Thursday, August 09, 2012

Republican Congressman Steve King takes things to their logical conclusion

This seems to be a real news report, not a parody:
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an outspoken critic of just about everything President Obama supports, is considering introducing a bill that would repeal everything Obama has signed into law.

King put forward this suggestion to an Iowa audience on Tuesday, when he also reiterated his threat to sue the Obama administration for its June decision not to deport younger illegal immigrants. [...]
Yes, all political parties have some loudmouth buffoons and extremist demagogues.  But even though King is a well-known whacko, he's not exactly a fringe whacko.  This bill he's semi-proposing is not really that far from the perspective that actually motivates a decisive chunk of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives (and a fair number of Senate Republicans, of the sort epitomized most flamboyantly by Jim DeMint of South Carolina).  It's just that King wants to stop going through the motions of normal legislative processes and simply cut to the chase.  If the Republicans manage to get control of all three branches of the US government in November, which is well within the bounds of possibility, this is pretty much what they're committed to doing, though in a more piecemeal fashion.

—Jeff Weintraub