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More info on his House term

We'll definitely need more info on what he's done as a Representative. I'm afraid someone will see this article and hack and slash it until the large "controversies" section is done away with, and I'm not for getting rid of it because it's supported by facts. To counteract that, there should definitely be an effort to fill out the Political positions and actions section. Fifty7 (talk) 19:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Post office debate and McCarthy comment

At some point in the history of this article, King's now infamous comment about McCarthy being a "hero for America" was inexplicably removed entirely from this sub-section. That comment turned a mostly insignicant debate about the naming of a post office into a major news story and most certainly should not have been removed without at least bringing it to the talk page. JGardner 04:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Photo

Added photo of the Congressman. --JGardner 15:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Added again. This time with the proper copyright info so that it will not be deleted. JGardner 18:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Now, with infobox! Graciously stolen from WikiProject US Congress. JGardner 19:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality of the article

Many of the viewpoints on Steve King are biased. I'll cite this as non-NPOV until someone fixes it. Aoeu 02:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Could you elaborate a bit more? There are many things touched upon on this page. If it's solely the "controversies" section, I would have to disagree -- King is undoubtedly a controversial representative who has made innumerable provocative statements. I did find, however, a few misrepresentations in the introductory paragraph:

1. Replaced "briefly attended Northwest Missouri State University" with the actual years of attendance. Four years of undergrad classes doesn't seem too brief to me.

He quit school before graduating, but after drawing a 308 in the Vietnam Draft_lottery_(1969).Jasendorf (talk) 21:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Removed "was a construction worker". I've edited the page to reflect that Rep. King started a construction company in 1975.

The only other sentence in this page that I see as possibly non-NPOV is describing King as "extreme right-wing". I can't imagine anyone, however, disagreeing that he is a very conservative politician. Perhaps "extreme right-wing" could be replaced with something a bit less pejorative. Aside from that, does anyone have any other major problems with the neutrality of this entry? If not, I'm going to remove the NPOV disclaimer. --JGardner 06:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Non-NPOV disclaimer going once, going twice.. gone. --JGardner 01:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Corrected article, replacing facts that had been erroneously removed by a previous user who is either illiterate and can not read the sources or is embarrassed that he supports King and is trying to alter the facts to cover for him. Peitz408 13:35, 02 May 2006

It is important to understand how it is outrageous that people enforce their own political agenda on Misplaced Pages. It is not only on this article, but for the entire site as well. I thought this was called Misplaced Pages, not Wikizine. As for the cover-up, censorship is just as deplorable as being one-sided. I am sorry for my comments I have said previously. Aoeu 00:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I accept many of the changes to the article - some of my work was poorly written. I do not accept the portion of the article regarding King's opposition to providing sexual health drugs on Medicare was 'unsubstatiated'. No doubt I am biased but I am in no way left-wing. I am British and take very little interest in American politics, however after hearing King's interview live on BBC Radio 4 I thought I should contribute. Aoeu's comment illustrates his or her individual bias far more than my style of journalism demonstrates my own. this article is very biased it was wrote by a very anti steve king nut.

-Hawkeye1066- Fifty7 has criticized clarifications I made to the paragraph concerning King's misuse of a GAO report to support his inaccurate and widely-detributed claims about supposed daily outrages by illegal immigrants. I tightened the language to make clearer that the very small group of federal inmates to whom the GAO report partly applied was far, far smaller than the group of state and local inmates to whom it did not apply, which in turn clarifies the extent of King's misreliance on the report. Fifty7 then "undid" and characterized my changes as "weasel words", which is completely inapplicable under any known definition of the phrase "weasel words".14:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hawkeye1066 (talk • contribs)

74.42.111.156 deleted my paragraphs detailing the gross inaccuracies in King's allegations about crime by illegal aliens, claiming that my text was "inaccurate in every way imaginable". In fact, my sources for all of King's statements and for all of my numerical data are clearly identified. 74.42.111.156 is a partisan vandal simply attempting to delete accurate material which shows King in a bad light. If 74.42.111.156 would like to try to detail what he feels to be inaccurate in the text I will be happy to debate it here. Hawkeye (talk) 15:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hawkeye1066 redid the paragraph about the illegal immigration statistics with a false presumption. He claims that King stated that "28% of all prisoners in all American jails and prisons are illegal aliens." He must have a source for that statement or all other information in that paragraph is innaccurate. I will wait for a source before I delete the paragraph again but if it isn't in there within a day or so, I will delete it again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.42.111.156 (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

On May 27, 2006, King stated in a speech at the anti-immigrant "Wake Up America Summit" the following, and I quote exactly because I am transcribing it right now from a video of him at the mike:

"That GAO study that I had done, supports those numbers. I went through it thoroughly. Between the city, the county, the state and the federal penitentiaries that study, my study shows, 28% are criminal aliens."

He then goes on to explain that by "extrapolating" from that number he reaches the daily death totals from his list. So, he did claim exactly what I said he claimed, and I have on my hard drive a video of him saying it with his own mouth. And the footnote I have in my text is to a Colorado Media Matters page that contains both that quotation transcribed and a link to that video of King saying it at that convention. So, my statement was both accurate and already fully sourced when you deleted it.

Unfortunately, the Colorado Media Matters website is down for some reason this morning, so I can't give you the exact address of the video itself to view for yourself right now-- King makes the quoted statement between 11:35 and 11:47 in the video-- but I will be happy to provide it when the CMM site comes back online. Hawkeye (talk) 16:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Apparently the Colorado Media Matters site is shut down permanently, and I can't find the website that actually hosted the video of King's speech at the anti-immigration rally. I will instead point my footnote towards King stating the same claim in the Congressional Record on May 3, 2006:

"But the crimes that are committed by those who enter this country illegally are in significantly greater numbers than the crimes that are committed by American citizens, to the extent that 28 percent of the inmates in our prisons in the United States are criminal aliens, 28 percent. And that includes our city, our county, our State and our Federal penitentiaries. And they vary only 1 or 2 percent above or below, but they average 28 percent. So we know that these numbers are low numbers, not high numbers. But it is certain that there are more. I am just not certain how many more. But I can stand on 28 percent."

I assume that will be sufficient documentation to prevent my text from being deleted again.

Notice that, as in his speech to the rally, King persistently confuses "illegal aliens" and "criminal aliens" because he clearly erroneously thinks those distinct terms mean the same thing, which is why I disambiguate them in my text. Hawkeye (talk) 03:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Medicare issue

"I accept many of the changes to the article - some of my work was poorly written. I do not accept the portion of the article regarding King's opposition to providing sexual health drugs on Medicare was 'unsubstatiated'. "

Nor should you. King has made his objection to providing Viagra, birth control pills, and even HIV medicaion through Medicare extemely clear on countless occasions. It's in the public record. There are position papers on it available on his website. I am not left-wing, either, but you can't spin the truth, especially when it comes from the Congressman's own public statements. 16:27, 22 June 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.107.128.181 (talk • contribs).

Controversies

I see a long controversy section, but no indication from secondary sources why any of the material was controversial and who thought it was. I will remove or rework most of it unless a good reason is given not to. CENSEI (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Censei, I will not let you leave in King's fake statistics about alien crime while cutting out the data that plainly demonstrates that his statistics are fake. If you cut the debunking data out again, I will put it back in again. Hawkeye (talk) 13:12, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

"Desert Eagle- 1, Raccoon- 0"??? Seriously? King refers to himself as "Desert Eagle"? Hawkeye (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No, he was referring to the weapon used to kill the raccoon. A Desert Eagle is a type of handgun. 99.41.167.118 (talk) 02:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

If you look at most other Misplaced Pages articles about politicians there is a section entitled Political views not Controversies because Controversies might imply his views are generally not accepted and therefore wrong. An example of bias is the quote and the source for the section under Controversies entitled "King says profiling is important for law enforcement" the source link "(36)" is from a arguably partisan news website, but putting that aside is factually incorrect the quote "King said he was a victim of profiling for years, because taxi drivers would stop for him before he had to hail a cab, just because he was a white man in a suit" from the Misplaced Pages article directly conflicts from what he said in the speech before congress as seen in this YouTube video "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMuuMZH4gWw&feature=related" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kain77502 (talk • contribs) 04:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

CENSEI, I think it's fair to say that Rep. King is a controversial figure. He says and does things that many people find incendiary, which is, I think, relevant information about Representative King. Further, I think it's fair for an encyclopedic article to point this out, and the most neutral way for an article to show controversial information is to identify the information as controversial in some way. I'm actually surprised that the article doesn't contain anything about King's comparison of homosexuality to incest in April of 2009. "http://iowaindependent.com/13726/steve-kings-homosexuality-incest-comparison" I could only find a partisan source -- the Iowa Independent -- but I have no qualms with quoting a partisan source when talking about partisanship. C. Michael Saul 14:41, 7 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmichaelsaul (talk • contribs)

It seems like most of the "Controversies" are just issues about which Democrats disagree with him. The Judge Retention issue was a view that the majority of Iowans agreed with (since they all were voted out). Is it still a controversy if the majority agrees? Dukemeiser (talk) 22:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

A controversy is only a controversy if described as such by neutral, reliable sources. Anything else is an editor expressing his/her particular biases and POV. Most of the items should be described as positions. Lionel (talk) 10:05, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

What about his remarks in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the IRS, saying that he could empathize with the man responsible? Sources - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33361.html (I had another link from Examiner.com that Misplaced Pages won't let me post). Seems this qualifies for a controversy, given the flack he took for it.(69.140.34.22 (talk) 20:25, 12 May 2012 (UTC))

Official biography

An editor has been copying in the subjec't officlal House biography from here. While it is in the public domain (and so not a copyright violation) copying it without attribution is plagiarism. More seriously for Misplaced Pages, the material is not neutral. It was probably written by the subject or his staff. It can be used as a source, but we shouldn't copy from it wholesale.   Will Beback  talk  19:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The editor in question is introducing highly POV, non-encyclopediac text and failing to provide proper citations for his or her assertions. The editor's new text should not be included in the article. Joegoodfriend (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to let y'all know that I reverted to a previous version of the page, as some wise-acre vandal had put in things like "Preceded by Osama bin Laden," changed King's official religion to "Muslim," and things like that. Hope you don't mind. raven2017 —Preceding undated comment added 19:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC).

Sexual Orientation

Hi!

My edit to clarify on Steve King's sexual orientation was reverted. Why is that? This is an information which is of public interest.

Don't be a jerk. I dislike King as much as anybody does, but sophomoric vandalism serves no purpose. Hawkeye (talk) 17:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Protection

I've locked the page temporarily because there appears to be a slow-motion edit war going on and the article is being reverted without any discussion. Involved editors should use this page to discuss the content issues and to seek consensus.   Will Beback  talk  21:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

What is the objection to including the section, "Remarks defending lobbyists" as a notable controversial statement? When has it ever been uncontroversial for a Rep. to openly advocate on behalf of lobbyists, to call them a "valuable source of information"? He's telling the American people that he trusts and is grateful to special interests, people with a profit motivation, and that he believes they deliver accurate, unbiased information which he is happy to base his votes upon. Seems quite controversial to me. Unless there is a reasonable explanation for why that is an uncontroversial statement, I will continue to include it in future edits and assume that anyone trying to remove it is doing so to improve King's public image. 99.41.167.118 (talk) 05:14, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Why is the honorific added by 24.3.220.206 still part of the current page? I can find no reason that Rep. Steve King should be considered "the honorable" and I assume this addition to his page is a joke. 99.41.167.118 (talk) 05:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Boromir has once again deleted the information that demonstrates King's numbers about crimes committed by illegal aliens are grossly inaccurate, claiming that this page isn't supposed to be about immigration statistics. However, he leaves in King's fake statistics, removing only my debunking of them.

If King's lying editorial remains in the article, my factual and appropriately-sourced rebuttal must also remain in. I will revert Boromir's edit again as soon as the protection is removed, and I will continue reverting it over and over and over again as many times as Boromir wants to attempt to hide the facts. Hawkeye (talk) 13:57, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Hawkeye, perhaps we can remove King's quote altogether? His views on illegal immigration are already discussed.Boromir123 (talk) 16:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Boromir, if the entire reference to King's editorial is removed, my rebuttal would be unnecessary. If the editorial returns at some point in the future, though, so will my rebuttal. Hawkeye (talk) 16:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Without regard to the substantive dispute, "the honorable" is appropriate on the page of any Member of Congress. See Template:Infobox officeholder for instructions here. See also, e.g. Nancy Pelosi and Tom Latham. --Philosopher  16:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, technically any congressperson can be called "the honorable", but does King actually prefer it over "representative"? If not, it doesn't seem relevant to his page. 99.41.167.118 (talk) 04:22, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course it is, Philosopher. Your formatting suggests that you intended that as a reply for me, but I wasn't the one who said it. That was '99.41.167.118'. Hawkeye (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for the confusion. I indented it to indicate that it was a separate comment (if each subsequent comment is indented one place, it makes the comments easier to read, imho), not that it was a reply to what you'd said. --Philosopher  02:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

With regard to the editorial/rebuttal, I haven't read either but would note that the article is about Steve King, not about illegal immigration. A rebuttal of his view on illegal immigration would, therefore, likely be off topic. --Philosopher  02:51, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Philospher, it was not a free-standing discussion about illegal immigration, it was a discussion about one of King's most well-known statements-- which certainly is relevant to an article about Steve King. King wrote an editorial a few years back about illegal immigration, which centered on the numbers of Americans supposedly subjected to various crimes by illegal immigrants. King claimed to have based it on a GAO report. I traced his claims, and in actual fact King 'based' it on one number in that GAO report which he evidently misunderstood at the time, then later misremembered the number he had misunderstood, then misapplied the misremembered number to an unrelated set of crime statistics to produce a final set of numbers that were sheer fantasy. Regrettably, those fake numbers have now become a standard, often-repeated false factoid wielded (usually referencing King as the 'authority' behind them) by other anti-immigrant writers and speakers. What Boromir and I have been disputing is that the portion of King's editorial containing those fake numbers is currently quoted in its entirety in the article. I feel strongly that if those numbers are presented, then a clear and specific demonstration that those numbers are false must also be included. If all reference to King's fake figures are removed, then I am perfectly happy for my rebuttal to also be removed. Hawkeye (talk) 12:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:ATTACK Page

Over half this article is supposed controversies infolving King. I have added a NPOV tag to the article. Arzel (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I would support their removal. They seem to be general opposition to his policies. His "Political Positions" section seem more appropriate place to outline his policies. Dukemeiser (talk) 22:54, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments regarding Agriculture Bill

The Rachel Maddow Show ran footage of SK saying that a settlement of a billion dollars to Black farmers was some sort of slavery reparations. What are we supposed to do with a guy who makes so many outrageous statements time after time? We cannot ignore them, but if we list them all, the article reads like some sort of retrospective newspaper column. Further, if we simply report what people like this say, we are accused of lacking NPOV. This guy is not the worst case I have seen, but we need some sort of policy. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 11:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Stop playing to the hyperbole. If something recieves widespread coverage and is really notable than it should be included. If something has recieved coverage primarily from left bomb throwers like Maddow or Oblermann, than it should not be mentioned. Arzel (talk) 15:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is the actual quota from Steve King from House floor

"Figure this out, Madame Speaker: We have a very, very urban Senator, Barack Obama, who has decided he's going to run for president, and what does he do? He introduces legislation to create a whole new Pigford claim. We've got to stand up at some point and say, 'We are not gonna pay slavery reparations in the United States Congress.' That war's been fought. That was over a century ago. That debt was paid for in blood and it was paid for in the blood of a lot of Yankees, especially. And there's no reparations for the blood that paid for the sin of slavery. No one's filing that claim.... They're just filing a claim because they think they can get away with it."

-- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 12:29, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Remember WP:UNDUE and how easily articles can get bogged down with these kinds of mini-controversies, particularly considering that King is still relatively "new" compared to some of his House and Senate colleagues. --Philosopher  15:23, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Sources are not invalidated just because you personally deem them "left bomb throwers". You're free to wear your ideology on your sleeve as you do, but please do not inject it into WP. -- 98.108.197.75 (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

IAVA

I removed the comment on John McCain's D from IAVA -- "For reference, former POW John McCain received a D in the same report." It seems misleading to me, since McCain's "D" primarily relates to votes he missed while campaigning, not situations in which he voted against IAVA. Not weighing in either way on whether he should've missed those votes, but it doesn't seem like it's an appropriate comparison for someone like King, whose grade reflects his votes and not his absences -- especially since Senators are graded on a somewhat different scale, since different bills came up in the Senate. If a comparison is needed, it looked to me from the report like a B was roughly the median grade -- maybe something like that would be an appropriate comment, but I'm not going to go count. I think comparison to Iowa's other representatives is sufficient, personally. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pstinchcombe (talk • contribs) 02:25, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Steve King's Statements Concerning the Legality of Child Abduction

King's video of August 1, 2012, in response to the recent controversy over dog fighting notably included the following statements, which purport to describe US federal law on child abduction and forced abortion:

"Whenever we start to elevate animals above humans, we’ve crossed a moral line. For example, when there’s a sexual predator out there, who has impregnated a young girl, say a 13-year-old girl — and it happens in America more times than you or I would like to think — that sexual predator can take that girl off the playground of a middle school, and haul her across a state line, and force her to get an abortion to eradicate the evidence of his crime, and bring her back and drop her off at the swing set. And that’s not against the law in the United States."

The video can be found in many places, such as here:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/01/622881/steve-king-responds-dogfighting/

The video does not capture King misspeaking or dropping some passing innuendo. The video was created by Steve King himself, and it can reasonably be assumed to represent his true opinions about the legality of the practices he describes in such carefully prepared and scripted detail.

The Misplaced Pages article on Steven King surely must include at least some reference to this video and to King's outright denial that abducting, raping, and forcing abortion upon a thirteen year-old girl is "not against the law in the United States."

These statements are unquestionably of material relevance to King's political career and opinions. To exclude any mention of them would be indefensible. The Misplaced Pages article should, at very least, be revised to include the block quotation above.

Please will someone do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sefoster (talk • contribs) 05:26, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The Colbert Report showed two of King's videos.

1. The first expressed his outrage against a proposed law that would make it illegal to watch animal fighting.

2. In his follow-up video, created a week later, he defended himself after the animal protection community rose up (especially the Humane Society). This is the video in which he made those above statements. He stated firmly that it wasn't illegal in the United States for a sexual predator to abduct a 13 year old from a school playground, impregnate her, drive her across the state line, force her to have an abortion, and return her to her playground. Clear and irrefutable evidence in his own words along with Colbert's dumbfounded response: http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/tue-august-7-2012-mark-shriver Wordreader (talk) 03:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

More references:

YouTube "Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Clarifies Statements On Dog Fighting"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJ7oVy20eo&feature=player_embedded#at=68

Think Progess "Steve King Defends Dog Fighting Comments In Bizarre Diatribe"

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/01/622881/steve-king-responds-dogfighting/

Salon "What They’re Saying: Steve King is pro-dog fighting, anti-immigration"

http://www.salon.com/topic/immigration/

Wordreader (talk) 05:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Animal Issues

There have been several instances in which information regarding the senator's position on animal issues have been removed "due to inaccuracies" by unregistered users whose IP addresses originate from Denison IA, King's hometown. I have attempted to edit this section of the page to be more neutral but the changes continue to be removed.67.207.51.250 (talk) 19:01, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Added some details with minor references; the topic, for which King is now most well know, warrants both a mention in the lead, and a section in the document body. I encourage development by expanding the topic and adding additional references.Mavigogun (talk) 11:11, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

For more references to King's pro-animal fighting views, see my post on this date in the section immediately above. They are tied to his unfortunate child abduction statement. Wordreader (talk) 05:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Rape comments

I wonder if it's worth including that King recently defended representative Todd Akin over his comments on rape, saying 'he'd never heard of' a child becoming pregnant through rape or incest: Robofish (talk) 01:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

That is a bunch of BS. King did not defend Akin's comments, he specifically stated that he was not defending Akin over those statements. These attempts to tar and feather everyone are getting quite old quite fast. Arzel (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

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