Conservatives Finally Announce Alternative To Obamacare: Just Go To The Emergency Room

BY IGOR VOLSKY/Think Progress 

Heritage president and former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint continued his campaign to convince Republicans to shut down the government in a ploy to defund the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, telling a town hall in Tampa, Florida that “This might be that last off-ramp to stop Obamacare before it becomes more enmeshed in our culture.” The law “is not about getting better health care,” he continued. Uninsured Americans “will get better health care just going to the emergency room.”

The claim may be a standard line for today’s Republicans, but it is a stark departure for DeMint and the think tank he now leads. In 1989, the Heritage Foundation was at the forefront of advocating for a requirement to purchase coverage through as system of regulated health care marketplaces, the very centerpiece of Obama’s health care reform, and later lobbied Congressional Republicans to offer the initiative as an alternative to President Bill Clinton’s health proposal.

More than a decade later, Heritage boosted former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) health reform law and the individual mandate included in it, describing the requirement as “one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.” A Heritage health care analyst said Romney’s proposal would reform the state’s “uncompensated-care payment system,” force residents to take “personal responsibility” for their health care and prevent them from simply showing up “in emergency rooms.”

Indeed, DeMint himself backed the effort when he endorsed Romney for president in 2008.

“That’s something that I think we should do for the whole country,” DeMint told Fox News. “And the governor just looked at the numbers like a good businessman and realized that we could give people private insurance policies cheaper than we could provide free health care.”

The so-called “free” care at emergency rooms is a result of The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act or (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding to treat patients for emergency medical conditions regardless of legal status or ability to pay. But EMTALA only applies to medical emergencies like heart attacks or serious injury. It does not offer any treatment for chronic conditions, leaving the millions of Americans with diabetes who need regular access to medication to stay alive, or asthma patients, or women diagnosed with breast cancer without access to care.

Studies also show that not all emergency room patients have equal outcomes. The uninsured who suffer “traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance.”

11 Reasons You’re Glad Jim DeMint Is Leaving The Senate

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

In an unexpected move, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an arch-conservative and leader of the Tea Party movement, is resigning his seat in order to head up the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC.

DeMint has been among the most extreme members of the Senate since first getting elected in 2004, drawing a hard-right line on issues from unions to LGBT rights to abortion and beyond.

Here’s a look back at some of DeMint’s Senate highlights:

1. Stood with Akin after “legitimate rape” remarks. Following Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous statement that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t become pregnant, DeMint was one of the first major conservatives to stand with the Missouri congressman. DeMint even used his political action committee to donate $90,000 to Akin’s campaign and used its network to raise hundreds of thousands more. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us,” DeMint’s group said.

2. Led the opposition against Obamacare. In 2009, during the height of the GOP’s opposition to health care reform, DeMint told a conference call of conservative activists that, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Ironically, DeMint once supported Mitt Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, the law on which Obamacare is based.

3. Wants to prevent gay or unmarried teachers from teaching in public schools.In 2010, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” During his first Senate campaign in 2004, DeMint agreed with the state party’s platform barring gay teachers from public schools, claiming that the government shouldn’t endorse certain behaviors.

4. Pushed a bill outlawing the discussion of abortion over the Internet. Last year, DeMint proposed an amendment to an unrelated bill that would have barred a woman and her doctor from discussing abortion over the internet, even if her health was at risk and tele-conferencing was the most feasible option to receive care.

5. Wants to strip all federal employees of collective bargaining rights. Though most federal employees don’t enjoy the rights and benefits of unionization, DeMint wants to take away even the few bargaining rights they currently enjoy. “I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government,” DeMint told ThinkProgress last year.

6. Blocked creation of the National Women’s History Museum. Along with fellow arch-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), DeMint placed a hold on a 2010 bill to sell land near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in order to create the National Women’s History Museum. Coburn justified their move to block the museum by noting that there already exist museums for “quilters” and “cowgirls”.

7. Likened striking Chicago teachers to “thugs” in the Middle East. Speaking at the Values Voters Summit in September 2012, DeMint blasted Chicago teachers who were on strike for a brief period earlier this year. “On my way over, I was reading another story about a distant place where thugs had put 400,000 children out in the streets,” DeMint said. “And then I realized that was a story about the Chicago teachers strike.”

8. Threatened to single-handedly shut down the Senate. In September 2010, DeMint warned his colleagues that he would place a unilateral hold on every single piece of legislation in the Senate, bringing the entire lawmaking process to a grinding halt. Despite being in the minority, DeMint threatened to only allow bills to proceed that his office had personally approved.

9. Used a failed terrorist plot to attack unions. Following the failed “underwear bomber” plot in December 2009, DeMint went on Fox News and used the episode as an opportunity to bash unions. “I am concerned, because it’s related to another issue that we’re dealing with now in the Senate,” DeMint said. “The administration is intent on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses’ collective bargaining.”

10. Argued that people with pre-existing conditions got better care before Obamacare. Speaking with ThinkProgress at a Tea Party rally this year, DeMintargued that Obamacare actually hurt people with pre-existing conditions, despite that fact that it bars insurance companies from denying them care. “I can guarantee you people with pre-exisitng conditions are going to get less health care—lower quality health care—under Obamacare,” DeMint said.

11. “Willing” to cause “serious disruptions” in the economy in order to secure draconian cuts. During last year’s debt ceiling showdown, DeMint appeared on Fox Business and said that, despite the fact that not raising the debt ceiling would cause “serious disruptions,” he was “willing to do that” in order to get major cuts to social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Tea party senator wants JPMorgan CEO to ‘guide’ Congress on banking regulation

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on Wednesday asked JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who recently announced that his company had lost at least $2 billion in the derivative market, to “guide” Congress in creating friendly banking regulations.

During a U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing, DeMint told Dimon that lawmakers had no right to judge JPMorgan for their massive losses.

“We can hardly sit in judgement of your losing $2 billion,” the junior senator from South Carolina explained. “We lose twice that every day here in Washington and plan to continue to do that every day. It’s comforting to know that even with a $2 billion loss in a trade last year, your company still, I think, had a $19 billion profit. During that same period, we lost over a trillion dollars.”

“As you can tell, there’s a temptation here. Every time something goes amiss, we want to add a regulation, and we’ve surrounded the banking industry with so many regulations and we still seem to have problems here and there,” DeMint added. “I think we do need to recognize that you are a very big bank, the biggest in the world. You’ve got very big profits. Periodically you’re going to have big losses and we need to look at that as part of doing business.”

The senator continued by asking Dimon “for some ideas of what you think we need to do … to allow the industry to operate better.”

“I believe in strong regulation, not always more,” the CEO replied. “I would prefer a simple, clean, strong regulatory system with real intelligent design. And that’s not what we did. We created a really complex, hard to figure out who’s responsible, no one could adjudicate between all the various regulatory agencies.”

“Obviously as we’ve seen, the laws and regulations are not necessarily improving things,” DeMint agreed. “Some of the things you’ve done voluntarily — and other banks — like capital requirements. I think a best practice — if we could do anything to encourage the industry to develop a lot of its own voluntary rules, that would guide us a lot better.”

“So I guess if I could just leave you with any one thing, if you could come back this time next year and talk about how the industry has put together large-scale, best-practice committees, that would help us keep banking as a private enterprise rather than as a government institution.”

Dimon announced in May that his firm had lost $2 billion gambling on derivatives, but only days later, experts said the losses had surged to at least $3 billion.

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast June 13, 2012.

70 Percent Of The Cuts In GOP Sen. DeMint’s Deficit Reduction Plan Target Low-Income People

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

Last month, Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) released a budget plan along with GOP Sens. Rand Paul (KY) and Mike Lee (UT) that purports to cut $5 trillion out of the federal budget over 10 years. The plan included about $4.2 trillion in direct spending cuts (with the rest coming from reduced interest payments on the debt and the sale of government assets).

The senators claim that these reductions are simply “real, sustainable spending cuts.” However, as McClatchy reported, about 70 percent of the deficit reduction in DeMint’s plan is placed right onto the backs of low-income Americans:

A plan by Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina to slash the federal budget deficit would hit the poorest Americans especially hard, directing 70 percent of its $4.2 trillion in spending cuts at safety-net programs intended to help tens of millions of low-income people.

The plan proposes $20 billion in cuts that would affect the affluent. It suggests almost $3 trillion in cuts that would affect low-income Americans, leading one liberal economist to call the plan “cruel.”

“It’s cruel,” said Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s inexcusable to cut supports that help those adversely affected by the economic downturn.” Alan Viard, who was on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, added that “this plan places a disproportionate burden on low-income groups.”

Even with tax revenue at a 60 year low, DeMint proposes no new revenue other than from one-time sale of government assets, which is obviously not a sustainable revenue source. Interestingly, he also does nothing on Medicare, even while walloping Medicaid and means testing Social Security.

This is hardly the first time that DeMint has been the right-wing id on economic policy, as he also put forth the Senate Republican stimulus plan, which consisted of nothing but huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. He simply shows what the right-wing would do if it had absolute control of the budget: gut the social safety net while largely sparing the richest Americans any pain.

Sen. DeMint takes aim at Planned Parenthood ‘robo-abortions’

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill on Tuesday to ensure that federal funding being invested in telemedicine services can not be used by reproductive health centers like Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa have tested a program that allows pregnant women to remotely consult with a qualified physician about the abortion drug mifepristone, commonly known as RU-486. The drug can only be prescribed by specially licensed physicians.

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa sneeringly labelled the practice “robo-abortion” and submitted an amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill in June to block “telemedicine for the robo-abortions.”

DeMint submitted the same amendment to the Senate version of the legislation.

The reproductive rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America said the amendment would have profoundly negative effects on women’s health.

“What about a woman experiencing a high-risk pregnancy who is talking with her doctor through video conferencing?” Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement.

“Under Sen. DeMint’s extreme plan, if abortion came up in that doctor-patient conversation, the woman and her physician would have to go to a separate communications system. He’s calling for an abortion-only version of Skype. It is impractical, ridiculous, and, most importantly, bad for women in rural or remote areas who would not be able to discuss the full set of options with their doctor.”

A recently published study found virtual abortion counseling was just as effective and acceptable to patients as a face-to-face office visit. Women who received remote counseling had no more complications than those who had office visits.

As Government Revenues Reach A 60-Year-Low, DeMint Claims They’re At A ‘Record’ High

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

It’s an often-repeated talking point among Republicans as Washington debates taxes and spending: “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” It’srecycled, like much of today’s Republican thinking, from President Reagan, but Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) stretched the argument to its breaking point on MSNBC this morning when he said that government revenues are currently at “record” highs:

DEMINT: Four of the last five years, we’ve had record levels of revenue. And next year we have projected the highest revenue levels in history. We don’t have a revenue problem.

Watch it:

The GOP talking point on spending vs. revenue fundamentally un-serious, as both are flip sides of the same balance sheet. But even so, DeMint is just wrong.

DeMint appears to be using nominal dollars to measure revenues, instead of revenue as a percentage of GDP, which is used by all official arbiters on revenue matters, including theCongressional Budget Office. And as a percentage of GDP, government revenue is nowhere near a “record” high. In 2010, it was at its lowest level in more than 60 years, according to data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), at just at 14.9 percent.

Next year, revenues will still be at just 16.6 percent of GDP, several points below the average rates under every president since Franklin Roosevelt, including Reagan. The record high was 20.6 percent in 2000, which coincided with a balanced budget.

This makes sense — on top of lost revenue from the massive Bush tax cuts, the recessiondevastated economic output and thus the American tax base.

And DeMint seems to know this, choosing to qualify his statements about revenue with the odd time frame of five years to completely mislead viewers. He’s right that revenues in terms of dollars were at an all time high at one point in the last five years — 2007 — but he seems to intentionally ignore the fact that revenues fell of a cliff in 2009. In terms of actual dollars, in 2010, the government brought in $2.16 trillion dollars — down from $2.56 trillion in 2007.

DeMint Tells ThinkProgress He Wants To Strip All Federal Employees Of Collective Bargaining Rights

By Scott Keyes

The defining political story three months into 2011 is the spread of anti-union legislation in the states. Now, a leading senator on the right wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights at a federal level.

During an interview with ThinkProgress in Des Moines this weekend, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), a leader of the Tea Party movement and veritable kingmaker for conservative candidates, made no bones about his desire to diminish the power of public employees. DeMint told ThinkProgress that he “doesn’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government…including at the federal level.” The South Carolina senator then went on to call public employees’ unions an “unelected third party” that enjoyed “monopoly power” in negotiations. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” DeMint quipped:

KEYES: Senator, would you like to see some of these bills that we see at a state level curbing the collective bargaining rights of public employees’ unions, would you like to see those on a federal level?

DeMINT: I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government.

KEYES: Including at a federal level?

DeMINT: Including at the federal level. That’s what elections are, collective bargaining, for people who are [inaudible]. I think it just doesn’t make sense. When we’re elected as representatives, to determine the fiscal condition of the government, then to have an unelected third party bargaining at the table with monopoly power, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Watch it:

Currently, most federal public employees – with the exception of the postal service and some others – are only permitted to collectively bargain to improve their working conditions (their pay and benefits are set by Congress). However, DeMint is apparently seeking to take away even the meager rights that federal employees currently have.

The South Carolina Republican’s push to strip public employees’ unions of all their collective bargaining rights is part of a larger battle by the GOP against labor unions. Currently, the right is targeting labor unions in states across the country, from Maine to Missouri and elsewhere, with nearly-identical legislation crafted by the Koch-fundedAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Earlier this month, Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) even admitted to Fox News on air that the goal is to defund labor unions and hurt President Obama’s reelection chances.

Now, as the fight over public unions expands to more states, Sen. Jim DeMint is picking up the torch for at a federal level.

M.C.L Comment: For those liberals who are planning to replay their brilliant plan of teaching President Obama and the remaining Democrats a lesson look need to look at this.

DeMint Wants Tax Deal To Reduce The Deficit And Permanently Extend The Bush Tax Cuts

By Ben Armbruster

While most Republicans on Capitol Hill have signaled support for the tax cut deal that their leadership brokered this week with President Obama, a small minority are opposed. Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said he is against the deal because it includes a provision to extend unemployment benefits for 13 months. “We can’t just keep paying people to stay at home,” he said.

Last night on Fox News, DeMint expounded on his concerns about the deal. “This is a perfect example of how we got 14 trillion in debt as a nation,” he said. But then his reasoning quickly turned contradictory. “Republicans have something we know is good for the country, such as extending these tax rates.” Later in the interview, DeMint solidified his inconsistency. He said the measure should not increase the deficit; but, in his very next breath, he added that the deal should make the tax cuts permanent:

DEMINT: Rather than support something that is a bad deal, I think I would put my bets on a republican house fixing this thing the second week in January, when we are back in session. But I’d like to get the deal done now. But it should, in my mind not increase the deficit. And we should at least have a vote on making these rates permanent. If we do that, I think it will really help the economy the way it is structured now, I think it could actually hurt the economy by expanding the deficit. So, you know, I’ve heard countless times since I’ve been in Congress, this is the best deal we can make but frankly, with $14 trillion in debt, this is not what we need to do. We need to fight a little bit harder before we let this thing go.

Watch it:

DeMint did not say that there should be spending cuts to offset the federal revenues lost from the tax cuts, which for the wealthy alone, account for more than $800 billion over the next 10 years. Cutting taxes will increase the deficit; they are mutually constitutive. Yet, DeMint thinks the tax deal should decrease the deficit and make the Bush-era tax cuts permanent.

While the President’s priorities in the deal would help about 150 million more Americans than the GOP’s priorities would (and at less cost per person), the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation said that the tax deal would cost the government $801.3 billion over 10 years. While the 13 month unemployment benefit extension would cost $56 billion, the JCT said the two year extension of the tax cuts would cost more than $400 billion.

“This feels more than a bit surreal,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, about the tax deal’s cost. “On the heels of the work of the White House Fiscal Commission last week on how to get control of the national debt, the White House and Members of Congress choose to engage in a negotiation that involves adding increasingly larger amounts to the debt? It’s utterly exasperating.”

DeMint Opposes Tax Deal Because Of Jobless Benefits: ‘We Can’t Just Keep Paying People To Stay At Home’

By Pat Garofalo

As part of his tax deal with Congressional Republicans, President Obama managed to wring out of the GOP a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits. For months, Republicans have made each extension of benefits a protracted, drawn-out fight, even with unemployment above nine percent and five unemployed job-seekers for every job opening. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) even stayed on the Senate floor until late in the evening to personally block extending benefits, telling those asking him to relent “tough sh*t.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said yesterday that the “vast majority” of Republican senators would support the tax deal. But one who has come out with vocal opposition is Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who takes exception to the fact that the jobless benefits extension is unpaid for. “I don’t think we need to extend unemployment any further without paying for it,” he told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt yesterday. Of course, DeMint has proposed permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts without paying for a dime of it, adding $4 trillion in deficits over the next ten years alone. But according to DeMint, the problem with unemployment benefits is that they amount to “paying people to stay home,” as he told South Carolina’s News 13: The senator also said extending unemployment benefits that aren’t paid for isn’t helping add new jobs. “We can’t just keep paying people to stay at home,” said DeMint. “We’ve got to create economic activity to allow businesses to grow so they can hire people.” Watch it: As The Wonk Room noted, DeMint is hardly alone amongst his GOP colleagues in perpetuating the myth that jobless benefits encourage people to stay out of work. But research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve has found that workers who qualify for UI benefits stay unemployed just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for such benefits. Unemployment benefits are providing a vital lifeline to millions of Americans struggling in a weak economy, but DeMint would cut them off, while lavishing tax breaks on the wealthy. And it seems that DeMint would find some sympathetic ears amongst House Republicans, as a handful of them have said that they will oppose the tax deal because it has too few tax cuts and too much help for the jobless.

Inhofe Declares War On DeMint-Backed Earmark Ban, Saying Those Who Support It Are ‘Brainwashed’

By Alex Seitz-Wald While much ink has been spilled exploring the civil war between far-right tea party conservatives and more moderate Republicans, there appears to be a new rift emerging among the die-hard conservative wing in the Senate. Echoing the demands of the tea party movement, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) proposed yesterday a ban on earmarks in the Senate, and is aggressively whipping his colleagues to support it. While Republican leaders offered strong rhetoric on the campaign trail about opposing earmarks, now that the GOP has successfully taken power, they have been cool to DeMint’s proposal.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) — whom National Journal ranked as the most conservative senator in 2009 — has gone even further, declaring “an all-out war within the Senate GOP conference next week to defeat an earmark moratorium.” Inhofe has said he will take to the Senate floor Monday to deliver a “pretty strong statement” against the ban, and to call out DeMint for supporting earmarks before he was against them. DeMint “was really pro-earmark. … He ran as a pro-earmarker” as a House Member in 2004, Inhofe told Roll Call.

In an interview with conservative radio host Ed Morrissey yesterday, Inhofe said people like DeMint who oppose earmarks are “brainwashed,” adding that if his fellow senators vote to ban earmarks they are voting to “trash the constitution and reject their oath of office”:

INHOFE: They’ve been demagoguing this whole thing on earmarks, but you’ll never convince the American people of it because they are so thoroughly brainwashed. You say earmark, they say, oh, earmarks are bad. But then when they stop and define the earmarks, then they think, that is what the Constitution — that is what James Madison said we are supposed to be doing in the House and the Senate.

So my concern is this…these guys will come in and the first vote they will cast is to trash the Constitution and reject their oath of office. I know that sounds extreme, but I don’t want these guys sitting around worrying about whether or not we will not do our job and whether we will cede our power to the president, or not.

Listen here :

Meanwhile, tea party leaders are furious that conservative favorites like Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) have suggested they will request earmarks. Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, told the Washington Independent’s Jesse Zwick today that the tea party will hold members accountable if they don’t support an earmark ban. “This is a fundamental issue — it’s both substantive and symbolic. … This is a vote that will never go away, like TARP,” she said. In fact, she issued a threat to those who oppose an earmark ban, saying, “in 2012 when they have aggressive, well-funded primary challengers, they’ll know why.” Indeed, her group sent an action alert to members today saying, “Our first battle with the newly empowered GOP” will be over earmarks.

Do GOPers Taking Campaign Funds From DeMint Agree With His Extreme Views On Unmarried Women, Gays?

By Josh Dorner Sen. Jim DeMint (R-right wing douchebag), one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, has made a name for himself by supporting tea party insurgents against establishment Republican candidates in this year’s hotly-contested primaries. For instance, he supported Rand Paul over Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) preferred candidate and endorsed Joe Miller over his own Senate colleague Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) called this behavior “a new and shocking development.” Some new and revealing comments DeMint made over the weekend are likely to cause even more division among Republicans, while also providing yet further evidence of the tea party’s hostile takeover of the GOP. Speaking to the “Greater Freedom Rally” on Saturday at a church in Spartanburg, SC, DeMint actually advocated for fewer basic freedoms for gays and unmarried women. According the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” These comments come just days after DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully blocked approval of a National Women’s History Museum, on the grounds that it unnecessarily duplicated existing local museums honoring quilters and cowgirls, and other sites such as a lilac garden in Washington state. While DeMint’s extreme statements and tea party endorsements have grabbed headlines, less well-known is the fact that two political action committees controlled by DeMint — MINT PAC and the Senate Conservatives Fund — are spending millions of dollars to elect GOP candidates from coast-to-coast. According to OpenSecrets.org and a ThinkProgress review of the most independent expenditure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, DeMint’s PACs have lavished nearly $2 million on fifteen GOP candidates whose success or failure at the ballot box will determine which party controls the Senate in the 112th Congress. The beneficiaries of his largesse include: – Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio: $406,250 – Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck, who famously implored GOP primary voters to choose him over his rival Jane Norton because he “[doesn]’t wear high heels”: $359,654 – Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, herself a former teacher: $337,903 – Utah Senate candidate Mike Lee: $251,945 – Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller: $180,067 – Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell: $130,326 – Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul: $79,421 – Pennsylvania Senate candidate Pat Toomey: $68,796 – Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson: $51,858 – Washington Senate candidate Dino Rossi: $37,000 – South Dakota Senate candidate John Thune: $7,500 – North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Georgia’s Johnny Isakson, Ohio’s Rob Portman, and Indiana’s Dan Coats have each received $5,000. The Hill reported last Friday that DeMint plans to spend hundreds of thousands more on another round of television ads targeting his Democratic Senate colleagues Harry Reid (NV), Michael Bennet (CO), and Russ Feingold (WI) in order to further aid challengers Angle, Buck, and Johnson. One wonders whether these and other GOP candidates, including rumored 2012 hopeful Sen. John Thune (R-SD), will continue to accept money and support from their putative leader or whether they will disavow DeMint’s hateful and extreme attack on unmarried women and gays by returning his money and refusing any further support.

Fox Fiction: "FOXfact[s]" perpetuate "bailout fund" falsehood

From Media Matters During Fox News host Gregg Jarrett's interview with Sen. Jim DeMint, on-screen text displayed two "FOXfact[s]" that falsely referred to a "$50 bil[lion] bailout fund" contained in financial regulatory reform legislation. Jarrett then asked DeMint if President Obama and others were "deliberately trying to mislead the American public" about the nature of the fund. In fact, the fund would provide for the orderly liquidation of failing firms, not bail them out.

Fox, Jarrett repeat "bailout fund" falsehood

"FOXfact[s]" reference "$50 bil[lion] bailout fund." The following on-screen graphics displayed during Jarrett's interview on the April 27 edition of Fox News' Happening Now:

Jarrett asks if Dems are "deliberately trying to mislead" about the "bailout fund." Later during the interview, Jarrett asked DeMint:

JARRETT: [Senator] Chris Dodd and the president and [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner, all three say this is not taxpayer bailouts ad nauseam, and yet, among the 1,336 pages I see in the Dodd bill, failed firms must repay any amounts owed to the United States, which invites the question: Why would a firm owe Uncle Sam money, unless of course it's been bailed out? Do you think the president and Dodd and Geithner are deliberately trying to mislead the American public?

Fund does not finance bailouts

Bill calls for orderly "liquidation" of failing financial companies, not bailout, funded by industry, not gov't. Senate Finance Committee chairman Dodd's bill calls for the government to have the "necessary authority to liquidate failing financial companies that pose a significant risk to the financial stability of the United States in a manner that mitigates such risk and minimizes moral hazard," including a $50 billion liquidation fund, paid for by industry assessments, to finance the orderly liquidation of large financial services firms. It further states of the fund:

The authority provided in this title shall be exercised in the manner that best fulfills such purpose, with the strong presumption that --

(1) creditors and shareholders will bear the losses of the financial company;

(2) management responsible for the condition of the financial company will not be retained; and

(3) the Corporation and other appropriate agencies will take all steps necessary and appropriate to assure that all parties, including management and third parties, having responsibility for the condition of the financial company bear losses consistent with their responsibility, including actions for damages, restitution, and recoupment of compensation and other gains not compatible with such responsibility.

PolitiFact: "[T]he bill makes it clear that the money must be used to liquidate -- not keep alive -- failing firms." In an analysis of Republican claims that the legislation establishes a $50 billion fund for future bailouts, PolitiFact.com called the claim false and stated, "The legislative language is pretty clear that the money must be used to dissolve -- meaning completely shut down -- failing firms." PolitiFact further stated, "The fund cannot be used to keep faltering institutions alive." From Politifact.com's analysis:

On March 22, 2010, the Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Sens. Christopher Dodd and Shelby, approved the overhaul by a party-line vote of 13-10. Highlights include new government authority to regulate over-the-counter derivatives and hedge funds, a new consumer financial product regulator within the Federal Reserve, and a process for dissolving institutions that are teetering on collapse.

The "Orderly Liquidation Fund" is the technical term for the $50 billion pot of money Shelby is concerned about. Only the largest firms would be required to pay into the fund. If a "systematically significant" firm is teetering on collapse, the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve would have to agree to use the fund to liquidate the firm. A panel of three bankruptcy judges would have to convene and agree within 24 hours that the company is insolvent. The fund is not meant to replace the bankruptcy process, but rather to provide a sort of emergency mechanism for the government to deal with very large, economically significant institutions.

So, the bill provides quite a bit of structure around how the government would decide which firms should be dissolved.

[...]

The legislative language is pretty clear that the money must be used to dissolve -- meaning completely shut down -- failing firms. Here's what Sec. 206 of the bill says:

"In taking action under this title, the (FDIC) shall determine that such action is necessary for purposes of the financial stability of the United States, and not for the purpose of preserving the covered financial company; ensure that the shareholders of a covered financial company do not receive payment until after all other claims and the Fund are fully paid; ensure that unsecured creditors bear losses in accordance with the priority of claim provisions in section 210; ensure that management responsible for the failed condition of the covered financial company is removed (if such management has not already been removed at the time at which the FDIC is appointed receiver); and not take an equity interest in or become a shareholder of any covered financial company or any covered subsidiary."

The fund cannot be used to keep faltering institutions alive.

[...]

Shelby also implies that the fund comes at a cost to taxpayers, saying the fund "can only reinforce the expectation that the government stands ready to intervene on behalf of large and politically connected financial institutions at the expense of Main Street and the American taxpayer." But remember, the businesses would pay into the liquidation fund, not taxpayers. The bill is very specific about that. So his underlying point here is incorrect. [Politifact.com, 4/16/10]

Wash. Post's Klein: "The Dodd bill makes bailouts less likely." Addressing "the Republican attack" that the financial regulation bill creates a "permanent bailout," The Washington Post's Ezra Klein wrote:

The Dodd bill makes bailouts less likely by empowering regulators and increasing transparency, raises a $50 billion fund from banks to pay for future too-big-to-fail bankruptcies, and then makes the outcome a predictable punishment rather than a chaotic rescue. That last is known as "resolution authority" -- as bloodless a word as one could possibly imagine -- and it wipes out both shareholders and management. It's all there in Section 206 of the bill: "Mandatory Terms and Conditions for All Orderly Liquidation Actions." What we call "resolution" would better be described as "execution."

Krugman: "Bailout" claim is "possibly the most dishonest argument ever made in the history of politics." During the April 25 edition of ABC's This Week, economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman stated that the claim -- which has been repeatedly advanced by Sen. Mitch McConnell, among others, and echoes language recommended by Republican strategist Frank Luntz to derail the bill -- is "possibly the most dishonest argument ever made in the history of politics."

Abba - Waterloo

M.C.L Comment: This song is goes out to super deluxe right wing douchebag Jim DeMint and every crappy right wing blog out there from RedState to Drudge Report nationally to the local crappy right wing blogs like theblogprof, motorcitytimes and Republican Michigander.. All your lies, whining and incitement of violence has been for nothing.

GOP senator continues to block TSA appointee — despite attempted detonation of plane

By David Edwards and John Byrne A Republican senator who is blocking the confirmation of President Barack Obama's choice to head the Transportation Security Administration said Monday that he will continue to block the nominee, saying that he's concerned Obama pick Erroll Southers would allow TSA employees to have collective bargaining aggreements.

In essence, a key conservative senator believes that union bargaining agreements are more important than having a person running the Transportation Security Administration, despite a near-bomb attack on a commercial plane last week.

"The president took eight months to even nominate someone for that position and what I've asked for, Matt, is just some debate and a recorded vote," DeMint said on NBC's "Today" show.

"I've asked [Southers] if he's going to change the policy of collective bargaining within the TSA and he will not give me a straight answer," said DeMint. Following the failed bombing of a Christmas day Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, DeMint told Fox News that unionization was a threat to airport security.

"This is all about politics, and not security," DeMint said Monday. "What I want is a few hours of debate on Mr. Southers, to help focus the nation back on security and get this politics, particularly union politics out of our security apparatus."

DeMint took flak over the weekend from a Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill, who declared that DeMint's opposition to his confirmation was "nuts."

"All it's doing is hurting the traveling public, because the most important front-line agency to protect Americans, right now, on flights, is being held up over political stuff."

McCaskill's comments follow.

This video is from NBC's Today Show, broadcast Jan. 4, 2010.

DeMint Defiantly Leads GOP Delegation To Meet With Illegitimate Honduran Post-Coup Government

By Andrea Nill Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has announced that he will be visiting Honduras today to meet with the de facto regime of acting Honduran President Roberto Micheletti in sheer defiance of the position taken by the US government and international community. Not a single nation has recognized Micheletti’s government, but Washington Note’s Steve Clemons explains that DeMint is intent on taking Honduran matters into his own hands:

Jim DeMint is acting on behalf of, in cahoots with, and against the foreign policy of the United States of America in encouraging post-coup Honduran government officials defy the United States. He is encouraging a political leadership which has no legitimacy and which not recognized by other democracies in the region — while the ousted President makes cell phone UN General Assembly statements from a couch-bed in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

The Logan Act forbids “unauthorized citizens” from negotiating with foreign governments. In a 1936 Supreme Court ruling, Justice Sutherland wrote that “the President alone has the power” and “the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it.”

Since former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was seized by the military at gunpoint and exiled in his pajamas back in June, the Obama administration — together with the United Nations, European Nations, and the Organization of American States — has collectively addressed the delicate political situation in Honduras by putting pressure on Micheletti’s government to reach a peaceful and democratic solution. So far, the US has cut all non-humanitarian aid to the de facto government and revoked the visas of all civilian and military officials who backed the June 28 coup. The Obama administration is also making a deliberate effort to repair critical relations with Latin America by reversing Washington’s “historic tendency” of welcoming and backing coups waged against democratically-elected leaders, such as Zelaya, who are critical of the U.S.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) attempted to block approval of DeMint’s self-described “fact-finding trip,” citing the defiant role DeMint has taken in attempting to alter US policy on Honduras by brazenly blocking the confirmations of Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the nominee to be ambassador to Brazil. However, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) interfered and appealed to the Defense Department to provide an airplane for DeMint and his delegation, which the Pentagon allowed. DeMint will be joined by US Reps. Aaron Schock (R-IL), Peter Roskam (R-IL), and Doug Lamborn (R-CO). Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) will be visiting Honduras on Monday. Ros-Lehtinen and the congressmen plan on meeting with Micheletti, members of the Honduran Supreme Court, election officials, and Honduran business and civic leaders. However, they are snubbing Zelaya who recently returned to Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

Perhaps the public relations firm Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates — which Micheletti’s regime hired to “bolster its image in Washington” — helped convince DeMint to overlook the fact that Micheletti has suspended constitutional guarantees to civil liberties, including freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. Meanwhile, the U.N. Human Rights Council has unanimously called for an immediate end to all human rights violations in Honduras on behalf of the de facto government.

Update Wesley Denton, a spokesman for DeMint, told Talking Points Memo that the Senator is not attempting "to intervene in support of the military coup in Honduras." Denton explained:

"Sen DeMint did not announce that to the New York Times, they did not get that from our office. They did not speak to staff members from our office that I know of -- they certainly did not talk to me...He's not in support of any particular politician. He supports democracy, the rule of law and the constitution of Honduras, and he wants to see a quick resolution to the crisis, one that allows the Honduran people to resolve it through a democratic and transparent process."