Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-MN) won a very close race in 2016. For the most part he hasn’t made a lot of noise since then. But a lot of people knew that it was just a matter of time. These are both from an apparent doozy of a recent public address.
“Agriculture is a national security issue,” he said, according to The Globe. Hagedorn grew up on a grain and livestock farm near Truman and serves on the House Ag Committee.
In fact, it was because of agriculture, he said, that “nobody [in America] goes to sleep at night wondering if they’ll be able to feed their families.”
Jim? Jim?
As wondrous and bountiful as America’s yield is, it still routinely fails to feed everyone in the country. It's estimated that 1 in 8 Americans are “food insecure,” a polite way of saying they often go without. That translates to roughly 40 million people, 12 million of them children. - City Pages
And:
“What’s going on at the border is an emergency,” Hagedorn said. He added that Democrats in Congress are “turning our border patrol agents into having to care for children and families.”
He claimed that 5 to 6 million people are in America undocumented because they have overstayed their visas. He said many of these individuals are “from terrorist countries” and that this phenomenon is what caused 9/11. - The Globe
Hagedorn is playing a Trump-et tune ... making outrageous claims that are disputed by the Trump Administration's own reporting.
ReplyDeleteExample ... the claim of five to six million who overstayed their visas ... with "many" from terrorist countries.
Yet, according to Homeland Security's "FY2017 Entry/Exit Overstay Report", (last updated August 7, 2018) identified 701,900 overstays in 2017. This is a decline of about 5% from 2016. Topping the list ... that well-known terrorist country, Canada, at 101,281. But, he is right, there are some people who overstayed their visas that may not be from "terrorist" countries .... may be your readers remember President Trump admitting the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was "terrible" and that "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia" ... so I guess the 4,630 from Saudi Arabia that overstayed are not a big concern.
Let us remember that after 9/11, the government started monitoring visa overstays ... and the Trump Administration has put a number of countries (seven?) on the travel ban ... yet, somehow Hagedorn cites data most likely derived from a 2011 projection.
While Hagedorn comments are not a surprise, it is also not a surprise that he is blindly supporting Trump's NAFTA2.0.
Ignoring Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's OpEd yesterday that the USMCA needs to be redone, and Elizabeth Warren-led objection to the ten-year period of data exclusivity for biologic drugs, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) released its report on the likely impact on the U.S. economy ... and it doesn't show much improvement ... real U.S. GDP by 0.35 percent and U.S. employment by 0.12 percent.
The largest gains are expected to come from new rules on international data transfers and e-commerce, which were not part of the original NAFTA ... since e-commerce didn't exist in the Bush/Clinton era.
Agriculture, which is the touted by Hagedorn for how the USMCA will make things so much better ... but are rather modest ... a projected increase in U.S. agricultural and food exports by 1.1 percent -- not nearly enough to make up for Trump's tariffs impact in exports to other countries.
And for the American consumer, we will end up paying more for vehicles ... 0.37 percent for pick-up trucks and 1.61 percent for small cars ... these higher prices mean that total consumption will decline by 140,000 vehicles.
All that aside, Trump says USMCA has replaced “the catastrophe known as NAFTA” and will “deliver for American workers like they have not had delivered to for a long time.”
Typical Trump ... and all he needs is a cheerleader like Hagedorn to sway the ill-informed.
No doubt this will play well in Minnesota ... after all, we just experienced the NFL draft with Viking management telling fans that the offensive line is fixed, the defense is improved and we got our long-snapper of the future.
Gosh, we hadn't heard such optimism since Laquon Treadwell, Troy Williamson, Cordarrelle Patterson, Dimetrius Underwood, Matt Kalil, and Christian Ponder were picked. Where do we buy our Super Bowl tickets (I hope their is a Trump hotel nearby)?
Did you see who Hagedorn paid to print his "ignorant drivel" ?
ReplyDeleteIn March, the MN Political Roundtable, noted how much money Dean Phillips had paid for his mass mailings ... and compared it to Pete Stauber and Jim Hagedorn. The commentary asked the question : What would you do with $210,668.38 ? And wondered who Abernathy West LLC was since there was no other Member of Congress using them.
Well, the MN Reformer is out with a report on the company ... and lo and behold the company is associated with people who have worked on Hagedorn's staff.
Read the story
https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/08/15/congressman-spent-tax-dollars-on-vendor-owned-by-a-member-of-his-staff/
Of particular interest is Hagedorn's response that he "became aware of this matter approximately two months ago" ... for a guy who presents himself as a fiscal conservative, didn't he ever look at his spending ... and ask any questions ?