Here at Wonkette, we’ve been on the “Joni Ernst is an asshole” beat ever since the Iowa senator first slithered out of her state’s numerous cornfields with her hog castration knife clenched firmly between her no-nonsense Midwestern teeth.
We had kind of forgotten just how much of an asshole Ernst is until we went trawling through our archives, because at this point a lunatic senator who made her election calling card the fact that she’s cut the balls off of hogs, believes in Agenda 21, promised to have state law enforcement arrest any federal officials trying to implement Obamacare, and screams “Woke!” at everything like a parakeet with a head injury is simply par for the course. The crazy has fully taken over, and now the entire GOP resembles a horde of those infected flower people in “The Last of Us.”
And yet, our jaw still somehow dropped this weekend when Ernst almost literally told her constituents to fuck off and die at a town hall, then doubled down on the sentiment in a video that she filmed in a goddamn graveyard. How Iowans are not outside her house right now waving pitchforks and pelting her with pig testicles is beyond us.
To briefly recap: Last week, Ernst was holding a town hall with her constituents, something most Republicans in Congress have been avoiding for the last four months, lest they have to hear some very uncomfortable questions from voters. Questions like why are you limpdicked douche noodles sitting on your butts while a reportedly ketamine-addled billionaire rolls back the entire 20th century while lining his own pockets to build rockets that it feels like barely clear the launch tower before they explode?
And what the hell?
And no, seriously, what the hell????
Ernst was trying to justify the massive $700 billion or so in cuts to Medicaid that the Republican House put into its giant budget bill that is now headed to the Senate. That number would include up to $8 billion in Medicaid cuts in Iowa over the next ten years, according to KFF.
People are very mad about these cuts, as people tend to get when you take away their access to health care. When someone pointed out that “people will die” if these cuts go through, Ernst sneered back, “We’re all going to die.”
Then the audience roundly booed her, so she sneered at it some more.
The video is here:
Aw, hog balls! Sure, everyone’s going to die someday. But some people will have a harder and more painful and often premature time of it because they don’t have access to good health care. Joni Ernst, as a military veteran and a member of Congress, will have all the care she needs, so why should she care about anyone else.
All of Ernst’s yammer about the cuts only affecting people who by law are not eligible for Medicaid is such transparent horse-hockey. The cuts are huge, indiscriminate and will hurt lots of people who are eligible for the program. Rural hospitals will close, and Iowa is a rural state, so we’re guessing those hospitals serve a significant percentage of its population.
Also, Republicans aren’t saying exactly how much fraud there is because they have no idea. And isn’t that what we already have fraud investigations for?
Plus, after the last four months of slashing and burning the government, why would anyone trust the people in charge to make any cuts in a measured way? They are just going to do what they have been doing. Instead of going in with a scalpel, they are going in with a hatchet, cutting everything and assuming anyone who accidentally gets tossed off the Medicaid rolls will be able to get back on. This ignores just how difficult that will be with all the bureaucracy involved, and also the not-insignificant fact that interruptions in medical care can cost lives.
So people are quite rightly very mad at Joni Ernst for saying this very, very stupid thing! It’s hard to believe considering the results of the last election, but most voters in this country are not nihilists.
Not to worry, though. Joni Ernst has heard your anger, and she has responded with this incredible video, in which she mocks her constituents’ concern about their access to medical care. And she does so while walking through a graveyard, just for that extra bit of spitting in everyone’s faces:
“I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Thank you, ma’am. We encourage you to find the nearest ocean and embrace an angry octopus.
Even in our heightened cynical state, we were surprised enough by the stupidity of a politician who is up for re-election next year posting something this callous, arrogant, and contemptuous. Surprised enough that honestly, we had to be assured that it was not in fact a very well-done AI video.
This was before we went through the glorious Wonkette archive and remembered that Joni Ernst has long been that much of an asshole.
The contempt for voters dripping from Ernst’s lips is frightening. Rarely have we seen the contempt of a person who does not care a whit about the health and well-being of her voters laid out so clearly. Ernst clearly thinks she’s got a job for life, and she has no fear that the citizens of Iowa might rise up and kick her out of office.
This is, we think, a very dangerous attitude for someone who has not won either of her two general election campaigns for Senate with more than 52 percent of the vote and will face voters again in 17 months.
We’re not sure she even wants to be a senator anymore, in which case we hope whichever Democrat runs against her in 2026 will get her out of all our faces once and for all, with votes.
[YouTube / YouTube / Rolling Stone]
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I may be in the minority, but I’m glad she said it. Every time someone on the far right maga cult says something insane, I’m actually kind of happy. Why? Because that way everyone gets to see who they truly are. No hiding. No clever indirect soundbites. Just leopards, out in the open, in the light of day, talking about the faces they intend to eat, showing zero concern or empathy.
Note: Of course I wish they weren’t going to be that way at all, but I gave up hope on that one a while back.
You know what else could die, Joni? Farm subsidies.