Ernst, Joni Sen 7%

===

dirty dozen lifetime LCV score of 3%.

merri ok

CAVED ON HEGSETH

where did she go?

cut social safety net

text cut off html

WHAT KIND OF XIAN?

===

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/joni-ernst

21* 8% life

water infra, confirm votes boost, not sedition

---

an 9 25

House and Senate Republicans are lashing out at Democrats en masse, blaming them for rhetoric they say led to Wednesday’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

U.S. Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO), in a speech Thursday on the floor of the House of Representatives, attacked the left, charging that even those who are “well-meaning” abide by an ideology of “hate” that mirrors communist authoritarians and revolutionaries.

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“Well, everything has changed,” Congressman Onder claimed. “If we didn’t know it already, there is no longer any middle ground.”

“Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people. But their ideology is pure evil,” he charged. “They hate the good, the truth, and the beautiful, and embrace the evil, the false and the ugly.”

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“And they literally will kill those with whom they disagree just as their predecessor leftists—Marx, and Stalin, and Lenin, and Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro, did. “We must know that.”

Onder is not the only GOP lawmaker on Capitol Hill attacking the left in the wake of Kirk’s killing, despite the killer having not yet been identified or captured.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) told Newsmax on Thursday morning that “what we are finding is that when you do have those strong conservative voices speaking truth to power you will find that when the left can no longer debate it, they can’t deny the truth, the only way they can silence those voices is through violence.”

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U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) went even further, vowing to use “Congressional authority” to “cancel” anyone who “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

“I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” he wrote.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) declared on Wednesday that “Democrats own what happened today.”

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“Some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck,” she declared.

As of now, there is no suspect in custody, and the FBI has announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to a suspect’s arrest.

---

===}:

aha? trollery contagious? she is mocking the IDEA of APOLOGY?

she caved on principles with hegs rape? BBB is all that matters?

an 6 25

Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte derided U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) for adopting a “favorite lady MAGA trick” for dealing with uncomfortable situations: “pretending to be stupid.”

On Friday, Ernst infuriated constituents at a town hallin Butler County, Iowa, with her “bizarre defense of taking away people's medical care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” according to Marcotte. The tactic appeared to involve steering into the realm of the philosophical: "Well, we’re all going to die," she told the crowd, which elicited a volley of boos.

But Ernst had “absorbed Donald Trump's philosophy of always doubling down,” says Marcotte.

“I made an incorrect assumption THAT IS THEY ARE STUPID CHILDISH that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,’ she said while walking in a cemetery. “So, I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”

IFrame Content

“Ernst may play the mean bimbo for the camera, but she is aware that people aren't asking to live forever,” Marcotte confided. “They just don't want to die decades before their time, due to a lack of basic health care.”

But while the media focuses on her act, Marcotte says Ernst’s follow-up spin was, “if anything, even more callous. She invoked Jesus Christ as the reason it's okay to let people die from easily preventable causes.”

"But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ," Ernst declared in her video, with what Marcotte describes as smugness.

“To those whose understanding of Christianity is based on compassion and love, this comment was jarring. But Ernst understands the second rule of MAGA: their version of Christian ‘love’ is cruelty,” said Marcotte, adding that when a CBS News reporter asked Ernst for follow-up Ernst barked "I'm very compassionate," while running for an elevator.

The coldness is a “deliberate choice,” says Marcotte, which falls in line with a larger trend in white evangelical circles to redefine empathy as a “sin" according to a recent slate of books. These include ‘Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion,’ published last year by right-wing podcaster, Allie Beth Stuckey, as well as right-wing theologian Joe Rigney’s best-selling ‘The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits.’

“This is how the conservative Christian convinces himself it's ‘love’ to deny LGBTQ people their freedom, because compelling heterosexuality will get them into heaven,” Marcotte says. “… These are the rationalizations of people who want to hate while denying they are hateful.”

The good news to this, according to Marcotte, is Ernst's “shut-up-and-die ideology is not popular, even with a lot of people who consider themselves conservative Christians,” as suggested by Democratic state Rep. J.D. Scholten recent announcement that he's running against Ernst in the 2026 election.

See the full Salon report at this link.

---

TOWN HALL // HAGERTY? YOU ARE OBSESSED W/ GOVT?

NON APOLOGY SELFIE TOOTH FAIRY

ANALYSIS MMA

On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains how the right-wing media landscape made the idea of mass death acceptable

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 05/30/25

Video

Citation

From the May 30, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): So, Angelo, you framed my political worldview around this idea of narrative dominance. I would say, and I know this isn't universal, but this is an example of slippage in that category here.

ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): Oh, yeah. It really is actually because -- and this ties into what John was saying before about an example. There's not -- I can't think of a political figure that's made that point, but I can think of right-wing media figures that have been saying that starting in 2020 with COVID. Tucker Carlson was the one when there, you know, there was a point with COVID where, you know, there was a little bit conspiracies, but people still wanted to protect themselves. And we largely agreed that, you know, we shouldn't just have mass death. Now, we had very different opinions about how to survive that, but we weren't cool with mass death.

And then Tucker got out there, you know, in the early summer and started saying, "We're all going to die," literally, on the timeline, we're all going to die. So, we have to put all these policies and all these efforts to protect ourselves from COVID on that scale. And since we're all going to die anyway, all of these Republicans that are lining up that are supporting policies that are restricting access to schools or thinking about how to sort of mask policies, all these things, they're taking away your life, your quality of life when you're going to die anyway. So, they're the enemy and you need to start putting pressure on them. And what he did was plant a seed in that larger landscape that started to take off and then they weaved in conspiracies to help grow it and propagate it. But that was one of the big turning points.

That and a few other conspiracies that really started to shift and soften the ground about where the tolerance level was for mass death, not the individual policies, but it shifted it. And yeah, it's not their whole scale perspective, I think, but it really has an example of the change because it's not that that's their overall angle, but what is a reflection of this other piece of the slippage that you're referring to is the rot. They've become callous and cruel and indifferent, nihilistic. You know, for the people that largely believe in something, right, these are supposed to be the religious people too, they're really nihilists.

She went right to the void. And I thought that was when she voted for Hegseth, like John said before, it was -- she sort of really gave up her position as a steward, as a legislator and whatever principle she had and said, "No, I'm all in for Trump now." If you can rationalize that, you can get up there just a few months later and say the thing that she said. And the last thing that's I think critical -- so one is that they've sort of tested this before and it worked; two, that they got cruel and callous and indifferent and nihilistic, and that's just a consequence of the poison being pumped into the system. And the third is that they are so confident or I don't think it's stupidity, I don't think it's indifferent.

But they've looked at their opponents, sized them up, at Democrats, and they've said, given what we're confronting and given the terrain that we stand on, which is our information landscape, and today has proved it so far -- no is going to write a peep about Ernst's comment in the right-wing media. Not one, not one critical, not even one saying, "Well, I'm an armchair quarterback and I think that's stupid." No, no, no, they're just quiet about it. She's not going to suffer any repercussions, at least in the larger landscape. She will politically a little bit, but she's sizing up her competition and she says, they're so bad, and I have so many advantages already with this larger terrain that Trump sort of is the conductor for, but I'm going to win no matter what I say, that I could literally tell my constituents to die, and I'm still going to beat whoever they put up against me. And that's the problem when you add it all up. And that's what I see. I see that overconfidence based on an assessment of the landscape, real cruel politics.

---

AN 1 25

Despite Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's narrow confirmation in the U.S. Senate, MAGA could still harbor a grudge against the three Senate Republicans who voted down President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon.

Tiktock Vid Bak both her fellow colleagues and Hegseth's ex-wife have been the target of Trump supporters' rage. Duckworth — an Iraq War combat veteran — told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that Hegseth's opponents have come under a "torrent" and a "deluge" of attacks by the far right. While Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is also a military veteran, signaled she may vote against Hegseth, she ultimately voted in favor of his confirmation.

"Joni Ernst received so many threats and attacks outright, you know, threatening her, saying that they would primary her all the way through to threats against her own security," Duckworth said.

"Pete Hegseth's second wife, you know, lives in fear. She has young children... She's under a [non-disclosure agreement]. She had to have a safe word because she was so afraid of him," she continued. "If you talk to sexual assault survivors, domestic violence survivors, they are terrified. And they're not going to speak out against their abusers."

While Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced earlier this week they would be voting against the confirmation of the Fox News part-time weekend host, former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joined his two Republican colleagues on Friday. Duckworth told Maddow that while she was glad there were "at least three Republicans who have put the well-being of our nation above themselves," she lamented that Hegseth was the first defense secretary in U.S. history to have needed a tie-breaking vote from the vice president to be confirmed.

"The last company that he ran... he so badly bungled their finances, they had to bring in a forensic accountant to figure out what he did with the $10 million budget, and now they're going to put him in charge of a $900 billion Pentagon budget," Duckworth said. "It's a sad day for our nation, I fear for the military. I fear for our national security."

LCV 2021}:

500Sung Confirmation (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

2021459Restoring the Voting Rights ActJustice and Democracy

2021426Pérez Confirmation (Second Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

2021420Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy

2021401Stone-Manning Confirmation (BLM Director)Other, Public Lands/Forests

2021357Build Back Better Budget ResolutionClimate Change, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests

2021346Promoting Polluting Energy SourcesDirty Energy, Climate Change, Air

2021320Eliminating Safeguards on Fossil Fuel ProductionDrilling, Dirty Energy, Climate Change, Oceans, Public Lands/Forests

2021303Defunding the Civilian Conservation Corps and Wildland FirefightingClimate Change, Public Lands/Forests, Other

2021298Restarting Construction of the Harmful Border WallWildlife, Public Lands/Forests, Environmental Justice

2021279Kim Confirmation (DOJ-ENRD Assistant Attorney General)Other, Environmental Justice

2021246Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy

2021236Fox Confirmation (EPA Assistant Administrator)Water

2021231Jackson Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary, Climate Change, Justice and Democracy

2021203Clarke Confirmation (DOJ-CRD Assistant Attorney General)Justice and Democracy, Other

2021178Investing in Water InfrastructureWater

2021175Repealing Assault on Methane Pollution SafeguardsClimate Change, Dirty Energy

2021150Mallory Confirmation (Council on Environmental Quality Chair)Other, Environmental Justice

2021125Becerra Confirmation (Health and Human Services Secretary)Other, Environmental Justice

2021123Tai Confirmation (United States Trade Representative)Other

2021119Haaland Confirmation (Interior Secretary)Other, Public Lands/Forests

2021116Regan Confirmation (EPA Administrator)Other, Climate Change, Water, Air, Environmental Justice

2021114Garland Confirmation (Attorney General)Other, Justice and Democracy

2021113Fudge Confirmation (Housing and Urban Development Secretary)Other, Environmental Justice

202186Striking Provisions to Help Farmers of ColorEnvironmental Justice, Agriculture

202170Raimondo Confirmation (Commerce Secretary)Other, Oceans

202166Granholm Confirmation (Energy Secretary)Other, Clean Energy

202159Impeachment for Incitement of InsurrectionJustice and Democracy

202143Bolstering the Dirty Water RuleClean Water

202132Supporting the Destructive Keystone XL PipelineDirty Energy, Environmental Justice

===

02128Promoting Drilling for Fossil FuelsDirty Energy, Drilling

202111Buttigieg Confirmation (Transportation Secretary)Other, Transportation

20212Certifying Pennsylvania’s Electoral VotesJustice and Democracy

20211Certifying Arizona’s Electoral VotesJustice and Democracy

2020224Barrett Confirmation (Supreme Court)Judiciary

2020222Barrett Cloture Vote (Supreme Court)Judiciary

2020168Inadequate COVID Relief PackageOther

2020126Inadequate Policing ReformJudiciary, Other

2020125Wilson Confirmation (Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

2020123Walker Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

2020121Great American Outdoors ActLands/Forests

2020118Defeating Effort to Derail the Great American Outdoors ActLands/Forests

202072Danly Confirmation (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)Dirty Energy, Clean Energy, Climate Change

202060MacGregor Confirmation (Interior Deputy Secretary)Dirty Energy, Climate Change, Lands/Forests, Oceans, Drilling, Wildlife

202041Kindred Confirmation (U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska)Judiciary

202036Brasher Confirmation (Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

202014USMCA Trade DealClimate Change; Other

2019339Undermining the Land and Water Conservation FundLands/Forests

2019324Stopping Rollbacks of Carbon Pollution Limits for Power PlantsClimate Change

2019313Scalia Confirmation (Labor Secretary)Other

2019300Jorjani Confirmation (Interior Solicitor)Other, Lands/Forests

201977Bernhardt Confirmation (Interior Secretary)Climate Change, Drilling, Lands/Forests, Wildlife, Other

201968Wyrick Confirmation (District Court for Western District of Oklahoma)Other, Justice and Democracy

201944Rao Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Other, Justice and Democracy

201933Wheeler Confirmation (EPA Administrator)Climate Change, Clean Air, Clean Water

201929Miller Confirmation (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)Other, Justice and Democracy

201922Public Lands PackageLands/Forests

201920Undermining the Antiquities ActLands/Forests

201919Blocking Permanent Reauthorization of the Land & Water Conservation FundLands/Forests

2018259Farm Bill Conference ReportClimate Change, Clean Water

===

9/20

:{LCV Victory Fund:(style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"):}: today announced that Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, David Richter (NJ-03), State Delegate Nick Freitas (VA-07), Yvette Herrell (NM-02), Former Rep. Claudia Tenney (NY-22), and Beth Van Duyne (TX-24) have been named to the organization’s signature 2020 :{Dirty Dozen}: list of some of the worst anti-environmental candidates running for office this year....

These six candidates join :{previously announced Dirty Dozen}: members Montana Senator Steve Daines, Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, Michigan Senate candidate John James, Arizona Senator Martha McSally, and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis as well as :{President Donald Trump}:, named the dirtiest of all time.

“In 2018 voters chose environmental champions across the country,” said Pete Maysmith, LCV Victory Fund Senior Vice President for Campaigns. “We’ve seen the results of those wins with the most pro-environmental House in over a decade. In 2020, corporate polluters are pushing back like never before because they know with environmental champions leading the White House, Senate, and House we can finally start to build the clean energy economy this country needs.”

More information on new 2020 Dirty Dozen:

Iowa Senate: Senator Joni Ernst

In Iowa, a state where families are directly impacted by climate change, Senator Joni Ernst has repeatedly denied the reality of human caused climate change, saying that “climate change may just be a natural occurrence” and even voting against acknowledging that human-caused climate change is real. Since she was first elected to the Senate, Ernst accepted more than $330,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry and has advocated for them in the U.S. Senate. Ernst led Senate Republicans’ efforts to block Obama’s Clean Water Rule that protected drinking water sources for over 117 million Americans. She later praised Trump’s weak replacement rule, which allows farmers to use pesticides and fertilizers that risk running into waterways, polluting our drinking water, and causing cancer and other diseases. Ernst has earned a lifetime LCV score of 3%.

NJ-03: David Richter

David Richter is running against first time incumbent LCV Action Fund-endorsed Rep. Andy Kim. Richter supports Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord as well as Trump’s tax reform plan that gave billions of dollars to big oil. He is the former CEO of Hill International, a construction company that has worked on dozens of oil and gas projects throughout both the U.S. and the Middle East. His company worked on a petrochemical plant near a predominantly Black community in Louisiana that ended up emitting nearly 100 million tons of toxic pollution in 2018, making it the second largest air polluter in the nation, as well as half a dozen other oil and gas projects that resulted in pollution, fires, and harm. In his first two years in Congress, Rep. Kim has earned a 97% score from LCV. LCVVF is currently running a digital program to defeat David Richter.

VA-07: State Delegate Nick Freitas

Current State Delegate Nick Freitas is running against first-term incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger in VA-07. Freitas has repeatedly voted against taking action on the climate crisis and protecting our water from toxic pollution. During his time in the Virginia State Legislature, he voted against banning fracking and offshore drilling and against protecting drinking water from PFAS. He was the deciding vote blocking a bill to update the sixth-grade science curriculum to include the benefits of recycling. He supports Trump’s tax reform plan that gave billions of dollars in tax cuts to big oil companies, has taken nearly $15,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, and said climate scientists are unqualified to make policy recommendations. Freitas has a 31% lifetime score from Virginia LCV.

NM-02: Yvette Herrell

Herrell has a record of siding with special interests while advancing her own career. Herrell used her time in the New Mexico state legislature building connections to Washington special interests through the Koch-funded lobbying group ALEC, while letting taxpayers help foot the bill for her trips to its lavish conferences in Washington, D.C. As a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, Herrell has voted against environmental protections and proposed an extreme attack on New Mexico’s public lands that could result in public lands being sold off to private developers. She has a 14% lifetime score from Conservation Voters New Mexico. This is Herrell’s second run for Congress, her second time on the Dirty Dozen and a rematch against LCV Action Fund-endorsed candidate Xochitl Torres Small who won the then open seat.

NY-22: Former Representative Claudia Tenney

This is Tenney’s second time on LCVVF’s Dirty Dozen. Tenney is a climate denialist and is on the record calling climate change an “imaginary beast.” She has said that climate change is not “a significant threat to our planet” and has received more than $180,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. While in the House from 2017-2019, she earned a lifetime LCV score of 6% — voting against protections for New York’s environment and public health, and putting corporate special interests ahead of her constituents. Tenney voted in line with President Trump 96% of the time, praising his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord and voting to eliminate protections like diabetes and asthma, while letting corporate polluters spew more toxins into our air. Tenney also voted to repeal the Clean Water Rule that protected drinking water sources for over 117 million Americans and let corporate polluters contaminate our water with toxic chemicals.

TX-24: Beth Van Duyne

Former Mayor of Irving, TX and current Trump administration employee Beth Van Duyne is running for Congress in this open seat. Van Duyne promotes anti-environmental policies, suggesting that climate change is not human-caused, that eliminating fossil fuel is a “radical far-left” policy, and supporting Trump’s tax reform plan that gave billions of dollars to big oil companies. She supports opening more rare earth mineral mines in Texas and has claimed that the EPA is “crippling” cities with environmental regulations. In her first mayoral campaign, her largest contributor was an oil and gas executive, and she has received over $75,000 in campaign contributions this cycle from the oil and gas industry. Van Duyne is running against LCV Action Fund-endorsed candidate Candace Valenzuela.

===

thehill

lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pressed President Trump’s pick for the No. 2 position at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on a range of issues during an at times contentious Senate hearing Wednesday.

Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) pressed Douglas Benevento about ethanol requirement exemptions for small refineries after a federal court ruled that the EPA would have to reconsider certain waivers.

The EPA has the option to appeal the court’s decision.

“Can you commit to me that the EPA will not grant any of these pending small refinery exemptions of 2019 until the legal action is settled?” Ernst asked during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.

Benevento said he would get back to her with a response.

“Our farmers and producers are tired of being yanked around by the EPA and again these illegal [exemptions],” Ernst replied. “A number of these ‘small refineries’ are actually owned by much larger companies, oil companies like Exxon and Chevron.”

After the nominee similarly told Duckworth that he’d get back to her on whether the agency would temporarily stop issuing the waivers until the litigation is resolved, the senator said, “It’s an easy thing to say. Don’t grant any more waivers, since you’re going to be appealing this ruling, or if you’re not going to appeal the ruling, then you don’t need to grant any more waivers.”

“I just don’t think it would be prudent to be making a regulatory decision right here,” Benevento responded.

===

Right-wing Joni Ernst implodes at Iowa debate when she can't answer basic farming question

Daily Kos

Sen. Joni Ernst and Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield were asked a basic question by the moderators of tonight's Iowa U.S. Senate debate: the price of two different agriculture...

===

an 920 also joni ernst

Thom Tillis, R-N.C., on Thursday that he believed the 200,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. had been inflated in order to “encourage people to use social distancing.”

“When the final accounting is done,” the actual COVID-19 death count will be lower, Tillis claimed.

The response echoes a false conspiracy theory pushed by adherents of the baseless QAnon movement: that public health officials are allegedly lying to the public about the true death count because of ulterior or possibly sinister motives. Only 6% of the reported deaths are attributable solely to COVID-19, conspiracy theorists claim.

Tillis also embraced an extreme anti-vaccine position and appeared to welcome herd immunity as part of a strategy to get 60% of the country immune. (Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said last month that a herd immunity strategy would lead to an “enormous” death rate that would be “totally unacceptable.”) The Republican incumbent told the caller that she was “absolutely right” in saying “the CDC has made clear” that deaths related to COVID-19 cover “things like heart attacks, and slip-and-falls and things like that” when people “have COVID in their system.” The caller told Tillis she wanted “a more definitive, clear number.”...

===

Vulnerable Senate Republicans squirm over Trump’s coronavirus confession

Kerry Eleveld / Daily Kos September 11, 2020

Back in July, as Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst was being pressed on her previous assertion that two Ebola deaths on Obama’s watch amounted to “failed leadership,” Ernst told CNN that Donald…

thehill 920

top Republicans are seeking to downplay the heavy toll of the coronavirus, in part by pointing to a conspiracy theory that the number of deaths is much lower.

President Trump, along with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who are both in competitive Senate races, have all pointed in recent days to the widely debunked theory that COVID-19 deaths in the United States total just 10,000 instead of the more than 180,000 recorded by health officials.

The speculative remarks come at a time when about 1,000 people a day are dying from the virus, providing a grim backdrop to the final sprint to Election Day. Trump, meanwhile, has been trying to project an optimistic message, frequently pointing to rapid progress toward a vaccine and saying he thinks the virus is “going away.”

The Trump administration has also increasingly emphasized protecting vulnerable populations such as the elderly rather than putting a focus on a broader strategy of trying to suppress the disease overall.

The discredited theory in question points to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) :{webpage}: stating that the coronavirus was listed as the sole cause for only 6 percent of deaths from the virus. However, that does not mean the other 94 percent of people did not die from the coronavirus. Instead, it means that another factor directly caused by the coronavirus, such as respiratory failure, was also listed or that there was an underlying condition, such as obesity or diabetes, that is not necessarily fatal on its own but heightens the risks from the coronavirus.

The 6 percent figure has been seized on, however, to minimize the death toll. Last weekend, Trump retweeted a post from user Mel Q, who is a believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying only about 9,000 people had “actually” died from the coronavirus. Twitter later removed the tweet for violating its rules.

Ernst likewise said Monday that she is “so skeptical” of case and death counts from the coronavirus, later adding, :{according to}: the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, “They’re thinking there may be 10,000 or less deaths that were actually singularly COVID-19. ... I’m just really curious. It would be interesting to know that.”

Marshall, who is a doctor, pointed to the theory based on the 6 percent statistic in a Facebook post Sunday.

“This week the CDC quietly updated its COVID-19 data to reflect the number of deaths from COVID-19 only,” he wrote, adding that it was “only 6%,” according to a screenshot :{posted by KSNT}:.

Facebook removed the post, with a spokesperson saying it violated “our policies against spreading harmful misinformation about COVID-19 since it misstates CDC data about the deadliness of the disease.”

The prominence of the discredited theory and its embrace among high-level Republicans has dismayed experts.

“It’s completely, to me, mind-boggling that people are using this as fodder for some conspiracy theory,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

He said experts have long said that underlying conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are risk factors for having a more severe case of the coronavirus, so “that’s not anything surprising” that such conditions were listed as present in many coronavirus deaths.

“I’m not sure why this is even a story other than people are trying to minimize what is a serious infectious disease,” Adalja added.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, likewise said on ABC this week, “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19 — they did — so the numbers that you've been hearing, the 180,000-plus deaths, are real deaths from COVID-19.”

Asked about Trump’s retweets at a press conference Monday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was "highlighting new CDC information that came out that was worth noting."

Ernst took a different tone in a statement released by her office, saying, "Over 180,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19. What matters is that we are getting the resources to Iowa that are needed to fight this virus and continuing to support our health care workers on the front lines, and that’s what I’m focused on."

Marshall’s campaign manager, Eric Pahls, wrote in an email, “Dr. Marshall was simply presenting data from the CDC. He didn't offer some sort of spin or analysis,” adding that the Senate candidate “respects this virus.”

The promotion of the debunked theory has come alongside other efforts to question the effects of the coronavirus. During a rally Thursday, Trump mocked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a mask.

“Did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him?” Trump said to a largely maskless crowd while also saying he is “all for” people wearing masks. Trump himself rarely wears a mask.

The president has also put an increased emphasis on encouraging lower-risk people to go on with their lives, emphasizing instead protections for the elderly.

“We are aggressively sheltering those at highest risk, especially the elderly, while allowing lower-risk Americans to safely return to work and to school,” Trump said in his prime-time acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last week.

That approach is in line with suggestions from White House adviser Scott Atlas, a doctor who does not have a background in infectious diseases and is affiliated with the conservative Hoover Institution. Atlas has downplayed concerns about the virus spreading among people who are not elderly or in other high-risk groups, even saying it could be a good thing.

“When you isolate everyone, including all the healthy people, you’re prolonging the problem because you’re preventing population immunity,” Atlas :{said in a}: Fox News radio interview in July. “Low-risk groups getting the infection is not a problem. In fact, it’s a positive.”

Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, :{countered that}: viewpoint in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last weekend. “The best way to protect the vulnerable is to try to protect everyone,” he wrote, emphasizing that the virus needed to be contained.

The White House :{denies it}: is pursuing the population immunity or herd immunity strategy referred to by Atlas.

The criticism comes on the heels of new testing guidance from the CDC late last month that recommended cutting back on testing of asymptomatic people not in high-risk groups. The guidance said asymptomatic people do not need to be tested, even if they have been in close contact with an infected person, “unless you are a vulnerable individual or your health care provider or State or local public health officials recommend you take one.”

Amid a firestorm from experts saying the country needs more testing, not less, CDC Director Robert Redfield :{sought to}: clarify the guidance but did not rescind it....

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/why-the-gop-is-so-susceptible-to-denialism

no lnx

Why the GOP is so susceptible to coronavirus denialism

Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon September 2, 2020

Donald Trump didn’t like what the experts were telling him about the coronavirus pandemic, so he found a guy with “Dr.” in front of his name who will tell the president the bedtime stories he wants to hear. Dr. Scott Atlas isn’t an expert in infectious disease or epidemiology, as are coronavirus task force advisers Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom he has pretty much usurped. Atlas is a radiologist and, more importantly, a senior fellow at the far-right bad-idea incubator known as the Hoover Institution (previously home to the infamous prediction that the U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic would be around 5,000).

According to the New York Times and the Washington Post, Atlas — who apparently caught Trump’s eye the way so many of his advisers do, by peddling BS on Fox News — is ready and willing to say all sorts of medically unsound things that just happen to align with everything Trump wants to believe about the coronavirus. So Atlas has risen rapidly as a power player and is reportedly even getting venerable institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to echo his unscientific beliefs.

Atlas has questioned whether wearing face masks slows viral spread (it does) and pushed for the CDC to change its recommendation on coronavirus testing to cover only people with symptoms, even though the science clearly shows that asymptomatic people are spreading the disease — and may indeed be a principal vector for spread.

Perhaps most distressingly, Atlas is reportedly behind Trump’s new enthusiasm for “herd immunity,” which is the latest euphemism for a non-policy letting the coronavirus run rampant, like a nationwide chicken pox party. Actual scientific experts in disease are uniformly against this idea, because it would dramatically raise the death rate and likely wouldn’t restore the economy anytime soon, as huge percentages of the population would continue to stay home rather than be part of President Bleach-Injector’s deadly science experiment.

For pro-choice activists and reproductive health experts, Trump’s embrace of a quack in a lab coat is feeling all too familiar. This strategy of putting lies and misinformation in the mouths of people who have an “MD” after their name has been standard practice for the anti-choice movement for decades. This has allowed anti-choice activists to push for policies that harmed public health, especially women’s health, while pretending they were doing it in the name of science. The George W. Bush administration, in particular, was fond of using doctors who shamelessly used their medical authority as cover to advocate for harmful ideas with little or no scientific basis.

This strategy, as well as those employed to push misinformation about climate science, helped train Republican politicians and conservative voters in the skills being currently used to muddy the waters around the science of the coronavirus pandemic. The result is that more than 6 million Americans are infected and nearly 185,000 have died, and that number is likely to continue growing at an alarming rate, especially as Trump now has a doctor to hide behind when justifying his hostility to public health.

Bush had a nasty habit of hiring doctors who were eager to use their credentials to justify their promotion of anti-choice propaganda. One of his FDA appointees, Dr. David Hager, was a gynecologist but more importantly a Christian conservative who rarely hesitated to make false claims that depicted both abortion and contraception, which have robust safety records, as medically dangerous.Hager advocated against making emergency contraception available over the counter, falsely implying that doing so posed a threat to the health of teenage girls. Even though the majority of FDA experts disagreed with Hager, the Bush administration blocked the policy based on his opinion.

It later emerged that Hager’s ex-wife, Linda Davis, had accused him of abusive behavior during their marriage, alleging that he withheld money unless she had sex with him and giving her sleeping pills so he could sodomize her without consent. Hager is still a popular talking head on the religious right, advocating for using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to forcibly cancel women’s abortions.

Under the Obama administration, emergency contraception became legal over the counter, without age restrictions. And there has been no measurable effect on the health of women or teenage girls, unless you count the record low rates of teen pregnancy, which are directly attributable to expanded contraception access under Obama.

Another precursor to Atlas is Dr. Eric Keroack, a Bush appointee to oversee a contraception program in Health and Human Services, who was hired because he opposed contraception use. Like Hager, Keroack was happy to leverage his medical degree to put a scientific gloss on misogynist misinformation. He went so far as to claim that women who have premarital sex become physically incapable of experiencing love and bonding in marriage.

Even Trump’s reported manipulation of CDC recommendations to reflect his hostility to virus testing has a precursor with the Bush-era war on sexual health care. Under Bush, the CDC altered information on its website about condom use to mislead readers into believing that condoms weren’t effective at preventing sexually transmitted infection transmission.

Beyond just the Bush years, the anti-choice movement in general has a long-standing habit of promoting doctors who will shamefully ignore medical science in order to present their anti-choice and anti-woman views as “science.” They even form organizations, like the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that will use the auspices of medical science to create the illusion that there’s merit to anti-choice myths such as the claim that abortion causes breast cancer (it doesn’t), that abortion causes mental illness (it doesn’t) or that abortion is more dangerous than childbirth (it’s about 14 times safer).

Trump’s coronavirus denialism is spreading past the White House and into the Senate. Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa echoed a QAnon-linked conspiracy theory accusing doctors and hospitals of exaggerating the number of coronavirus cases and deaths, claiming that clinics profit from falsifying that data.

“These health-care providers and others are reimbursed at a higher rate if COVID is tied to it, so what do you think they’re doing?” Ernst said.

In reality, medical researchers believe that coronavirus cases are being undercounted, due to lack of testing.

This conspiracy theory also has a precursor in the anti-choice movement: The false claim doctors lie about the effectiveness of contraception in order to trick women into having sex and getting pregnant, so they can get that sweet, sweet abortion money.

This conspiracy theory was endorsed by Bush’s HHS appointee Keroack, who ran a “crisis pregnancy center” that claimed birth control “actually increases (rather than decreases) out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion.” That myth has since become hardened into common wisdom in the anti-choice world. Abby Johnson, the anti-choice speaker at the Republican National Convention, has repeatedly claimed that contraception access increases the abortion rate by lulling women into believing we “could separate sex from procreation.”

It’s no surprise that Republican voters so readily sign onto Trump’s obvious attempts to spread misinformation about the coronavirus by dressing it up as “science.” They’ve had decades of practice of choosing to believe fake medical science, which is all too often peddled by doctors who should know better. As the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” astutely observed, the trick in learning to believing impossible things is simply practice.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/medical-experts-slam-joni-ernst-for-echoing-qanon-conspiracy-theory-that-19-count-is-exaggerated-truly-unconscionable/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/code-for-massive-cuts-audio-shows-gops-sen-joni-ernst-telling-donors-she-wants-changes-to-medicare-and-medicaid

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‘Code for massive cuts’: Audio shows GOP’s Sen. Joni Ernst telling donors she wants ‘changes’ to Medicare and Medicaid

Written by Common Dreams February 15, 2020

“Again, Joni Ernst has shown that she is willing to push our families into poverty with a smile. The programs she plans to cut are a lifeline for millions of Americans. She should be ashamed.”

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa told donors at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. last March that federal spending on non-discretionary programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is “out of control” and will require “changes” in the future.

That’s according to a 55-second audio clip published Wednesday by Iowa Starting Line. In the recording, Ernst is asked by an attendee whether she is on board with Sen. David Perdue’s (R-Ga.) call for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

“I think we all are because we understand that our non-discretionary spending is growing like this,” replied Ernst, who is up for reelection in 2020. “Everyone focuses on discretionary spending because that is what we can control in Congress. The rest is on autopilot and is out of control. We have to figure out ways to honor the commitments that have been made, but make changes for the future. How we do that, I don’t know.”

Progressive advocacy group Social Security Works tweeted that “changes” is “code for massive cuts.”

SocialSecurityWorks

@SSWorks

In a room of wealthy fundraisers, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are "out of control" and that she wants to "make changes for the future."

"Changes" is code for MASSIVE CUTS! #IASen https://twitter.com/IAStartingLine/status/1227665126729428994 …

Iowa Starting Line

@IAStartingLine

New from @libmeyer: Audio from Ernst fundraiser last year has the senator commenting on "out of control" non-discretionary funding on things like Medicarehttps://iowastartingline.com/2020/02/12/ernst-audio-medicare-social-security-spending-out-of-control/ …

Kimberly Graham, one of five Democrats vying to unseat Ernst in November, tweeted Thursday that “we barely invest in the health and well-being of our people as it is, and Joni Ernst thinks even that is too much.”

“Joni doesn’t work for Iowans,” added Graham. “Joni works for the wealthy donors that fill her campaign coffers.”

The audio clip comes months after the Democratic super PAC American Bridge posted a video of Ernst telling a town hall audience in August that members of Congress should negotiate changes to Social Security “behind closed doors” to avoid scrutiny from advocacy groups and the press.

“The minute you say we need to address Social Security, the media is hammering you, the opposing party is hammering you—’there goes granny over a cliff,'” said Ernst, who has in the past expressed support for privatizing Social Security.

“There is a real issue out there,” added the Republican senator, “and as long as we are being hammered as members of Congress for even saying we need to do something about it, you’re not going to find people that are willing to step forward and do it.”

Watch:

Eddie Mauro, another Democrat running for Ernst’s Senate seat, said the Republican “should be ashamed” of her position on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending.

“Again, Joni Ernst has shown that she is willing to push our families into poverty with a smile,” Mauro tweeted Wednesday. “The programs she plans to cut are a lifeline for millions of Americans.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/gop-tries-to-turn-impeachment-against-as-a-way-to-justify-their-shameless-trump-cover-up/

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GOP tries to turn impeachment against as a way to justify their shameless Trump cover-up

Written by Sophia Tesfaye / Salon February 3, 2020

There’s a decent chance that former Vice President Joe Biden will win the Iowa caucuses on Monday night, cementing his status as Democratic frontrunner. The Republican-controlled Senate will then vote to acquit Donald Trump, probably two days later, after blocking witnesses and direct evidence at his impeachment trial. Instead of paying attention to the case outlining Trump’s public corruption, however, several Republican senators have spent the last two weeks slagging Biden in an effort to tarnish the potential Democratic nominee — using almost exactly the same playbook used to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Demonstrating exactly why it’s bad to have foreign governments smear a political opponent on your behalf,Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who faces a tough re-election battle this fall, appeared before reporters after a day of impeachment hearings last week and casually suggested that the airing of Trump’s misdeeds might actually result in Biden’s defeat.

“Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening. And I’m really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus goers. Will they be supporting VP Biden at this point?” the first-term Republican asked.

The question came just before the GOP Senate voted to cover up Trump’s crimes by refusing to hear witnesses. For months, Republicans argued that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine and pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden because he was earnestly trying to root out corruption. In a classic case of projection, Republicans still vaguely deny that Trump’s actions were politically motivated but now insist that Biden, not Trump, is the one who deserves impeachment.

“I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened,” said Ernst, whose approval rating is underwater with Iowa voters, in an interview with Bloomberg News on Sunday. “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, the day after he would be elected, would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him.'”

On CNN that same day, Ernst argued that not just Biden but even Barack Obama is more deserving of impeachment than Trump, who has already sought foreign interference in the 2020 election after welcoming it four years ago.

“Whether you like what the president has done or not — we can argue this up one side and down the other all day — does it come to the point of removing a president from office?” Ernst asked rhetorically. “I don’t believe this does. I’ll tie it back to Obama and his hot-mic moment with the former president of Russia, where he literally said, ‘Give me some space in my election.’ Oops, OK, talking about elections.”

Host Jake Tapper reminded Ernst of the context for the former president’s 2012 remarks: “He was talking about a missile defense.”

“Yes, but a missile defense that the Congress wanted him to build up, make much more robust [to] protect American citizens,” Ernst responded, “and President Obama choose not to do that as long as the Russians gave him space in the elections. That nobody brought up for impeachment. So the very fact that because aid was held for about two months because there was not an official White House meeting, people are wanting to impeach this president. What President Trump did, it didn’t rise to the level of what President Obama did.”

This nonsensical comparison only makes sense as an attempt to justify the vote to acquit Trump by treating impeachment as an ordinary partisan tactic.

“There is a mountain of evidence to suggest the Bidens’ behavior was harmful to the United States,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tweeted last Wednesday, coming close to threatening a Biden impeachment if he becomes president next year.

Such presumptive threats were doled out by Republican senators prior to the 2016 election as well, which makes their “let the voters decide” rhetoric in defense of Trump so much more dishonest. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, now a staunch Trump defender, declared that Clinton could be impeached before a single general election vote was cast in 2016.

This certainly looks like the GOP’s 2016 playbook all over again. Trump’s campaign has sent and more than 80 surrogates to Iowa ahead of Monday’s caucuses, including Vice President Pence. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has claimed “there was more than enough information [and] allegations about corruption” surrounding the Bidens to make Trump “entirely justified in asking for an investigation, and that resolves the matter.” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a multimillionaire, has taken out his own TV ads in Iowa to claim that “The real story here is the corruption Joe Biden got away with.”

Trump, Rudy Giuliani and all their goons have been searching for dirt on Biden for well over a year and so far have produced zero material evidence. Senate Republicans, for their part, displayed little interest in Biden’s supposed impropriety back when they controlled both chambers of Congress. They could still launch a Senate investigation into the Bidens, since they currently hold a majority in the upper chamber. But that’s not the point, and they’re well aware that even if they found dirt on either Biden, it would change nothing about Trump’s impeachable actions.

Republicans view the law as a weapon to be wielded against their opponents, so it should come as little surprise if Attorney General Bill Barr announces an official investigation into Bide before the general election, should he be the Democratic nominee.Perhaps only Joe Biden himself, who has repeatedly touted his ability to work effectively with the very Republicans out to destroy his family, would be surprised by such indecency.

Sophia Tesfaye is Salon’s Deputy Politics Editor and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.

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‘Screaming the quiet part into a bullhorn’: Sen. Joni Ernst admits GOP using impeachment trial to damage Biden’s 2020 prospects Jake Johnson / Common Dream

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Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst denounced ‘dark money’ as her campaign privately embraced it

By Karl Evers-HillstromDecember 23, 2019

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, said she wasn’t connected to “dark money” groups backing her. A new report calls that into question.

1119 an trouble at another town hall ( // djt and don jr boo'd]

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few Republican senators had very bad weeks back home due to their absolute refusal to answer a very simple question: Is it okay for a president to ask a foreign leader to produce dirt on a political rival? Sens. Jim Risch of Idaho, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and**Joni Ernst**of Iowa all went to great lengths to avoid answering that hypothetical.

Risch made the top story on the evening news with his continued stonewalling of the state’s largest newspaper, generally angering all of the Idaho press for his refusal to answer the question first posed by Boise Public Radio reporter Heath Druzin. “As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, do you think it’s appropriate that the president asked?” Risch refused to answer and walked away, earning the condemnation of plenty of Idaho reporters who have long and difficult experience with the famously nasty and usually absent Risch. As Druzin shared with the KTVB TV reporter: “Since reporters here in Idaho don’t get many opportunities for an in-person interview with the senator, he wanted to cover relevant topics.” [garner] n the local Colorado press for his performance this week after he “repeatedly declined to say Thursday whether President Donald Trump’s call with a Ukrainian president was appropriate, weeks after that call set off an impeachment inquiry in Congress.”

The Canon City Daily Record noted that he “at times sound[ed] exasperated by the repeated questions about impeachment.” It also noted that he “did not directly answer a question about whether he would accept foreign support in his closely watched 2020 Senate race.” That doesn’t seem like it would be a particularly difficult question for any senator to answer, but even that was too much for Gardner to commit to....[html problem?] Regular exercise and an apple a day may help to keep the doctor away. But to live a long, healthy life, it helps to be rich.

Income inequality is a pox on America. The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. CEO pay keeps rising while workers’ paychecks have been all but flat for decades. As a result, income inequality now rivals that of the robber baron days of the early 1900s, when labor unions were virtually outlawed while corporate monopolies thrived.

It gets worse. It turns out that low income is an actual pox, killing people before their time. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found in a study released on September 9 that poor people live shorter lives than rich people.

This is appalling. And preventable.

Researchers at the GAO discovered that poor people are doomed to an early death. They tracked a group of people who were in their 50s in 1992—and found that that the wealthier members of the group were much more likely than the poorer ones to be alive in 2014.

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy longevity.

The early death effect of poverty plays out in whole neighborhoods and towns. Take the coal community of McDowell County, West Virginia, where the poverty rate is nearly 32 percent. As of 2016, a man’s life expectancy there was 63.9 years, the lowest among U.S. counties.

By organizing themselves into unions, workers can buy themselves more time on earth. That’s because median weekly earnings of union workers are about 22 percent higher than those of nonunion workers—$1,051 compared to $860, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Organized labor also fights to get workers better health insurance and retirement benefits. Unions work to make workplaces safer and to hold companies responsible for unsafe conditions so workers don’t die on the job.

Unions lift people out of poverty and narrow income inequality. They help to close racial- and gender-based pay gaps. People with decent incomes and benefits are better able to access health care, afford healthy food and enjoy comfortable retirements.

The opposite also is true. The lower rate of unionism in recent years has allowed income inequality to grow, and that has led, as the GAO study shows, to disparities in life expectancy. Even the Grim Reaper favors the rich.

Because unions help build the middle class, government used to support them, especially under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s and 40s. But not now.

Now, organized labor is under attack. President Trump’s National Labor Relations Board has made a series of anti-worker decisions that includes denying unions access to an employer’s public spaces, such as hospital cafeterias; denying SuperShuttle drivers the right to organize; and allowing employers to withdraw recognition of unions before negotiations for a new contract begin.

GOP-controlled legislatures in states ranging from Wisconsin to West Virginia have passed so-called right-to-work laws that allow workers to benefit from union contracts without joining the union and paying dues and without even paying smaller fees charged to non-members to cover the cost of union services such as negotiations and grievance cases.

And last year, the U.S. Supreme Court, packed with Republican appointees, issued the Janus decision that made the entire country right-to-work for public-sector workers. In all 50 states now, public-sector workers who don’t join unions can pay nothing but still enjoy the higher wages and other benefits that dues-paying members get.

As right-wingers legislated away union rights over the past four decades, the power of unions declined, and the middle class became stuck. U.S. Census Bureau data released on September 10 show that middle-class wages are roughly the same now as 20 years ago.

That’s two decades of stagnation. For workers, not CEOs. Since 1978, CEO pay packages have risen nearly 940 percent.

Eight executives at Philadelphia Energy Solutions illustrate how the rich look out for themselves while stiffing everyone else. Together, those executives received almost $4.6 million in retention bonuses on the heels of the June 21 explosion and fire that shut down the refinery, pushed the company into bankruptcy and put about 1,000 employees—many of them members of United Steelworkers Local 10-1—on the street without pay or health insurance.

The employees were the ones who risked their lives the day of the disaster by taking quick action to prevent the release of lethal hydrofluoric acid, saving untold lives inside the plant and across Philadelphia.

The executives who operated the plant—and were ultimately responsible for the fire and explosion—got a big payoff. The workers got pink slips.

This kind of rapacity is so pervasive that it might actually be hurting the economy. Money is being concentrated in the hands of super-rich people who are more likely to invest it than spend it, and that can affect growth.

At the other end of the spectrum are people like those in the GAO study who died younger than they deserved.

Many of them relied on Social Security to scrape by in retirement. The poorest people in the group didn’t own homes or even cars. They had only what social insurance programs provided.

Like labor unions, these programs are under attack.

The Trump administration has so weakened Obamacare that the portion of Americans without health insurance increased last year.

And after Congress gave rich people and corporations that huge tax cut in 2017, Republican leaders talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare to pay for it. They didn’t do it yet, but the fight isn’t over.

Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, recently suggested that Congress meet behind closed doors to discuss “changes” in Social Security. She said she feared public backlash from having the conversation in public. More specifically, she said she didn’t want to look like she was pushing “granny over a cliff.”

Sen. Ernst’s flippancy speaks volumes. It shows how little she and other Republicans think of the grannies and grandpas, dads and moms, and working men and women who have broken their backs to pay taxes and provide for their families.

Some will struggle all of their working lives, still be unable to save anything for retirement and die early deaths. Sen. Ernst needs to wake up. The Republicans’ pro-wealth, anti-labor and anti-social welfare campaigns are pushing people over a cliff before they live long enough to become grannies.

Tom Conway is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

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early daRK $

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/08/dark-money-1m-on-joni-ernst-2020-senate-race

First-term Sen. Joni Ernst‘s (R-Iowa) 2020 re-election bid and Iowa’s congressional races are a million-dollar battleground for anonymously funded political groups.

Groups aligned with Democrats and Republicans, but not run by particular candidates’ campaigns, have already spent more than $600,000 apiece in Iowa to sway voters’ opinions of Ernst, a Republican, or attack “Medicare for All,” the health care plan championed by some Democrats, according to filings with the Federal Communications Commission and compiled with OpenSecrets’ ad data tool.

The ad campaigns come more than a year before the general election and are airing when the state’s political bandwidth is otherwise consumed by the Democratic presidential caucus race. The onslaught could be a precursor to a flood of cash as Republicans work to maintain their majority in the Senate in 2020, and Democrats aim to flip it.

Rather than advocate for or against a candidate’s election, which would require reporting the spending with the Federal Election Commission, these groups advertise for or against issues Ernst has weighed in on, and then urge viewers to contact her office and share their opinions.

New progressive-aligned group spends big against Ernst

Iowa Voices, which operates as Iowa Forward and has a mailing address in Kellogg, formed in March, according to documents filed with the state. In its less than six months of existence, it has bought or reserved more than $600,000 worth of criticizing Ernst for her vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The group wheeled out a billboard at the Iowa State Fair that urged Iowans to call Ernst and “tell her to stop voting to gut our health care.” It brought it out again at a recentDes Moines-area town hall Ernst hosted.

Iowa Voices claims it isn’t focused on the election, but rather it wants “to hold Senator Ernst accountable for her actions on health care and taxes,” and pressure her to drop her push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, its communications director, Ben Cobley, said in an email. The group is gathering Iowans’ stories to try to persuade Ernst, he said.

Iowa Voices is building a grassroots movement, according to its website. But as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, it isn’t required to disclose its donors, leaving the public with no information about where its money comes from. While it doesn’t currently solicit donations on its website, Iowa Voices amassed enough cash to launch its six-figure ad campaign within months of its incorporation in March.

Cobley declined to specify its funding source beyond “folks who share our mission and feelings that an (Affordable Care Act) repeal would harm hundreds of thousands of Iowans.” It has partnered with several progressive groups, including the Iowa Citizen Action Network, Progress Iowa, Indivisible Iowa and the Iowa Federation of Labor, Cobley said. An online donation button is also on the way, he said.

It originally launched under the name Heartland Forward and renamed itself Iowa Forward on May 30. It then purchased or reserved more than $434,000 worth of TV ads in the Des Moines market and nearly $160,000 in Cedar Rapids to air 1,738 spots from late July through early November, according to Federal Communications Commission records.

Ernst is no stranger to mysterious political groups. Outside groups spent tens of millions to influence voters during Iowa’s expensive 2014 Senate race, including several prominent Democratic and Republican-aligned nonprofit groups that do not disclose their funders. The Iowa contest, a titanic struggle to win the seat vacated by the retirement of 30-year Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, was the third most expensive Senate race that cycle. Outside groups accounted for almost $63 million out of the $92.6 million spent on it, according to a tally by OpenSecrets.

In an interview in August, Ernst floated enacting disclosure requirements as a way to police anonymously funded ads without infringing on people’s First Amendment rights to express their political opinions. Ernst predicted Iowa will be one of the top targets for spending by independent groups, with unlimited anonymous donors supporting and opposing her re-election bid.

“What I fear is that there is so much outside money being spent that my message is not going to be heard,” Ernst said. “How will people be able to sort through that, and understand that I am not supporting these other messages?”

If people need to disclose who is funding these groups, “then maybe people are a little more cautious about what they’re throwing up on TV or in the newspapers,” Ernst said.

Jordanna Zeigler, the campaign manager for leading Democratic rival Theresa Greenfield, blamed Ernst for “letting special interests spend unlimited amounts of secret money.” She flagged votes Ernst made as far back as her Iowa state Senate service that Zeigler characterized as protecting anonymous spending, and highlighted Greenfield’s support for funding disclosure.

While Greenfield officially has three fellow Democrats she needs to defeat in next year’s primary, her campaign received immediate endorsements from prominent Democrats when it launched in June, and she holds a commanding fundraising lead. She ended the second quarter of 2019 with almost $600,000 on hand, more than triple the next nearest Democrat, according to the most recent FEC filings. Ernst had $3.4 million cash on hand.

Democrats in Congress have led the charge to increase transparency of secret money groups such as political nonprofits and shell companies. Prominent Republicans have pushed back, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) arguing that limits on political spending infringe on free speech rights.

But Democrats are also staffing Iowa Voices, which does not disclose its funding. Former staffers for Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns are among its staffers. The group is run by Emily Holley, former political director for Iowa state Sen. Rob Hogg and Midwest field organizer for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Cobley and fellow Iowa Voices staffer Kate Vibbert are both former Clinton campaign aides.

Republican-aligned groups weigh in to support Ernst

One Nation, an anonymously funded nonprofit associated with Republican strategist Karl Rove, has also shelled out more than $600,000 on TV and digital ads in Iowa. The group is running a batch of ads attacking Medicare for All, and urging viewers to call their members of Congress about it, as well as ads defending Ernst’s record.

Because of how it files its ads with the Federal Communications Commission, it’s difficult to track exactly how much it has spent to sway voters in the Hawkeye State.

One of the praises Ernst for her support of a bill that would eliminate subsidies for electric vehicles and contends that the tax credits force Iowa taxpayers to subsidize wealthy individuals in California and New York.

In addition to its ties to Rove, One Nation shares its staff and Washington, D.C., offices with Senate Leadership Fund, a powerful super PAC that is linked to McConnell. Now-shuttered outside spending groups linked with Rove spent more than $5.4 million backing Ernst in 2014,according to tracking by OpenSecrets.

These aren’t the only anonymously funded Washington-tied groups to jump into the fray.

Iowa Values, yet another political nonprofit with a generic name, launched a six-month digital ad and voter canvassing effort to support Ernst in late June. The group, run by Johnston mayor Paula Dierenfeld, former Rep. Tom Tauke (R-Iowa) and political strategist Sara Fagen, has spent almost $18,000 on digital ads backing the Republican senator so far, according to Google and Facebook ad databases. It plans to spend six figures on a digital ad campaign, according to a news release.

In a statement announcing its launch, the group also pledged to canvass the state and knock on at least 150,000 doors.

“No other organization will match the work that Iowa Values is doing in 2019,” Tauke, a Republican who represented northeast Iowa in Congress from 1979 to 1991, said in the statement. “With a sophisticated mix of digital advertising and personal contact, Iowa Values will help create a friendly environment for conservative ideas in 2020.”

While this race is still more than a year away, Ernst’s 2014 race against Democrat Bruce Braley attracted a dozen outside groups that spent $1 million or more, and another 37 that spent at least $100,000, according to OpenSecrets. And in all, the vast majority — $44.5 million out of the $62.77 million total — was spent to oppose their candidacies.

819 anec or trend? calls to come back for emerg session fade

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Republican senator heckled and booed during town hall for blaming recent mass shootings on mental illness: ‘Do something!’

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Written by Alex Henderson August 20, 2019

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who is up for reelection in 2020 and is among the Republican senators who is considered vulnerable, discussed the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio during a town hall event in her home state this week —and she was booed and heckled when she echoed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and blamed “mental illness” for the killings.

Resisting calls for stricter gun control, Ernst told Iowa residents attending the town hall, “A lot of the incidents we’ve seen do come back to mental illness.” And the crowd immediately started booing.

Attendees clearly wanted stricter gun control, and Ernst was bombarded with shouts of “What about the guns?” and “Do something.”

In response, Ernst said that the U.S. has been through many hardships — and someone responded, “It’s not the same.” When Ernst commented that the U.S. was “short on” mental health resources, an Iowan shouted, “We’re short congresspeople that take action.”

Someone else shouted, “We need you to protect us.”

Ernst echoed the assertions of other Republicans when she said she was in favor of enforcing gun control laws already in existence. But she wouldn’t commit to passing stricter gun control laws.

Ernst received a 93% favorability rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) during the 2014 election, when she was first elected to the U.S. Senate.

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open secrets

A competitive Senate race in Iowa in 2020 could also affect down-ballot races in the state.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has condemned King’s comments in the past, also faces re-election next year. Ernst was one of the first members of her party to decry Trump’s weekend tweetstorm telling four Democratic lawmakers or color — three of whom were born in the United States — to go back to the countries from which they came, a move that might cost her support from the president down the stretch.

Ernst brought in $740,000 during the second quarter, ending June with $3.4 million in cash on hand. Her likely challenger, businesswoman Theresa Greenfield, got off to a strong fundraising start. Greenfield, who has earned the support of the Democratic establishment, raised more than $600,000 between her candidacy announcement June 4 and the end of the month.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/watch-town-hall-erupts-boos-when-republican-senator-says-she-carefully-vetted

devos

senator Joni Ernst divorced husband in part because he prevented her from being Trump’s VP choice

According to a divorce court filing, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) claims one of the reasons she wishes to part ways with her husband is because she believes he thwarted her ambition…

http://conservativetransparency.org/org/trees-of-liberty/

arlington 501c4

Trees of Liberty was a short-lived 501(c)(4) front group funded by the Koch brothers’ “secret bank,” Freedom Partners, and set up by a political strategy firm affiliated with the Koch brothers, Aegis Strategic, to intervene in the 2014 Iowa Senate Republican Primaries. ToL supported now-Sen. Joni Ernst, running ads attacking her opponent, businessman Mark Jacobs. A spokesman for the organization claimed its mission was “to educate and engage citizens on national and state economic policy issues.” However, the group was active very briefly, and in that time its only activities were attacks on Jacobs – via a website and a significant ad buy.

The ad purchase was for $257,000, although only a few thousand dollars’ worth of ads are documented in the FCC databases, and aired throughout the state, focusing on Jacobs’ supposed prior support for cap-and-trade legislation to combat climate change. This spending reportedly came from and went back into the Koch network – according to Politico, “sources tell POLITICO that Trees of Liberty got its cash from Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce… it spent $347,000 ― about 80 percent of all the cash it brought in ― on ‘advertising,’ all of which went through i360, a data analytics and ad buying company owned by Freedom Partners.”

On the group’s website – www.RealMarkJacobs.com – further attacks were made on Jacobs’ position on Common Core, as well as the implication that he “helped enable passage of Obamacare through his personal support of… Arlen Specter.” Additionally, a twitter account @Real_MarkJacobs listing the ToL website as its URL claimed to be “The Official Account of the Real Mark Jacobs. Give Me A Call” and listed Jacobs’ actual campaign contact number. This would appear to have been in clear violation of Twitter’s rules governing parody or commentary accounts, which require both the account bio and name to identify the account as a fake.

The only individual publicly associated with the group was the spokesman, identified as Mark Pfeifle.According to the Quad City Times, Pfeifle was “a former national security official in the George W. Bush administration” as well as “president of Off The Record Strategies.” OTR Strategies, in turn, was a secretive political consulting firm – the website features the quote: “If we told you exactly what we do, we’d have to go on the record,” and the firm’s Twitter profile picture is a folder marked “Confidential.”

Despite Pfeifle’s firm’s secrecy, there are clear political and personal ties to the Koch brothers’ network, which pushed hard for the election of Sen. Ernst. In fact, Politico confirmed that Trees of Liberty was set up by a Koch-backed for-profit consulting firm, Aegis Strategic, which similarly set up a dark money group in Kentucky to attack opponents of Hal Heiner’s gubernatorial bid. Trees of Liberty shares an address with Aegis Strategic, which reportedly receives most of its revenue from a contract with Freedom Partners.

Besides the likely contract with Koch-backed Aegis, there are additional reasons to suspect that OTR works closely with the Koch network. OTR Strategies followed 57 accounts on Twitter as of November 9, 2015; of those, 11% belonged to groups affiliated with the Koch network, including an Americans for Prosperity state affiliate, Freedom Partners, Generation Opportunity, LIBRE Initiative and its head, Daniel Garza, who also worked in the Bush White House. OTR has retweeted LIBRE, and Pfeifle called LIBRE’s Florida State Director, Cesar Grajales a “fella [Pfeifle was] proud to have worked with.”

Pfeifle, whose firm promises “private counsel and public results” spent 2014 and 2015 writing several articles attacking the Export-Import Bank, a Koch priority.One of those articles was retweeted by the Freedom Partners’ Ex-Im Exposed account. In one Wall Street Journal op-ed, Pfeifle’s language closely mirrored arguments made against Ex-Im by Freedom Partners and AFP officials. In an even stranger op-ed for RealClearPolitics, Pfeifle attacks anti-Koch political ads and rhetoric without ever mentioning the name “Koch,” despite referencing specific comments made about the Brothers and jokes made on the pronunciation of their last name. Pfiefle has also served as a lecturer for the Independence Institute, a grassroots-training organization in Colorado which received significant Koch funding through DonorsTrust, Donors Capital Fund and the State Policy Network.

His work atTrees of Liberty in Iowa also helped compliment the work of a major Koch donor, Bob Mercer. Mercer was the financial force behind the AmericanHeartland PAC, which also ran anti-Jacobs ads. Bloomberg referred to Mercer as the man who “out-Koched the Kochs,” since he contributed $2.5 million to the Freedom Partners Action Fund, compared to Charles and David’s $2 million apiece.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-kochs-vs-the-gop-215672

How the Kochs launched Joni Ernst

New details reveal the billionaire brothers' network efforts to reshape the GOP are more ambitious than previously reported.

By Kenneth P. Vogel

11/12/15 05:19 AM EST

Updated 11/11/15 11:13 PM EST

Ernst was surprised to receive an invitation in the summer of 2013 that she later credited with starting her meteoric rise to the U.S. Senate.

Ernst was then a little-known Iowa state senator and lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who was considering a long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. Polls showed more than 90 percent of her state’s voters had no opinion of her. At least a half-dozen other Republicans ― some with better funding and connections and stronger establishment support ― also were positioning themselves to run against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Rep. Bruce Braley.

But Ernst was being watched closely by allies of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who saw in her an advocate for their brand of free-market, libertarian-infused conservatism. Operatives affiliated with the Kochs’ political network invited Ernst to the network’s August 2013 gathering of wealthy conservative donors at a posh resort in Albuquerque’s Santa Ana Pueblo.

Ernst later told POLITICO she had no idea "how my name came through those channels." But her appearance at the event impressed donors and was followed by an infusion of support that helped Ernst win the GOP nomination and, eventually, a Senate seat. It also represented a new phase in the rapid expansion of the Koch-backed political network ― its willingness to become involved in primary fights among GOP candidates — potentially putting it on a collision course with the official Republican Party.

Until now, little has been known about the secretive role played by the Kochs' donors and operatives in boosting Ernst. The Koch network has focused primarily on policy fights, mostly leaving the spadework of recruiting and nurturing candidates to the party.

But the network's financial support for Ernst ― detailed here for the first time ― offers the first signs of a move into GOP primaries. The Kochs and their allies are investing in a pipeline to identify, cultivate and finance business-oriented candidates from the local school board all the way to the White House, and Koch operatives are already looking for opportunities to challenge GOP incumbents deemed insufficiently hard-line in their opposition to government spending and corporate subsidies.

When Hillary Clinton met David Koch

By Kenneth P. Vogel

The ambitious effort, spearheaded partly by a for-profit consulting firm called Aegis Strategic that’s backed by the Koch network, is one of several ways in which the brothers and their allies are seeking to influence the types of candidates who carry the GOP banner. The network has taken on a vetting role in the GOP presidential primary, offering favored candidates access to its donors and activists. And some within the network have even advocated targeting from six to 12 GOP House members who have run afoul of the Koch orthodoxy on fiscal issues and who are facing 2016 primary challenges, sources told POLITICO.

Tim Phillips, president of the most aggressive Koch-backed group, Americans for Prosperity, declined to comment on whether his group had any plans to spend money in GOP primaries. “We have not taken any options off the table. That’s the best way to put it,” he said. “We have not precluded the possibility of it. We’re looking at every option.”

In the Ernst race, the Koch support included hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of television ads funded by undisclosed donors and tens of thousands of dollars in direct campaign contributions. The spending would have been difficult to trace back to the Koch network during Ernst's campaign, but details are expected to emerge this week when the central Koch nonprofit, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, files its tax disclosures.

To date, the Koch network’s election-season spending has almost exclusively benefited Republicans. It has overwhelmingly targeted Democrats ― a trend that’s likely to continue in the run-up to 2016, when the network is planning to spend as much as $889 million. But the GOP establishment has been nervously watching the Kochs’ evolution from wonky libertarian think tank funders to political kingmakers, which comes as money and power are migrating away from the Republican Party. There is a widespread, if mostly unspoken, concern that the brothers' network is gradually encroaching on some of the party’s core functions, like candidate recruitment, voter registration and data.

“What they’ve been able to do in terms of technology, in terms of creating infrastructure for the use of that technology is impressive and important. But it should also be concerning to the party,” said Michael Steele, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2010 midterm election, when the Koch network first began publicly flexing its political muscles. “This is the new universe that the current and the future chairmen of the party have to live with. And if they don’t find a way to adapt to it, there won’t be much for future chairmen to deal with in two cycles.”

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who chaired the RNC when party committees were dominant forces in American politics, said "it would be very counterproductive" if the Kochs were to take on the Republican Party. "But I don’t see that as the case," he said. "One thing that I’m pleased of is, as far as I can tell, they don’t use their money to try to defeat Republicans in Republican primaries,” he said.

But that’s precisely the type of direct challenge to the GOP being planned by Aegis Strategic, which was established in 2013 with the Kochs’ blessing after an analysis concluded that their network’s efforts in the run-up to the 2012 election suffered from flawed GOP candidates. Aegis, which is owned by a former Koch operative named Jeff Crank and staffed by fellow Koch network veterans, has an ongoing consulting contract with Freedom Partners and also has worked with other Koch-backed groups, network sources tell POLITICO.

While the Kochs and their allies bristle at the suggestion that the network is a reliable part of the Republican establishment, they mostly try to project harmony with the organized GOP. “We're not in competition with the RNC, we're focused on advancing a free society and policies that help people improve their lives,” said Marc Short, president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the nonprofit group that oversees the network.

But those close to the network say the Kochs view their mission as transforming American politics from a present dominated by stifling over-regulation to a future of free-market prosperity ― and that means changing the Republican Party, which they believe has been guilty too often of growing government. To achieve that goal, the Kochs have increasingly concluded, it’s not enough to merely fund free enterprise research. Instead, they’re building a muscular political machine capable of electing the right politicians and ensuring they implement the right policies.

A POLITICO investigation found they’re well on their way to achieving that goal.

Growing Trees of Liberty

About seven months after Ernst won over Koch allies during her appearance in Albuquerque ― with the candidate struggling to raise money and still barely registering in polls ― the Koch network sent in the cavalry, albeit stealthily.

A low-profile operative named Karl Crow, who’d worked for years in the Koch network, created a nonprofit group called Trees of Liberty. Within weeks, the group launched an advertising blitz that included a $257,000 statewide and a complementary Web campaign attacking Ernst’s most competitive GOP rival, Mark Jacobs, a retired energy executive. The ads swiped at Jacobs for supporting a proposal to limit carbon emissions years earlier. The measure was bitterly opposed by the Koch public policy network, as well as the brothers’ multinational industrial conglomerate, Koch Industries, which would have been adversely affected by the proposal.

Little has been known about where Trees of Liberty got its cash or how it spent it. That’s because the group, like many in the Koch network, was created under a section of the tax code ― 501(c) ― that allows groups to shield donor identities and requires the disclosure of only limited information about spending to the Internal Revenue Service many months after an election in which the spending occurred.

But sources tell POLITICO that Trees of Liberty got its cash from Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. That grant likely will be revealed in Freedom Partners 2014 tax form, due to be filed with the IRS in coming days ― more than 1½ years after Trees aired ads in the Iowa Senate primary. According to a source who reviewed Trees of Liberty’s 2014 tax documents, they show that it spent $347,000 ― about 80 percent of all the cash it brought in ― on “advertising,” all of which went through i360, a data analytics and ad buying company owned by Freedom Partners.

Trees of Liberty carefully tailored its ad campaign to avoid triggering rules that would have required more financial disclosure during the campaign. It pulled down the television ads just before the calendar reached the one-month election countdown. Had the ad aired within that month, Trees of Liberty would have been required to report its spending ― but not its donors ― to the Federal Election Commission.

Groups registered under section 501(c)4 are required to spend the majority of their money on “social welfare” purposes.

Reid mocks 'Morning Joe' interview of Kochs

By Seung Min Kim and Hadas Gold

And according to the source who reviewed Trees of Liberty’s 2014 tax filing, Trees of Liberty indicated that the group did not “engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office.” It listed a mission statement that would fit the IRS's social welfare definition — "to advance the principles of limited government, fiscal solvency and economic freedom by educating the public."

From a lay perspective ― as opposed to a legal one ― Trees of Liberty’s anti-Jacobs ads certainly looked like political campaign activity. And some of the contracts for advertising buys placed by the group with local television stations seem to acknowledge as much, indicating that the anti-Jacobs ads dealt with a “political matter of national importance.”

Nonetheless, partisan finger-pointing has stymied efforts by the IRS and the FEC to more rigorously police groups like Trees of Liberty ― or to update outdated rules governing so-called 501(c) groups ― even as those groups have spent ever-larger sums of cash in recent election cycles.

Around the same time that Trees of Liberty launched its ad campaign hitting Jacobs, Freedom Partners began a $1 million-plus ad campaign attacking Braley, the Democrat waiting to take on the winner of the GOP primary. Ernst ran a savvy campaign, including ads that won plaudits as among the cycle’s most notable, but she saw the boost from the Koch network as crucial. She cruised to a lopsided primary victory in the June 2014 primary and headed into the general election in strong position against Braley.

Two weeks after her primary victory, she paid another visit to the Koch network, thanking its donors for their help during a closed-door speech at the network’s summer 2014 summit at the St. Regis in Dana Point, Calif.

“The first time I was introduced to this group was a year ago, August, in New Mexico, and I was not known at that time,” she told donors, according to a secret recording obtained by a liberal blogger. “The exposure to this group and to this network and the opportunity to meet so many of you — that really started my trajectory,” she said during a panel of GOP Senate candidates.

Fellow GOP Senate candidates Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Cory Gardner of Colorado also sat on the panel, which was moderated by Crank, the veteran Koch operative who owns Aegis Strategic. He praised each candidate, and asked them to discuss how “third party groups in this network” were making “a big difference” in the campaign.

The three left Dana Point with a boost. Each collected about $60,000 or more from a little-noticed fundraising committee, Victory Trust 2014, that hosted a reception to raise money from network donors for candidates favored by the network, according to documents reviewed by POLITICO. They show that the committee and the reception were organized by Aegis Strategic, which employs Crow and shares an address with Trees of Liberty.

Asked this month about the support Ernst received from the Koch network, her spokeswoman pointed out that Ernst had "broad support from Iowans across the state," and noted that a billionaire-backed liberal group spent heavily to try to defeat her. “Regardless of the fact that millions were spent against her, Iowans overwhelming sided with Sen. Ernst and her message of cutting government spending, ensuring veterans have the care they deserve and putting Iowans first,” Ernst spokeswoman Brook Hougesen told POLITICO.

Testing the primary waters

The quiet Koch synergy behind Ernst only hints at the network’s ability to sway primary elections. The network has made known its intentions to spend as much as $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 elections. Charles Koch recently reduced the estimate to $750 million, a downgrade that was seen by some in the network as an effort to manage expectations. They say the network is still on pace to raise $889 million.

Some network groups― including Freedom Partners, Americans for Prosperity, Concerned Veterans for America and the LIBRE Initiative ― have sought to influence the debate in GOP primaries by inviting select candidates to forums. They’ve hosted several presidential aspirants favored by the Kochs ― such as Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio ― but have conspicuously excluded others deemed big government Republicans, such as Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham.

In their drive for political influence, most of the Koch-backed groups have been reluctant to wade fully into GOP primaries. That's due to their preference for policy over politics, the groups' tax status as social welfare groups and the divided loyalties of the network’s donors, who have been known to favor competing primary candidates. And Charles Koch on Wednesday said he had "no plans" to support any of the GOP presidential candidates during the primaries ― the latest sign that he's not particularly enamored with any of the contenders.

But Aegis Strategic was created with the Koch network’s blessing partly to cultivate candidates who share the Kochs’ commitment to free-market conservatism, and could be in line for the network's support in GOP primaries.

It’s helping a New Hampshire state legislator named Pam Tucker explore a potential primary challenge against embattled Republican Rep. Frank Guinta if he runs for reelection in his swing congressional district. During a September trip to Washington to prepare for her race, Tucker received assistance from Aegis in setting up meetings with a number of different groups, including the Mercatus Center, a Koch-funded libertarian think tank at George Mason University.

If Tucker decides to run, Aegis Strategic said, it hopes to sign her as a client. Tucker told POLITICO she had been put in touch with the firm “through mutual acquaintances," but hadn't decided whether to contract with it and would not base her decision on its connections to the Koch network.

Crank said his firm is seeking more candidates to take on big government Republicans.

“I can’t stress enough — we do look for opportunities and we relish opportunities to find unprincipled incumbents who aren’t adhering to free market principles who could be challenged and who we could replace with a better vote,” said Crank. “We’re not going to run in there like wild-eyed crazies and charge up the hill without guns. We’re going to pick opportunities that are wise ― candidates who are both principled and electable. It’s all going to be well thought-out,” said Crank.

“Oftentimes, there are party entities that go in and they try to find the most electable — or the candidate who can write the biggest check — and they really don’t care sometimes about principle,” said Crank. While Aegis Strategic doesn’t have a formal legal relationship with the Koch network, its consulting contract with Freedom Partners provides much of its revenue, sources familiar with the arrangement say.

The ActBlue of the Koch network

It’s not clear whether Aegis Strategic or other arms of the Koch network will continue the practice of setting up secretive 501(c)4 groups like Trees of Liberty to knock down rivals of favored candidates. Aegis officials were involved in another 501(c)4 group called Citizens for a Sound Government that supported Republicans in 2014 congressional elections and this year waded into Kentucky’s GOP primary for governor, funding ads backing a business-friendly candidate who ultimately lost to tea party-backed Gov.-elect Matt Bevin.

Aegis also is exploring other models. In June, it quietly created a political action committee called Aegis PAC to help raise money for candidates it judges to be solid on fiscal conservative issues. Crank envisions it as a potential counterweight to ActBlue, the liberal fundraising juggernaut that has helped raise $840 million for liberal candidates since 2004.

Wealth Of Nations

Where Hillary Clinton Agrees With the Koch Brothers

By John A. Allison IV

The PAC is currently raising money for about 10 handpicked candidates and prospects ― including several that Aegis is seeking to represent, such as Tucker. Aegis PAC’s website calls her “a leading voice for liberty in the New Hampshire House of Representatives since she was first elected in 2008.” While it’s barely started operations, Aegis PAC in the third quarter steered $13,200 to one of its endorsed candidates, Indiana state Sen. Jim Banks, accounting for nearly one-tenth of his haul in that period. Aegis PAC’s website predicts he would be “an advocate for freedom in the U.S. House,” though it also notes he “will have a competitive primary.”

And, while Banks said he’s talked with Aegis Strategic about hiring them to work on the race, he stressed that the firm’s connections to the Koch network were “not a consideration of why we would consider working with them.”

Crank, though, acknowledged that some candidates seek out his firm “thinking ‘if I can do this, it means that the Koch network is going to come in and help,’” In fact, he said, Aegis tries to “undersell” its Koch connections. “If there’s that expectation and a client comes in, and that doesn’t happen, then that’s a liability to us, because they came in with an expectation that ‘oh, wow, money is going to rain from the heavens.’"

Yet, Aegis ― which has only seven employees and a relatively shallow track record and portfolio ― is attracting interest disproportionate to a firm of its size and experience precisely because of its Koch connections.

As Charles Koch was secretly recorded explaining to donors in 2014, “most of the many, many years and decades I’ve been involved in this struggle, I thought ‘principled politician’ was an oxymoron. And I still think that’s largely the case. But we see a few now and then, and when I think about it, that’s what we’re about: to find and get elected some politicians with principles.”

While RNC chairman Reince Priebus has expressed misgivings about the growth of the Koch network to donors, according to sources familiar with those conversations, RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer last week rejected the idea of any tension between the Kochs and the party.

But Steele, the former RNC chairman, said the committee would be well advised to make peace with the Kochs and try to find ways to work together within their legal confines and philosophical differences.

He pointed out that there are certain roles that legally only a party can play, including coordinated spending with campaigns, but he said the Koch network and other deep-pocketed outside groups have found legal ways to do most of the other things that were once the party’s sole province.

Ultimately, Steele said, the growth of the Koch network raises questions about “the relevance of the parties. And a lot of people answer by saying they’re not relevant anymore, which is why you’re seeing a lot of this activity outside of them. These organizations have the ability to raise unlimited money that the parties can’t. And at the end of the day, the party can’t compete with that.”

Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/iowas-ernst-has-raised-fears-agenda-21-conspiracy

Iowa’s Ernst has raised fears of Agenda 21 conspiracy

08/13/14 12:53 PM—UPDATED 08/13/14 01:17 PM

By Steve Benen

The conventional wisdom maintains that Republicans are in a strong position this year, especially in U.S. Senate races, because the party has avoided nominating some of the radical candidates that hurt the party in 2010 and 2012.

But the conventional wisdom continues to underestimate what Iowa’s Joni Ernst brings to the table. The Republican state senator, who easily won her party’s U.S. Senate nomination in June, seems to hold beliefs that put her squarely on the furthest fringes of American political thought. Yahoo Newsreports today, for example, on her remarks about a ridiculous U.N. conspiracy theory.

The latest primary comments that could haunt her Senate bid are on the topic of Agenda 21, a community planning provision in a decades-old United Nations treaty that’s become an object of fear and conspiracy theories on the right, and especially in the commentaries and writing of Glenn Beck.

Yahoo News has obtained video showing Ernst at a January GOP forum in Montgomery County, Iowa, warning that Agenda 21 could force Iowa farmers off their land, dictate what cities Iowans must live in, and control how Iowa citizens travel from place to place.

In response to a question about Agenda 21, Ernst responded as if she’d given the fringe topic quite a bit of thought.

“The United Nations has imposed this upon us, and as a U.S. senator, I would say, ‘No more. No more Agenda 21,’” she said earlier this year. “Community planning – to the effect that it is implementing eminent domain and taking away property rights away from individuals – I don’t agree with that…. We don’t want to see a further push with Agenda 21, where the Agenda 21 and the government telling us that these are the urban centers that you will live in; these are the ways that you will travel to other urban centers. Agenda 21 encompasses so many different aspects of our lives that it’s taking away our individual liberties, our freedoms as United States citizens.”

A couple of months prior, during her U.S. Senate candidacy, Ernst argued that Agenda 21 could lead to “moving people off of their agricultural land and consolidating them into city centers, and then telling them that you don’t have property rights anymore.”

I can appreciate how easy it is to become inured to over-the-top rhetoric, especially from far-right candidates, but let’s not brush past this too quickly: Joni Ernst publicly railed against a conspiracy theory that the United Nations might take Iowans’ farms and move them involuntarily into cities.

And she’s a U.S. Senate candidate.

And she might actually win.

Of course, wacky ideas from Glenn Beck aren’t the only area of concern surrounding her candidacy. As Rachel noted on the show in June, Ernst has also said she would ban abortions and many forms of birth control; she would privatize Social Security and abolish the minimum wage; she would back an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution; she’s open to impeaching President Obama for unknown reason; and she believes there’s secret information that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, we’ve also learned Ernst believes states can nullify federal laws they don’t like and the war in Iraq shouldn’t have ended.

Roll Call had an interesting report about the Iowa race this morning, noting that it ultimately comes down to “Personality Versus Policy.” Rep. Bruce Braley (D), the argument goes, focuses on the latter, while Ernst’s strength is the former.

To be sure, this isn’t an unfamiliar dynamic in a campaign. But the fact remains Ernst’s truly bizarre worldview warrants an explanation before voters head to the polls.

Postscript: I should note that Ernst seems to be backing away from the Agenda 21 commentsshe made publicly just a few months ago. “I don’t think that the U.N. Agenda 21 is a threat to Iowa farmers,” Ernst told Yahoo News. “I think there are a lot of people that follow that issue in Iowa. It may be something that is very important to them, but I think Iowans are very smart and that we have a great legislature here, we have a very intelligent governor, and I think that we will protect Iowans.”

= calls herself koch's eliza doolittle ==short list trump VP turned down (how to score that?) === McConnell hired policy chief, koch lobbyistMitch McConnell owes the Kochs big time. The Kochs bought McConnell a slew of GOP Senate seats in the 2014 midterms and handed him his post as Senate Majority Leader. In addition, Koch Industries gave over $10,000 to buoy McConnell in his own Senate battle. Now McConnell is hiring a Koch crony to push the Koch agenda through Congress. McConnell has hired Hazen Marshall, a former lobbyist on behalf of Koch Industries, to serve as his new policy director.Koch Industries spent a hefty $13 million on influencing the federal government last year. Marshall previously served as partner of the Nickles Group where he worked on behalf of Koch Industries. There, he lobbied on the Kochs’ pet issues, including against the Wind Production Tax Credit. The wind PTC has been crucial to the growth of the wind energy industry as it has boomed in recent years, providing more affordable energy, supporting thousands of new jobs, and protecting our environment. But self-interested fossil fuel titans like the Koch brothers are lobbying to crush the wind industry. The Kochs will stop at nothing to stave off threats to their petrochemical empire. Since the midterms, Koch lieutenants have been dispatched to work in offices across Capitol Hill — demonstrating the deep ties between Koch-world and the GOP. Joni Ernst hired her chief of staff from the Koch-backed National Federation of Independent Small Business, Jim Inhofe tapped his Environment and Public Works Committee press secretary from the Koch-funded Generation Opportunity, and Tom Cotton’s former spokesman is the new director for Americans for Prosperity-Arkansas. It’s getting harder and harder to separate the Koch shills from the GOP.Mitch McConnell's Policy Chief Previously Lobbied for Koch Industrieshttps://theintercept.com/.../mitch-mcconnells-policy-chief-previously-lobbied-koch-in...May 18, 2015 - Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appointed Hazen Marshall, a lobbyist for Koch Industries , as his new policy chief. Marshall, whose lobbying ...McConnell Names Koch Shill to Key Senate Post | Real Koch Factsrealkochfacts.com/mcconnell-names-koch-shill-to-key-senate-post/May 20, 2015 - McConnell has hired Hazen Marshall, a former lobbyist on behalf of Koch Industries, to serve as his new policy director. ... Joni Ernst hired her chief of staff from the Koch-backed National Federation of Independent Small ...= did main of 5 replies to SOTU 2015? punching above newbie wt? == http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13025/cmd-and-crew-allege-koch-backed-group-broke-law Trees of Liberty, a dark money non-profit financed and operated by the Koch political network, broke the law in helping Joni Ernst win her primary election in 2014, according to a complaint filed today by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).Trees of Liberty was set up by veteran Koch network political operatives a few months after Ernst appeared at a Koch donor retreat, and started running ads in Iowa within a week of its creation. Despite spending almost all of its budget to attack Ernst's primary opponent, Mark Jacobs, the group claimed on its tax filings with the IRS that it did not engage in political activity in 2014. Making false statements on a signed form to the IRS was a criminal violation. Additionally, Trees of Liberty violated its tax-exempt status by engaging primarily in political activity for the private benefit of now-Sen. Joni Ernst and the Koch network, the complaint alleges."Trees of Liberty appears to have violated the law the in three ways: the group misled the IRS by claiming it was not involved in political activity, engaged in more political activity than allowed and operated for the private interests of Sen. Ernst and the Koch political network," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. "Any one of these violations should be enough for the IRS to act on; taken together, they overwhelmingly support the need for investigation and vigorous enforcement." Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, often referred to as "the Koch brothers’ secret bank," provided $400,000 of the $440,000 the group raised. The group then spent $412,000—an incredible 94% of its expenditures—on "advertising campaigns on television, radio and online," most of which benefited Ernst. Over $346,000 of Trees of Liberty’s budget was paid to i360, a data analyst and ad buying firm described as the "Koch data mine.""The Koch network is effectively a political party, and Trees of Liberty is operating to advance the Koch party's interests, rather than anything resembling 'social welfare,'" said Brendan Fischer, Center for Media and Democracy's General Counsel. "The evidence shows that the Koch network secretly used Trees of Liberty to play a decisive role in a primary election, but the American people may never get a full accounting of how much the Kochs are spending on primaries this presidential election year, or what they get in return." ==http://www.occupydemocrats.com/after-poisoning-entire-city-with-lead-republicans-swiftly-vote-to-gut-obamas-clean-water-rule-2/ot would seem inarguable that one of the government’s basic responsibilities is to set standards ensuring that people in the United States have safe drinking water. So in May 2015 when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final version of the Clean Water Rule, “the agency cheered the broad reach of the rule, arguing that it would protect the drinking water of some 117 million Americans, or roughly a third of the population.”But then along came Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), who promptly introduced a resolution to kill the EPA’s Clean Water Rule that was passed in November – ostensibly to protect “farmers and ranchers”, who coincidentally only comprise two percent of the population. Yesterday, the Republican-led House similarly voted 253-166 for a resolution to overturn the EPA ruling. President Barack Obama has, all-along, threatened to veto the resolutions should they pass Congress.The agencies and their supporters say the safety of drinking water and stream health are threatened because of weak state and local regulation and a lack of enforcement. The rule is meant to make it clearer which waterways the EPA and the Corps of Engineers can oversee under the 43-year-old Clean Water Act, which covers “navigable waters” such as the Mississippi River and Lake Erie, but is vague on how far upstream protections must go to keep those water bodies clean. Considering that just a few days ago it was disclosed that Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder knowingly poisoned residents of Flint, Michigan by not placing an anti-lead preventive in Flint’s water supply as required by federal law in order to save money in an attempt to balance the city’s budget – the callousness of the vote in the Republican House should not go unnoticed. However, almost two years ago, in an attempt to save money under a financial state of emergency, Michigan switched the source of its water supply from Lake Huron (one of the Great Lakes) to the polluted Flint River, notorious to the people of Flint for its filth. As Flint resident Rhonda Kelso said:“We thought it was a joke…People my age and older, thought ‘They’re not going to do that…The water would come in brown and my daughter was like ‘Mom … why is the water brown? “Kelso actually thought the brown color came from sewage, but no, it was iron, which was 19 times more potent than the Lake Huron supply. The mineral chemically reacted with lead lining old plumbing in many homes. Because the governor did not add the anti-lead preventive, the chemical soup started poisoning many of the residents – resulting in Kelso and four other families filing a class-action lawsuit.CNN noted that “Flint residents say they were kept in the dark for 18 months until a local doctor, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha a physician in a local medical center pediatric ward took things into her own hands. “When (my research team and I) saw that it was getting into children and when we knew the consequences, that’s when I think we began not to sleep…at first, the state publicly denounced her work, saying she was causing near hysteria. They spent a week attacking her before reversing their narrative and admitting she was right.” Ironically, adding that agent would have cost about $100 a day, and experts say 90 percent of the problems with Flint’s water would have been avoided. It should be noted that in the last couple of days, the Michigan National Guard began arriving in Flint to help with the drinking water crisis, including distributing bottled water to the municipality’s residents.This EPA rule pertained to clearing up the ambiguity brought about “because a pair of Supreme Court rulings left significant waterways with unclear protections, including ones that sometimes lead to sources of drinking water.” In developing the Clean Water Rule, the EPA and the Corps relied on a synthesis prepared by EPA’s Office of Research and Development of more than 1,200 published and peer-reviewed scientific reports; the synthesis discusses our current scientific understanding of the connections or isolation of streams and wetlands relative to large water bodies such as rivers, lakes, estuaries, and oceans.We know, through their well-established litany of ignorant utterances, that Republicans don’t care about science – only about the corporations and greedy oligarchs that pull their strings. Consider the list of backers who lobbied against the EPA rule: The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have joined the ranks of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Dairy Farmers of America, pesticide manufacturers, mining companies, home builders, and the Koch-owned-and-run timber industry, to name but a few.Now consider that the citizens of Flint are mostly poor, with 40 percent of the population living below the poverty level. So when House Speaker Paul Ryan writes: “The Obama administration’s sweeping new rule, dubbed Waters of the United States (WOTUS), could upend the way water is used across the country,” for whom is he speaking? Clearly he is not concerned about ensuring clean drinking water for the 117 million Americans or the poor residents of Flint.Should it ever be necessary in this country in the 21st century to call out the National Guard to distribute drinking water because a Republican governor or any official elected or otherwise decided to poison a city of people to save $100 a day? People living in this country use water without a second-thought in everything from drinking and cooking – to growing the crops we eat – to the animals we raise – only in a Republican world is ensuring the safety of the waters of the United States ‘upending the way water is used in this country.’ He’s not wrong – the way corporations pollute water and then sell it back to consumers is being upended, and that’s a win that’s long overdue. ==Committee assignments[edit]

Ernst, Joni Sen 7%

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