Tea party Republicans flocking to appear Monday at white nationalist-connected march

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Iowa Rep. Steve King, former Rep. Allen West and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions are all planning to appear at an anti-immigration reform rally held by a group with close connections to the white nationalist movement. According to Right Wing Watch, the Black American Leadership Association (BALA) is not the grass-roots organization it purports to be, but rather a longstanding cabal of anti-immigration activists who have “deep connections” to white nationalist John Tanton, a man the Southern Poverty Law Center calls“the racist architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement.”

The march, called the “D.C. March for Jobs,” with its “Just say ‘No’ to Amnesty” theme is slated for Monday and is expected to draw a heavily tea party-affiliated, far-right crowd. Michelle Cottle at the Daily Beast wrote Friday that BALA is believed to be “the latest in a series of minority front groups providing anti-immigration extremists cover from charges of racism.”

Tea party leaders, wrote Cottle, have been “downright giddy” at having a group of activists of color on hand to point to when critics call out the recent anti-immigration reform putsch by conservatives as a display of racial animus.

BALA founder Leah Durant claims that the group’s mission is to protect the economic viability of African-Americans in the U.S. by stemming the tide of undocumented workers it believes are streaming into the country, thereby preventing the widespread black unemployment they say would result from the “devastating effects of amnesty and mass immigration.”

In a June open letter to the Senate Gang of Eight, BALA “implor[ed] each Member to fulfill his or her duty to the millions of Americans struggling to find work” by killing the Senate bill and taking measures to reduce immigration.

Durant has found herself inundated with media attention from right-outlets, including invitations to appear with Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mike Huckabee and others. BALA’s efforts to kill immigration reform have been trumpeted by the Daily Caller and the National Review.

Cottle wrote that while BALA’s existence only dates to the publication of its Facebook page in mid-May, at least a dozen of its members are long-time anti-immigration activists have have spent decades pushing the message that immigration will be economically devastating to the black community. Under different names over the years, including the African American Leadership Council, Choose Black America and the Coalition for the Future American Worker, this group of activists have been pushing policy agendas that Cottle called “misleading, dangerously divisive, and sadly predictable.”

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Human and Civil Rights, told Cottle, “We’ve seen this before. This is the same page pulled from an over-20-year-old playbook.”

Several BALA leaders — Durant, Frank Morris, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, and T. Willard Fair — have worked for, lobbied with or supported the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a notoriously anti-Latino, pro-eugenics organization that the SPLC classifies as a hate group. FAIR was founded by John Tanton, who, in the late 1980s, was outed as a racist when portions of his private correspondence were made public — letters and memos in which he railed against the “Latin onslaught” and said that society was doomed without a “a European-American majority — and a clear one at that.”

Aaron Flanagan of the Center for New Community told Cottle that BALA’s newfound utility to the anti-immigration right is “blatant tokenism.” He said, “And tokenism is not a word I use lightly.”

Henderson expressed disappointment. “It’s troubling when opportunists use the economic challenges of the African-American community as cover for ideological and political extremism to align themselves with groups like FAIR, which had their own genesis in the eugenics movement.”

Joining the Republican Party politicians at Monday’s march will be fiery fundamentalist Christian pastor O’Neal Dozier, who was Florida state director of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)’s presidential campaign in 2012. Dozier declared that former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)’s Mormonism made him a threat to the country and that it would “taint the Republican Party” to choose Romney as its nominee.

Dozier is also known for his extreme anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim statements, including the belief that homosexuality is the “paramount of sins” and that same sex partnerships are “something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.” He has publicly stated that Islam “has a plan, a 20-year plan, to take over America from within.”

Mother Jones reported that a charity Dozier supported and lobbied for with local Republican politicians swindled Haitian immigrants out of $3 million by charging them for U.S. work permits and other papers that they never received.

Republican Congressman Attacks Sasha And Malia Obama

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

This week, Breitbart News broke a long-standing security protocol and published a story detailing the precise location where President Obama’s daughters are vacationing this week. On Wednesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) used the report to attack the First Daughters for taking a vacation.

King’s comments came during an appearance on Mickelson in the Morning, an Iowa-based radio show. A caller, Carla, brought up sequestration and proceeded to criticize the Michelle Obama and her daughters for taking a vacation in the Bahamas. King agreed — “Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through” — before criticizing them for also taking a vacation last year in Mexico. “That was at our expense, too,” King bemoaned.

CALLER: When I see the First Lady and the beautiful girls going off to the Bahamas waving goodbye to us, it’s really hard to stomach. When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it. This, I am pretty tolerant, I always have been, I usually shut my mouth. This is not acceptable.

KING: Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through. […] You’re right on the president. He needs to show some austerity himself. Instead he wanted to tell America how bad it was going to be. […] We’ve got the president doing these things. He sent the daughters to spring break in Mexico a year ago. That was at our expense, too. And now to the Bahamas at one of the most expensive places there. That is the wrong image to be coming out of the White House.

Listen to it:

This notion that the Obamas are living a life of excess is beginning to take hold among conservative members of Congress. At the CPAC conference earlier this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) smeared Obama for enjoying “the perks and the excess of the $1.4 billion presidency,” a charge that “fail[s] on the facts in simple fairness,” according to CNN.

King is strongly considering running for Iowa’s open Senate seat in 2014. His potential candidacy is already causing consternation among establishment Republicans who worry that he will be a Todd Akin-redux, appealing only to far-right conservatives and turning off everyone else.

Steve King: I Don’t Know What Happened In Benghazi But It’s Worse Than Watergate

By Hamed Aleaziz/Think Progress

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has no idea what happened in Benghazi but he does know that it’s worse than Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal times 10. Here’s King from a Washington Times article published on Wednesday:

“I believe that it’s a lot bigger than Watergate, and if you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is,” Mr. King said. “I don’t think the public has any idea, and I tell you, I don’t either, of the chronology of the events — what took place, and who was where doing what and why. And all the way down through — we still haven’t seen an autopsy report on the ambassador yet. Simple questions that you would ask in the first 24 hours have not been asked yet.”

Of course, mainstream media outlets have extensively reported emerging details about the assault, many of which have undercut Repubican attempts to create a faux-scandal out of the events, over the past three months.

And perhaps King should consult ThinkProgress’ comprehensive timeline on Benghazi to get the details on what is publicly known about the attacks and their aftermath.

Steve King: Democrats Will Win Over Hispanics By Giving Them ‘A Great Big Check’

By Jeff Spross/Think Progress

Since President Obama’s re-election and Mitt Romney’s poor performance among Hispanic voters, a number of prominent conservative lawmakers and commentators have come out in favor of immigration reform. But Rep. Steve King (R-IA) appears to have not gotten the memo, if his first comments on immigration since the election are any indication.

Echoing Mitt Romney’s now-infamouscomplaint that Obama won by handing out “gifts” to women and minorities, King toldradio host Janet Mefferd yesterday that Republicans should not fixate on winning back the Hispanic vote because Democrats can always counter offer with “a great big check.” Right Wing Watch and Huffington Post’s Nick Wing picked up the exchange:

JANET MEFFERD: How in the world do you out-left the left anyway? If we go to the left on amnesty, do you think the Democrats are going to sit still and just go ‘oh I guess that they’re more caring than we are’? It’s a zero-sum game. I don’t know how in the world the Republicans expect to get votes when the Democrats are already farther along than we are.

STEVE KING: There’s no possible way. Whatever we might say we are going to do, reduce the enforcement of the rule of law, waive the rule of law,Democrats will find a way to hand deliver citizenship papers along with a great big check from money borrowed from the Chinese.

King has already amassed quite the record of derogatory comments towards hispanic immigrants, suggesting failure to pass voter ID laws would “turn this country” over to undocumented immigrants, and once analogizing immigrants to birddogs — then later claimingthe latter was a compliment. King has also threatened to sue President Obama for his executive policy forgoing deportation for the 1.4 million young immigrants who would be eligible for the DREAM Act.

King closed out the discussion of the Republicans’ relation to Hispanics by lamenting that “the election really was about expanding the dependency class in america. More americans voted fore dependency, less voted for personal responsibility. And you don’t beat Santa Clause with amnesty.”

Hoekstra Touring State Today with Extreme Congressman Who Suggested Last Week That Allowing non-“Male Landowners” to Vote has Caused Need to Put Things “Back in Order”

From Michigan Democratic Party

In Congressional hearing, Congressman also says allowing the jobless to vote means they’ll just vote themselves “more government benefits”

LANSING – Former Congressman, lobby firm employee and U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra is on a publicity tour in Michigan with Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) today, who is widely regarded as one of the most far right-wing extremists in Washington. Just last week Kingshocked spectators when he suggested in a House Judiciary Committee hearing that allowing citizens other than male property owners to vote had created an imbalance because these people do not “have skin in the game” and asked whether a balanced budget amendment could “help set some of that back in order, that was sought to be put in order when it was property owners that voted?” King went on to say that allowing people who don’t have a job to vote means the unemployed will vote themselves “more government benefits.”

King is also famous for defending torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib,erroneously claiming in 2006 while the Iraq War was still raging that American troops in Iraq were safer than a civilian in Washington, D.C., calling Joe McCarthy “a great American hero” and suggesting illegal immigrants could be treated similarly to “livestock.” (These and more of King’s “greatest hits” here.)

“Pete Hoekstra’s guest of honor is one of the most backwards and out of touch politicians in the country,” said Mark Brewer, Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “Someone who suggests that problems were created once we started allowing people other than male land owners to vote should be denounced, not brought to Michigan to help you campaign. To bring a politician who says that unemployed people just vote to give themselves more government benefits to Michigan, where so many are struggling to find a job, is a total slap in the face. These comments are the latest in a string of bizarre and offensive statements from Congressman King, and King’s endorsement is the latest in a string of endorsements from shockingly extreme politicians.”

While it may normally seem odd for a candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan to seek out and want to publicize the endorsement of a Washington politician with views so out of the mainstream, Hoekstra’s touting of the King endorsement follows a pattern of wrapping himself in the endorsements of wildly extreme national figures. Hoekstra has also recently touted the endorsement of Michele Bachman,Sharon Angle and others whose views would alarm most Michiganders.

Republican Rep Accidentally Admits The GOP Has No Interest In Creating Jobs

By Rmuse/politicususa

A major problem for dysfunctional liars and charlatans is that sooner or later they forget what their lies are and mistakenly tell the truth. It is a common trait among criminals who inadvertently admit their guilt and then become confused and angry when police handcuff them and lock them in a jail cell. Politicians often make similar errors and it is up to the media or the opposing party to point out obvious incongruities so the public can make informed decisions at the ballot box. Republicans, in particular, are champion liars who repeat rote talking points without thinking, and occasionally misspeak and reveal their true agenda without realizing they exposed their anti-American mindset. However, if Americans were paying attention to Republicans, they would have heard over and over again that the GOP agenda has never changed and they would know the GOP had no intention of ever helping the economy or creating jobs.

For the past 8 months, Congressional Republicans have claimed their spending cuts and deficit reduction agenda was necessary to create much-needed jobs and help grow the economy. In spite of their perpetual claims that reducing the nation’s deficit and slashing spending were necessary to get Americans back to work, the jobless numbers have remained unchanged. Now they have changed their message and claim deregulation is the key to creating private-sector jobs, but like their 8-month-long lies about out-of-control spending, it is obvious they have no intention of creating jobs or helping the economy.

Republican leaders have begun making an effort to demonstrate their willingness to work with President Obama to create jobs, but it is all for show. The fallacious agenda of “cut-and-grow” is better labeled “cut-and-cut” because by their own admission, they spent 8 months cutting spending and the fall schedule is all about cutting regulations. Just about any person with half-a-brain knows that cutting spending or eliminating regulations is not going to create jobs regardless the Republicans’ claims to the contrary. However, according to Representative Rick Crawford (R-Ark), “We have to multi-task and do both; and that is obviously address our spending problem and at the same time empower the private sector to create and to grow jobs.” Republicans plan to eliminate regulations as a farce to create job growth but the problem is not regulations, taxes, or the national debt; it is a lack of consumer spending.

The real issue is not the Republicans’ willingness to work with the president to create jobs, because they have no intentions of compromising or working with the president. Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) revealed the true Republican agenda when he said, “If we find a window, we can maybe do some things together. Beyond that, I will tell you that it’s going to be important just to hang on and get a new president and a new configuration in Congress.” King’s comment reveals there is nothing Republicans will do to help create jobs. It is not shocking that Republicans are going to wait and hope for a Republican president and majority in both houses of Congress because they have done nothing since President Obama was inaugurated except obstruct meaningful legislation to improve the economy or jobs. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said since 2009 that the Republican’s goal was making sure President Obama only served one term. Now King says they are just going to hang on until 2013 before making any moves to create jobs.

Even if Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House in 2013, they will not work for anyone except the wealthy and corporations. Mitt Romney’s big economic plan is over $7 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and their corporations that have not created jobs or a healthy economy for the past ten years. Rick Perry has proposed eliminating corporate tax altogether as well as giving more tax cuts to the wealthy and he compared billionaire’s tax cuts to civil rights. Romney and Perry are proposing continuing the Bush economic policies that devastated jobs and the economy as if this time it will benefit the American people. Both Republicans also propose more spending cuts that destroy jobs instead of create them. The perpetual tax cuts and deregulation are not what business owners say are hampering job growth; it is the lack of consumer spending according to a McClatchy survey of business owners.

The only period of job growth was in 2010 because of the American Recovery Act (the stimulus) that did create nearly 3 million jobs. Still, Republicans are holding fast to the meme that spending cuts and deregulation creates jobs. Representative Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind) said, “Talking about cuts and addressing spending in Washington for the first eight months of this Congress has been a positive overall.” Stutzman did not elaborate on the positive impact spending cuts has on the economy or jobs because there are no positives. Back in February, House Speaker John Boehner’s spending cuts killed at least 1 million jobs and he said, “So be it.” If Republicans truly believe killing one million jobs is a positive, Americans should shudder at a Republican-controlled Congress and White House. Boehner said that America was broke and it was fine to eliminate a million jobs; but if the country was so broke, why would they push more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations? Simply put, Republicans do not want to create jobs or help the economy. They certainly plan to spend trillions-of dollars to give rich people more tax cuts, but are doing nothing for Americans who are out of work.

It should surprise no-one that Republicans are not interested in working with President Obama to create jobs. Mitch McConnell said they would obstruct any White House effort to create jobs and Steve King said Republicans were going to “hang on and get a new president and a new configuration in Congress” instead of creating jobs or helping improve the economy. Republicans are lying when they say they will look for ways to work with President Obama because they are feeling heat from their constituents. Although they lie as a matter-of-course, King let it slip that the real Republican agenda is to wait until 2013 to finally finish off America’s economy with more tax cuts and deregulation. Americans should hang on because regardless of the outcome of the next election, Republicans will not help create jobs now regardless of their rhetoric. It does not matter how often Republicans lie about their plans to create jobs because as liars, they have slipped and revealed their plan is to do nothing; like they’ve done for 2 years and 8 months.

Republican Rep. warns of Obama impeachment if GOP forces debt default

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

A Republican member of the House of Representatives declared today that President Barack Obama could be impeached if the U.S. defaults on its debts.

The comment is from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who told his followers on Twitter that they should "stop talking about" a potential U.S. default.

"The 1st dime of each $1 of revenue services debt," he wrote. "Obama would be impeached if he blocked debt payments."

The comment is ironic in that Republicans have played the largest role in pushing the U.S. government to the brink of defaulting on some debts by refusing to lift the nation's debt ceiling.

Congressional Republicans raised the ceiling nine times during the Bush administration, adding over $4 trillion to the nation's debts. President Obama, as a freshman Senator from Illinois, voted in 2006 against raising the debt ceiling, but has since called his decision a mistake of inexperience.

Today the president and Treasury are warning that if the debt limit is not raised before August 2, the government will be forced to default on some of its debts. President Obama even warned that Social Security checks might not arrive on time, or at all, if Congress cannot secure a deal.

Republicans have repeatedly sidelined talks, insisting that tax increases for the wealthiest Americans and corporations are unacceptable, as are cuts to national defense. They've instead focused on plans that would eliminate Medicare, dip into the Social Security fund and dramatically reduce the government's workforce.

With his remarks Monday, King became the second House Republican to suggest the president could be impeached over the debt ceiling debacle. Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) previously claimed that if President Obama simply declared the debt ceiling to be unconstitutional based upon a provision of the 14th Amendment that validates the nation's debts, he'd be impeached for it.

That's precisely the route former President Bill Clinton said he'd take, were he in President Obama's shoes. Clinton told The National Memo in an interview earlier this month that he'd override the debt limit based upon the 14th Amendment and "force the courts to stop me."

President Obama has said that is not an option for his administration.

Chris Matthews Clowns Steve King, Forces Iowa Congressman To Admit He Doesn’t ‘Trust The Words Of Any Source’

By Faiz Shakir /Think Progress


Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a bill today that they claim would help manage a government default if the debt limit is not raised by Aug. 2. The legislation is motivated by the right-wing triumvirate’s view that the default would not have severe repercussions on our economy. “I think we have plenty of money to service our debt,” King said today.

This afternoon on Hardball, host Chris Matthews wondered how King could come to such an aberrant determination that a default is not a threat. “You have some superior knowledge — what basis do you have for your judgement?” Matthews asked. “I do have superior knowledge, thanks for recognizing it,” King jokingly responded.

Over the next few minutes — at the very same moment Moody’s was reporting that it may downgrade the U.S. AAA bond rating — Matthews pressed King on where he gets his knowledge. Hilarity ensued:

MATTHEWS: Who are the people you’re dealing with? [...]

KING: The American citizens. [...]

MATTHEWS: So you’re polling in your district to find out whether the United States goes into default or not at the end of this month. … They know what’s going to happen…

KING: I have an independent judgment as well.

MATTHEWS: Ok tell me where it comes from.

KING: It comes from a long experience of dealing politically, and in business, and raising a family, and being an American citizen…

MATTHEWS: What does raising a family teach you about international finance? [...]

KING: That’s not my only source of information — is raising my children. [...]

MATTHEWS: Do you trust the Wall Street Journal, do you trust the New York Times?

KING: I read the Wall Street Journal. I sometimes read the New York Times. I don’t really trust it. I don’t trust the words of any source.

Matthews continued pressing King on whether he trusts the Chamber of Commerce and other conservative organizations who warn of a crisis if the debt limit isn’t raised. King said he challenges all those sources.

Matthews then asked if King could cite one — just one — international or domestic expert who he trusts on these issues and agrees with his view. King, of course, could not name one. Watch it:

Steve King Claims Health Insurance Regulations Violate The Constitution

By Ian Millhiser

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has always had a loose relationship with the Constitution — his flagship proposal is a wildly unconstitutional bill stripping many Americans of their citizenship. Today, however, he took his belief that he alone has the power to rewrite the Constitution to a new level, telling right-wing talk show host G. Gordon Liddy that entirely uncontroversial insurance regulations violate the Constitution:

First of all [the Affordable Care Act] is unconstitutional. We can go through all of that component, Gordon, but, in the end, this trade off of giving up our personal decisions on what health insurance policy we choose to buy, what health insurance policy will be delivered to us because of market demands, and making decisions on doctors and tests and second opinions, as a whole list of things that are taken away from us under Obamacare. All of that, for what? So that we have a federal mandate that children must stay on our insurance until age 26? I want mine to grow up, as a matter of fact.

And then, going on down the line, preexisting conditions, the states can address that constitutionally far better than the federal government, and that’s how it should be addressed.

Listen:

It’s clear from King’s error-laden rant against the Affordable Care Act that he hasn’t actually read the bill. Among other things, the law does not “mandate” that children must stay on their parents insurance until age 26. The law gives young adults the option of remaining on their parents insurance, but leaves them perfectly free to choose another insurance provider.

King’s reading of the Constitution is even more off base. While a number of litigants have filed meritless lawsuits falsely claiming that Congress cannot require people to either carry insurance or pay slightly more income taxes, even Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) concedes that the Act’s provision forbidding insurers from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions “fall[s] within Congress’s power, pursuant to the Commerce Clause, to regulate the interstate health insurance market.” If King’s position were ever adopted by the Supreme Court, it would mean that the entire insurance industry would be immune from federal regulation.

And that’s the least of the problems with King’s argument. King’s core argument — that only the states and not the federal government are allowed to regulate a national market — is straight out of the tenther playbook. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) recently made an identical argument to claim that federal child labor laws are unconstitutional, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also adopted King’s theory of the Constitution to claim that thefederal ban on whites-only lunch counters must be tossed out.

Ironically, King’s amateurish foray into constitutional law comes on the same day thatover 100 actual legal scholars signed a letter rejecting the absurd view that the Affordable Care Act violates the Constitution. As they explain, the only way to strike down the law is to “jettison nearly two centuries of settled constitutional law.” If King were smart, he would consider consulting with one of them before he exposes his constitutional ignorance once again on a national broadcast

M.C.L Comment: The Repugs didn't care about the constitution when Bush was pushing for the Patriot Act or wire taps on phones and going after people's emails. Now they care about what the constitution when they want health insurance companies to go back to the business of kicking sick people off the rolls.

King Touts Project Funded By The Stimulus Package That He Opposed

By Nina Bhattacharya Yesterday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) attended the ground-breaking of a transportation project in Lytton, IA, a small town in his district. In a glowing press release on his website, he praised the project:

“Today we celebrate a major milestone in the effort to complete a four-lane U.S. Highway 20 from Sioux City all the way to Dubuque and on to Chicago,” said King. “I supported this project before I was elected to the Iowa Senate and made it my number one transportation priority as a Member of Congress. In working with our state’s senators and House delegation, the Four-Lane Highway 20 Association, and local communities, I have networked the effort to secure millions in federal funds to help bring this project to western Iowa. I will continue to do all I can to keep it moving until the day we cut the ribbon on the final mile of four-lane Highway 20.”

While King happily touts his role in the procurement of funds for U.S. 20’s expansion, he neglects to mention that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (commonly referred to as the stimulus package) — a bill that he heavily criticized and voted against — actually provides a majority of the funds for the project. Although King also secured federal funds for this project through the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, the congressman again overlooks his unequivocal opposition to the bill, which he previously described as a part of the “ongoing fiscal train wreck in Washington.”

Following the long tradition of Republican stimulus hypocrites before him, King fails to acknowledge the benefits of the stimulus to his state. In Iowa alone, nearly 9,000 jobs have been created as a result of stimulus dollars. Moreover, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery act has already saved or created 2.8 million jobs, an estimated 3.7 million by September.

Steve King’s Immigration Plan: ‘Deport A Liberal’ For Every Immigrant Granted Legalized Status

By Faiz Shakir

After recently asserting that President Obama favors “the black person” by default, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) became political kryptonite for his conservative allies. Republican Colorado congressional candidate Cory Gardner disinvited him from a scheduled fundraiser. The Northern Colorado Tea Party — which is trying to help Republicans win electoral victories in November — also canceled a speech that King was set to deliver this past weekend.

But while King was too hot for the tea party political event, a separate Colorado tea party group — the 9-12 Project Liberty Circle — still invited King to attend their anti-immigration event in Colorado this past weekend. The group hosted a “United We Stand with Arizona!” assemblage where King followed remarks by Tom Tancredo. Speaking in front of a sign that read “Political Correctness = Intellectual Fascism,” King told the gathering of over 100 people that he could build a border wall that would ensure “not [even] a cockroach” could get across.

As is his wont, King had lots of colorful and hateful things to say:

King said Obama has misinformed the public about Arizona’s law.

King said that under only one circumstance does he support amnesty for illegal immigrants: “Every time we give amnesty for an illegal alien, we deport a liberal.”

King was asked by an attendee whether Obama had a concerted strategy to bring more Muslims from abroad into this country. King responded by fanning the conspiracy theory:

QUESTION: I keep reading that Obama keeps bringing small quantities of Muslims into this country. Why can’t Congress stop that?

KING: You know, I don’t know what the basis is of that. I wouldn’t be surprised that that is the real factual basis. I know that the immigration that we have going on, there are a number of different ways that people come into the country. Family reunification is one of them. … I appreciate you making the point. I will try to watch it.

Watch it:

See here for a sampling of King’s hateful and divisive record.

Democratic Offices Vandalized In Days Surrounding Health Care Vote

By Amanda Terkel

Rhetoric surrounding the health care debate has often been very violent, with Rep. Steve King (R-IA) just yesterday promising to “beat that other side to a pulp” and at least one Tea Party sign threatening gun violence if health care reform passes.

In recent days, several Democratic offices around the nation have also been vandalized. Although it’s unclear who the perpetrators are, all the incidents took place shortly before or after the House’s vote on health care yesterday:

– The glass front door of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-AZ) Tuscon office was “smashed out” a “few hours after she voted in favor of health care reform.” Giffords’ spokesman C.J. Karamargin “said it was unclear if the glass had been shot out with a kind of pellet gun, if it had been kicked or smashed with an object. The door has been covered with plywood.”

– On the morning of March 19, someone threw a brick through the front window of Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) Niagara Falls office. Monroe County Democratic Committee officials also said that a brick shattered the glass doors at their party’s headquarters in Rochester, NY on Saturday or Sunday.

In a more confusing incident, someone spray-painted the word “DORKS” on the window of the Knox County Democratic Headquarters in Mount Vernon, OH. ThinkProgress spoke to Jim Zak, Democratic Party chairman, who said that this morning, he received a call about the vandalism, which seems to have happened sometime after midnight last night. He said that he has “no idea who would have done it,” but noted that “things are running pretty high here in Knox County, as far as the health care reform bill was concerned.”

At the Code Red protest this weekend, Tea Party activists also spat on a lawmaker and shouted racist and homophobic slurs at others.

Update Politics Extra reports, "Someone reportedly threw a fist-sized rock through the front window of the Hamilton County Democratic Party headquarters Sunday night after Congress passed the landmark health insurance overhaul. Caleb Faux, the party’s executive director, finds it hard to believe the incident wasn’t related to the legislation’s passing." M.C.L Comment: The Republicans and the right wing media should be ashamed of themselves they know they don't care about what deficits the last eight years is proof of that. I bet if you brought up the amount of spending that went on during the Bush administration to Steve King that mental midget would spin it. The Republicans and the right wing media are playing a dangerous game here, due to two massive ass kicking they got in 2006 and 2008 the Republican base has been less then fired up by the brand and the Republican brand in a whole has taken a rough beating for the last eight years. So the Republicans and their media street walkers have decided to do is tap in that racism in their base to win, socialism is the new n-word right and right wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck scaring his listeners and viewers by talking about President Obama as if he was a mysterious black man hell bent on changing the way his zombies live or Rush Limbaugh saying health care reform is another way to give those lazy black people a way to mooch off hard working, tax payin, white Americans. And Republicans have got in the act to incite the nuts themselves, Repugs usually hang back and let their buddies in the press do it but when you got douchebags like Steve King and Jim DeMint egging on people something has to be done. Because when one of these right wing loons step over the line and actually harm or even kill elected Democratic official, those forces that incited the person to kill will act like they have nothing to do with it and a few weeks later go back telling people their way of life is jeopardy.