I feel bad for Dusty Johnson. Our rookie Congressman is a better man than the liars he’s stuck traveling with in the Republican Party.
Our man Dusty traveled to Arizona last week to do some video-blogging on Donald Trump’s efforts to waste our tax dollars on an anti-immigrant wall. Accompanying him on his fact-finding tour were some other Republican Congressmen who outright lied to their constituents. “The Wall is being built!” claimed Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (it’s not: they were visiting a demo site). “Glad to be at the southern border,” claimed Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber (Pete may have been glad, but he wasn’t at the border: the demo site is further from Mexico than Sioux Falls is from Walnut Grove, and Paul TenHaken has yet to Tweet from his office, “Glad to be at the Ingalls homestead”).
Then his fellow freshman Rep. John Joyce from Pennsylvania stoked anti-immigrant hysteria by invoking false fears of disease-riddled foreigners bringing tuberculosis across the non-emergent border:
Joyce, a doctor by trade, said that he has always been concerned about health issues at the border. He said that there are 12 cases of multiple-drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis. He said that it is a bacterial lung inflection that often takes six to 12 months to treat. These cases require more than a year’s worth of treatment.
“My concern is what about the person who wasn’t coughing and wasn’t recognized as having tuberculosis, and they didn’t come here for treatment for their disease,” he said. “They could be released in a day and a half and be sitting at a restaurant (table) beside you” [Michelle Ganassi, “Joyce: The Border ‘Crisis’ Is Real,” AP, 2019.04.19].
What’s next: mules carrying suitcase nukes?
Rep. Dr. Joyce is committing political malpractice with his unhelpful Trumpist bunk:
Local public health officials quickly shot down rumors of an outbreak, clarifying that there have been zero cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in the county for the last six to seven years, and further, no present cases of tuberculosis in Yuma at all.
“I can say, after confirming with the Yuma County Health District, there is no drug-resistant tuberculosis in Yuma County,” Kevin Tunell, a Yuma County spokesman told the Arizona Republic. “Further, there are no cases of tuberculosis involving migrants in Yuma County at this time.”
…The claim about tuberculosis in Yuma originated with Jonathan Lines, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, the Pennsylvania Tribune-Review reported.
Lines made unsubstantiated claims about tuberculosis in a video posted to the Pennsylvania congressman’s Facebook page that has since been removed.
[Arizona Rep. Andy] Biggs designated Lines to lead a delegation of Republican lawmakers along the border [Emily Kopp, “How a Republican Border Trip Amplified a Bogus Tuberculosis Rumor,” Roll Call, 2019.04.24].
(Interestingly, Rep. Joyce totally supports bringing in more temporary immigrant labor to staff Pennsylvania’s dairies, which expose workers to all sorts of diseases.)
Meanwhile here on the northern border, Dusty has former Republican legislator Noel Hamiel diverting us from Republican deceit with his own fabrications. In a discussion of the politics of Congressman Johnson’s border trip on SDPB this noon, Hamiel claimed that Congressman Johnson “got in some hot water” over his vote against Trump’s fake-emergency order “not just from Trump supporters.” I challenge Hamiel to name one person who seriously criticized Johnson for that vote who do not support Trump. I maintain that the only people made at Dusty were shouting with lips reddened with Trump Kool-Aid.
To pile rot on rot, Hamiel then peddled the flat lie that Democrats support open borders. That’s a flat lie, a straw man created out of a small fringe to allow Republicans to avoid a hard conversation about their cruel treatment of immigrants.
I don’t support open borders. No one worth arguing about does.
As if sensing himself teetering on the edge of incredibility, Hamiel then had the gall to turn listeners away from any doubts they might harbor about Dusty and his lying Republican colleagues and instead to disdain blogs and social media as sources of unreliable information and said citizens all have an obligation to make sure they are getting the facts. Maybe Hamiel should have focused his criticism on the very Republicans Dusty travels with, the very Republicans tweeting and amplifying each other’s lies. Maybe Hamiel should read a blog post or two here to check his own false facts.
If I were Dusty, I’d be embarrassed to be surrounded by so many baloney-makers. We can only hope his conscience will kick in and spur him to speak up, to call out the lies of his party, and demand that his colleagues set a better example for his kids and ours.
Truth does nothing for wingnuts. They are driven by fear stoked by religion and the pathological liar in the kremlin annex.
On a bright note, the longest serving wingnut in iowa’s lege (forty years) left the party and will vote with Dems because of Drumpf and wingnut’s war on social issues. It could happen to you, too.
Speaking of the GOP and lies, John Thune got the last word on the Last Word tonight. His speech to the House the day before he voted to impeach Clinton
No Limits. That’s the tagline for some product, but I don’t remember which. Whatever it was, I’ll bet it had more limits than GOP lies. Just making things up out of thin air. Anything will do, just anything.
No Limits.
You know, politicians have always stretched and distorted facts, made tenuous or downright ludicrous connections.
There was Willie whatever who got parole and then murdered somebody. The GOP blamed Dukakis (?) and he was governor of that state at the time. Maybe Dukakis pardoned him. Anyway, there was a bit of fact there.
LBJ’s fake Vietnam attack as an excuse to escalate was a horrible whopper but we were at war there.
Reagan’s Iran/Contra lies by the bucketful.
But the 21st century GOP just makes stuff up out of thin air.
Pizzagate for petessake.
TB on the border.
Liar-in-Chief with thousands of documented lies.
I can’t even . . . the list is so long it overwhelms.
Isn’t it rich? Right in the middle of the horrible (and preventable) measles outbreak — that is being caused, by Americans, refusing to vaccinate – The “they are bringing diseases” conspiracy theory is continuing.
This is the GOP nowadays. Gun violence is another example. When an “illegal” commits violence with a gun, hair is on fire. But when we have mass shooting after mass shooting, committed by Americans, the GOP shrugs and pulls out the “thoughts and prayers” mantra.
I hope Dusty will be different. His vote on the emergency declaration was correct. But after his “banning cows” video — I don’t have much hope.
As a doctor, Rep. John Joyce knows or should know that tuberculosis is one of the diseases that the CDC closely monitors and the Department of Health in every state has hard working nurses on staff tracking down people who have had various levels of contact with tuberculosis patients. These nurses also make sure the patients take their meds and complete the full course of meds. To spread false fear mongering rumors is unconscionable and for a doctor to do it violates the oath of “do no harm”.
Dusty Johnson is becoming a willing dupe.
Here is the latest Trump lie on a border encounter between the U.S. Army and Mexican troops. Apparently these type incidents are fairly common as the border fence can be 100′ or more inside the US.
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/nation/4603391-without-evidence-trump-says-border-incident-between-us-mexican-soldiers-was
Trump’s statement that he will fight any impeachment effort through the Supreme Court is also strange. Several Supreme Court rulings (the most recent in 1993) say that impeachment is the sole jurisdiction of the congress. The Chief Justice presides over the trial in the Senate.
Back atcha, Debbo- https://www.vox.com/2018/12/1/18121221/george-hw-bush-willie-horton-dog-whistle-politics
Weekend furlough that Dukakis supported was started by a wingnut governor and several states had similar programs. If memory serves, dumbass dubya the first claimed the group running the ad was not affiliated with the campaign.
Mike, the Iowa legislator is a glory hound (look at his past) and constantly looking for attention. AND retiring so what a way to make headlines.
I was in front of John Thune and listened to him explain the impeachment of BC. All came down to Clinton lying under oath. That was it. He was a lawyer and violated an oath separate of lying that a normal citizen would face. I’d expect a lawyer to not lie under oath. Regardless of everything else. I’m looking forward to your side trying this with Trump.
Lying from politicians. Laughable. It’s blatant and ALL THE TIME. You just only care is someone with an (R) does it. It’s okay for the other side.
Pearson you are a putz. I am a liberal. The vast rightwing conspiracy (newt sleeping around at the same time) couldnt prove anything else against BC, spent several years investigating broadly, and twice as much in 1998, and in his GJ testimony trying to parse questions under oath,he lied about an affair. Recently i documented that here. THAT WAS ALL THEY HAD ON HIM. That was all. He lied about an affair. You? So he lost his law license. That was all Republicans could pull out of their arse. Go away if you can’t say anything significant. All of these arguments have been made. Over and over. Imagine taking Mitch McConnell’s license if he lies in an official hearing. He lies as bad as trump but more adriotly.
White privilege, white sheriffs, riot boosters and George Soros. Kettle/black much?
Mr. Nemec is spot on. This “Dusty Johnson is becoming a willing dupe.” is current. Dusty has proven to be not only a willing dupe, but also a spokesperson for Maria Butina, the red goddess of influence for the Russian government, and their go between for corruption. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-maria-butina-sentincing-spying-counter-intelligence/29903800.html
Dusty Johnson, with the entire SDGOP, was part and parcel to Butina’s visit and granted her full support with a summer camp no less. Dusty and company have shown the young ones that being a part of your enemy’s corruption is just peachy, as long as it is for the party.
Debbo, another one that stands out in my mind is “weapons of mass destruction.” We all know how that turned out.
Noel Hamiel has always impressed me as an extraordinarily kind, humble and honest man, both in his work at the Mitchell Daily Republic and in our personal interactions. If he said anything that wasn’t true in this case, I doubt it was intentional.
More Butina, Dusty and the mob’s moll. “Maria Butina lost in her effort to exclude from her sentencing proceedings the testimony of an ex-FBI agent who claims that her conduct in the U.S. was part of a so-called “spot and assess” operation on Russia’s behalf.
“Butina provided Russia with information that has tremendous intelligence value,” , the ex-FBI agent, Robert Anderson, said in a declaration submitted by prosecutors as part of their sentencing recommendation for her last week.
He claimed that it was the type of information that “skilled intelligence officers can exploit for years and that may cause significant damage to the United States.”
My my, what a gal! On first name basis with Dusty and the rest of the South Dakota gangsters. We are so EB5 that it hurts. We go from Chinese corruption to Russian corruption to give more meaning to being a red state.
Steve: “I was in front of John Thune and listened to him explain the impeachment of BC. All came down to Clinton lying under oath. That was it. He was a lawyer and violated an oath separate of lying that a normal citizen would face. I’d expect a lawyer to not lie under oath.”
I see the partisan-hack parsing beginning: somehow the Clinton impeachment for lying is NOTHING like President Trumps lying – – which is not impeachment worthy. NOBODY gets to lie under oath.
There are real efforts at fact-finding, and then there are these p.r. junkets. This appears to be a taxpayer-funded effort at electioneering.
If you are serious about an issue, you bring in experts and people with different perspectives. Yes, you might want to visit the border to see if there is an “emergency,” and determine who, actually, is creating that emergency. Talk to the immigrants about the conditions that drive them to leave and seeking to come here, and why they are willing to risk losing their children in Trump’s zero tolerance policy.
But I find this pandering to the know-nothings disgraceful. Dusty can be a leader, he can be a cipher or he can actually be a cheerleader and participant in evil. It’s his choice.
These congressweasels are looking in the wrong place for a national emergency. They should look no further than 1600 Transylvania Avenue and the kremlin annex. That is where the real danger to America resides.
Bill Clinton was forced to lie under oath in an investigation that should not have been allowed to happen as it was never in the purview of Whitewater. Basically it was a congressional set up as a last ditch effort to atone form 6 wasted years and millions wasted in witch hunts.
Drumpf’s entire cabinet has committed perjury, under oath at Senate confirmation hearings and have all sailed right through with virtually no wingnut votes against them. Some, like Sessions, perjured himself at least twice and maybe more. Why aren’t they impeached? Because perjury is a crime only when a Dem does it.
More about Butina who is to be sentenced tomorrow (from Mother Jones
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/new-revelations-in-maria-butina-case-highlight-russias-infiltration-efforts-in-2016/
She was a busy girl and wingnuts by the score were looking up her skirts while being taken to the cleaners.
Mike, I’d say B Clinton was not “forced” to lie. He chose to. However, a Congressional Committee and a special prosecutor investigating a politicians sexual behavior is simply absurd and an enormous waste of taxpayer’s $$$$$. As you said, “Basically it was a congressional set up as a last ditch effort to atone for 6 wasted years and millions wasted in witch hunts.”
The GOP effort to equate Clinton’s lying about his marital infidelity, yes, under oath, with White Whiner’s efforts to collude with Russia or anyone else who will grease his palms, obstruct justice, ignore the emoluments clause, subvert every government department, politicize SCOTUS, promote racism and Nazism, . . .
GOP leadership is simply no better than White Whiner and has actively participated in pretty much every one of his criminal or treasonous or extremely damaging acts. Most of their anti-US activities actually preceded White Whiner.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. The GOP has no moral high ground to stand on to judge any politician’s behavior. Nor do they have any moral low ground. The top 2/3 of the GOP has no morals and deserves no respect.
Indeed—measles from local yahoos seems to be a greater danger than TB from immigrants.
Kurt, I’m afraid that however Hamiel may have distinguished himself in his Mitchell newspapering, his appearances on SDPB have regularly included this sort of mealy-mouthed distractionism and flak for GOP unforgivables.
Lying under oath is a big deal. So is lying every day from the White House, while working under a solemn oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Let’s not get bogged down in debating the case Steve and other Trump excusers prefer to dwell on. Bill Clinton lied. That’s a historical fact.
Dusty Johnson is hanging out with a bunch of liars in office right now. We should all care about lying. We should all condemn lying. We should all not lie. Steve Pearson, do you condemn the lies documented in the original article?
Dusty certainly does not pay for political trips. Tax payers or special interests do. We shall see what sort of moral spine he has. Given past political employment we know where early loyalty lied. He is way ahead of Kristi though, all she was as a freshwoman was a traffic ticket queen from the farm and the duck blind.
Speaking of the border, the Strib had a very interesting article about Honduras written by a journalist who’s been there for extended periods of time, Amelia Rayno. https://short1.link/p7YKAw
Rayno found Hondurans cheering an end to US aid because it includes an end to more than a century of US meddling. That meddling has had devastating impact on the poor of Honduras.
This is the gist of the paywalled long article:
_____________________________________________
With incentive to protect those interests and more, U.S. troops invaded Honduras seven times from 1903 to 1925.
During the Reagan era of the 1980s, the cozy relationships with Honduran governments were critical in U.S. efforts to stifle the perceived threat of communism and left-leaning governments. The U.S. pumped weapons and military training into Honduras, establishing major military bases from which to mobilize an attack against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.
“They gave us weapons in exchange for control,” Eduardo said.
These events contributed to the violent militarization of Honduran society. The number of murders, disappearances, rights violations and illegal detentions, ignored by the U.S., rose dramatically while the governments, sanctioned by the U.S., increasingly oppressed the Honduran people.
In 2009, the U.S.-fueled Honduran military staged a political coup, deporting then-President Manuel Zelaya, who had broad support among the Honduran working class after implementing reforms such as raising the minimum wage and seeking to settle land disputes between peasant farmers and the powerful palm oil companies. (This was probably central to Zelaya’s ouster, as it infuriated the wealthy elite.)
Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state in the Obama administration, all but publicly supported the change of regime, declining to call it a coup despite near consensus among the international community (including the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization of American States). The aftermath was disastrous for Honduras; those studying the country say life became almost categorically worse.
Protesters were beaten, tortured and killed. Human rights deteriorated, with an escalation of murders in the LGBTQ community and a loss of protection for activists and journalists. Death squads made up of U.S.-armed Honduran police and private security forces for the palm oil companies — from which the U.S. benefits — reappeared, assassinating many of the vulnerable farmers Zelaya had attempted to protect.
In 2017, President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a politician with a record fraught with human rights abuses, corruption and enemy-silencing, was re-elected in a process widely acknowledged as fraudulent. The Trump administration acknowledged the re-election and congratulated Hernandez, even as more accounts of a deadly crackdown on the president’s enemies were emerging.
All the while, the U.S. has continued to send millions of dollars in aid — $182 million in 2017 alone — and to work closely with Hernandez’s government. Publicly, the justification for the aid is to help quell the flow of migration by addressing its root causes. But realistically, the funds function as something else, too: a bribe for the Honduran government to carry out the wishes of Washington.
Deb Geelsdottir writes:
Thanks, Deb. Great article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6wyr9zU_Nc
Seems we have heard this song and dance before. Same Dusty (Gilligan) different Island. Predictable results.
Never heard of it.
Mexico is our largest trading country in the world for this first quarter of 2019! Well played Mexico while still on the old NAFTA!!
“The US had US$102.5 billion in goods trade with Mexico in the first two months of the year. In second place was Canada at US$97.5 billion and then China at US$96.7 billion, according to seasonally adjusted data from the US Census Bureau. Mexico had been in third place, behind Canada and China.
China’s General Administration of Customs has said that from January to March, overall trade with the US fell 11 per cent year on year, to 815.8 billion yuan (US$121 billion). The US is now behind the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in order of China’s biggest trading partners.”
What difference has it made to Dusty’s congressional district? Lots, that is where we sell a whole bunch of corn! Set immigration up as a business to allow the flow of workers and ideas.
Debbo, Dusty’s Trail is a Sherwood Schwartz knockoff of Gilligan’s Island set in a western format. You get all the Gilligan goof ups and yet he always comes out smelling like a rose. The cast has the same numbers as G I and they essentially play the same characters.
Last but not least, it is so phony it is actually funny at times. And I have it on dvd with other Western movies.
On further review, this was a tv series shown in syndication in 1973-4. Never knew that.
I always hated GI, probably why I never saw the western version.
You gotta answer the most important Gilligan trivia question ever- Ginger or MaryAnne? I picked MaryAnne, personally.
Petty and vindictive, two year old orange brat mixes immigration with using his position to punish enemy lawmakers-
Florida officials are freaking out about an administration plan to literally dump about a hundred immigrants a week in two heavily Democratic Florida counties. State Republicans are pissed at what Trump has called his “sick idea.” At a presser, the Palm Beach County Sheriff said ICE officials used the term “family units” to describe all the people they intended to shove onto a street corner without food or shelter.