Representative Dusty Johnson’s Easter break junket to Arizona invites all sorts of interesting commentary about the politics of immigration.
First off, our rookie Congressman danced on the edge of trouble, if not the United States, by posting this video from Fisher Industries’ wall-construction-demonstration site in Coolidge, Arizona:
Reviewing construction at the border pic.twitter.com/TQ8FYinPcN
— Rep. Dusty Johnson (@RepDustyJohnson) April 16, 2019
The problem here is that Congressman Johnson tags this Tweet “Reviewing construction at the border.” Given that Coolidge is 131 miles from the nearest U.S.-Mexico border crossing, at Nogales. That’s just slightly more accurate than visiting Fargo and saying you’re “at the border” with Canada.
Shareblue gets all unhappy, using words like “pretend” and “deceptive” to describe “border” tweets from Johnson and other wall-happy Congress-critters enjoying sunny Arizona. They also note that North Dakota-based Fisher president Tommy Fisher, who hopes his prototype wallage will land him the $3.285-billion federal contract for ineffective border decor, is a frequent Fox News guest and Republican donor. But Shareblue also misidentifies North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer (who brought Fisher to the 2018 State of the Union address), so, fake news, right?
Congressman Johnson appears to have traveled to the actual border, somewhere on the squiggly part where the Colorado River trickles between Mexico on the west and the United States on the east:
Johnson notes that “Crossing the border at Yuma is not difficult“:
Crossing the border at Yuma is not difficult pic.twitter.com/LqWRuoCmQE
— Rep. Dusty Johnson (@RepDustyJohnson) April 16, 2019
The merit of this video is that Dusty supports his recent votes against Donald Trump’s abuse Executive power by proving that there is no emergency at the border. After all, in May 1940, were French lawmakers traveling to Alsace without helmets and telling the Germans, “We’re at an area where you can get a lot of border crossing… I expected the Maginot Line to be a lot better, but it is really just a little fence… you Germans can just walk up this sandy embankment and before too long can be right inside Strasbourg”? Of course not.
A Yuma local who saw three women and a child get picked up by Border Patrol for crossing the border right near where Dusty shot his non-emergency video doesn’t feel any emergency, either:
She said she does not feel less safe despite more people coming through or near her property on what she described as a daily basis.
“It’s mostly families, and I don’t think they’re out to do us any harm,” she said [Anna Giartelli, “Group of Women Cross Border Illegally and Go Undetected as They Walk Past Congressmen,” Washington Examiner, 2019.04.17].
Dusty and that Yuma lady aren’t the only folks seeing no clear and present danger worthy of an emergency declaration:
Odd. I don't see a single drug runner, terrorist, or caravan in the entire picture. Not even a dust trail from their "unbelievable vehicles". This is the dullest invasion ever. https://t.co/UjfXgGc5B6
— Mike Henriksen (@MikeHenriksen) April 18, 2019
We shouldn’t begrudge Congressman Johnson his April fact-finding trip. Heck, at this point in her first year in Congress, Kristi Noem was seeking donations in swanky Laguna Beach, not facts in Yuma. And Congressman Johnson documents here pretty clearly that there is no pressing emergency on or within 130 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Dusty trails lead from trickle of Colorado River into Yuma AZ from MX. HEADLINE (04.16.19)
Dusty also travels on the public dime to a Black Hills church camp with Russian operatve, now imprisoned, the young, beautiful, wiley and now infamous Maria Butina, with her SD lawyer boyfriend Paul Erickson, the indicted Republican operative who put her Russian handler together with NRA leadership in the USA and even traveled to Russia to meet with a military sniper rifle manufacturer whose products are specfically designed to pierce American military body armor.
Why the church camp? Butina lectured USD students about the merits of NRA-Russia. Dusty, a USD fratenity president, accompanied the Russian woman and her boyfriend to the church camp to lecture younger students.
Ironic that some of these students could someday be wearing body armor serving Uncle Sam and fall within the gunsites of those very Russian sniper rifles Maria and Paul and the NRA promoted.
So our JR Rep in the house is still a bit naieve, but certainly well intentioned and not as tarnished as his compadres Boss Rounds and marathoner Thune. They are no strangers to coziness with Russian interests.
Dusty appears to be a risk-taker as he and his two amigos gently test the leashes of their handler, Prez “you’re fired” Trump. Dusty doesn’t see the border EMERGENCY reliant on Trump’s failed financing of his signature campaign promise, his WALL. It is clear Prez Trump will humiliate and destroy any fellow Republican politician that does not support him.
Today we get to see part of the 2 year $30M Mueller report, like the $70M special counsel Starr report underpinning Bill Clinton’s impeachment by the Republican House. Clinton told 2 lies and an implication of a 3rd lie under oath as a grand jury target. He denied oral contact was “sex”, he denied kissing or touching a White House employee’s breasts or groin, and he asserted the affair began in early 1996, not late 1995 while the employee was just an intern.
So. We have a $70M Republican investigation of a Democratic president. 1998 dollars. Lying under oath. And now a $30M Republican investigation of a Republican president. Conspiracy with Vladimir Putin to swing the 2016 election and to obstruct justice with the coverup. Emoluments and kidnapping and heightening nuclear threats worldwide. Lying, all day long. Complete incompetence. The corruption of capitalism and the Republican party. Will it result in impeachment? Will Dusty break with Thune and Rounds in the coverup?
BTW Republicans, the IRS tax code does criminalize as a felony, COLLUSION, and Trump’s chief of staff and Secretary of the Treasury my be afoul that provision. Can’t have Trump’s tax returns, huh? Mueller already has them too.
Rolls eyes
It’s not easy to cross
What he doesn’t show is the diligent border patrol in that spot he is in
Been there numerous times
Also up that hill mexico side should be a fence or some land goes back a little further
LOL he probably is only by the quenchen casino still on USA side where the river comes out of algonos
For reporting in the future I would think quardinates ….would make for more reliable story
Google earth it
Leslie, Congressman Johnson is clearly spending public dollars to travel around Arizona taking “border” selfies. There is no evidence that TAR Camp director Dusty spent public dollars to travel to the Black Hills and brought Paul Erickson’s exotic gun-toting girlfriend to participate in the Russian election influence campaign.
Good point, T! That’s exactly the point that the Washington Examiner article made: Border Patrol is up on the road watching. Yuma apparently is not some unpatrolled free-crossing zone. If it were, Dusty would have encountered a whole bunch of immigrants heading north (or, in this immediate locale, east!).
I watch his video hundreds of time
The only place he could possible be is by river Sw of Yuma which is actually somerton
aZ . This isn’t possible I got the plane pics out and land pics it is fenced all around
He has to be mistaken and is at the area where the casino is at where there isn’t a fence
Flew the small plane up and down this area
On and off for a month
Also went side by siding
You can’t be alone the water and so many feet to the fence without border patrol showing up asking what the heck your doing
I could post same pictures dusty does with just the water, cropping out border patrol
And you would see what you wanted to see
And fear what you want to fear
Fascinating, T—it’s good to have your eyewitness perspective.
And here I was hoping Dusty wouldn’t play these kinds of tricks on us in Congress.
“…heaven for the few, purgatory for the many.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/20/if-we-can-keep-it-review-donald-trump-robert-mueller
Dusty dances on the edge of Trumpism. Is it t a disease or merely lack a character?:)
“The militia members advanced the baseless theory that Islamic State terrorists were embedded with the thousands of migrants traveling caravan-style toward the border. They also believe that billionaire George Soros bankrolled the caravan.”
Sound familiar? https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/d3n8kx/an-armed-militia-is-rounding-up-migrants-and-forcing-them-into-border-patrol-custody
Did Dusty find any of Drumpf’s “wall dough”? How about collusion and obstruction?
“Even before Barack Obama audibly lamented the white working class clinging to God and guns and Hillary Clinton slagged on the “irredeemably deplorable”, America’s super zip codes, places where high incomes were fused to similar levels of education and summas married summas, had hived off from the rest of us….
As a corrective[?]… student exchange programs within the US, shortening college to three years and substituting year four with national service, and attempting to infuse school curriculums with a serious dollop of civics….
The challenge first posed by Benjamin Franklin at the close of the constitutional convention in 1787… remains unanswered. Can we keep this republic?” id.
Rather: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/20/if-we-can-keep-it-review-donald-trump-robert-mueller
The Town on the Mexican side there (Los Algodones) has about 600 dentists and does a booming business in medical tourism. The clinics there even pick you up at the Yuma airport and get you across the border (both ways) as part of their services. T is correct – from the Mexican side – there is a lot of empty space (a mile or so) before you get to the river, then the river, then fencing and then more empty space (a half mile or so), then the border patrol constantly driving up and down the bank, and then lots of irrigated farmland (farming holds true on the Mexican side as well) One gigantic vegetable or cotton garden with a big empty space down the middle.
NPR in-depth broadcast this a.m. highlights Border Patrol abuse with El Paso highschool kids. Trump’s rally falsely claiming on the public dime that El Paso was the most dangerous city before fencing, was met by these and older students going back to the Fed lawsuit the government LOST. Basically those who live, work and are educated there life-long do not share Dusty and Trump views on their “border” tours. Maybe Dusty, of the podcast generation will listen and learn more of the truth while working out, contrary to the Republican, 1% flyover propaganda. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/12/04/Judge-rules-Border-Patrol-violated-rights/2697723445200/
NPR should include this program soon in its searchable playlist or archive.
“Butina provided the Russian Federation with information that skilled intelligence officers can exploit for years, and that may cause significant damage to the United States.” fed sentencing memo, 4.26.19. 18 mos likely.
Mealy mouth defense of Dusty’s wall inspection “gee it really is an emergency??” on SDPB L. Walsh today by interviewee GOP poll.
No mention of his friends GOP operative indicted Paul Erickson and despite breaking news of sentencing memo declaring national security risks created by spy Maria Butina,
drumpf’s big beautiful indestructible border wall, the one Mexico isn’t paying for, is not hurricane proof and I am pretty sure you can’t blame it on cement that hadn’t cured, yet. Bwahahahahahahaha!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvu_K-2S0Wo