Senator Rounds lied about the budget this weekend; now Senator John Thune lies on WNAX about Speaker-in-Waiting Nancy Pelosi and Democratic immigration policy:
President Trump and Republicans for sure and I hope some Democrats, you know, want to secure our border, but there are a lot of Democrats that don’t. I mean, Nancy Pelosi has said that a wall is immoral and she’s got a lot of members of her caucus who I think are frankly just people who support open borders. I happen to think border security is an important matter, it’s a matter of national security, and I think it’s also a priority for the American people [Sen. John Thune, interviewed in “SD Senator John Thune; [sic] Border Wall Funding Key to Government Shutdown,” WNAX Radio, 2018.12.17].
And holy Hannah Haystack, stop right there, WNAX: that’s no place for a semicolon. Semi-colons have three uses: connecting two clauses that could stand on their own as complete sentences (or here, in journobreviation, headlines); separating items in com(ma)plicated lists, like a list of the cities and states one intends to visit in 2019, 2020, and 2021; and signaling who didn’t pay attention in composition class when the teacher explained the only two legitimate uses of semicolons.
—Now, where was I? Oh yeah, my other Senator lying to us—
Senator Thune’s horsehockey may be translated thus:
We’re the good guys. Democrats who don’t do what we say are bad guys. Nancy Pelosi is making some airy-fairy “moral” argument, and everyone knows from our support for Trump that morals are for sissies. I’ll ascribe a silly position no one holds to some unnamed Democrats, and my Fox News fans will assume my assertion is actual fact about all Democrats, while the gutless reporters back home will leave the fallacy unchecked. Oh yeah, and we Republicans are real Americans, and Democrats aren’t.
Representative Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Party do not favor open borders. Representative Pelosi and the rest of us Demcorats support border security more than Senator Thune, because instead of supporting policies just to prove Donald Trump’s manhood, we support policies that actually work.
Border walls are not among border security policies that work:
…[Border walls] are temporary fixes, necessary when a more comprehensive solution is unworkable. Separation barriers by themselves cannot stem the migration impulse, or remove the cause of war; they are fundamentally a way to postpone making larger and more difficult policy decisions.
Sometimes, barriers can even make things worse. When a wall is built and a lasting solution postponed, its builders run the risk that the temporary fix will aggravate the problem it was designed to alleviate. After all, when a barrier becomes an established feature of the geopolitical landscape, it often offers a rallying point for unresolved tensions, becoming a suppurating wound causing perpetual irritation [Michael Dear, “The World Is Full of Walls That Don’t Work,” Politico, 2016.08.16].
Senator John Thune, like Donald Trump, just wants to keep shouting and lying to pump himself up. We Democrats actually want to solve problems. The American people spoke in November, Senator Thune: they want Congress to get back to forging bipartisan solutions, like that really nice liberal Farm Bill you passed last week (and which maybe you ought to remind Trump to sign already so we can all order our hemp seeds). Drop the wall, pass the rest of the budget, let federal workers collect their Christmas paychecks, and bring on Speaker Pelosi and the problem-solving, truth-telling Democratic House.
Thune learned how to lie while looking like a choirboy in the C Street “Family,” a cult of fake Christians who believe in lying for Jesus. They tried to rope Democrats into “The Family,” so they could claim bipartisanship. It was just another lie. For all his practice at lying, Thune is not quite as good a liar as Scott Walker, but Walkers father was a preacher, so Walker had a role model from the day he was borne. Just about everything coming out of Thune’s mouth is, of course, written for him to say, so whether you could say a scripted dunce can also be a liar, I’ll leave it to others to judge.
The House reverting back to Democrat control will require new thinking from the GOP. While the GOP ran the House, they could claim most anything they wanted about the Democrat motives and agendas; the GOP heroically prevented all that from happening. Now that the Democrats can actually put bills to votes and demonstrate an actual agenda through action, the GOP may well lose their ability to define the opposition. Now the Democrats just have to use their actions speak for them.
Our Number 2 should fund the wall with the rest of the wall aye’s. Indeed, if they want the wall built, then build the thing with their own money. After all, these same liars said that Mexico would pay for the wall and they all agreed to that lie. So, by all means, Number 2, dig into your wallet and pull out the loot, we know you have about 9 million and change, add that to your sidekick Short Rounds wallet and you have 18 million to be a paying member of the wall aye’s.
Hire China to build that wall as they have one that never worked for them either.
Border walls work. Yuma sector proves it.
For years, Yuma sector was besieged by chaos as a nearly unending flood of migrants and drugs poured across our border. Even as agents were arresting on average 800 illegal aliens a day, we were still unable to stop the thousands of trucks filled with drugs and humans that quickly crossed a vanishing point and dispersed into communities all across the country.
It is hard for anyone familiar with Yuma sector today to imagine this scene. That’s because nearly a decade ago, a group of bipartisan lawmakers came together to protect the homeland, save innocent lives, and build a physical barrier across the border.
The bipartisan Secure Fence Act of 2006 — supported by then-Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and others — mandated the construction of hundreds of additional miles of secure fencing and infrastructure investments. Yuma sector was one of the first areas to receive infrastructure investments.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/22/homeland-security-secretary-border-walls-work-yuma-sector-proves-it-elaine-duke-column/586853001/
It doesn’t matter if border walls work. Liberals will soon be in power and every damn thing Trump built or enacted is coming down like a meteor burning a hole through Trump Tower (which has no sprinkler system). Hey, Jason. Payback’s a Bitch, Elvis!
Sen. Thune knows that Mitch McConnell is unpopular. Sen. Thune knows that Mitch McConnell is old like Nancy Pelosi, and a new leader will be chosen before too long. Sen. Thune, who is #2 in the Republican leadership knows that Tom Daschle was Senate Majority Leader and that his own chance to match that position is within grasping distance. We will hear more from Sen. Thune in the next 6 months than we heard from Sen. Thune in the last 14 years. He’s making his play.
Sure it matters Porter.
That’s the topic of this thread.
Perhaps John will go the way of Daschle ……. ie: away …… one can hope.
“There will never be a wall.” – Sen. Chuck Schumer That’s what matters. Hey, Jason. “Squirrel!”.
Cato says trump is stupid, first time I have ever agreed with CATO https://www.cato.org/blog/border-wall-impractical-expensive-ineffective-plan
Let Mexico build that wall, that is what Number 2, trump and the other guy said. We cannot take care of veterans here because of the deficit…
So you build a wall, what about underneath it?
“It’s one thing to build a wall — or reinforce an existing one — to secure the border above the ground. But how do you secure the ground beneath it? There, Michael admitted, the border looks more like Swiss cheese. Since the early 1990s, 65 tunnels have been discovered in the Otay Mesa area, mostly built for drug trafficking. But human smugglers sometimes use existing storm drains to ferry migrants across, too. In the U.S., finding and dismantling those tunnels (the “subterranean threat” in Border Patrol lingo) falls to a little-known group of agents within the agency — the Confined Spaces Entry Team, or simply, the Tunnel Rats.” https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.21/us-mexican-border-as-trumps-border-wall-grows-smuggling-tunnels-proliferate
Conservatives know that this is a boondoggle but neither our Number 2 or his sidekick know anything about being conservative. Just in it for the money and their future lobbying work.
Thune politicking for the #1 slot? Have you ever listened to this guy speak on issues without a talking points sheet? Word salad. He needs someone behind him to give directions and tell him where to stand at the photo ops.
While Trump is building an $18 Billion dollar wall, Mexicans will be building $18 ladders.
And an $18 dollar entrenching tool to dig underneath. Stupid lives in Washington and it’s name is trump.
New plan – collect all the pieces of the Berlin wall and reassemble. After all, it worked so well for East Berlin, and if that is what we want for our country why not make use of the existing resources.
And don’t worry that the Berlin wall is not perfect. As the U.S. gradually transforms its people into supporters of the wall and everything it stands for, soon Mexico will decide they have had enough and pay to maintain or improve the wall to keep U.S. citizens out.
And as our population declines and we gradually lose enough workers, we too can add to the wall to keep people needed for work and reproduction from escaping.
It’s a win-win-win: save tax dollars by recycling existing Berlin wall parts (even Rapid City has some parts of the wall at Memorial Park); continue to foster irrational fear to reinforce attitudes similar to the fears of those supporting the original Berlin wall (note- be sure to keep leaders like Reagan out of power to avoid pernicious “tear down the wall Gorbachev” slogans); and rely on Mexico to pay to keep our asylum seekers out while we simultaneously keep them trapped in the U.S. by preventing their escape from our secure borders.
What could go wrong? Thanks Thune and Rounds! MAGA – Make America a German Anachronism! Recycle the Berlin wall!
Stop lying, Thune. The campaign promise was that Mexico would pay for the wall, not the US taxpayer. Tax and spend liberal Thune needs to get the money from Mexico.
Donald Pay,
Want to to discuss the number of campaign promises broken by Trump vs Obama?
Can we build A wall to prevent Drumpf from hiring immigrants at his golf courses?
Jason, why am I (as a taxpayer) being asked to pay for a wall that President Trump promised Mexico would pay for? Isn’t that like you sending me YOUR grocery bill? I am already underwriting his business profits with tax dollars, must I also literally pay for his lack of knowledge on foreign policy too?
Jason – spent much time around Yuma? I have. It is the one place along the border where Mexico actually extends to the NORTH of the US. It is a VERY productive and well populated agricultural valley – with the Colorado river running down the middle Mexico to the WEST and Arizona to the EAST. The land right up to the edge of the river on BOTH SIDES of the border is highly productive irrigated farmland with people who work in the fields on both sides and cross almost daily. Then there is the portion where the border turns away from the river and runs E/W, with San Luis Rio Colorado right ON the border. There are parts of San Luis where the dividing line is a city street – literally – one side in Mexico and one in the US. an Luis population is @180k. To the West 40 miles is Mexicali – still in the highly fertile, highly populated agricultural section. Mexicali has a population of 750,000 and is in the “Yuma Sector”. Again, the border there is literally a city street (between Mexicali and Calexico, CA. So sure – a border wall would keep people from crossing the street – in a couple of highly populated cities. That’s a whole lot different to a wall out in the middle of the f’ing desert.
O,
Why did my insurance premiums go up when Obama promised they would go down?
Why haven’t the medical costs gone down like he promised?
The insurance premiums did go down, you got older you clown, you really are not so bright are you. Insurance is rated on age and with the ACA, tobacco usage. When you age a year, premiums go up.
Medical costs go up because healthcare is a racket. A for profit racket that is traded like any other commodity on Wall Street. The CEO’s have got to show a profit, each and every quarter or the board’s of director’s start looking for someone who can. Until we get business out of healthcare, medical costs will continue to rise.
Jerry,
Are you on an ACA plan?
Everyone is on an ACA plan, on way or another. Including Medicare plans and especially, Medicare Part D plans. In smart states like Nebraska, who just expanded Medicaid, they show that even Medicaid coverage is an ACA plan design. That President Obama and the rest of the Democrats did one excellent job of starting to make coverage of people’s health so important and meaningful.
As for me, I am on the Veteran’s Administration health plan for full coverage. I’ve been on that care since I was a young feller. Oh, there are many of us on that same plan and more damned near daily. All it requires is for you to be service connected disabled. Get shot badly enough or exposed to toxins and you get healthcare, how lovely. All of that considered, I am still covered by a taxpayer funded healthcare program just like the ACA/Obamacare, and every day, I am grateful for that.
So, would you look at that. Turns out then that everyone is covered under a taxpayer funded healthcare plan. The things you find out.
Jerry,
Medicare is not a part of the ACA.
Private healthcare plans are not covered under a taxpayer funded plan.
You should stop while you are behind.
Indeed it is. Medicare is solvent today thanks to the ACA/Obamacare. For right now, 12/18/2018, you are correct. That will be true for another 13 days.
“CMS on Thursday announced that it will allow health plans that do not meet the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) coverage requirements to stay in place for an additional year—expanding a “grandfather” provision previously extended by the Obama administration.
According to Modern Healthcare, about one million people currently have grandfathered individual-market plans. Additional grandfathered plans exist in the small-business market.”
It goes to the end of 2018 for the grandfathered plans ” Under the latest extension, CMS said it will allow states to permit grandfathered plans to operate through Dec. 31, 2018.”
Jerry,
So how are private plans not grandfathered taxpayer funded?
Figure it out, we have drifted from the topic.
Jerry,
Those people on grandfathered plans will have their premiums skyrocket if it isn’t extended.
Why do you want self-employed people to pay more for premiums with higher deductibles?
We didn’t drift from the topic. The topic is Obama promising things and not delivering.
No, Jason, you want the topic to be about Obama. You are the king of red herrings.
Prove what I said is wrong Daniel.
Want to bet your 5 AR-15’s you can?
I dont care enough to waste my time arguing with someone so brain dead that he has to continually change the topic from something he can’t defend…..but but but muh Obama.
So Daniel can’t prove me wrong and owns 5 rifles and wont’ bet me them.
Yep, that is it Jason.
Daniel,
There is no argument over facts.
I have them and you don’t.
Roger, who needs an $18 ladder when the economy tanks so hard that Americans are climbing over the wall built. I think we should follow Trump’s idea and kick out any president who let’s the stock market fall so quickly.
Link to Americans climbing over a wall to leave please?
Daniel,
It is apparent you have not won one debate against me.
Were you educated in South Dakota?
Bcb, I got a piece of that failed wall I can send to the pile for the new wall. That way it can fail twice.