Tag Archives: Senate Majority Leader John Thune

Americans Want Voter Identification

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As I write this, the SAVE Act is stalled in a Senate committee–not making its way to the floor. According to what I read, there are 50 votes to pass the law. The law requires voter identification. It also requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote. I don’t think either of these requirements is unreasonable. (If the filibuster were not in place, 50 votes plus the Vice-President would pass the law). Most Americans want voter id (according to CNN–see below):

On Tuesday, Real Clear Politics reported:

So, the bottom line is this, voter I.D. is not controversial in this country. A photo I.D. to vote is not controversial in this country. It is not controversial by party, and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree with Nicki Minaj that, in fact, you should have a photo I.D. to be able to vote.

The real questions here is why anyone would oppose voter id. Anyone who has a bank account, travels by air, cashed a check, gets a library card, goes to the doctor, or enters a government building needs a photo id, so it’s not hard to get a photo id. Why would anyone oppose needing one to vote?

I firmly believe that if John Thune does not successfully pass the SAVE Act, the Republicans will lose Congress in the midterms. The American people elected Congress to represent them. If the Republicans in Congress do not represent the voters, they deserve to be sent packing!

Pay Attention, Republicans

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On Saturday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some recent comments by Republican activist Scott Presler. You may remember that Scott Presler was a major factor in President Trump’s 2024 election victory. He has become a seasoned political worker and observer.

The article reports:

Republican activist Scott Presler joined Kayleigh McEnany on FOX News to push the Save Act. Presler told FOX News that there are already 48 co-sponsors with Mike Lee sponsoring the bill. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune needs to bring it up for a vote.

The Save act requires:
** Proof of US citizenship to vote,
** Mandates states to verify the citizenship of voters
** Requires states to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls

These are basic rules to help secure our elections. Democrats are against them, of course.

Scott is urging everyone to continue to call their senators and ask them to make a public statement about moving the Save Act to the Senate floor.

The article includes the following statement from Scott:

So my warning to members of Congress that are not willing to pass election reform at the federal level, which is constitutional, is either Republicans allow for proof of citizenship and photo voter ID, or it’s very likely that Republican voters will not come out on Tuesday, November third, and we very likely could lose the House of Representatives, and you could even lose Senate. The senatorships in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina. And if we lose three seats, Kaylee, it’s 50-50, and we lose the majority. So to our beautiful Senate Republican colleagues that are in the majority right now, I ask you, bring the Save Act to the floor, and any senator against proof of citizenship must tell the American people publicly on the floor why they are against it.

The Save Act will help deal with the problem of election integrity. Right now we have tens of thousands of people in America who are not citizens and may not have a problem illegally voting. The Save Act would help deal with that problem. If the Republicans can not get it passed, what is the point of electing them?

Please follow the link to the article. It contains a video of the interview on Fox News.

The Obstruction Tactics Are Becoming Less Effective

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President Trump has an amazing learning curve. During his first administration, the Washington swamp pretty much controlled things. This time–not so much.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported:

Republicans will confirm a bloc of eight dozen Trump nominees as soon as next week following an attempted blockade by Senate Democrats.

Republican leadership planned Thursday to kick-off the procedural process to confirm 88 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a bloc vote, but were initially thwarted by Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who challenged the package for violating Senate rules. When Republicans refiled the package later on Thursday, the conference included an additional nine nominees, bringing the total to nearly 100.

Democrats blocked the group package because Sara Bailey — one of President Donald Trump’s nominees included in the package — was not eligible to be included.

When Republicans went nuclear in September to streamline the confirmation process over Democrats’ fierce objections, the conference did not allow cabinet-level positions or judicial appointments to be confirmed in a group package.

Bailey, a former Fox News contributor, has been tapped to serve as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is a senior-level position on par with a cabinet secretary.

…The new package includes former Republican New York Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who has been appointed to serve as inspector general of the Department of Labor. Thirteen U.S. attorney nominees and dozens of lower-level executive branch nominees are also teed up for confirmation.

The article concludes:

The Senate has confirmed 314 civilian nominees as of Thursday evening, according to a tally by the Senate Republican Communications Center.

The 97-member bloc would bring the Senate to more than 410 civilian confirmations in the first year of Trump’s second term.

“That far outstrips total confirmations by this point in President Biden’s term, and in President Trump’s first term as well,” Thune said Thursday.

Thune also said that Senate Republicans have virtually cleared the nominations backlog. Before Republicans changed Senate precedent to allow for certain nominees to be confirmed in groups, more than 150 of the president’s picks were awaiting floor consideration.

The Senate approved a 48-member nominations package in September and an additional 108 of the president’s picks in a single group vote in October.

Bennet celebrated his short-lived blockade of Trump’s nominees Thursday before Republicans added more individuals to the resolution.

“I will not allow unqualified nominees, this White House, or the President to undermine the rule of law and our national security,” the Colorado Democrat wrote in a statement posted to social media.

It would be really nice if Congress would stop playing politics and do their job!

You Would Have More Leverage If You Won More Elections

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Our system of government is set up on the principle of checks and balances. The Senate chose to add the filibuster to make sure that whichever party was in the minority would have some say in the laws that were being made. However, I really don’t think the purpose of the filibuster was to allow the whichever party was in the minority to shut down the government.

On Tuesday, Red State reported:

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) just became the second Democrat to say the quiet part out loud as he admitted the Schumer shutdown is “very unpleasant” but the “only moment of leverage” his party has.

You don’t have leverage because the people did not vote for your policies!

The article notes:

“Frankly, this is our only moment of leverage, and although a very unpleasant tool to use, it’s gotten us focused on what we have to do to change direction on health care,” Coons said, referencing the Democrats’ lie about how millions of Americans would be thrown off healthcare in the coming years. 

But here’s what Coons doesn’t say. The Democrat forgot to explain that the shutdown is because Republicans won’t give billions to fund healthcare for illegal aliens. 

In a post from our sister site Townhall.com, it noted that Coons’ leverage comment is truly disgusting given the fact that “42 million Americans are going to go hungry and lose SNAP benefits this weekend… so Dems can have ‘leverage.'”

Democrat House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05) was the first one in her party to admit that the suffering of Americans was giving Democrats “leverage,” RedState reported.

If I were not a lady, I would tell them what they could do with their leverage.

The article concludes:

During his appearance on Fox News Tuesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) reacted to Coons’ comment and said Democrats think they are playing a “political game,” but it’s not.

“They’re looking at this like it’s some sort of political game,” Thune said. “Where there are winners and losers of the political game. Whereas, we look at this as real impacts on real families and people in this country.”

“It becomes more real and the consequences become more real over time,” he added. “I mean, what they just said, they said the quiet part out loud. These people are looking at this as a political game, Martha [McCallum], and it’s not.”

When someone admits the truth, Americans would be wise to listen. They are playing a game with you — you are expendable as long as they get their way.

Voters, please take some of these Democrats out of office during the midterms.

Breaking Up The Logjam

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported that the Senate is planning to break up the logjam holding back President Trump’s appointments.

The article reports:

Senate Republicans are on the verge of breaking Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s stranglehold over the confirmation process, ending seven months of unprecedented obstruction that has sought to prevent President Donald Trump from staffing his administration.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to invoke the rarely-used “nuclear option” to reform Senate rules allowing for the simultaneous confirmation of lower-level executive branch nominees as early as Monday, a senior Republican aide told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The historic rules change could grant the more than 100 civilian nominees who have been blocked from their postings due to Democrats’ persistent delay tactics a swift confirmation vote before the Senate is scheduled to go on recess on Sept. 19.

…Thune organized a working group in August after negotiations with Democrats to clear the backlog of executive branch nominees collapsed. The cohort included Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Ted Budd of North Carolina.

The Senate is there to advise and consent–not to obstruct.

The article notes:

Senate Republicans’ imminent rules change comes after former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the “nuclear option” during former President Barack Obama’s second term to lower the threshold required to confirm executive branch and judicial nominees. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also invoked the “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees and cut debate time on most presidential nominees.

Though the proposed rules change is likely to benefit Democrats the next time they control the Senate and the White House, Senate Republicans have argued that Democrats’ nomination blockade is not sustainable. Despite Thune holding more votes than any Senate in 35 years, the Trump administration is on track to confirm the fewest nominees in recent memory.

“By the end of the 119th Congress (1/2/2027), the Senate is on track to confirm just 426 nominees, the fewest in history, and less than half of what other Presidents have averaged since 2000,” Britt, a member of the working group, wrote on X on Wednesday.

This is not the kind of history we need to be making.

The article concludes:

“We have never seen a time where the opposition party has literally blocked and forced the president and his team and us here as the majority in the Senate to go through all the machinations of trying to get a nominee across the finish line,” Thune said during a Senate GOP leadership press conference on Wednesday. 

“So this is of the Democrats’ making,” Thune continued. “There isn’t anything right now that they want to vote for that he has his fingerprints on, and getting his team in place is absolutely essential. It’s part of governing this country, and we’re going to move forward.”

The Real Roadblock

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I am not a fan of Senator Thune. I firmly believe he only does the right thing when it is in his best interest. Otherwise, he is a tool of the Washington establishment. A recent article in The Federalist confirmed my opinion.

On Wednesday, The Federalist reported:

Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants GOP voters to believe that Senate Republicans have no ability to speed up confirmation of the more than 140 Trump nominees languishing in the upper chamber. But that isn’t entirely true.

After returning from Congress’s month-long August vacation, Thune took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to pin the blame for the continued confirmation delay of the president’s appointees squarely on the shoulders of Senate Democrats. Verbally wagging his finger at his leftist colleagues, the majority leader said that “their historic obstruction cannot continue.”

“All it takes is a little behavioral change and a willingness to acknowledge President Trump won an election, the American people voted for him, and they expect him to be able to populate his administration with the people that he wants to serve in many of these positions,” Thune said. “The Democrats can play ball — the way every Democrat and Republican Senate have, going back as far as we can find in the annals of history — or things are going to have to change around here. It’s as simple as that. And the ball, I would say, Mr. President, is in the Democrats’ court.”

Except, the ball is not in Democrats’ court — it’s in Thune’s. Contrary to his persistent narrative about Democrat obstruction, the Senate majority leader has always possessed the power to hold the upper chamber in session until confirmation of Trump’s nominees are complete.

The article concludes:

Of course, the key phrase in Bovard’s remarks is “willing.” Like when it comes to fulfilling issue-based promises they campaign on, many Republican senators have shown little to no appetite for doing what’s necessary to get the president’s nominees across the finish line. And that’s especially true for Thune, who has seemingly recanted on his pledge — which he made a day after Trump’s inauguration — that Senate Republicans “are ready to work as long as needed to confirm President Trump’s nominees,” including “Nights. Weekends. Recesses.”

The bottom line is that Thune and the Senate GOP are not going to act out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s going to take vocal, consistent, and continued pressure from Trump and Republican voters to get them to actually do their jobs.

The article explains that there are ways to break the logjam, but the Republican elites are not interested in breaking the logjam. Somehow the idea of Republican unity and working toward a common purpose was thrown out the window by the Republican establishment when President Trump was elected.