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There’s a certain brand of Republican who ticks all the right boxes and then gets to, say, the Senate, and the magic of the Special Boys Club goes to their heads, be they male or female.

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A little more of that campaign fire in the belly seems to be extinguished every year and every new term they spend there, even as their own ambitions might grow.

Now, the Susan Collinses of the world don’t count – they were already different animals from peculiar habitats with a wildly diverse, interesting electorate of their own.

I’m talking about places you’d traditionally visualize as more middle-of-the-road, traditionally conservative, like Texas or Iowa, for instance. How does fire-eating-red Texas produce a senatorial suck-up like John Cornyn? And worse – keep them?

That sort of thing.

I’m not sure if that’s exactly what’s happened with Iowa senator Joni Ernst, but she’s brought a world of hurt Republican feelings on herself right now for her inexplicable – and agonizing – tap dancing over Pete Hegseth’s Secretary of Defense nomination.

On the surface, it’s baffling and, frankly, getting to the point where it’s pretty infuriating. Ernst had already signaled she was upset by what is obviously an anonymously sourced campaign ‘Kavanuaghing’ Hegseth across the width and breadth of media and the Democratic Party.

You’d think she’d be smarter than that.

On the 4th, she issued a tepid sort of Xweet about her meeting with him…

…and then, yesterday, this news broke.

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What is this chick’s trip? The Federalist had an intriguing bit of a clue…

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has been leading an “aggressive” personal jihad against Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, multiple sources within Trump world with direct knowledge of her outreach to Trump told The Federalist on Wednesday.

Ernst’s efforts included personal calls to Trump to urge him to dump Hegseth ahead of her meeting with the Army veteran on Wednesday afternoon. Ernst did not tell Hegseth during her meeting with him about her efforts to derail his nomination, sources told The Federalist.

“She’s waging a campaign to replace Pete with herself,” a Trump source familiar with her phone calls with Trump said.

Could it be true? Stranger things have happened with the egos on the Hill.

But Ernst would be a disaster, considering how far off the reservation she’s fallen after reaching the Boys’ Club.

For one thing, she wants to accommodate trans in the military. Excuse me? As an Army officer, vurt da furk? 

…“When it comes to wokeness in the military, I always push back because our military is not woke,” Ernst said. “I would say that there is civilian leadership of the military that is woke. OK, so there is a difference between the leadership and those that serve in uniform.”

Ernst said the military has transgender people serving in the military.

“They will bleed red just as the rest of us,” she said.

Ernst said if transgender people “bring value” to the unit, then that talent needs to be brought into our services.

“I’m looking at what’s good for our nation,” she said. “And believe me, when we’re facing a recruiting challenge right now, if people are physically willing and able to serve our country, we want them to do so.”

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It proves she’s clueless what indulging these derangement syndromes does to military readiness.

But it goes hand in glove with her votes to confirm people like Mark Milley…and Lloyd Austin.

LLOYD AUSTIN

She could ‘aye’ that incompetent, derelict SOB but is playing coy with a tiger like Pete Hegseth over an obviously targeted and completely anonymous smear campaign?

It’s one of two things. She either truly wants the job and thinks torpedoing Hegseth is going to open the door for her, which also means she doesn’t know Trump very well at all. Or she really likes the way the military is being destroyed at this moment and wants it to continue unabated, knowing full well Hegseth will come in like a wrecking ball.

Either option is disqualifying for her as a partner in any Trump administration.

It’s despicable even to have to consider it.

When even liberal rags like Rolling Stone understand this is a reckoning and a realignment that must happen, how does an Army officer and supposedly conservative Republican United States senator become the instrument denying the people what they voted for? More importantly, what veterans, the military, and our continued national security must have?

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Because of her ambition or her #feelz?

Everyone’s screaming about primarying her, but that doesn’t help the situation NOW.

And we need Hegseth NOW.

Her office inboxes need to be burning up, and phone lines burning down, not with threats, but a simple, to-the-point message:

Do the right thing, and Hegseth is that thing.

Honestly.

I don’t get these ‘Republicans.’ 

At all.