Do you know Joni Ernst?  She's the new "Tea Party" senator from Iowa.  With her mannish hairdo and her photo-ops riding a motorcycle, she was supposed to be a cultural connection between "modern" quasi-masculine women and conservatism.

It hasn't quite worked out that way.  She is the head of a Senate "working group" that is working on legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.  Ernst is outraged by the reports of PP selling baby organs.  The only problem is that the legislations she has been working on has no chance of becoming law, and when she did have a chance to defund Planned Parenthood on Sunday, for real, she was silent.

This legislation that Ernst and others are working on may pass the Senate, but there is no guarantee that it will ever be taken up by the House.  That's because it's not attached to a must-pass piece of spending legislation.  Because of that, the House may never take it up, and even if the House does take it up and pass it, Obama can veto it without consequence.

On Sunday, the Senate was considering amendments to the highway bill.  Ted Cruz and Mike Lee tried to add an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, and their motion was squashed for lack of "sufficient second," meaning not enough senators backed them to even consider it as an amendment.  In fact, the only backers were Cruz, Lee, and Mike Crapo of Idaho.  If they had been successful, the House would have had to consider the legislation because it was attached to the must-pass highway bill.  If it were sent to Obama, he would have at least some difficulty vetoing it, because, again, that would cancel the highway bill.

But Ernst was silent when she had an opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood that mattered.  The other members of her small group, James Lankford and Rand Paul, also developed laryngitis on Sunday, when it mattered.

“As a mother and grandmother, I find this footage of Planned Parenthood’s role in the harvesting of the organs of unborn babies morally reprehensible and vile,” Ernst said. “The American people are horrified by these videos as well. Simply put, this legislation ensures that funding for women’s health is protected and that taxpayer dollars will not go to Planned Parenthood.”

What Joni Ernst (along with James Lankford and Rand Paul) is doing is pure symbolism, meant to convince conservatives that she is addressing the problem.  The same goes for the other 51 Republican senators who would not stand up and second Ted Cruz's effort to defund Planned Parenthood on Sunday, when it actually mattered.

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.