GOP Failure Watch Part IV (the Majority in Congress edition)

Racist piece of shit Steve King continues to open his mouth.


Iowa Rep. Steve King said Monday that blacks and Hispanics "will be fighting each other" before overtaking whites in the US population.

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."


He needs to be expelled.

 

A lot of people have decided to say nothing, which is sad. If you expect political repercussions for calling this out, you should examine your own base.

 

It is sad, though with it being on the CNN home page the story isn't quite dead yet.

A couple Republican Congressmen, including Justin Amash, did call him out, but not nearly enough.

 

Guess it's raciam fatigue over the last year. Cost us Auriaprottu. A dark time in recent American history.

 

The GOP is having a contest this week to find out which Congress-person can be the shittiest. Today's entry: John McCain!

I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken. That is really remarkable, that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number, perhaps 98—at least—of his colleagues would come to the floor and object and walk away. And walk away! The only conclusion you can draw, when he walks away, is he has no argument to be made, he has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians. So I repeat again: The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.

Rand Paul is the target of McCain's ire, because he objected to a unanimous consent request that would have made armed conflict more likely, and that is the goal of John McCain's existence.

John McCain, resign now.

 

Interesting question: do you suppose Kennedy will have McCain's not-completely-insane-but-still-loyal-to-daddy daughter on to debate this one? Megan is a frequent guest. Maybe she can reprise the Dave Smith/Mike Baker indignation match to make it more interesting.

 

I saw the beef's about Montenegro. What's Paul & McCain fighting over?

 

Allowing Montenegro to join NATO.

 

Allowing Montenegro to join NATO would make "armed conflict" more likely?

 

Maybe you haven't heard, but Serbia and Montenegro have long been Russia's no-go area vis-a-vis NATO.

 

I hadn't. Serbia I can maybe see, but isn't Montenegro a little far afield to be seen as their sphere of influence, even by them?

 

Yeah and? This is what we do vs. Russia. Doesn't mean Rand's a buddy of Putin. But how the F is it a bad thing to expand our influence in the Balkans?

 

It's one more nation we'd be responsible for defending should something go wrong.

 

True. But what's that put us up to? 50, 75? We played world policeman for decades and that doesn't easily go away.

 

I dunno-- they have a history of pretty impressive defense of themselves. We could probably get by selling arms to them for cheap...

 

The question was should the U.S. support Montenegro joining NATO.

If they join NATO, we are obligated to defend them should they come under attack. There is no gray area there.

 

The Baltic states, Albania and Bulgaria all became members of NATO in the last 15 years. I assume they all wanted to join.

Not sure I get the beef. Do you want to dissolve NATO?

 

The beef is between John McCain and Rand Paul, with the former accusing the latter of supporting Putin because he's deranged.

 

Montenegro used to be PART of Serbia. It borders Serbia. It has a similar population of pro-Russian citizens, which has always been Russia's and Serbia & Montenegro's (the post-Tito, post-Yugoslavia nation-state) argument against.

 

No I mean with NATO. Rand is for a more cautious FP approach. But isn't NATO & Europe since WWII a success story?

 

https://boingboing.net/2017/03/15/trump-protects-americans.html

 

It's a problem because Putin and his government are trying to get back to the 80's where they had a "sphere of influence" and the US had one. Russia may not have controlled the world, but they controlled a part and that gave them power in the world. The less "influence" they have, the less power they perceive themselves as having. Losing a lot of the countries that they previously influenced to western groups does not help with their perception of how the world is.

The other problem is that even though the majority of the countries from the Soviet "sphere of influence" can be pro-west, but there is still a fraction that is "pro-russia." It's enough to disrupt the activities of a country.

 

Note that while the Russians are not and never were thrilled about Baltic accession, they know full well how disliked/hated they are there and that the annexation of the Baltics was recognized by very few when it happened in the '40s. Russia was also very weak at the time of Baltic accession.

Serbia and Montenegro are significantly more Russo-centric and would be acceding at a time of greater Russian influence.

 

I know the history, but that was then, this is now.

Serbia was also part of the Ottoman empire and Montenegro wasn't at one point-- does that make Serbia part of the Turkish sphere of influence? Aren't the Montenegrans historically more anti-Turkish than pro-Russian? is the proposal to induct Montengro into NATO against the wishes of its populace?

Russia has historically sought an outlet on the Mediterranean by any means possible-- is there any reason to think their position here is not part of this same drive?

I mean, for quite a while there Italy had a substantial pro-Russian populace-- was it verboten for Italy to join NATO too?