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HERSHEY, Pa. — Republican congressional leaders announced Thursday that they had picked one of their newly elected members, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, to deliver the party’s response to President Obama’s State of the Union address next week... Mr. McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, made the announcement at the House and Senate Republican policy retreat... The selection of Mrs. Ernst ruffled environmentalists, who oppose her views on climate change... Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/15/joni-ernst-deliver-gop-response-state-union/#ixzz3OvyXcXjD Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

NOVEMBER 7, 2014 2:43 PM Senator Soldier: A Day After Winning, Joni Ernst Is Back In Fatigues Iowa’s new senator-elect has other duties before she heads to Washington.By Benny Johnson Des Moines — A day after winning one of the most contested Senate seats in the country, Joni Ernst reported for duty at her National Guard base. Ernst, a lieutenant colonel, started two days of training with the 185th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion on Thursday. “Not many folks know she is in uniform on Thursday and Friday,” Ernst’s husband Gail tells National Review Online, “She does it without fanfare.” A...

Joni Ernst, who may become Iowa’s next senator, denies climate change, supports a personhood amendment and says she’d use her “beautiful little Smith & Wesson” to defend herself “from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.” She’s also seriously flirted with a John Birch Society–backed conspiracy theory about an evil plot called Agenda 21. But all you’d know from the corporate media is that Ernst made a really catchy ad about castrating pigs and that she is supposedly (but not really) the victim of a sexist remark made by outgoing Democratic senator Tom Harkin.

The media’s sense of entitlement is really something to behold whenever they feel like they aren’t getting their due. The most recent example of this phenomenon has been the media’s reaction to Joni Ernst’s decision to skip meetings with three editorial board meetings, including one with the Des Moines Register, last week. The media, predictably, is up in arms over the gall of Ernst in skipping their gatekeeping function, leading the media to declare that Ernst is unfit for office. Predictably, Ernst has responded that she sees no value added in wasting her time kowtowing to people who aren’t going...

R.D. Lampe with the Boone, Iowa police department confirms exclusively to Breitbart News that a bomb threat was called in to the Iowa Roast and Ride with a voice recorder. He later added that as that event was ending, a second bomb threat was called to authorities in Polk county. Lampe says that when bomb threats are made, it’s usually difficult to track down the caller. He says a number can be traced, but it’s usually a throw-away phone. The potential security breach prevented candidates getting to their tents and greeting voters for a time on Saturday. At least seven...

In Phyllis Peters’s garage, there is a snow shovel. A nice one: green, shiny, with an ergonomic steel handle. It came from Hillary Rodham Clinton. And it plays a part in a modern-day political legend, about some of the strangest money a candidate has ever spent. Eight years ago, Peters was a volunteer for Clinton’s first presidential run. She had been an admirer of Clinton since her time as first lady. But just before Clinton lost the Iowa caucuses, her staffers did something odd: They bought shovels for Peters and the hundreds of other volunteers.

* Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and co. are taking off from a Harley-Davidson dealership this morning in Des Moines for a 39 mile ride to Boone * Ride honoring the nation's veterans attracted only one candidate for the White House: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker * Perry will also ride with a group of veterans to Ernst's first annual 'Roast and Ride' but he's starting in Perry, Iowa * Will keep the spotlight on Perry, who is making the journey with Taya Kyle, wife of 'American Sniper,' and Marcus Luttrell, the 'Lone Survivor' * A half a dozen current and presumed...

Boone, Iowa — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker hopped on a Harley Saturday to raise his profile in this early presidential nominating state.A half dozen other presidential candidates were on hand, but Walker was the only one to participate in the ride with U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and 300 other bikers. The 39-mile ride honoring veterans wove from the Big Barn Harley-Davidson dealer in Des Moines to the Boone County exposition grounds that will host the Iowa Straw Poll in August....Walker regularly promotes the motorcycle company headquartered in Menomonee Falls and owns a 2003 Road King that his wife Tonette...

Scott Walker hasn’t yet said that he’s running for president. But the Wisconsin governor is working to brand himself as the plain-speaking, Miller-drinking, cheap-clothes-wearing candidate who understands the struggles of the middle class. And he rides a Harley. This weekend is an opportunity to showcase it: He’s taking part in a “Roast and Ride” fundraiser for Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst (R), who drew national attention last year when she ran campaign ads saying that she castrated hogs growing up on a farm and that she isn’t afraid to “make ’em squeal” in Washington. (Walker’s political organization recently hired Ernst’s former...

The distance from Chicago to Dubuque, or Clinton, or Davenport is around 200 miles. It’s almost 250 from Burlington. This is a drive of four to five hours, even with no traffic. Yet recent and proposed actions by the federal government make Eastern Iowa part of the “greater-Chicago area.” The expanding federal nanny state has decided that our river towns, struggling to provide good jobs and decent housing for low-income people who already live here, should focus on recruiting low-income people from outside the state, instead of recruiting military veterans, active retirees, or young graduates, who can remain home, start...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s clashes with conservative activists are nothing new: A bitter battle over racial preferences and liberal judges has raged in the tight-knit world of Lone Star politics since 2001. In the days following George W. Bush’s election to the presidency, the newly minted Gov. Perry had a chance to prove his mettle by nominating justices to fill two Texas Supreme Court vacancies. Following Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative activists had been awakened to a new kind of politics — the politics of judicial nominations — and Perry’s selection...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took a shot at former Gov. Jeb Bush's (R) prospects of clinching the 2016 Republican nomination for president on Thursday by wondering (rhetorically) if Bush could win any of the three crucial early primary states —New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Iowa. "If you look historically since World War II no one has ever won the nomination without winning at least one of those first three," Cruz said Thursday afternoon in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. "That has certainly been history. I think it's an interesting challenge for a number of other of these...

For those Democrats who insist their party is utterly mainstream, pragmatic rather than ideological, and right in the center of American politics, I have some news for you: You’re not. The New York Times published a story reporting that Bernie Sanders — that would be the socialist Bernie Sanders, referred to by the Times as “the Senate’s most left-wing member” — is not only gaining momentum in Iowa, he has “been inspiring fervor among the Democratic base.” And how he has. The Times story points to the fact the Sanders drew 700 people to an event on Thursday night in...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Senator Joni Ernst’s Jobs, Opportunity, and New Ideas PAC announced that elected leaders from across the state will join declared and potential presidential candidates at the Roast and Ride event to be held at the Central Iowa Expo in Boone on June 6th. Newly confirmed speakers include Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Chuck Grassley, Congressmen Steve King and Congressman David Young. Previously, Ernst announced that Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker would be speaking at the event as well. Prior to the roast, Ernst...

Can we all stop pretending that there’s any real suspense in this presidential race?As the children’s book says: Voters, it’s time to “Go the [expletive] to sleep.” You can turn off Fox, MSNBC, and CNN; you can close Twitter; you can sign off your crazy uncle’s Facebook feed. I am going to tell you, right now, what the political landscape of the future looks like so you don’t waste your time over the next year listening to a parade of pundits or watching those ridiculous primary debates. The 2016 election is going to come down to Hillary vs. Jeb, of...

DAVENPORT, Iowa — Rand Paul would notch a big victory in Washington just after midnight Monday if he follows through on his promise to block the renewal of the anti-terrorism law used to justify domestic spying programs. But back in Iowa, where Paul has tried to use the issue in recent days to revive his struggling presidential campaign, many Republican voters have responded with unease. Even some who stood in line to see Paul as he traveled the state last week said that they simply could not agree with his argument that the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection was...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker holds a 7-point advantage among Iowan voters over the rest of the crowded Republican field in the scramble for the party’s 2016 nomination for president, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll finds. The poll, released late Saturday afternoon, shows Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee rounding out the top five in the state, which, as the first-in-the-nation caucus, is a critical battleground for presidential hopefuls. Walker captured 17% of the vote among likely GOP caucus-goers. He first gained...

Wisconsin Governor and likely GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker joined the Howie Carr radio show on Friday to praise GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and knock a recent Washington Times story. A columnist for the Boston Herald and talk radio host, Carr took to Twitter posting quotes during his interview with Walker. His first tweet read, “@ScottWalker tells me WashTimes story is inaccurate. He will not be skipping Iowa. IAPolitics “We play to win.””

Sen. Marco Rubio will not participate in the Iowa Straw Poll, his campaign team confirmed Saturday. The Florida senator and 2016 hopeful’s decision marks the latest blow to the August event long considered a staple on the Republican road to the presidential nomination. Jeb Bush, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Mike Huckabee have all said they won’t participate this cycle. Many, including Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Rand Paul, have yet to signal if they will attend.