Thune's petards hoist him to power

John Thune selects a coat-tail to ride on.

John Thune is a sock puppet extraordinaire.  He has the intellectual endowments and the moral compass of a night crawler, but, by God, he catches fish.  You know, suckers, those bottom-dwellers who bite on anything.

Obviously, I do not have much regard for John Thune as a person.  But I guess if John Thune lays a claim for personhood, so can any corporation.   Like Enron.  Lehman Brothers.  Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.  Etc.

My disrespect for John Thune stems from his campaign against Tom Daschle.  It was totally an exercise in ad hominem attacks which were either misrepresentations through distortion or outright fabrications.  People who make up defamation solely for the purpose of damaging another person don't reach those standards of personhood that qualify for more than a studied revulsion and avoidance.   Actually,  his first indications of douchebuggery  were evident when he was a Congressman, and accomplished absolutely nothing but had his staff slink around with video cameras at public appearances made by the state's two Democratic senators of the time.   He had to be forced into opening a service office in Aberdeen, opposed all the infrastructure projects--U.S. 281 and 12, had no clue about the Lewis-Clark water development project, and did not belong to any of the agricultural caucuses,  until party members thought it might be a good idea to at least know something about those projects.  His mantra was "spend no money; funding projects ain't patriotic."

 Like his understudy in fecklessness, Kristi Noemskull, he likes to sponsor legislation against things that don't exist, except in the superstitions of the paranoid.  He sponsored legislation to prevent the EPA from regulating bovine flatulence, although the EPA said repeatedly it had no interest or intention in such regulation.  Thune understands that if there is a number of people who believe that a tooth decay fairy prowls in the night destroying teeth, he will sponsor anti-tooth-decay-fairy legislation, get lots of votes, and distract people from the things that really threaten their well-being.   Like John Thune.   Kristi the Noemskull followed his precedent and sponsored legislation against the EPA regulating farm dust, which it never intended to do.  Tooth fairies and pixie dust have a compelling attraction for their adherents.

His one strength is that he can recite scripts prepared for him by someone back in the GOP hackshop. He doesn't read them for coherence or care whether the scripts contradict themselves; he just blindly repeats those words and phrases that push the bigot buttons of his fawning constituency, which admires his Bible-college education in which he specialized in what became the gospel of St. Limbaugh.  His recitations embrace the paranoid delusions of those whose mental lives are filled with malevolent tooth fairies and fart-suppressors and they peddle the commodity of defamatory hatred, which is the big point of the gospel on which his recitations are based. 

An example of a performance early this week was occasioned by the scandal-laden failure of MF Global, an international investment company.  Thune's performance received coverage by the state's media, and here is one such report in its entirety:

In a telephone press conference with South Dakota reporters, Thune said Congress must make sure nothing like that happens again. He says those responsible should be prosecuted if they broke the law.

Thune says South Dakota’s farmers, ranchers and grain elevators use futures contracts to protect themselves against losses. He says the MF Global bankruptcy has shaken their confidence in the safety of futures contracts.

 Here John Thune advocates that stern measures be taken against an outfit that shakes the confidence of farmers, ranchers, and grain dealers.   However, he feels quite differently about the confidence of the general population in financial companies.  He opposes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and his votes demonstrate that opposition, as reported on a web site that tracks campaign finances: 

Submitted by Adam Smith on Mon, 12/05/2011 - 19:26

The Senate is expected to vote Thursday on the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the office created as part of the Wall Street reform legislation passed in 2010.

The next day, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)—who has threatened to filibuster any nominee unless the agency is significantly weakened—will be holding a fundraiser for his leadership PAC, Heartland Values PAC, in New York City.

This “Kickoff to the Holiday Season” is a full-weekend event, according to the invite obtained by the Sunlight Foundation’s PoliticalPartyTime website.

Two guesses on what kind of donors he’ll be raising money from in New York City. Ok, one guess: Wall Street.
Already in 2011, Wall Street has been handing over plenty of cash to the South Dakota senator.

• So far this year, Thune has received $128,000 from the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
• His PAC received $1,000 in June from Stephen Clark, a lobbyist and the author of a recent memo sent to the American Bankers Association about ways the Occupy Wall Street movement can be discredited.

This sort of arrangement might be beneficial to Thune, but I doubt the South Dakotans still struggling through the economic collapse brought on by Wall Street see it that way.

Thune voted as he promised:

 Just a day after voting with Wall Street in blocking the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency created as part of the Wall Street reform legislation passed by Congress in 2010, Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) and John Thune (R-S.D.) jetted off to New York for big money fundraisers.Will they be getting their rewards from the Wall Street types who don’t want to see a functional and strong CFPB? Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) got into the act too
 

John Thune can't keep track of the contradictions in the scripts he recites, but he is creating new standards and new definitions for douchebaggery,  more accurately douchebuggery.

Douchebugs, however, catch a lot of fish.