Thune: I’ll Never Stop Fighting for Ellsworth Air Force Base
“[Twenty] years ago, Ellsworth was said to be a liability. Today, it’s very clear that it’s a national security asset.”
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:
Click here to watch the video.
Daschlecand Al Cornella made a huge save on that one.
I was just thinking that as well. Thanks to those two. Thune was kind of out of the loop on that one wasn’t he? He’s still fighting for it. Good.
My mistake. He had replaced Daschle that previous January. Apologies.
Observator and Willie Nations, better to be silent and thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
As you prove.
Well I’m not the one that made a total ass of myself posting a comment on something I know absolutely nothing about. That would be you.
I merely referred to the wrong BRAC. The mistake has been corrected.
I believe it was Senator Thune who led the way to save Ellsworth. Even Ellsworth agrees..
https://ellsworthauthority.org/battle-to-save-ellsworth
Daschle did knock down a lot of the base’s red flags and gave the SD team a good case for Thune & co to make at BRAC that June.
The red flags got there on Daschle’s watch. He knocked nothing down.
What???
A little history of Ellsworth. While under SAC Ellsworth had a missile wing, a tanker wing and bomber wing. Through the years Ellsworth lost the missile, tanker and half of the bomber wing. All this under the watchful eye of daschle.
Senators Tim Johnson, John Thune, Representative Stephanie Herseth, and Governor Rounds saved Ellsworth from closer. Daschle had nothing to do with it.
EXACTLY!!
It was 90 percent Thune. 10 percent the rest.
Better to be silent and thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Let’s turn the whole state into Ellsworth then, I’ve been waiting for a while but didn’t realize I was on the wrong part of the state for representation.
Other than Ellsworth the west is invisible, were at the mercy of the local wingnuts.
Mt. Rushmore, black hills, Custer State Park, Mammoth Dig, Rapid City, The Badlands, Minute Man Missile Museum, National Grasslands, SDSMT, BHSU, Spearfish Canyon, Lead, Deadwood, just to name a few.
You don’t get out much do you??
I meant peoples political concerns are as unaddressed in the west as anywhere else. The west has no special pipeline to representation. Read a book why dontcha.
Then say what you mean. Your post made no reference to people’s political concerns. Read a book?? I suggest you follow your own advice.
I was quite clear.
You can always leave and move to somewhere more to your liking, say Seattle, Portland, or LA?
You can as well, many more authoritarian strongholds for you to turn in your neighbors for not following your way, somewhere like Pyongyang, Moscow, or I hear Riyadh is lovely this time of year! You’ll fit right in, don’t worry.
I’m not the one crying like a little girl and complaining how horrible South Dakota is, that is coming from YOU. I like living in South Dakota.
So you just go ahead and keep crying.
Apologies again. I’m actually remembering 1995, when Ellsworth’s name could have been on that year’s BRAC, but for Senator Daschle asking Bill Clinton to keep it off, which he did. No fuss no muss. As to the mission changes, ask the Air Force about those decisions.
Maintaining aging obsolete expensive machines that haven’t seen a mission this century is exactly why we’re in debt up to our eyeballs.
Warfare is moving to drones.
Close it down, save some money. That would be the true fiscal conservative thing to do but let’s not kid ourselves, there are no fiscal conservatives in a welfare state like South Dakota
“a single flight hour needs 48.4 hours of repair. The fuel, repairs, and other needs for a 12-hour mission cost $720,000 (~$982,308 in 2023)”
This is not how to compete on the global stage in 2025.
Ellsworth is poised to host the B21 and it’s very welcome here. I would disagree with your stance on closure. Thune’s remarks coincide with the 2005 date when Ellsworth was named on a base closure list. Thune and a dozen other top SD officials successfully argued for removing the base from that list a month later in Rapid City.
The fight 20 years ago was waged in what we now see was a healthy federal government in 2005. Party differences were set aside, and everyone rallied around Thune when Bush embarrassed him by not plucking Ellsworth from BRAC like Daschle and Clinton agreed to do the decade before. In a way, Thune’s 2004 campaign themes included the idea that Thune was the guy to do that same trick with Bush, while Daschle could not.
The expressed sentiment here that Daschle did nothing for Ellsworth and caused its mission creep issues is preposterous.
With today’s climate, and DOGE running roughshod over the country closing things, maybe a regular reminder to them about our feisty attachment and commitment to Ellsworth is not a bad idea. Have a nice day.
The fact you believe air superiority can be won by drones alone is troubling.