One Senator, Zero Leadership

The Twitter handle ("twitter handle"? so 2017) of Republican senator Joni Ernst of Iowa reads "mother, soldier, leader." She's a mother and former soldier- but she's no leader.

CNN's Dana Bash: You said in 2014 that Obama showed "failed leadership" with Ebola, when only 2 Americans died. Would you say Trump's showed failed leadership with coronavirus as 130,000 Americans have died?

Sen. Joni Ernst: "No, I think that the president is stepping forward" pic.twitter.com/WQqSC82OSt

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 5, 2020

As the video indicates, Bash asked the freshman senator

You criticized President Obama in 2014 for his handling of the Ebola outbreak, saying he exhibited "failed leadership." Only two people in the US died from Ebola. Right now there are almost 130,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus. So if President Obama showed failed leadership, then do you think President Trump is showing failed leadership now?

For a leader even of the Republican variety, there are only two possible answers: a) yes, him too; or b) no, and neither did President Obama. Ernst gave neither, and when her response was a string of words signifying only avoidance and timidity, Bash followed up with a question ending in "is the President exhibiting failed leadership?"

Unsurprisingly, Ernst employed the GOP's go-to response, defending President Trump by attacking the Democratic Party. She replied in part

.... of course, the pushback we got from the Democrats after the President did shut down travel from some of those hotspots, it was an extremely difficult environment to operate and we know different today than we did at the start spread of the virus and we should continually learn from those efforts and make sure we are doing the right thing.

Hours before the President announced major restrictions (except for American citizens, holder of green cards, and a few others) to travel from China, three major USA-based airlines announced on their own that they would suspend flights between this country and the world's largest totalitarian regime. The American government did not end passenger flights particularly late nor particularly early compared to other governments. 

And that pushback from "the Democrats?"  There was a grand total of two, both US Representatives (neither a presidential candidate) who criticized Trump's action.

Moreover, as The Intercept reported on April 20, the first indexed case of Covid-19 in at least 13 states and territories has been traced to Italy. Further

In the six weeks prior to the European travel bans, the U.S. was exposed to a massive amount of travelers from a highly infected region. During that time, there were almost no checks in international airports for passengers coming from Europe, as American authorities focused their screening efforts on China travelers. The China travel restrictions were mostly cosmetic anyway — the Chinese government banned flights from the Hubei region on January 23 and was sharply reducing its cases through harsh lockdowns and quarantines.

The Trump administration appears to have considered — and rejected — an early European travel ban in January. The Washington Post reported that Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, had proposed a travel ban on affected European countries in late January, which was supported by health officials but was rebuffed by Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. As Trump faces increased criticism for a period of calamitous early inaction, he has sought to focus the blame on China, and on Saturday he published a tweet trying to discredit a New York Times story on the role of European travel in New York’s epidemic.

(Note: This does not exonerate Beijing, the regime most responsible for SARS-CoV-2.)

As cases of Covid-19 surged in Tulsa, this is how President Trump continually learned and made sure he was doing the right thing fewer than three weeks ago:

Covid-19 has become a growth industry in Oklahoma. Cases had not been rising in South Dakota, a (lack of) trend the President's visit- with few masks donned and little social distancing, as in Tulsa-F on July 4 to Mount Rushmore aimed to reverse. This is the only sense in which there is any validity to Joni Ernst's remarks. Donald Trump is in fact "stepping forward," striving to send the numbers of those infected to dizzying new heights.




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The Deal Worth Making

Steve M. notes that Senate Democrats have made their case that Trump should be impeached and believes that the congressional Democrats and their eventual presidential nominee eventually will "be better off if the trial is over soon, and is perceived as one-sided and unfair."  He wonders why "all the Republicans (are not) rushing to embrace" the proposal of Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that both John Bolton and Hunter Biden testify. He argues

If I were a Republican, I'd embrace it, for the most cynical reasons. If Democrats get John Bolton, Republicans will get Hunter Biden. If the Democrats' list lengthens, maybe Joe Biden is next for the Republicans, or maybe it's Adam Schiff or the whistleblower. The more witnesses the Democrats get, the more Republicans have a chance to make the case all about the Bidens, House Democrats, and the Deep State, after which they can use their superior messaging skills to proclaim that all their narratives have been borne out by witness testimony. (Schiff can hold his own, and I imagine the whistleblower can as well, but do you trust Hunter Biden on the witness stand? Do you trust Joe Biden, who can be maddeningly inarticulate, and who often seems to go into debates, especially in this election cycle, showing signs of having underprepared?)

Do you think testimony from Bolton, Mulvaney, or other witnesses on the Democrats' wish list will bust the case wide open? Why? Just because Bolton, in particular, appears willing to offer a firsthand account confirming Trump's guilt? The whole point of Alan Deshowitz's presentation last night in the trial was: It doesn't matter if Trump did it. You can't impeach him even if he is guilty of everything mentioned in the articles. Forty-plus percent of the country has believed from the beginning of Trump's presidency that literally nothing he does can be called a crime, or even an error in judgment. To these people, Trump is amazing. They're unbudgeable. Nothing said against him in the trial will matter to them. And if it doesn't matter to them, it won't matter to the Republicans who represent them in the Senate, who'll be thanked for their votes to acquit even after damning witness testimony.

This is accurate and insightful as far as it goes. However, there is a trade Democrats should offer.

Polls indicate that many Democratic voters have as their highest priority finding a nominee who would defeat President Trump.  It's impossible to determine now who that candidate is. However, a couple of Republicans, including Iowa senator Joni Ernst, think they know.

ERNST: "IA 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 Demcaucus goers. Will they be supporting VP Biden at this point?"

H/T @JaxAlemany pic.twitter.com/tYYkSPuIDY

— Alan He (@alanhe) January 28, 2020

In an ad looking toward a possible presidential candidacy in 2024, Republican governor Rick Scott, as reported by Politico, "also vowed that, if witnesses are called in Trump’s impeachment, he’ll make sure Biden is called to testify." And it's clear he's not talking about Hunter because

“If that happens, he will be too cowardly to show up,” Scott said. “But if he did show up, here’s what I will ask him: Mr. Biden, why did you as vice president of the United States threaten a foreign country and force them to fire a prosecutor, who was investigating a company that was paying your son $83,000 a month?”

Earlier, this month, the Emperor himself:

....Joe Biden, and Bernie is shut out again. Very unfair, but that’s the way the Democrats play the game. Anyway, it’s a lot of fun to watch!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020

Though probably wrong, Washington Republicans certainly seem to believe that the former senator and vice-president is the strongest candidate against The Chosen One. That is the reason- though only part of the reason- that they lust after the testimony of Hunter Biden. 

O.K., Democrats should say, "we'll play along,"  You want Hunter Biden we'll give you Hunter Biden. But we don't want John "Bombs Away" Bolton in return. We'll permit the testimony of Biden the Younger- but only after Donald J. Trump testifies.

Republicans would nix that deal because there is no one they want to shield from testifying more than Mr. Trump. They understand that as their king went down in flames, so, too, would their political career..

We'd be back where we are now, in which Republicans don't want witnesses while Democrats and the voters emphatically do. Only at that point it would be even more obvious that Republicans don't want witnesses, and that they denied the public an opportunity to hear from the one individual at the very center of this scandal.

Steve M., therefore, is right- Democrats should reject a Bolton for H. Biden deal. But a counter-proposal is nearly always appreciated by onlookers (voters, in this case) and a refusal by President Trump to testify would make very clear what still appears murky to some Americans.

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Trump A-OK With Them

In early August, CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer wrote

Many Republican legislators have been reluctant to tackle the Russia problem, while only a handful of Republicans actually voted "no" on the health care bill despite all the fireworks about the revolt of the moderate three in the Senate. A surprising number of House Republicans outside the Freedom Caucus voted in support of an extraordinarily conservative bill. As Jennifer Senior wrote in her New York Times review of Sen. Flake's new book: "But Flake has also cast most of his votes in favor of Trump's policies."

Almost no Republicans have objected to the extreme measures that President Trump has been pursuing through executive action, such as rolling back regulations to curb climate change or ramping up border security.

There was little pushback when the President responded to his week of crisis by supporting legislation to severely cut down on immigration and "joked" about wanting more police brutality, all of which were meant to be part of what amounted to "Don't Worry, I'm a Conservative Republican Week." 

Two months later, and it's more of the same.  Politico reports

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday downplayed the ongoing feud between President Donald Trump and GOP Sen. Bob Corker, advising the two men to talk through their differences but also joking that he’s been there, too.

The Wisconsin Republican, known for his no-drama approach to Trump, quipped that “I’ve had my share too” when asked about the Corker-Trump spat. Trump often hit Ryan last year for initially refusing to endorse his candidacy and then later refusing to campaign with him following Trump's “Access Hollywood” scandal.

No. President Obama was "no drama Obama." The Speaker of the House is "Donald, may I kiss your ass Ryan."

Ryan is a member of the House of Representatives, almost required by law to chide Senators.  But the other chamber is bringing to itself no glory as yesterday we learned

The standoff has Senate Republicans forced to choose between a senior senator and the president of their own party. And it's exacerbating the perception of Republican dysfunction at a time that the party's agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill and a slate of outsiders is threatening primaries against GOP incumbents.

The Corker-Trump tussle has been playing out for months, but it ratcheted up after Corker announced his retirement two weeks ago.

Trump “needs to stop. But I wish Bob would stop too. Just stop,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in an interview Tuesday. "We’ve got so many other things that we need to be focusing on right now. We need to look ahead, not reflect on anything that’s been done or said in the past.”

Suggesting an equivalence between President Trump and Senator Corker- or between Donald Trump and almost anyone not actively associated with organized crime- is an example of moral equivalence, which conservatives of an earlier generation would decry. However, the GOP, Senator Ernst contends, should "be focusing on right now" and must "look ahead."

So here is something for Joni Ernst to focuse on now- the war the President is coaxing Kim Jong Un to begin. She can look ahead, even, to the hundreds of thousands of Korean lives which probably would be lost.

But she won't, will she? GOP senators, willing to sell their country out for tax cuts for the wealthy under the banner "tax reform," are ethically bankrupt. Bob Corker is no profile in courage, yet is beginning to look like a fortress of bravery compared to his colleagues.

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An Old Playbook

Incensed that President Obama wants to fund community college for good students by increasing income tax on the top 1% of earners, Fox News pundit Todd Starnes remarked

we all know that President Obama wants universal community college: free tuition for every person in America. But I’m having a hard time finding where the Constitution mandates that every American is entitled to an associate’s degree. We are now six years into the Obama presidency and they have a reputation for being less than truthful. Take for example this notion of free community college. 

It turns out that free education is going to cost American taxpayers $60 billion over the next decade, and that doesn’t even include all of the free condoms and cell phones and medicinal marijuana bongs. You know, back when I was growing up, college kids were expect to work their way through school, it was considered shameful to ask for a handout. But this is Obama’s America and the entitlement crowd thinks that they are entitled to our money.

Digby comments "They're giving away free condoms and medicinal marijuana bongs in college? I think that's great. Good public health is good for all of us. And if everyone had cell phones we'd all be safer. These strike me as excellent, low cost benefits. "

Free condoms actually would be a splendid idea. But the policy would strike at the heart of the conservative vision of women as baby factories, a role even the Pope now finds antiquated, leaving Rick Santorum confused. Medical marijuana would be of great comfort to many Americans in pain, so Republicans won't allow that, and we already know the right resents poor people with cell phones.

Digby notes also that Starnes was subsidized handsomely by the taxpayers of Georgia as a student at Georgia State University.  It is a Galt fantasy of having done it all alone, which is reminiscent of one of the greatest conservative songs of all time, of a bygone era which virtually never was.









It has its modern expression in the GOP beyond Starnes. In her (official GOP) rebuttal to the President's State of the Union address, freshman Senator Joni Stepford of Iowa (truly a grinmeister) maintained of her family:

They had very little to call their own except the sweat on their brow and the dirt on their hands. But they worked, they sacrificed, and they dreamed big dreams for their children and grandchildren.

And because they did, an ordinary Iowan like me has had some truly extraordinary opportunities because they showed me that you don’t need to come from wealth or privilege to make a difference. You just need the freedom to dream big, and a whole lot of hard work.

This is a variation of humblebrag, in which a man or woman of accomplishment implies "my parents afforded me few privileges, so everything I got I accomplished on my own." But it probably goes beyond phony to dishonest for, as the Des Moines Register's Jack Pompe explains

Any self-respecting poor Iowa farm kid knows that one doesn't wear bread sacks over their shoes to protect their good shoes. You wear the bread sacks between your socks and shoes to keep your feet dry. If worn over your shoes, a bread bag would be ripped and torn before a kid got out the door. Also a truly poor farm kid probably does not have a pair of good shoes worth protecting.

John Cole, at 44 the some age as Senator Stepford, argues bread bags "didn’t mean you were poor. It meant you didn’t like wet feet."

Ernst's response bumps up against reality also because, the District Sentinel News Co-Op recently reported

The truth about her family’s farm roots and living within one’s means, however, is more complex. Relatives of Ernst (née: Culver), based in Red Oak, Iowa (population: 5,568) have received over $460,000 in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009. Ernst’s father, Richard Culver, was given $14,705 in conservation payments and $23,690 in commodity subsidies by the federal government–with all but twelve dollars allocated for corn support. Richard’s brother, Dallas Culver, benefited from $367,141 in federal agricultural aid, with over $250,000 geared toward corn subsidies. And the brothers’ late grandfather Harold Culver received $57,479 from Washington—again, mostly corn subsidies—between 1995 and 2001. He passed away in January 2003.

The Sentinel cross-referenced the Environmental Working Group farm subsidy database with open source information to verify the Culvers’ interest in the Department of Agriculture’s crop support program.

Sen. Ernst’s family’s financial interest notably came up once during her campaign. In October, Salon reported that Richard’s construction company was awarded $215,665 in contracts from the Montgomery County government in 2009 and 2010, while Ernst was the body’s auditor. The bids won by Culver included Federal Emergency Management Agency projects worth $204,794.

President Obama, channeling, somewhat ineffectively, a great liberal vision, had stated "I still believe that we are one people. I still believe that together, we can do great things, even when the odds are long" and  "Let's begin this new chapter – together – and let's start the work right now."

Joni Ernst, too, suggested "we work together"- for more free trade deals throwing Americans out of work; lowering taxes for corporations, whose declining tax burden has been replaced by one growing for the middle class; and by approving Keystone XL, because ramping up climate change and supplying the energy needs of mainland China must be our greatest priorities.

Starnes, Ernst, Roy Rogers, whomever, it's still the Republican dream, sold as reality: you can do it on your own. More realistic and patriotic is this:











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Para Y Against Immigration Reform

It was an excellent theory- rational, objective, and thoughtful. And we can't hold Maddow Blog's Steve Benen responsible for being wrong, or at least partly wrong, given that his stab at an explanation occurred 13-14 hours before, rather than after, the State of the Union addresses and the rebuttals to it.

Benen noted there would be several GOP responses to the President's Tuesday evening speech.   The official response would be given by ultra-right wing Joni Ernst, the new senator from Iowa. Freshman Representative Carlos Curbelo of Florida, an outlier among Republicans in his support for a path to citizenship, would offer what Benen understandably described as the "’Spanish-language response, which will reportedly mirror the substance of Ernst’s speech."  An official Tea Party response would come from Representative Curt Clawson of Florida, with Rand Paul and Ted Cruz also responding to the President.

For those keeping score at home, that would be five(5) rebuttals, so Benen understandably argued

As we talked about last year at this time, let’s not forget that there used to be one Republican response because the party wouldn’t tolerate any other scenario. GOP lawmakers who deliberately chose to step on – or worse, contradict – their party’s scripted message risked raising the ire of party leaders and insiders. Only one SOTU response was given because no Republican in Congress would dare challenge – or even think to challenge – the party’s message operation.

Those norms have collapsed. “There is no clear leadership in the Republican Party right now, no clear direction or message, and no way to enforce discipline,” Mark McKinnon, a veteran Republican strategist, said last year. “And because there’s a vacuum, and no shortage of cameras, there are plenty of actors happy to audition.”

Rand Paul clearly wants to be President and Ted Cruz, who wouldn't mind being in the Oval Office, has an underestimated interest in someday being Senate Majority Leader.  And an official Tea Party response gives credibility to Joni Ernst (and congressional Republicans, whom she clearly was representing; video below) as being something other than a well-dressed, reasonably articulate, female neo-Bircher with a smile that never ends.










The response by Carlos Curbelo was of quite a different nature, however. Politico reports

Republicans sent mixed signals on immigration in their two official rebuttals to President Obama Tuesday night: Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst’s rebuttal made no mention of the topic, but the Spanish-language version of the rebuttal, delivered by Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, said Republicans wanted to work with Obama to fix the immigration system.

“We should also work through the appropriate channels to create permanent solutions for our immigration system, to secure our borders, modernize legal immigration, and strengthen our economy,” said Curbelo in Spanish. “In the past, the president has expressed support for ideas like these. Now we ask him to cooperate with us to get it done.”

Earlier on Tuesday, House Republicans had described Curbelo’s response as “the Spanish-Language translated address of Sen. Joni Ernst response.” That language was later removed from the release, according to Mother Jones.

The addition to Ernst's speech may have been a mistake or the immigration-friendly congressman going rogue. Not quite, however, inasmuch as

In an interview after the speech, Curbelo said he chose to focus on immigration as well as other issues personally important to him – such as education and Cuba – aside from the party’s broader economic message that was reflected in Ernst’s rebuttal.

He had asked for a copy of Ernst’s prepared remarks a few days in advance of Tuesday’s address, and then made his own additions, including the references to immigration. Leadership saw the remarks beforehand and were fine with them, Curbelo said. “I did not get any pushback whatsoever.”

Of course he didn't. In the GOP's defense Ernst, prudently, said nothing about immigration. Still, inclusion of support- in Spanish- of creating "appropriate channels to create permanent solutions for our immigration system" in what was promoted as a mere Spanish translation of the Party's official response clearly was a shout-out, a thumbs-up, to Hispanic voters, who overwhelmingly reject the approach of the Repub Party.

It's not only Democrats who can read the political tea leaves, or demographic charts. Repubs understand as a win-win a successful effort to chip away at the Hispanic vote while opposing policies which might actually help Latinos: raising the minimum wage, lowering the cost of a college education, requiring sick leave, reducing the relative burden of taxation upon the middle class, or implementation of carbon-reduction initiatives.

The GOP's popular base may not understand the Repub Party will not fight to the death only immigration which includes an achievable path to citizenship. The co-existence of a rebuttal in English and an altered one in Spanish, delivered to predominantly different audiences, fits in well with a strategy of guys and gals determined to keep their real intentions from the average people who vote for them.  If the Party consistently votes as one (or close to it) to destroy the aspirations of the middle and working classes, the least it can do is treat them as children and keep  them in the dark.





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