Realizing that South Dakotans may be catching on to his failure to lead, Senator John Thune gets his pals to let him deliver this weekend’s Republican national propaganda piece:
The transcript shows Senator Thune true to form, pretending to have accomplished things for South Dakota:
When Republicans were campaigning last fall, we made a promise to the American people: If we were elected to the majority, we would get Washington working again.
That wasn’t a campaign slogan.
That was a commitment.
And we’ve been working hard to deliver on that promise ever since.
The first eight months of 2015 have been some of the most productive in recent memory [Sen. John Thune, GOP address, 2015.08.22].
John Thune must have a short memory. GovTrack.us offers these stats on bills and resolutions passed and proposed. A straight comparison of numbers is not fair, since the 114th Congress is only through one third of its term. But consider:
- The 114th Congress has enacted 49 laws. The preceding 21 Congresses, back to the Watergate-era 93rd, have enacted on average 552 laws. To be on pace with that average at the one-third mark, the current Congress should have enacted 184 laws.
- The 114th Congress is on pace for resolutions—i.e., the votes that don’t really “deliver real results for the American people,” passing 246, compared to the recent historical one-third average of 250.
- John Thune’s current Congress is ahead of the recent historical pass for filing legislation. So far, Thune and friends have thrown 6,261 pieces of legislation in the hopper, 40% ahead of the average 4,484 one-third average.
- But so far, bills enacted constitute only 0.78% of that volume of output. In the preceding 21 sessions, enacted bills have constituted 4.27% of all items in the hopper.
I’m not seeing any measure of real results that supports Senator Thune’s claim that this Congress has been among the “most productive in recent memory.”
Now let’s compare Congressional output when Thune occupies a seat with sessions when he’s not been in office.
| Congress | Enacted Laws | Passed Resolutions | Total Proposed Legislation |
| 114th (Jan 6, 2015–now) | 0.78% | 4.00% | 6,261 |
| averages (93rd–113th) | 4.27% | 5.71% | 13,435 |
| average Congri with Thune (105th–107th; 109th–113th) | 3.55% | 7.63% | 11,812 |
| average Congri sans Thune (93rd–104th; 108th) | 4.71% | 4.54% | 14,463 |
When John Thune wasn’t in Congress, we saw a higher percentage of enacted laws (real action, real problem-solving). When John Thune is in Congress, we get a higher percentage of resolutions (a.k.a. hot air) but less total proposed legislation. And notice that the average percentages above don’t include the current session; if I include the percentages of the session that Senator Thune is telling you is so full of accomplishment, the Thune Congress performance percentage foes down further.
On specifics, note that the “transportation bill” Senator Thune touts as a job creator is just another stopgap bill passed in light of his party’s failure to put together a real Highway Bill. When Senator Thune talks about “protecting Social Security and Medicare,” he fans the false assertions that those entitlement programs are insolvent and tacitly promotes the House Republicans’ persistent efforts to destroy Medicare as we know it. And when he talks about opposing the nuclear arms deal President Obama forged with Iran and our allies, he declines to mention the alternative foreign policy he promoted with his renegade letter to Iran’s mullahs: a shooting war with Iran.
By the numbers and by the facts, I’m not seeing leading Congress to historic accomplishment. I’m seeing more of the same failure of leadership… and a big reminder that John Thune is totally beatable in 2016.
What has John Thune done for the average South Dakota voter?
I can not think of one thing.
In my opinion he is a shoe shiner for the republican brass.
Marlboro Barbie is a man,I suppose and he is Dakota’s man in DC so one must presume that makes Thune the state’s man,not to be confused with statesman.
Someone really needs to tell John Thune that tanning booths are not a good thing and skin cancer is real. As a farmer I spend a hell of a lot more time in the sun than a DC politician and the Senator is many shades darker than I am. John, spend more time on issues of importance to SD and America and less time on your physical image.
Hey Kloucek! This is America’s third most powerful U.S. Senator. An empty suit! You’ve dispatched phonies like this for lunch. Go get him!
Cory, Thune didn’t delineate the time period when he said that this Congress has been among the “most productive in recent memory.” No doubt he meant it’s the most productive Congress in the last eight months. I wish I could get back the four minutes I lost watching the clip.
So John asks for another PHOTO OP? Sure, John, here are your talking points and there is the camera. Go get ’em, tiger! Sheesh!
While Tehran John dithers with his fake sermon, the UK has reopened its embassy in Iran! Germany, France along with others are lining up to do business with Iran. Tehran John and his motley crew, still look at their belly buttons and bitch and moan about the Black dude drinking their milkshakes. All of this while President Obama is looking and doing the part of a great leader with the compromise needed to accomplish great things. How in the world could peace with Iran have an effect on South Dakota? Very simple, we may not see hundreds of coffins come back from that place filled with our future. Tehran John provides empty words from an air head is all South Dakota gets with this clown. Nothing to show for his years in the Senate but a weak minded talking head. Send him back to Murdo to hawk cars, he does have a history in the car dealing market, doesn’t he? A challenger to put him in a half Nelson or a full Nelson to rid ourselves of this knuckledragger, is what we need.
Sam, that’s the question I keep asking and not getting an answer to. The joint balanced budget resolution (which Thune couldn’t say without stumbling in the video—two points off for novice delivery) doesn’t put one dollar in South Dakotans’ pockets or fill one pothole. The trade bill he talks about after bashing the President on the economy was a Presidential priority. The education bill he touts won’t raise any South Dakota teacher’s pay or guarantee that they won’t have their teaching interrupted by more state tests. And almost nothing that Thune talked about has actually passed yet, meaning he really hasn’t “accomplished” anything for South Dakota this session.
Jerry, your mention of our allies’ diplomatic actions is very important. If Thune and his warmonger friends derail the Iran deal, America (not just Barack Obama, but the whole country) loses all sorts of credibility with its allies.
Interesting: Thune and Rounds voted against the Cruz amendment that would have eliminated federal testing mandates.
Some wingnuts are fed up with Cruz and are fighting back against him. The vote was prolly to punish Rapheal.
Thune has been able to keep Ellsworth on life support making parts of North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana a killing field, maybe even painting a target onRapid City for militant retaliation from families destroyed remotely piloted aircraft.
John Thune is a thug.
Jerry – Thune didn’t sell cars, but his campaign manager/best friend Dan Nelson did and he and two others from his firm (where Thune operated his 2004 campaign against Tom Daschle) ended up in prison for embezzlement. No, little Johnny didn’t dip his toe at all in free enterprise. He has been dependent on government since he left Christian college Biola U.
Johnny’s first taste of the government tit was as an aide to Sen. Jim Abdnor. When Abdnor was defeated in 1986 by Rep. Tom Daschle, Reagan gave Abdnor a cushy job as head of the Small Business Administration.
Then Gov. George Mickelson wanted Thune to serve as executive secretary of the SDGOP which he did almost two years. Then Gov. Mickelson got Thune a cushy job in the state railroad division of S.D. Dept. of Transportation.
To run for office, Thune quit the state payroll and got on the local governments’ payroll as Exec. Dir. of S.D. Municipal League. He then ran for the U.S. House and won, more government payroll, this time from the biggest tit, the federal government.
Johnny served three terms in the House and ran against Tim Johnson and lost by a very close margin. He then became a lobbyist with his political connections in government and made a lot of money for two years before running against Daschle and winning.
If it was for all those government payrolls and connections, perhaps Thune would be selling cars today in Murdo.
Sorry, I forgot to add that when Abdnor went to SBA, he took Johnny with him and gave him a cushy federal job.
Sen. Thune’s makeup looks really good. His wife obviously taught him the right way to apply it. I wonder if he uses CoverGirl?
Marlboro Barbie’s welfare is 17 times more per year than my SS checks,plus he gets extra benefits. I don’t even get free postage stamps.
Nice to see that Thune continues to believe that if he just keeps repeating crap, we’ll believe it. What really worries me is that he might actually believe his own BS.
Thanks Cory for the numbers. They tell much more than talk does anyways. When Thune was on the audit committee at Mega Bank they had the worst loan in South Dakota history to Dan Nelson. He dodged a bullet by saying it was not his fault since he was not on the loan committee when that loan was made. Well he was on the audit committee when that loan grew way out of proportion. And the only way that could have happened is if someone had the clout to make the bank examiners back off on closing that loan. They check the bad loans every quarter, so he did a lot of talk and did not get that bad loan to work. Cory, you know numbers a lot more than Thune does.
So Johnny Thune has never had a private sector job in his life. There should be the SDDP campaign message there.
There seems to be a lot of anti-Johnny Thune comments here. Are South Dakotans finally becoming a bit tired of their Golden Boy and, dare I say, are ready to move on?
They rarely speak of it, except at gatherings like the big Tea Party/Koch Snort (attended by the self-proclaimed General of the WarSchool) in Ohio, this weekend but every elected Republican had the same job; the same mission. To “STOP OBAMA”… Seeing that he’s the most productive President since FDR is a fair conclusion that they’ve all failed miserably. Doing something for their state was just their pretense to get elected. In truth, they all represent the same Conservative district … LOSERVILLE.
Frank Kloucek stated “I’m running for the hills but not for office.” So eliminate Frank. Will Thune get another free pass?
Porter did you also get banned from SDWC?
Porter, that’s really funny, “Koch snort”. It’s just about right too. The dictionary definition of Empty Suit includes a photo of Tehran John. (I like that one too, Mike.)
Memo to Democratic challenger: read 96’s and Roger E’s comments about Thune, Dan Nelson, and Metabank. Better yet, commit this January 2014 guest column on the Thune-Nelson connection to memory and find a way to use it in your campaign.
Eve, that’s the GOP plan: just keep saying it, over and over, no matter how untrue. Get 50%+1 of the people to believe it by Election Day. Then go back to playing games and shooting photo ops until another annoying election interrupts their fun.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/John_Thune.htm#Health_Care
Was Thune’s only accomplishment that he crushed Daschle?…
Yes. If a party ventriloquist’s dummy can be said to accomplish anything. He did raise the bar for campaign dishonesty and malice.
The Koch brothers have the arm up Tehran John’s private place very shallow I am thinking. He is a very cheap dummy.
Wingnuts claimed Daschle was an obstructionist,standing in the way of their destruction of the American economy and way of life and our standing within the world at large. Thug Thune crushed TD by around 4000 votes,2 percentage points. And Thug Thune,aka Marlboro Barbie,has accomplished nothing but obstruction of Obama ever since. Look Thune,a squirrel with a camera!
Rumour has it that Laura Ingraham of Fake Noize was in Dakota actively campaigning against Daschle.
At 02:46, Thune talks about the GOP’s comment to maintaining security for America. Yet, he forgets to remind you that he supports the Keystone Pipeline, which only facilitates China’s need for oil, thus, its ambitions and hegemonic interests in the western hemisphere.
While Thune and other Republicans obsess on Iran, China even with all of its recent economic challenges is on course to build the biggest navy in the world. They are unilaterally claiming atolls in the South China Sea for future naval capabilities. They are negotiating with the Nicaraguans to build a canal to rival the Panama Canal, and they are in negotiations with the nation of Namibia to build a naval base off the coast of west Africa with easy access to South America.
This is not a China that Thune and the GOP should be appeasing, but they are. I wonder what Ronald Reagan would think of China’s modern day ambitions. John Randolph Thune does not seem to be concerned, yet he claims to be a champion of security for America. Today, those with a pro-China policy are the true Chamberlains of our time.
Good point, Winston! If you’re a hardcore national security hawk, you never approve Keystone XL. You make China and other geopolitical rivals wait as long as possible for Canadian oil. You tell TransCanada the only way they get to turn earth in America is if their pipe feeds straight into American cars and our Strategic Oil Reserve. Thune has rejected any such defense of pure American interests, instead peddling his pal Mike Rounds’s sneaky circumlocution about supporting “North American oil.”