23 Reasons Why Iowans Need to be Spanked Until They are 50 Shades of Red, White and Blue

23 Reasons Why Iowans need to be Spanked Until they are 50 Shades of Red, White and Blue 

Iowa, Iowa, Iowa; that is all we are going to hear from here on. Every politician is running around Iowa as if their lives depended on it. This will not cease until Election Day. I live in New York, as do 20,000,000 others. Iowa has a population of 3,000,000, 91 percent of whom are white. But does any national politician give a damn about the views of New Yorkers? Yes, they come to New York City, but only to collect money, which they use to go to Iowa to buy Iowan votes.

When it comes to Iowa, politicians are advised to undertake the “The Full Grassley” (named after Iowa Senator Grassley), i.e. to visit each of the state’s 99 districts. Rick Santorum has already completed his first lap and the race to the bottom has barely begun—Walker had planned to do the same before he pulled out.

Iowa has three key magnets: 1) Giving your opponents a good hiding in the Iowa Primary can be a launching pad for any presidential hopeful; 2) Iowa is a key swing state—that means politicians must bend over backwards to submit themselves to the whims of the Iowa voters; 3) Iowa is a small state, so prostituting oneself can be done, on the come.

So what do Iowans get in return for their submissiveness? As it happens, rather a lot:

We the taxpayers gave Iowa over $25 billion in farm subsidies from 1995–2012. Iowa gets significantly more (about 100 percent more) farm subsidies than half of the country combined—which is able to live with far less. So the government is wet nursing the Iowans. These twenty states get less combined in farm subsidies than Iowa does all by itself.

So what do we the taxpayers get in return for our generosity? A thank you note maybe? Iowans must love us right? No! Actually, all we get is a kick in the balls. If only it was just that, we also get something far worse.

We get Joni Ernst, possibly the most vile and idiotic senator in the country. Is Senator Ernst a small fry from a small state? Absolutely not, as I will soon explain.

By voting for Joni Ernst, Iowans are abusing everyone else from their ivory tower of undeserved power. Here are 23 reasons why Iowans need to be spanked; 23 policy ideas, falsehoods, and twofaced agendas promoted by Iowa’s Joni Ernst.

1. She supports a “personhood” amendment that could make all abortions illegal and endanger birth control and in vitro fertilization.
2. She has called for President Barack Obama’s impeachment.
3. She would support legislation that would allow “local law enforcement to arrest federal officials attempting to implement [Obamacare].”
4. She thinks states should be free to nullify federal laws.
5. Ernst has proposed eliminating the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education, and the Environmental Protection Agency as a means of cutting federal spending.
6. Ernst has expressed her support for allowing law-abiding citizens to “freely carry” weapons.
7. She carries a “beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter,” in her purse in part to protect her “from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.”
8. She buys into the conspiracy theory that the United Nations’ “Agenda 21” is a secret plan to usurp democracy.
9. She suggested that an international cabal would relocate her constituents to Des Moines
10. She told the Des Moines Register editorial board in May that the United States really did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
11. She has spoken in favor of privatizing Social Security and waxed nostalgic about the time, before food stamps, when “wonderful food pantries” took care of the poor.
12. She is opposed to a federal minimum wage and has said that $7.25 an hour suffices for Iowans.
13. On the subject of global warming, Ernst has stated: “I don’t know the science behind climate change.” (This is Koch code designed to hinder any actions on the issue)
14. She co-sponsored a failed bill to amend the Iowa constitution to have marriage legally defined as between one man and one woman. She opposes same-sex marriage.
15. She had been active with one of the most nefarious groups in the USA—the highly secretive and Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council.
16. Despite her clear history of close association with the Koch brothers, Joni Ernst claims she doesn’t have any contact with outside groups running ads in her race.
17. She is a Koch puppet. According to The Hill, the Kochs took a “particular interest in helping her campaign.” Ernst was the first candidate in an open 2014 Senate race to benefit from “maxed out” personal contributions by the Kochs. And Koch-backed groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the Freedom Partners Action Fund poured millions of dollars into Iowa, where Ernst enjoyed a $14 million outside-spending advantage over Braley.
18. Koch Puppet: Last June, Ernst told attendees at a secret Koch donor summit in Dana Point, California that, although she started as “a little-known state senator from a very rural part of Iowa,” it was “the exposure to this group and to this network and the opportunity to meet so many of you, that really started my trajectory.”
19. Ernst told business leaders in Des Moines who complained about negative ads run by Koch groups, “that she doesn’t have any contact with outside groups running ads in her race.” This is a lie—listen to the below audio.
20. The report pointed out that Ernst frequently reminded voters, and now constituents, of her combat veteran status, and she has not corrected others when they suggest she led troops into battle. Ernst did not lead her troops into combat as one of the ads supporting her claims. Her troops were not combat personnel, and their mission was not a combat one. Essentially, she was in charge of a group of truck drivers. I am sure that the mission of supply delivery had many potential hazards, but driving trucks from one secure area to another secure area is not combat, even if personnel were armed with M-16s.
21. Col. Joni Ernst, the junior senator from Iowa, is a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard. As such, she is bound by the Iowa State Code of Military Justice. Her signing of the seditious letter to Iran is a clear and direct violation of Chapter 29B.85 of the Iowa State Code of Military Justice.
22. Attempting to defund Planned Parenthood.
23. Hypocrisy: Ernst’s dad, Richard Culver, was given $14,705 in conservation payments and $23,690 in commodity subsidies by the federal government. Richard’s brother Dallas Culver benefited from $367,141 in federal agricultural aid, with over $250,000 geared toward corn subsidies. Old Granddad Harold Culver received $57,479 from Washington—again, mostly corn subsidies—between 1995 and 2001.

Now, to be fair to the Iowans, I have been avoiding the big elephant in the room. People vote for Joni Ernst because big money is effectively buying their votes and suckering their minds. And boy does money talk. Ernst is nothing but a Koch stooge, and they simply cannot find decent people to do their bidding. As Stupidparty presidential aspirants make their endless haj to Iowa, they first must navigate the stampede to Wall Street money, and then go off to the Iowan kingmakers—this time around they must all pay homage to Bruce Rastetter and others before engaging in the pretense of actually giving a damn about the voters to Iowa. The wealthiest Iowans are the guys who have figured out how to profit from the concept of big agriculture, and these guys are the Godfathers of the Stupidparty in Iowa. There is currently an agricultural land bubble with such land selling for $15,000- $20,000 an acre, creating many millionaires (out of speculators, existing and retiring farmers) but also exacerbating income discrepancy. Iowa had one of the fastest growths of millionaires last year, according to one study. Income distributions had been relatively equal in Iowa in the past, but the shift to more extreme highs and lows could bring negative consequences unless policymakers take action.

These nouveau profits are driven by federal tax subsidies, and God forbid that they share this undeserved and corrupt good fortune—but no, Iowa has some of the most regressive tax rates in the nation.

Even though Iowa has a low unemployment rate 400,000 Iowans still live below the poverty line—that’s 13 percent of the state. Who do you think picks up the tab for providing assistance to those in need? Those employees of big companies on or close to minimum wage, who though working full time cannot afford a roof over their heads, food on the table, possibly working while injured or unwell—who do you think picks up the tab? Do you think the billionaires and GOP sugar corn daddies Dennis Alburgh, Harry Stine and mini oligarch Bruce Rastetter are picking up any tabs for the rotten fruits of their efforts?

Small states are relatively easy to corrupt because even though all these visiting politicians say that they are listening to the voters, they are not. They are listening to their asset stripping backers. Coal, oil, and big agriculture control the political power centers of many small states. The ten states listed below have only 6.2 percent of the country’s population but 20 percent of the country’s senatorial political power. Iowans, having already been stripped of their land, see their state resources being stripped as well, but have unwittingly entered into a Faustian bargain. They get to keep their jobs, subsidized by sums received from the country’s taxpayers, and we the asset strippers get to reap all the profits.

The federal taxpayers are simply putting their money straight into these guys’ pockets, whether through farm subsidies or the resulting land price bubble, and then having to help clean up the social consequences of their myopic greed. This is similar to what you, the taxpayer, do every time your state government uses taxpayer money to help finance a major league sports tournament. In virtually every case these funds go into the pockets of billionaires who, rather than actually working for a living, are simply mooching off the taxpayers. So meet the real moochers. If you do not like government waste, then this taxpayer funded corporate welfare should at the top of your list. Make government better by being less wasteful, and stop tolerating politicians who are motivated and corrupted to support bad government.

Now this is the beautiful thing—we the taxpayers and the people of Iowa have a convergence of interests. The thing about Faustian deals is that there is a price to be paid. And Iowans are in grave danger of having to pay the piper. What was at the top (pish) is heading for the bottom. The vast majority of Iowans are beginning to suffer (relatively) speaking at an accelerating rate. Government largess is not intended to support elective, impoverishing, unsafe hobbies and it is not meant to support perverted logic. It can no longer keep up with the amounts being pilfered and asset stripped out of your state, into the pockets of the very few. Surrendering to mythical logic might bring a night of bliss, but you may never be able to sit down comfortably again.

It is time to scream, while you still have your safety word. RED! For stop! For soon the sadist will get so lathered up that they will not be able to hear the masochist scream, “I want my life back.”  So if you are Iowan, if you have any ethics, any sense of decency or logic, you must order your safety recall. Untie yourself from Joni Ernst and her agenda, and whip your brains back from entering a black hole.