Republican Congressman Peter King Slams Self-Righteous Delusional Wing Of His Party

Appearing on Luke Russert’s online MSNBC TV program, Shift, New York Congressman Peter King (R) slammed fellow House Republicans for not simply banding together to pass a clean funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. King made it clear that he was fed up with Tea Party Republicans playing politics with Homeland Security funding. The New York Congressman declared: ”This madness has to end soon…I’ve had it with this self-righteous, delusional wing of the party.”

King lamented that may GOP members of Congress come from very conservative districts where they “live in an echo chamber”. He argued that those Republicans are so blinded by being anti-Obama, that they would rather put American lives at risk, than yield an inch to the President on immigration reform. While King announced that he, like his GOP colleagues, was not in favor of President Obama’s Executive Order on immigration, he noted that funding Homeland Security was more important than picking a fight with Obama over immigration policy.

King was adamant that funding Homeland Security was a matter of life and death, and that Republican actions endangered the country, by threatening to “take away our front lines against Islamic terrorism”. The New York Congressman chastised his fellow Republican lawmakers repeatedly, for putting American lives at risk.

In addition to arguing that the Tea Party wing of the GOP was foolishly playing with American lives, the Congressman also argued that their strategy made no sense politically, either. He likened Republican strategy, to the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, and to Custer’s Last Stand. By comparing the Tea Party strategy to two exceedingly foolhardy military attacks, King was accusing his GOP colleagues of not only being morally wrong, but also of being flat out stupid.

In fairness to the Tea Party wing, Congressmen Peter King is prone to hawkishness on foreign policy, and his fear of Islamic terrorism at home, is often out of proportion to the actual threat. Nevertheless, King is on target with his criticism of his House GOP colleagues. Many of them dwell so much on anti-immigration sentiment, and anti-Obama fervor, that they have lost any sense of perspective for how to govern.

Fed by votes from xenophobic Obama-bashing zealots in deep red congressional districts, these Tea Party representatives have little incentive to govern. They simply can count on stoking the flames of right-wing rage, to propel their political careers, while they let the nation suffer from their collective inaction.

The Tea Party wing of the GOP puts Congressman Peter King in a quandary, because the Long Island swing district he represents, twice voted for Barack Obama for President, albeit narrowly. King has an incentive to govern, because he is in a district that could theoretically turn on him, and replace him with a Democrat in 2016. This is a concern that many of his fellow Republicans in Congress do not share.

Tea Party members who represent places like East Texas, the Ozarks, and the Kansas plains, are not only far removed from the sites of the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks, they are also far removed from any threat of being bounced out of office by a Democrat. Many of them are looking over their right shoulders at the threat of being ousted by a more extreme conservative in a GOP primary, but they don’t even have to glance to their left, ensconced as they are in completely safe red districts.

However, the bottom line should be, that on issues of national security, the primary concern on how to vote should not be dictated by political considerations. Instead, lawmakers should focus on what will best provide security for the American people. While we don’t have to agree with Peter King’s assessment of the terrorist threat, nor do we have to accept the notion that Homeland Security is the “be all and end all” for combating terrorism. However, King’s criticism of his fellow GOP lawmakers is a legitimate one. If they care about the security of our nation, they should stop playing politics with Homeland Security funding, and the self-righteous delusional wing of the Republican Party should step aside and let the Congress vote on a clean funding bill. Anything less, as Congressmen King said, is “madness” that must come to an end.

It is not clear in my mind, as to whether this whole Department of Homeland “Security” really has the best interests of that entity once known as “the United States of America” at heart. If they did, the nation’s borders would be as hard to cross as getting into Fort Knox, the scrutiny of persons boarding airplanes or ships or trains would be poster demonstrations for profiling, and financial transactions would be followed within moments of the transfer from one point to another.

The Department of Homeland “Security”, as it is now constituted, is set up to assure the suppression of home-grown militia groups, swiftly transfer any illegal entrants at the borders into the interior most expeditiously and untouchably, and to look the other way when persons who would ordinarily be of interest are openly ignored. In short, they are an agent of subversion of that set of principles that once constituted the governing standards of that nation once known as “the United States of America”.

None dare call it treason. It ain’t paranoia when they really ARE picking on you.

"The New York Congressman declared: 'This madness has to end soon…I’ve had it with this self-righteous, delusional wing of the party.'"

Don't worry Congressman King, these millions of flyover country "delusionals," as you call them, hardworking Americans who became part of a Taxed Enough Already movement (which you describe pejoratively as "Tea Partiers"), have read and studied the ideas underlying their Constitution, and see through the "progressives'" use of the Homeland Security threat as their cover for enabling them and their elected Executive to violate the sanctity of the supremacy of the Constitution which protects you and every other American citizen.

They understand, because they have studied the writings of the Founders and Framers of the Constitution.

"It is in the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. . . . degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats into the heart of its laws and constitution." - Thomas Jefferson

"The aim of every political Constitution, is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." James Madison

Your "Tea Partiers" understand that under the Founders' formula, "the People's" written Constitution was, and is, the sheet anchor of our liberties, binding government to the "People's" limitations on its power. They understand that once a President bypasses that formula, and by his own arrogance and bravado, assumes a power not granted to him by that Constitution, assumes a philosophy which, in effect, undoes all the monumental work accomplished by the Founders on behalf of liberty, leaving the law afloat and without anchor, relying, as of old, on mere men and women.

From Page xv of "Our Ageless Constitution," allow me to include here excerpted words from President Andrew Jackson's Proclamation of December 10, 1832:

"We have received it [the Constitution] as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it with sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here and our hopes of happiness hereafter in its defense and support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution . . .? No. We were not mistaken. The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault. . . . No, we did not err! . . . The sages . . . have given us a practical and, as they hoped, a permanent* Constitutional compact. . . . The Constitution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace: it shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity. . . ."

*Underlining added for emphasis

And, it was Thomas Jefferson who used another metaphor with reference to the Constitution when he indicated that "the People" must "bind them (government) by the chains of the Constitution." In another instance, he declared: "It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers. . . ."

Perhaps the "Tea Partiers" fear a breach of their Constitution's prohibitions on power unleashes dangers which threaten the very future of liberty in the world.

While King announced that he, like his GOP colleagues, was not in favor of President Obama’s Executive Order on immigration, he noted that funding Homeland Security was more important than picking a fight with Obama over immigration policy.

Bullcrap. No congress, republican or democrat-run, has ever approved of this spending of public money for the benefit of rewarding illegals. There is no reason for any congress to vote to provide the money. They clamor to do so only because they are cowards who will not stand against this lawless jackal. The fact that they provide the funds means they approve of the way the money will be spent. They have been told precisely how the money will be spent. Their vote to approve is a vote of approval.

Expect this president to file in court that the entire legislative branch just voted to provide the money to do exactly what the Texas judge has halted. The administration will argue that because congress voted the funding, the implementation should proceed.

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