On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from New York’s 2nd Congressional District, Peter King, a repeated fear-monger of practitioners of Islam in America, who has insisted that among American Muslims there is a “looming threat”, in a manner that makes the late Sen. Joe McCarthy give a thumbs up from beyond the grave. In 2016, Rep. King called for 24/7 surveillance of all mosques in the United States, which would be a simultaneous violation of both the 1st and 4th Amendments. King is also one of the biggest defenders of the CIA torturing detainees at Guantanamo Bay Prison, and has tried defending it by lying and saying the intel that led to the United States locating and killing Osama bin Laden was acquired by waterboarding prisoners (it wasn’t). Rep. King contradicted the CIA’s torture report by saying, “no one was severely hurt” by the practices because no one was cut or stabbed. But the fact that Peter King is willing to fabricate stories to push his agenda should come as little surprise, when you consider he literally dismissed CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien for correcting him in an interview by yelling at her, “I DON’T CARE WHAT FACT-CHECK SAYS.” This also came into play in our second look at Congressman King, who blamed the death of Eric Garner not on police, but on Garner for being obese. He also once gave an interview where he referred to the Japanese as the racial slur “Japs”, and refused to apologize for doing so.
King was re-elected to a thirteenth term in Congress in 2016, winning with 62% of the vote. In his latest time out as a Congressman, he’s tackling the issues that really matter to Americans like… ah, we’re just kidding… he’s been dedicating most of his energy towards attacking members of the intelligence community and the press for investigating, and reporting on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluding with Russia to win the presidency in the 2016 election. Back in December of 2016, he actually was suggesting that it was just “rogue” CIA officers claiming the Russians hacked the election, which makes him look really stupid since every single agency in our intelligence community agree the Russians were influencing our election. They have them on tape talking about it in intercepts while they did it, there’s been numerous confirmed meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russians, and of course now after the fact, there are people in the Russian government literally bragging about what they did on Russian television.
So, hey, maybe we should get on preventing the Russians from interfering in future elections, like immediately, right? Maybe Peter King would like to do something about that? Well, apparently as long as he and members of his party win, he could give a s***, as he’s been using hearings to discuss the matter to instead complain that information is reaching the media via “leaks”. This is a man who is supposedly the GOP’s top guy on national security, incidentally.
If this all weren’t aggravating enough, there’s still Peter King’s voting record to think of.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. King votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
- May 4th, 2017: King votes for the House GOP’s healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault.
Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that King would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
- June 8th, 2017: Peter King votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
Now, Peter King outperforms the Cook Partisan Voting Index lean for his district, which is supposedly Republican +3. However, 2018 is expected to be a blue wave year, and if as revelations continue to come out about the Trump campaign colluding with Russia… Peter King’s efforts to defend people who committed treason could easily provide fuel for an upset in what should be a swing district. No amount of demonizing Muslim Americans (which, incidentally is something harder to do during the era of Trump’s Muslim ban, which King supports, but runs away from any responsibility for) might be able to keep him afloat. Hopefully, he doesn’t get a fourteenth term in office.