Category: JoniErnst

Who’s to blame for the firing of impeachment hero Alex Vindman? Every senator who acquitted Trump

Posted on by David Nir

On Friday, Donald Trump dismissed Lt. Col. Alex Vindman from the National Security Council, months before his tenure was set to expire. Trump sacked Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient and the White House’s top expert on Ukraine, for his courageous testimony during impeachment proceedings in November, when he told Congress he’d reported his concerns about Trump’s now-notorious July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But who’s truly to blame for this naked act of thuggish retaliation? All 52 Republican senators who voted to acquit Trump for his abuses of power and desperate attempts to cover them up. Most especially, that includes the vulnerable Republicans who are up for re-election this November:

Susan Collins in Maine Joni Ernst in Iowa Cory Gardner in Colorado Kelly Loeffler in Georgia Martha McSally in Arizona David Perdue in Georgia Thom Tillis in North Carolina

Collins is particularly egregious: On Friday morning, before the Vindman news broke, she told reporters, “I obviously am not in favor of any kind of retribution against anyone who came forward with evidence.” What’s transpired since was not only predictable, it had in fact been predicted. Collins and her brethren knew what would happen as a consequence of vindicating Trump. They simply didn’t care.

We, however, do. Every time Trump does something awful from this day forward, we know whom to hold responsible. And we can ensure that his enablers go down to defeat this fall.

Please donate $1 to unseat each of the Republicans who acquitted the most corrupt president in American history.

After betraying America, Senate Republicans beg Trump not to talk impeachment at State of the Union

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Here's what it looks like when you're complicit in the cover-up of a crime: Asked if she thought Donald Trump should talk about impeachment in his upcoming State of the Union address on Tuesday, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst offered curtly, "I don't."

Other Republican senators joined in Ernst's What are you, crazy? reaction, according to CNN’s Manu Raju. “If I was writing his speech I wouldn't include it," responded Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana also counseled against it: “Personally, I’d advise him not to.” Nothing screams guilty conscience like trying to hide your paw prints at the scene of the crime.

Wanna kick all these shameless Republicans to the curb? Give $2 right now to the Daily Kos effort to flip the Senate in November.

It's so telling that Senate Republicans are desperate for Trump to shut up about the impeachment that they have so eagerly helped him shut down. If they felt even remotely good about their actions, they'd be fine with him talking it up. Instead, Senate Republicans know that they have cheated America out of a fair trial and airing of the facts, and they'd rather Trump didn't remind the country of that.

What's hilarious is that Trump will almost surely defy their counsel. It's hard to imagine that the orange menace in the Oval Office will have the discipline to steer clear of the topic regardless of what's on the teleprompter. It will likely be one of the Senate GOP's first of many brushes with You reap what you sow. 

Sign the petition to Nancy Pelosi: Revoke Trump’s invitation to the State of the Union. The House must not be complicit in his corruption. 

Senate Republicans have no regrets over impeachment cover-up, even as White House hides key emails

Posted on by Laura Clawson

News that the Trump White House is blocking the release of dozens of emails described in a court filing as “regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine” didn’t change the message from Senate Republicans on Sunday’s talk shows: They regret nothing and will continue to cover up for Donald Trump. Why, it’s almost like nothing Trump could have done would have lost him the support of members of his own party determined to protect their own political power.

Sen. Lindsey Graham even proposed a major program of revenge against Democrats—one that would continue Trump’s efforts to damage former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 election prospects.

Graham used his time on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures to call on Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch to launch a major investigation of Biden, also targeting the whistleblower who launched the House’s Trump-Ukraine probe. “Jim, if you’re watching the show, I hope you are ... let’s call these people in. Eventually, we’ll get to Hunter Biden,” Graham said.  

“We’re not going to let it go. Jim Risch, you need to start it,” he pledged.

Sen. Lamar Alexander didn’t sketch out a revenge plan for Democrats daring to conduct oversight of Trump, but he stuck to his story that, sure, Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine into interfering in the U.S. elections were “wrong. Inappropriate was the way I’d say — improper, crossing the line,” but that doesn’t mean anyone should do anything about it. “I’m very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate.”

Gee, Lamar, maybe the issue isn’t just the House being held by a different party than the president—after all, as much as the Republican-controlled House from 2011 to 2016 would have looooved to impeach President Barack Obama, he didn’t give them even a shred of an excuse to do so—but all of Trump’s flagrant abuse of power.

Sen. Joni Ernst, facing re-election this November, couldn’t bring herself to condemn Trump’s actions as strongly as Alexander’s weak sauce. “Maybe not the perfect call,” Ernst said. “He did it maybe in the wrong manner.” Because apparently there’s a right manner for using the power of the presidency to get another country to launch sham investigations into a political rival.

It’s not just Trump. The Republican Party is rotten all the way through.

Sen. Joni Ernst, who is dumb, threatens to impeach Biden based on Rudy conspiracy theories

Posted on by Hunter

One of the problems with electing brick-stupid people as senators, as Republican voters have taken to doing in droves since the election of the first non-white American president broke what was left of their brains, is that those senators tend forever to be saying the quiet parts out loud.

Sen. Joni Ernst, inflicted on us by Iowa for some reason, has been (1) frothingly angry at the impeachment of Donald Trump for merely doing crimes, (2) eagerly leaping to television cameras to (for free) further the very same conspiracy Donald Trump was attempting to get out of the Ukrainian government for a few hundred million dollars, and (3) is now insisting that since Democrats meanly impeached Trump for crime-doing well maybe Republicans will impeach a theoretical President Biden too because screw you, that's why.

“Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him,’” Ernst told Bloomberg News.

For what reason?

“For being assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”

Bloomberg News notes, to their small credit, that this is not true. This is a conspiracy theory. In the real world as inhabited by those of us not raised by paint fumes, Biden demanded the removal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for not prosecuting alleged corruption in companies like Burisma. Biden was acting on behalf of the United States government and State Department to further an official United States policy, one shared by the European Union and by Senate Republicans themselves. Because Shokin, now Rudy Giuliani's bestest friend after he came up with a host of theories on why everyone in Ukraine but him were the crooked ones, was corrupt.

What Bloomberg News does not point out, however, is that this makes Joni Ernst a liar. Not just a liar, but either a willful propagandist or an unwilling idiot, someone who allegedly is responsible for help writing our laws but who has not, at any point, been able to grasp even the most fundamental of information about the trial that she just fidget-spinnered her way through. She is furthering a lie, and using it as reason why Dear Leader's new enemy must be retaliated against, and justifying both the lie and the retaliation on the indignity of Dear Leader being asked to answer for doing what even her fellow Republican senators agree was a crooked act.

Sen. Joni Ernst may be taking the fascist path on these things but she is, thank God, not a bright fascist. A smarter Republican would have shut their pie-hole long ago but she just keeps going, apparently on a mission to show that her home state of Iowa will put literally anyone in a position of Republican power. Liars, white supremacists, you name it.

How desperate are Senate Republicans to silence Bolton? Desperate enough to throw away the republic

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Republicans don't give a damn about how dangerous Donald Trump is, or about the fact that he's selling our democracy to whichever foreign governments will help him get reelected. They are absolutely desperate not to hear directly from former national security adviser John Bolton. In fact, nothing could be worse than simply calling Bolton to testify under oath about what he knew and what he heard directly from Trump about withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into Trump’s domestic political opponents, the basis for Trump’s impeachment.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said that the Bolton account wasn't worth exploring because it was just a marketing stunt: “This looks like a marketing tactic to sell books is what it looks like to me.” Gee, John, why not find out by calling Bolton in and asking him?

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Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska prefers a statement to actual testimony: “It doesn’t take a subpoena to put out a statement. I think if Ambassador Bolton has something to say he could  do that.” Also, Fischer is pretty sick of being asked about the biggest news of the day and likely even the entire impeachment trial so far: “Do you guys have memos on the same question to ask all the time? Just curious.”

Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri doesn't really care what the facts are—he's in Trump's camp no matter what: "I can’t imagine that anything he would have to say would change the outcome of the final vote."

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming applied his blindfold to the "so-called blockbuster" Bolton report: "To me, the facts of the case remain the same."

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota echoed Barrasso’s nothing-to-see-here take: “I don’t think it changes the facts. ... I don’t personally see it as a game changer.”

And—wait for it—Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is confused about what constitutes a first-hand witness: “Well, I don’t know. Is he a firsthand witness? I’m not sure.” LOL. Man, what a complete joker, unworthy of holding elected office—a proud moment for Missouri, no doubt. 

And Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst—who's already declared her undying fealty to Trump and the White House’s distorted version of events—is waiting to hear White House lawyers declare the earth is flat once again so she can agree with them wholeheartedly: “I’m sure they will address this now, and we go from there.”

Yep, that may be the one truthful thing uttered so far by Republicans on Monday morning. The White House counsel will absolutely try to twist the Bolton revelations one way or the other. Asked by a chorus of reporters about the Bolton report Monday morning, Trump was unusually short on words. "False" was all he offered. 

Senate Republicans were heading into an all-caucus meeting just before the impeachment trial resumes, and they will likely come out with a more tailored set of talking points intended to blunt the damage of the bomb that just dropped on them. They will also surely apply immense pressure on Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the only GOP senator to signal any interest whatsoever in hearing from Bolton. Romney called it “increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton.” That’s what counts for courage these days in the Republican Party.