Steve King sounding more ignorant than usual

Which isn’t easy, considering how high he normally sets the bar.

The Huffington Post covered Representative Steve King’s speech to yesterday’s “smaller-than-expected” Tea Party rally against health care reform:

King implored the crowd to bring the nation’s capital to a sort of paralysis. Warning, erroneously, that the health care bill would fund abortion and fund care for 6.1 million illegal immigrants, he demanded that concerned citizens “continue to rise up.”

“I look back 20 years ago in the square in Prague… when tens of thousands showed up there and they shook their keys peacefully and they took over their country and they achieved their freedom back again,” he said. “If you can keep coming to this city, fill up the congressional offices across the country but jam this city. If you can get on your cell phones, and get on your Blackberries and your email, and ask people to keep coming to this town. Storm this city, fill up Washington D.C., jam this capital so they can’t move. And if tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of you show up, we will win. We will defeat this bill and you will have your liberty back.”

King stood his ground when given a chance to clarify his remarks, saying the current U.S. government is “very, very close” to the Czechoslovak Communist regime, because of “the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over.”

I mentioned these comments to Mr. desmoinesdem, who has forgotten more about Czechoslovakia than King will ever know. He observed that if anything, the Obama administration resembles the government that took power after the Velvet Revolution. The administration changed some personnel and policies, but they didn’t punish or prosecute people who committed crimes on behalf of the old regime. That said, I don’t see Obama as much like former dissident Vaclav Havel, the first post-Communist Czech President (other than that both men are intellectuals and smokers).

Getting back to King, only the most deluded Tea Partier could imagine that the Senate health insurance bill nationalizes our health care system. The Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress have sold out to corporate interests in almost every major aspect of this bill (as well as on financial regulation, energy policy, you name it).  

King’s wrongheaded analogy got me wondering how the Czech health care system measures up against ours. Here’s a report on changes in Czech health care since the Velvet Revolution. The Czech Republic spends about half as much on health care as the U.S. as a percentage of the country’s annual gross domestic product. The U.S. has slightly longer life expectancy than the Czech Republic, but our infant mortality rate is more than double theirs.

Another featured speaker at yesterday’s Tea Party rally was Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. She recently encouraged non-payment of taxes as a response to the “illegitimate” health reform bill. Bachmann will headline an event for King next month in Sergeant Bluff (near Sioux City). The two have been collaborating on a “Declaration of Health Care Independence” since January. In October 2008, both King and Bachmann made Esquire’s list of the 10 worst members of Congress.

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desmoinesdem

  • Steve King

    Just google (not in quotes) “Steve King Stupid”.  You will get a whole lot of web sites with quotations from him.  He’s been saying these things for a long time.  And one of the websites,  he is quoted as saying, “these things I say are always thought about ahead of time.  I never speak ‘off the cuff’, its always thought out clearly.” paraphrased here.  I live in O’Brien county,  a hop, skip and jump away from Sioux county where the greater majority of Steve King’s Dutch Christian and Nederland Reformed people live.  And someone once said to me in Sioux County, “I met a Catholic once.  they ‘seemed’ quite nice.”  Huh?

  • I am a volunteer with Mike Denklau,

    who is running against King.  He is a very, intelligent and energetic man who can retire Steve King.

    I am so tired of Mr. King opening his mouth and stupid falling out.  I can’t stand the sound of his voice on the T.V. or in one of the many robocalls he puts out.

    He and Michelle Bachmann make a perfect couple, they are both nuts.

    Please go to Mike Denklau for Congress and help him if you can.

    Thanks,

    Denise

  • If King can get these guys to sign on...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…

    He might just stand a chance at success.

  • An affront to God

    Now Steve King and Glenn Beck are saying this Sunday’s vote on Health care reform is “an afront to God”.  Because nobody should be voting on Sunday.  They seem to forget that the vote on Terri Schiavo was done on a Sunday.  Of course,  I guess the affront is if we disagree with those God fearing right wing Evangelical Taliban.  

    • is Steve King Catholic?

      I can’t remember. Anyway, the health care reform bill has been endorsed by a major Catholic newspaper, an organization representing Catholic hospitals, and a group representing 59,000 nuns. Someone forgot to tell them about the whole affront-to-God aspect of the bill.

  • He uses his Catholicism as his reason for Pro life views

    Yep,  he is.  Today they had in the Sioux City Journal,  quote from all of the Iowa Congressmen why they voted for/against HCR.  Steve King said, “paying for everybody’s abortions,  covering illegal aliens….,”  as his excuse why he refused to vote for it.  Same old same old.

    59,000 nuns, the AMA, the AARP and many other groups are pleased with the beginnings that this HCR bill gives.  Of course,  my belief in the totally partisan vote was caused by the GOP uniting against the POTUS,  rather than any logical reason.  Now everyone is yelling “repeal” .  I cannot imagine any citizens now repealing the cover for the doughnut hole,  ban on pre existing conditions.  What they like about HCR they want to keep.  

    • Steve King doesn't need an excuse

      He is just an ignorant, back bencher who is enjoying the spotlight right now. Doing and saying the things he does are the only way he can get anybody to talk about him and he really craves attention.

      I think his 15 minutes of fame(as they say) should be up soon, can’t happen soon enough to suit me.

      I do believe you are right about the vote being totally the GOP uniting against the POTUS.

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