wrote. But Shapiro updated that post yesterday to say he now realizes that he “gave far too generous an interpretation of King's words.”

The executive producer of Shapiro’s show on the Daily Wire posted his own mea culpa:

-- The anti-tax Club for Growth also suggested that it might endorse King’s primary opponent, citing his apostasy on the fiscal issues the group cares about most: 

 

 

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[fraurosena]

Remember that it was recently also revealed that Russians were big donors to the NRA... this is just another example of how deep in Russian doo-doo the Republicans really are. It explains why the party is so protective of the presidunce too.

[WiseGirl]

As usual, I'm late but I did want to share that my senator has a sense of humor.  Can you imagine how intoxicated they would get?  (referencing 45's speech the other day)

And the other one is because I like it any time anyone calls out mcshit.

[AmazonGrace]

11 hours ago, WiseGirl said:

As usual, I'm late but I did want to share that my senator has a sense of humor.  Can you imagine how intoxicated they would get?  (referencing 45's speech the other day)

And the other one is because I like it any time anyone calls out mcshit.

I forget who wrote it but I saw a joke about a drinking game that involved taking a vodka shot every time Trump says something truthful. The punchline was, "I've been sober for two years."

[AmazonGrace]

 because nothing says emergency like scheduling it three weeks from now when your lawyer is testifying

Also Graham: Bad, BAAAD FBI. Shame on you for investigating criminals

 

[onekidanddone]

9 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I forget who wrote it but I saw a joke about a drinking game that involved taking a vodka shot every time Trump says something truthful. The punchline was, "I've been sober for two years."

I'd say I'd be sober for 72 years playing that drinking years, and I'm 55.

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

 because nothing says emergency like scheduling it three weeks from now when your lawyer is testifying

Also Graham: Bad, BAAAD FBI. Shame on you for investigating criminals

 

Graham is acting like a very scared, very guilty person who has something very awkward he wants to hide. Soon enough, we'll find out he has his own Russian connections too. 

[formergothardite]

Graham is guilty as sin when it comes to something and he is terrified. I think both Russia and Trump have something on him and he is doing everything in his power to keep them happy. 

[AmazonGrace]

They're happy to talk about King's racist statements so they don't have to talk about the president's racist shutdown or who all are Russian spies. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A brief guide to Steve King’s ‘long history of racist statements’"

Spoiler

With nearly two decades of Steven Arnold King as a national political figure, the American public has become well-acquainted with the “Groundhog Day” parameters of the Steve King news cycle.

1. The Republican representative from Iowa says or tweets something widely viewed as racist, anti-Semitic, white nationalist, or he insults immigrants, blacks, Latinos, women seeking abortions — or some combination thereof.

2. Outrage ensues, and King’s words are denounced by fellow Republicans, with such phrases as “completely inappropriate” and “we must stand up against white supremacy.”

3. King says or tweets that he is not racist, denounces the Holocaust, or says that his remarks were obviously taken out of context.

4. Repeat.

On Saturday, after King’s lament in the New York Times that “white nationalist” had become a pejorative term, the Congressional Black Caucus said Republicans need to use more than words to denounce King.

“If Republicans really believe these racist statements have no place in our government, then their party must offer more than shallow temporary statements of condemnation,” CBC said in a tweet on Saturday. “Instead they must actually condemn Mr. King by removing him from his committee assignments so that he can no longer affect policies that impact the very people he has made it clear that he disdains.”

Anything thing less from the Republican Party, the caucus said, is essentially “tacit acceptance of racism.”

King ultimately released a statement and addressed the issue in a speech on the House floor, saying he rejects “those labels and the evil ideology that they define.” He proclaimed himself “simply a nationalist.”

But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he’s meeting with King on Monday.

“Action will be taken,” McCarthy said on CBS News. “I’m having a serious conversation with Congressman Steve King on his future and role in the Republican Party."

But that was far from the first time that King has been denounced for offensive statements.

An incomplete list of the others:

The time he claimed “our civilization” can’t be restored with “somebody else’s babies”

In 2017, King tweeted that he agreed with far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders that “our civilization” cannot be restored “with somebody else’s babies.”

As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote after King made the statement, the idea that national identity and racial identity overlap is at the center of white nationalism.

“The formulation of ‘our’ civilization being at risk from ‘somebody else’s babies” is a deliberate suggestion that American civilization is threatened by unnamed ‘others.’” Bump wrote.

The time King retweeted a message by a Nazi sympathizer and defended it for weeks

In June, King retweeted a post by Mark Collett. King declined to delete the retweet and spent weeks defending it.

Collett is a British author who, as The Post’s Avi Selk wrote, “questions the Holocaust, wants to separate the continents by races, blames slavery on Jews, mocks interracial children, wrote a book embracing National Socialism, and once called himself a ‘Nazi sympathizer.’”

On neo-fascist message boards, users celebrated a U.S. congressman’s endorsement of an overt National Socialist, Selk wrote.

The time he met with a far-right group with Nazi ties on a trip sponsored by a Holocaust memorial group

In October, during a trip financed by a Holocaust memorial group, King spoke to the Unzensuriert website. As The Post’s Mike DeBonis wrote, Unzensuriert is associated with Austria’s Freedom Party, was founded by a former Nazi SS officer and is led by Heinz-Christian Strache, who was active in neo-Nazi circles in his youth. The Freedom Party has embraced a hard-line anti-immigration stance, one that was echoed by King when he was there.

“What does this diversity bring that we don’t already have?” King said in the interview with the site. “Mexican food, Chinese food, those things — well, that’s fine. But what does it bring that we don’t have that is worth the price? We have a lot of diversity within the U.S. already.”

The time he said blacks and Latinos will be 'fighting each other’ before the United States becomes a majority-minority nation

Shortly after King was criticized for his comments about rebuilding Western civilization, King responded to a conversation between Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and Univision anchor Jorge Ramos about whites becoming a minority in the United States by 2044.

“Ramos’s stock in trade is identifying and trying to drive wedges between race,” King told Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson on 1040 WHO.

“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.”

The time he said black people could afford abortions if they stopped buying iPhones

In a September 2016 congressional hearing, King said that even if he succeeded in taking away Medicaid funding for abortion, blacks would find a way to end their pregnancies anyway.

According to Rewire, after saying that abortion was a “tragedy for any life, no matter what color,” King also responded that “they chose to have an abortion. I would give you even money that a vast majority of mothers who say they can’t afford an abortion have an iPhone, which costs more.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

Posted without comment: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Might the Repugs actually DO something at Hitler King? "House Republican leaders move to strip Rep. Steve King of his committee assignments over comments about white nationalism"

Spoiler

House Republican leaders on Monday moved to strip Rep. Steve King of his committee assignments over his recent comments about white nationalism.

“We will not be seating Steve King on any committees in the 116th Congress,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said after a GOP Steering Committee meeting Monday night. The decision of the panel was unanimous, but it must be ratified by all House Republicans.

The Iowa Republican, who was elected to a ninth term in November, serves on the House Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees.

The most recent controversy was touched off when King asked in a New York Times interview published last week, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

It followed a long string of remarks disparaging of immigrants and minorities, as well as a seeming embrace of far-right foreign politicians and parties that have been openly hostile to those same groups.

The GOP action came as House Democrats prepared to rebuke King this week, with leaders pushing for a resolution disapproving of King’s remarks, a sanction that is short of formal reprimand or censure. It is similar to the action taken against Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) after he shouted “you lie” at President Barack Obama during a September 2009 speech on health care.

“Today I denounce the words of Representative Steve King, and I do so invoking the words of another King, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who, if he had been allowed to live, would be celebrating his 90th birthday on tomorrow,” said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.). “Dr. King counselled that, "we are going to be made to repent, not just for the hateful words and deeds of bad people, but for the appalling silence of good people."

The form of punishment faced pushback from some rank-and-file Democrats, who are pressing for harsher penalties against King.

Assistant House Speaker Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), the fourth-ranking Democratic leader, called King’s comments “blatantly racist” and said “every action we should take should be taken, whether it’s reprimand or censure or whatever it may be.”

“This needs to stop,” he said. “Enough with him getting away with this stuff. This is nonsense.”

Two Democrats — Reps. Bobby L. Rush (Ill.) and Tim Ryan (Ohio) — said the House should censure King and separately filed resolutions to do so. Censure is a rarely invoked punishment for conduct bringing dishonor on the House, the most serious punishment that can be levied on one of its members short of expulsion.

Separately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell became the highest-ranking Republican to speak out against King following his racially charged comments.

“I have no tolerance for such positions and those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms,” McConnell said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “Rep. King’s statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn’t understand why ‘white supremacy’ is offensive, he should find another line of work.”

McConnell said there is “no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind.”

McCarthy met with King in the Capitol on Monday evening. King did not speak to reporters after the meeting.

Shortly before the November election, King lashed out at the media after The Washington Post reported that he had met with members of a far-right Austrian party with historical Nazi ties after flying to Europe for a trip financed by a Holocaust memorial group. Republican leaders largely remained silent.

This time, more Republicans than ever are speaking out against King, and last week a prominent state senator announced he would seek to unseat King in the 2020 Republican primary.

King is a figure of prominence in the House GOP, not only due to the controversies he has stoked but also as a senior member of Judiciary, a leader in opposing legalized abortion and chairman of the Conservative Opportunity Society, an internal caucus of right-wing House Republicans that meets regularly.

After the Times interview was published, King issued a statement trying to clean up the controversy and later spoke on the House floor to say that he had made a “freshman mistake” by taking a reporter’s call and that the comments were “snippets” taken out of context of a large conversation.

That conversation, he said, was about “how did that language get injected into our political dialog? Who does that? How does it get done?”

But members of both parties have become increasingly weary of the repeated cycle of offense and outrage surrounding King. Among those speaking out against King this time include Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the most prominent black Republican in Congress.

Also Monday, the leader of the Anti-Defamation League called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and McCarthy to censure King and remove him as the top Republican on a House Judiciary subcommittee.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s chief executive and national director, said in a letter to the House leaders that it was the second time that he had made such a request.

“When it comes to Rep. King, we are beyond substantive disagreements. Rep. King has brought dishonor onto the House of Representatives,” Greenblatt wrote. By censuring King, he added, “you will make clear that his actions were deeply offensive, wrong, and that the U.S. House of Representatives will not tolerate anti-Semitism or bigotry in any form.”

Democratic leaders, managing a House majority, have been cautious in their comments on King. Censures of House members in the recent past have been done on a largely bipartisan basis following extensive investigations by the House Ethics Committee.

Pelosi said Friday “there’s interest in doing something” about King but declined to discuss specifics.

The last censure took place in 2010, under Pelosi’s first speakership, when Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) was rebuked on a 333-to-79 vote for financial misdeeds. Seventy-seven Democrats and two Republicans opposed censure.

Rush said a serious response was warranted by King’s repeated statements: “The U.S. Congress cannot be a platform for Steve King and those of his ilk. From Charleston to Charlottesville to Chicago to California, there is no home for this behavior, especially the floor of the United States House of Representatives.”

“Anything short of censure,” he added, “would be shallow.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

Steve King is apparently unaware that we can see him 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Isn't it funny that Steve King has always been the king of dogwhistles and nobody does anything and then Paul Ryan is gone and a week later somebody does something

His last election went pretty bad so they want him to lose the primary I think

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Jon Ernst pretends to be shocked now

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[GreyhoundFan]