King was optimistic on trade agreements, including the USMCA and Phase 1 of the China deal, expressing relief that there would be less Canadian dumping of dairy products in the US. He repeated anecdotes about regular phone calls with Trump, and a chance encounter with John Thune
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King cites Jeff Sessions (whom King liked) as an example of Trump's authority to fire anyone he pleases, including ambassadors. The questioner quotes Hitler on "if you tell a big enough lie long enough, people will believe it" [this is not a Hitler quote].
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Here King pauses and since we are guests in the Ho-Chunk building, takes a moment to talk about his friendship with Winnebago activist Frank LaMere, who recently passed. Winnebago lands were unjustly taken after a 100 year treaty, he's trying to get them back by act of Congress
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Our host gets up to speak, gives a brief history of Winnebagos. Lived in Wisconsin, unjustly kicked out because of a Sioux uprising, after much hardship, starvation, death they fled down the river to the Omaha tribe. Corps of Engineers flooded their most valuable land in the 50s.
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Our host applauds King because he "has the highest risk tolerance of anyone in Congress." King explains "I always want to correct injustice", and uses this moment to pivot to a discussion of how he was stripped of his committee assignments by Republican leadership.
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King explains that only four members of Congress were ever stripped of committees, the three others were felons. No specific person has ever accused him of making disparaging, let alone racist, remarks. So how did an NYT reporter purportedly discover remarks no one else had seen?
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He minimizes the impact of the lost committee seats. Used to be 2-2.5 hours of hearings a week, now he goes to the floor and gives speeches. With Pelosi as speaker, Republicans on committees only play defense. So this is the least disruptive time. But he still wants them back.
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King talks about his relationship with Nancy Pelosi, in the context of a private bill King introduced to approve an experimental ALS treatment for Spencer resident Jaci Hermstad. Pelosi and her office were courteous, worked quickly with him to get this on the floor and passed.
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King then introduces Roger Johnson, a retired lieutenant living in Brno. Johnson says he learned fluent German at the Defense Language Institute, now goes on German and Austrian television in support of Trump. Wants to talk about accusations that King met with Nazis in Austria!
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Johnson says Freedom Party of Austria has been mischaracterized as far right, when they are center right. They've been in coalition for 27 of the last 30 years, hardly fringe. It's true the founder was a Nazi, but who wasn't at the time? He was agriculture minister, had to join
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"Scratch any Austrian or Bavarian of that generation, and you find a Nazi 1 or 2 layers deep," Johnson explains. Article on King meeting with Freedom Party was a hit piece. They have to make up stories about stuff outside the US, because people see what good King does in the US.
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King himself goes on to describe the meeting he had with Freedom Party members in an Austrian cafe. 'The gentleman on my right said, you should know, you're seated next to two homosexuals and a Jew. Then the guy across from me looks and says "who's the Jew?"' Room laughs heartily
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In this meeting, King claims he gave a strong defense of American-style freedom of speech. He told the Europeans they were less free because of hate speech laws. They countered that Americans were less free, because in the US you can lose your company for a non-PC donation.
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(Re-linking severed thread here)https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1221436134611398656?s=20 …
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