Ernst to Just "Phone It In," But Will No Doubt Continue to Cash Senate Pay Checks
Move Reeks of Partisanship, Cynicism & And Attacks On the Rule of Law
Iowa deserves so much better from Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA).
Last week she joined nine other Republican Senators - including several of the Senate’s most extreme members - in signing a letter announcing that they are responding to the unanimous jury conviction in a New York state court of ex-President Donald Trump on 34 criminal felonies, with what amounts to a partisan “sit down strike” and abandonment of many of their Senate duties.
What they are pledging, in essence, is to use their votes to bring about a rolling government shut down driven by more gridlock and inaction in Congress.
And that’s what Iowans and Americans really want, isn’t it? More congressional gridlock and inaction. Be sure to thank Joni Ernst and her friends when we get it.
Ernst’s partners in this absurd, “theater of the extreme” include some of the worst members of the US Senate:
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) who blocked all senior military promotions, hundreds of them, from February to December 2023, a partisan stunt that nearly decapitated the US military chain of command - a goal America’s enemies include in every war plan.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo). Remember him? The Senator who coordinated behind the scenes with the January 6 insurrectionists, fist pumped them outside the Capitol in front of the TV cameras, and then was caught inside the Capitol running for protection behind US Capitol police who were being violently attacked by his mob.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who claims publicly that the United States is not a democracy (A “fact” that would no doubt surprise the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy in defense of democracy 80 years ago. More than 4,000 of them lost their lives in that effort on D-Day fighting to save what Lee says does not exist in America.) Lee was an active participant, working hand in glove with the anti-democracy insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and with others trying to undo the votes cast by American citizens on Election Day 2020.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), an active proponent of the Big Lie who worked hard as head of the partisan Republican Attorney Generals Association to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Among others.
All 10 of them pledged to oppose judicial nominees, spending bills, and other Democratic legislation to protest the conviction of Trump by a jury of randomly selected citizens in a New York state court.
The announcement means, for example, that - even if House Republicans were finally able pass the long overdue Farm Bill which expired last year and send it to the Senate - Ernst has promised a knee jerk vote against it. Her “no vote” promise includes a pledge to vote against everything that increases funding for anything except safety matters during the Biden administration.
A long over due Farm Bill obviously would require additional funding compared to the last one, written in 2018. Ernst is a no vote, under her “no thinking allowed” pledge.
When Ernst took her oath of office, it was a promise to do the work of a United States Senator. Her letter pledges to break that promise.
By promising to vote against anything President Biden or the Democrats are for - to cast her vote strictly on the basis of which party is advancing it - regardless of the merits, she has opted instead to simply “phone in” that work. No actual work will be done. No thoughtful consideration. There is no room for actual consideration of whether the legislation is good or bad for America, just the partisan “calculus” that requires no thinking at all.
One assumes, however, Senator Ernst will continue cashing her Senate pay checks, even as she is refusing to do some of the most important work of a United States Senator.
And, from her perspective, why not? Increasingly Republicans in Congress act as though their job is to do the work of the most extreme elements of their political party, rather than the work of the American people.
Like most Senators, Ernst has a big tax-paid Senate staff, whose job it is to help her study and analyze legislation, nominations and appointments that come before the Senate. She might as well let them all go. They now have nothing to do.
Ernst has “decided” everything in advance. Strict partisanship will be the only measure. Every issue. Every bill. Every judicial nomination or presidential appointment. Every time. If there is a “D” behind it, she’s promised to vote “no.” If it costs an additional dime over its previous budget, no matter how much needs and circumstances have changed, she’s promised to vote “no.”
A large chalk-line board laid out for “Cow Pie Bingo” - with the requisite number of all “no” squares - could be used to decide these matters under Ernst’s plan. No actual thinking, much less serious deliberation, is required.
Senator Ernst’s promise is the very definition - in action - of bitter, extreme partisanship.
Worse yet, is the reason Ernst and her colleagues cite as their excuse. They are angry that a jury of citizens in a New York state court heard the evidence and arguments - from prosecuting and defense attorneys alike - deliberated on the arguments and evidence tgey heard, and convicted Trump on all 34 charged criminal felonies connected to his payment of hush money to a porn star to hide his sexual affair with her from the public prior to the 2016 election.
Let us not forget, by the way: Trump was offered the chance to testify in his own defense - to tell his side of the story, to make his case, not just through his lawyers, but in his own voice and in his own words.
Mr. Tough Guy declined the offer and chose not to talk in the courtroom where the laws of perjury apply.
Referring to the New York case, the trial, and the verdict, the letter signed by Ernst and the nine others claims “The White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart.”
The letter does not say that up is down or that black is white, or that pigs can fly, but it might as well have done so because those claims are as close to accurate as is the actual un-American nonsense Ernst and the others are now peddling which - oh, by the way - happens to exactly echo the frantic, frightened, and desperate un-American clap trap the 34 times convicted felon who is their party’s presumptive nominee for president is bellowing.
Let’s review for any who are having a hard time connecting the dots of reality here:
The court in which Trump was tried and convicted is a New York state court, not a federal court.
The case was prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who does not report to President Biden.
The case was heard and the verdict was delivered by a jury of randomly selected, average citizens who were vetted, screened and selected by attorneys for both the defense and prosecution to guarantee that they were non-biased.
Ernst’s claim that Trump’s nearly three dozen felony criminal indictments and convictions are the result of some kind of partisan vendetta by President Biden, or Democrats, is a lie - but it is more than a lie.
It is an anti-American attack on our very system of justice.
It is also worth noting that neither Ernst, her extremist colleagues who signed the letter with her, or Trump himself have offered any evidence - at all - to back up their claims that the trial was anything but appropriate and fair.
Zilch.
Just smears against the good citizens on the jury, the officers of the court, and anyone else who isn’t parroting Trump’s lies.
There are only two things that brought about Trump’s 34 felony criminal convictions:
Trump’s own criminality;
and a system of justice in America that worked.
Joni Ernst needs to stop lying about that.
She needs to stop her destructive partisan attacks on America’s justice system.
The Senator also needs to do her job - the job she was elected to do by all Iowans and is paid by tax payers to do. If she wants to lie for Donald Trump and do Donald Trump’s dirty work for him; if she wants to be a stunt performer in the on-going MAGA circus, let her either leave the Senate to do it, or at least return her pay checks to the federal treasury.
Partisan shilling for a 34 times convicted felon, and literally thoughtless, purely partisan voting is the work of a pure, extreme partisan. It is not the work of a responsible United States Senator.
Joni Ernst is not working for Iowa or America.
I used to put Joni in the same box with Chuck Grassley- she is also a colossal disappointment. But, as Chuck has become, she is now also a dangerous joke. Iowa deserves better than these two.
But, Barry, don’t you understand that Sen. Breadbagger is not acting in the name of Iowans who are are ‘fed up’ with the Biden Administration? As if all Iowans think in the same way. Like all members of her party, Joni Ernst believes her responsibility is only to the most extreme of her voters. In her view, there is no such thing as the public interest.