Senator John Thune spent a long weekend traveling with nine other Senators to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Thune spoke briefly with the rest of the gaggle, led by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, at a press conference in Tel Aviv:
On Twitter, Thune boiled his message down to “unwavering support for Israel” and the need to eliminate organizations like Hamas to ensure global security and stability.
A reporter asked Senator Graham if Israel should give Hamas more time to release the hostages it took two weeks ago. Senator Graham said forcefully that Hamas doesn’t need time to release the hostages; they could let them go right now but won’t until their backers in Iran feel the pressure from the international community. Senator Graham also shut down an attempt by a right-wing Newsmax propagandist to sow discord among the bipartisan delegation with a rigged question about Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib’s hasty and erroneous statement that Israel was responsible for the destruction of Gaza hospital (the evidence points to a malfunctioning Hamas rocket as the cause of the explosion at the al-Ahri Arab Hospital and the possibly exaggerated deaths of civilians inside). “Stop,” said Senator Graham. “You’re not going to screw this up…. Get this guy out of here…. I’m an American, and I believe in free speech. I don’t believe what the Squad [a reference to Tlaib’s cadre of notably liberal Democrats] has to say at all, but I came here with Democrats and Republicans to let everybody in the world know, don’t judge every Democrat by the Squad and don’t judge every Republican by some of the things you hear.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appreciates this semblance of a return to bipartisanship on foreign policy. Let’s hope Graham, Thune, and the rest of the Senate GOP can keep that spirit up with their willing Democratic colleagues… and maybe reach across the Rotunda to get their House counterparts to adopt the same united stand against Hamas, Iran, and the other real enemies of global peace.
Obviously you shouldn’t basically need to somehow kind of worry about if John Thune will be there for Mitch McConnell, since um John Thune fortunately understands that in order to be a leader you need to somehow demonstrate that you know how to follow, and luckily if not fortunately John Thune has been able to do just that.
I’d say all you Warboys have got John Thune right in your pocket; question is now are you ready to put your back into it?
John Thune is the consummate concern chameleon courting chaos constantly who colluded and conspired with the Trump Organization as Russia and Cambridge Analytica infiltrated Facebook.
When a religious zealot organization like the GOP calls for the elimination of another religious zealot organization like Hamas, god-sanctioned devastation is just around the corner. In congress, leaders can now show how strong they are by the measure of putting other’s lives in peril.
Following 9-11 Rush Bimbo done the same thing. He did not have a show if the D and R were getting along. So, Rush started to put divide between the 2 parties.
Rush is one of the major reasons we are in the terrible shape we are today as a county.
Mr. Scott, the earlier versions of Mr. Limbaugh (I believe it is spelled L-I-M-B-A-U-G-H) was a funny enough fellow and had plump jowls, but he got boring later. And he might have created little pockets of dittos, but I’d say Ms. Hillary really caused the shape we are in today, even including Bidenflation. Not Mr. Limbaugh.
I honestly thought John Thune was going to tell Israel to just “get small”, as he does with us here back in the USA.
4 years of Trump, and w/o limbaugh’s daily subterfuge of hate Fox wouldn’t be where it is and Republicans where they are. Crashed, burned out and reeking smoke destroying the planet. medal of freedom was a farce. nothing funny about the pig. but you can’t see nor speak truth, ever, and daily for all to see. and you cheat and lie about it just like the Astros. Plug it up Billy. you got nothing.
Hilary Clinton is causing inflation while residing in luxury in the Hamptons?? For all Ms. Clinton’s faults and many talents, I believe any rational person knows, that scenario is impossible.
Anyone with a brain knows that there is little to nothing the president or the Federal Reserve, or congress can do about inflation.
Our inflation has several components, including:
– labor shortages due to the gaping holes in the US demographic pyramid. Self-proclaimed immigration expert, Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere is unable to make 15 to 40 year old workers jump out his comedic hat – the only solution to the US worker shortage of 350,000 per year that increases to over 900,000 per year until about 2035 is, drumroll, immigration. Since congress refuses to address immigration, the next best non-solution is a relatively open border.
– the re-industrialization of the US manufacturing base that several foolish presidents and chambers of commerce shipped overseas – is inflationary as companies compete for scarce labor and scarce supplies and materials. Yet, the re-shoring of US manufacturing will strengthen the US economy.
– the boomer peak retirements as those selfish slobs pull their money from investments to CDs, T-bills, municipal bonds, and other “safe investments” dries up capital otherwise useful for and available for more productive societal investments – making capital scarcer which contributes to higher interest rates.
– and the old boogeyman of war is also inflationary.
Limpaw is still,dead and HRC is still alive and well despite 50 years of magat lies and in your windows about her and Bill. Remember the vast right wing conspiracy?, It is alive and well.
I’m not sure what Thune achieved in Saudi Arabia or in Israel other than optics. Note that Thune took the stage with the rest of the delegation in Tel Aviv but does not appear to have made any such public appearance on Saudi soil.
I would like to have heard him join Graham in shutting down the Newsmax troublemaker, who, like Mark Mowry and others on the right, appears interested in distracting us from the worthy goal of setting aside partisan differences and unifying behind the President’s rational, conduct of complicated foreign policy issues.
I should note, though, that Mowry’s opening Trumpy ramble leaves me unclear on what Mowry is actually trying to say. Please try again, Mark: are you saying Thune should not support Israel? Are you saying Thune should not support the Minority Leader? Are you saying Israel should stop attacking Gaza? Are you saying Hamas did the right thing and Israel had it coming? Are you saying the United States should not back Israel militarily? Are you saying our current policy will drag the United States into a Middle East war?
If you are saying that last, could you show us examples of how United States policy toward Israel now, which I believe is pretty much what United States policy toward Israel has been since Israel became Israel, has led to the United States being dragged into a war in Israel?
Chris: FTW! Wonderful call back!
John: “Anyone with a brain knows that there is little to nothing the president or the Federal Reserve, or congress can do about inflation.”
However, how this nation addresses inflation is very much up to the Fed. Inflation is really about the amount of money in circulation/the money supply. The Fed protects the top by squeezing that cash out of the middle and low income folks. There are remedies that protect the middle and low income to put the squeeze on the top — those who can most afford to tighten a belt — but that is not the ‘murican way.
@Cory — Thank you for asking (as well as for hosting this blog site). I’ll respond to your comments and questions in the order you gave them. First I agree that Thune’s presence seems mostly to be one of optics. I suppose he’s standing in for Mitch, who probably shouldn’t be taking long airplane flights these days.
I know about Graham shutting down the Newsmax reporter. He certainly has that right, and John Thune wouldn’t be able to think on his feet or act upon an impulse anyway.
As far as the hope to unify behind Biden’s preposterous spending proposals, I say they are not rational at all. What is rational about $105 Bn (and climbing) proxy war funding? More than $60 Bn of that package is earmarked for Ukraine. While your post discusses a thinly-veiled PR affair in the Middle East, I think it is starkly underlined by the warmongers’ obsession to throw money at every crisis that comes along. Deficit spending is making us slaves of this system. Have you given any thought to that?
Replying to your questions — I think we should support Israel, but I think John Thune’s reason in going there is to show that he is ‘nonpartisanly’ ready to give Biden, Schumer, McConnell, and your whimsical self our $105 Bn (it will be more).
I don’t think Thune should be supporting the minority leader. There’s good reason for conservatives to dislike Thune and McConnell. They are more like you than they are like us. You are Democrats. They are supposed to be Republicans.
I wouldn’t attempt to tell Israel when they should let up on Hamas/Gaza.
I don’t believe Hamas ‘did the right thing’.
Backing Israel militarily means everything from marching in parades in the U.S. to sending troops there, so I don’t know how to answer that. Iran is sponsoring terrorism there. Should they be allowed to continue along that path without fear of consequence? No, they shouldn’t.
Finally, as far as getting dragged into a Middle East war, I think it’s even bigger than that. The policy that Biden is proposing is basically an invitation to every nation to act up and see if you can get some USD out of the deal. Come to think of it, they are much like our clueless American constituency.
Mark, I think about deficit spending all the time. Ronald Reagan and Republicans do, too, since they’ve been the bigger deficit spenders in my lifetime, and the economy, perhaps counter-intuitively, hasn’t crashed yet. We seem to have an endless capacity to fund government on future payments. Deficit spending doesn’t sound good, and it certainly has limits in kitchen-table economics, but it doesn’t seem to have triggered global harms on the macro scale yet; it seems more often to save our economic bacon (see stimuli of Reagan defense spending in the 1980s, Bush/Obama recession response in 2008–2009, Trump-Biden pandemic response 2020–2021).
Thune et al aren’t aiming to give me $105B. They are aiming to invest $105B in global security that will keep us from costlier deployments of U.S. troops in hotter wars on foreign soil. Thune and Biden are aiming to give us all a world safer from tyranny and terrorism (which you and I appear to agree Hamas is committing and should be crushed for committing). I’m cool with that goal; I just wish we could as readily find bipartisan agreement to spend such whopping sums on school lunches, universal health care, and other social investments that would produce long-lasting social and economic dividends.
It seems incorrect to assert that approving this $105B aid package will encourage other nations to “act up” and try soliciting US aid. It’s not Ukraine and Israel that “acted up”; it’s their enemies who attacked and prompted Ukraine’s and Israel’s need for assistance. I doubt other nations will look at our assistance to Ukraine and Israel and say, “Boy, I wish we’d get invaded or attacked so we could get a big check from America. Let’s stir up the barbarians at the gate and get them to invade so we can make bank on Uncle Sam!” I suspect Ukraine and Israel both would much rather never have been attacked, never have lost lives, never had to dedicate their own blood and treasure to these current wars, and never had to have asked the U.S. or anyone else to replenish their military stocks.
Standing against tyranny and terrorism isn’t about acting like a Republican or a Democrat (although I’d better remind everyone that by no stretch is Thune or McConnell a Democrat; that’s the fiction of the Mowry-Trumpist mind that would declare no one but the Gaetz/MTG fringe to be members of the true Republican Party and the other 99% of the country their communist enemies). Standing for democracy and liberty is about acting like an American.
My dearest Lady Trobairitz. Why hasn’t deficit spending triggered global harms on the macro scale yet?
“Well, P. Succinctly”:
Counter cyclical policy
Low-interest rates
Confidence in government debt
Monetary policy tools
International cooperation
The absence of severe global harms can be attributed to a combination of these factors and the prudent management and coordination of economic policies.
“You’re welcome.” #DigitalGrins
Cory, We can go back and forth until the cows come home regarding how we’ve gotten here and who’s to blame, agreed?
Picking up on the here and now, if you will, our seeming endless capacity has admittedly been astounding; but it’s not something we should be banking on, is it? We hear talk of sustainability all the time, in fact Thune has shown himself to be quite fond of the word, but here he is rooting for what I call no restraint spending. Are these sustainable practices?
As with too many on what’s supposed to be my side of the table, he’s only a fiscal Republican. It really is all about the financial bottom line to him and his farm subsidy caucus.
However Thune has no concept of where the bottom is. He’s not that deep. He’s a mannequin. He’s earned his description as ‘milquetoast’.
You and I are probably alike in that we think that in politics we need to strike a balance. But whereas you are able to commend Thune, Rounds, and Johnson occasionally, I continue to see them as men who will lower the bar at every occasion where it is politically feasible. That’s a love for status beyond the love of country. That’s not acceptable to me.
That Republicans hate their fellow Republicans makes me happy.
Good points Cory. Mr. Mowry clearly doesn’t have a clue that we are sending out dated munitions to Ukraine that we would have had to destroy on our own dime here. Also, to replace those old bullets and other logistics, we are making new ones right here in the US. That help to boost the economy both in South Dakota and the rest of the country.
Mr. Mowry needs to read history to put the blame where it belongs, right smack on the UK. No wonder republicans don’t want schools to teach history, it’s so inconvenient to the myth’s they want to project.
@Jerry – Are you saying the $60 Bn earmark to Ukraine after the already $113 Bn expended is on outdated munitions? Wow, I really didn’t have a clue! I don’t know whether to shake somebody’s hand or to shake my head!
Meanwhile your grasp of history seems daunting, but I will venture forth to guess your reasoning that the blame falls ‘right smack on the UK’ is because of the way it abandoned the newly formed State of Israel to effectively fend for itself among hostile neighboring Arabs in the region (If I guessed wrong, I’m open to suggestion).
Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin. We are sending old refurbished Abrans tanks, Strykers, Bradley’s and so on. We build the munitions here and ship them there. Good deal for working men and women in America while not sending American troops there to fight and kill Russians. Gotta love that.
Yes, The UK made the boundary’s that were the same boundary lines for each of them. They call that selling the same horse twice. “As the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to plague the Middle East, historian Ronald Florence offers extraordinary new insights on its origins. This is the story of T. E. Lawrence, the young British officer who became famous around the world as Lawrence of Arabia, Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist from Palestine, and the antagonism that divided them over the fate of the dying Ottoman Empire during World War I–a clash of visions that set Arab nationalism and Zionism on a direct collision course that reverberates to this day.” Lawrence and Aaronsohn: T. E. Lawrence, Aaron Aaronsohn, and the Seeds of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
In a letter written by future 1st Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, to his wife, in 1938, he writes what David Lloyd George of Great Britain, said of the British Colony that was then Palestine:
“I’ll be frank with you. During the world war they gave Arabs and Jews conflicting assurances. We sold the same horse twice.”
History is a real kick in the pants sometimes.