Meet the Newly Empowered Right-wing Radicals

Some of the most extreme right-wing radicals got elected to Congress Tuesday. Let's begin with Glenn Grothman, who won Wisconsin's 6th District. Grothman wants toeliminate weekends, and believes "no people...care about Kwanza, just white left-wingers." He co-sponsored a bill that equated single-parenthood with child abuse. In addition...

Joni Ernst Is the Tea Party's Endgame

EARLY LAST THURSDAY MORNING, Joni Ernst, the Republican candidate for Senate in Iowa, swung by the Des Moines Rotary Club to speak at the group's monthly lunch meeting. Mostly white and mostly male, the club counts much of the state's political elite among its members. The day Ernst visited, I spotted the current Republican secretary of state, the GOP's nominee to succeed him, a Republican state senator and former congressional nominee, and a former state GOP chair in the crowd. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, who is about to win his sixth term in office, wasn't there, but his son Eric was sworn into the club before Ernst spoke.

Republican Joni Ernst Admits Why Republicans Really Hate Obamacare

Conservatives have made a series of specific predictions about the effects of Obamacare — overall costs would rise, insurers would flee the exchanges, premiums would go up, the ranks of the uninsured would not even fall. All these predictions have failed. And yet conservative opposition to the law has not diminished. If you want to know why this is, listen to these secretly recorded comments from Iowa Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst, via Radio Iowa and Greg Sargent. Here Ernst, speaking candidly to supporters, gets to the root of conservative opposition:

How Does This GOP Senate Candidate Keep Getting Away With Such Terrible Gaffes?

This year's Iowa Senate race—a key contest that could determine whether Republicans gain control of the upper body—has so far not been shaped by titanic policy issues. Instead, farm animals have played a larger role. GOP state Sen. Joni Ernst, who is up against Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley in this much-watched face-off, got a boost from an ad in which she bragged about castrating hogs. Braley has been hurt by the news that he allegedly threatened* a lawsuit against a neighbor whose chickens had wandered into his yard. Ernst has accused Braley of sexism for including stock footage of baby chickens—i.e., "chicks"—in an ad that asserted she had not made a "peep" about cutting government pork.