Representative Steve King Proves that Immigrants Have Won the Debate

Rep Steve King using visual aids to show illegal
immigrant calf size. Credit.

I am seriously considering raising money to send Iowa Representative Steve King on a speaking tour of the Southwest and Florida. I figure if I can raise $50,000 from pro-immigration Democrats, or even a few sane Republicans, if such things exists, I could entice him into an all-expenses-paid tour of the major swing states with large, rapidly growing, and young Latino populations.

I would also set up a voting registration booth at every event, and encourage the people who just heard representative King speak to register to vote, especially in mid-term elections when we progressives seem to be too busy or lazy to get off our asses and vote.

My only rule for Representative King would be that he absolutely must keep saying shit like this:

There are kids that were brought into this country by their parents unknowing that they were breaking the law. And [immigration reform supporters] will say to me and others that we have to do something about the 11 million, and some of them were valedictorians. [...] It's true in some cases, but they aren't all valedictorians, they weren't all brought in by their parents. For every one that's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.

Jed Lewison wonders about the cantaloupe image, but I figure it's because he's afraid some large-legged immigrant would kick him in the balls, given the chance.

Since this is Steve King who keeps talking, we know that 99% of what he says is pure crap, and the other 1% he gets right is just dumb luck. For example, it seems like the math just doesn't add up. If 100 out of every 101 undocumented immigrants had a big load of weed on his or her back, we'd see that most drug arrests at the border were of immigrants with dope on their back. The truth, of course, is something Steve King can't be bothered with: 80% of all drug arrests at the border involve a US citizen.

The center looked at an extensive set of records -- 81,261 drug seizures between 2005 and 2011 -- but the numbers don't tell the whole story. In about half of those cases, Border Patrol agents didn't catch anyone and the drugs were abandoned, according to the report, so we don't know the identity of those smugglers. But arrests were made in more than 40,000 drug seizures over that time period, and a U.S. citizen was involved 80 percent of the time.

But the best part about this is that even though he's drawn rebukes from damn near everyone, including Speaker Boehner, he's sticking up for himself. In order to stick up for himself, of course, he has to keep talking, and now he has demonstrated why I love it when wingnuts keep talking (link to Taegan Goddard, because I refuse to link to Breitbart's Ghost):

You know when people attack you--in this business, when you're in this business, you know that when people attack you, and they call you names, they're diverting from the topic matter. You know they've lost the debate when they do that. We've talked about it for years. Tom Tancredo and I joked about it that that's the pattern. When people start calling you names, that's what confirms you've won the debate.

Catch that? Yep, I tweeted at him to ask him if, since he's calling over 99% of undocumented immigrants drug mules, that means they've won the debate? No answer yet.