Carolina Politics Online

An amendment sponsored by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 68-29.  15 Republicans joined with the Democrats to defeat the amendment that would have temporarily banned earmarks for a year.

Since I know a lot of conservatives come here and read, I pose this question to you.  Do you still believe the Republican Party is a party that embraces small government and fiscal responsibility?

Victor Rawl, a Democratic member of the Charleston County Council and a former circuit court judge, announced his Senate candidacy Monday at events in North Charleston, Columbia, Greenville and Spartanburg.

Rawl, 64, served briefly in the state legislature and retired as a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina National Guard.

In running against the first-term DeMint, Rawl gives Democrats at least the prospect of a competitive race. Chad McGowan, an attorney who had raised about $250,000, dropped his campaign against the incumbent last month.

Read more: Politico

Are you kidding me?

Few kill. But many rant.

The litany that made accused Pentagon attacker Joseph Patrick Bedell smolder and rant is varied, and still coming to light. His history was one of mental illness, not fringe-group agitation.

In an Internet posting, Bedell had suggested an act like the 2001 terrorist attacks could have been the work of a criminal organization controlling the U.S. government, accepting a “sacrifice of thousands of its citizens … as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control.”

His poisonous view of the government appears well out on the extreme—until you see what some people close to the center of power are saying these days.

“America is teetering towards tyranny,” Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina told the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. He accused the governing Democrats of peddling socialist policies “that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world.”

Republicans have been branding Democratic policies as some form of socialism for generations, par for the course.

But tyranny? America has real issues with that—it violently overthrew that enemy at the start.

The AP

My God, I don’t even know where to begin on this.  First of all, the Democrats’ policies are a form of Socialism.  That is simply not up for debate particularly since we have a president in the White House who has succeeded in partially socializing the auto industry, the banking industry, and is attempting to take complete control of the health care industry.

Secondly, let’s discuss tyranny.  We have a president and a Congress trying to ram a government take over of health care down the throats of the entire nation that the people have soundly rejected and yet the Congress doesn’t give a damn.  That’s the latest tyrannical actions of the Federal government in a list of hundreds, if not thousands more going back decades.  Redistribution of wealth, compulsory education, radical environmentalism, all of these things and more are actions of a tyrannical government.  The Founders of this country revolted against the British for a hell of a lot less than what we put up with today, but let’s get down to the meat and potatoes of this absurd juxtoposition.

Senator DeMint said, “America is teetering towards tyranny.”  That’s it.  And according to the dynamic douche bag duo Calvin Woodward and Eileen Sullivan of the Associated Press, those words drove Joseph Bedell to open fire at the Pentagon subway station.  They glossed right over an inconvenient truth for them, however, that Bedell was a registered Democrat.  Bedell also despised George W Bush and was a 9-11 truther.  He was also diagnosed bi-polar and manic depressive.  Does this sound like a loony right wing militia wanna be clinging to God and his guns to you?  This fits the bill of an anarchist and they don’t like government regardless of who is controlling it.  He was also clinically nuts.

You would think that two experienced “journalists” would have been able to find these facts that dozens of other folks in the alternative media were able to track down in a matter of hours following the incident,  but it’s clear that Woodward and Sullivan were more concerned with pushing a biased political agenda than being honest couriers of  the news.

Using the Antiquities Act, President Carter locked up more land than any other president had before him, taking more than 50 million acres in Alaska despite strong opposition from the state.

President Clinton used the authority 22 times to prohibit hunting, recreational vehicles, mining, forestry and even grazing in 5.9 million acres scattered around the country. The law allowed him to single-handedly create 19 new national monuments and expand three others without consulting anyone.

One of the monuments President Clinton created was the Grande Staircase-Escalante in Utah, where 135,000 acres of land were leased for oil and gas and about 65,000 barrels of oil were produced each year from five active wells. But, President Clinton put an end to developing those resources.

President Obama could do the same in other energy-rich places unless Congress takes action. At least 13.5 million acres are already on his Department of Interior’s real estate shopping list.

This includes a 58,000-acre area in New Mexico. The memo said this should be done so the lesser prairie chicken and the sand dune lizard will be better protected. Are these animals going extinct? No. The bureaucrats wrote that the land should be locked up to “avoid the necessity of listing either of these species as threatened or endangered.”

In Nevada, the Obama administration might make another monument in the Heart of the Great Basin because it, supposedly, is a “center of climate change scientific research.”

In Colorado, the government is considering designating the Vermillion Basin as a monument because it is “currently under the threat of oil and gas development.”

Americans should be wary of any plans a president has to seize land from the states without their consent. Any new plans to take away states’ freedom to use land as they see fit must be stopped.

That’s why I sponsored an amendment to block Mr. Obama from declaring any of the 14 lands listed in the memo as “monuments.” Unfortunately, the Senate, led by Democrats, rejected it on Thursday evening by a vote of 58-38.

Read more at The Washington Times

The Antiquities Act of 1906 was signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt (R) initially to stop the raping of American Indian artifacts in the southwest.  It gave the President the power by executive order to declare any government owned public land as restricted.  The problem is that it’s since been used over 100 times since its conception and one person should not be allowed to have that kind of authority.  The Office of President was purposely made weak by the Founders for a reason.

I can see instances in which the Federal government may need to restrict public land use at times, but that should be done by a vote of the full Congress so that there is input from the American people.  The proposals shouldn’t be sealed away in a secret document and then carried forth through executive order by one man.  That’s simply not the way America was designed to work.

Winthrop University here in Rock Hill released the results of their latest political polling for the state.  The conclusion?  Most people really don’t much about the people running for governor on either side of the aisle.  I guess that’s not overly surprising.  Most people really don’t start paying attention until the last couple weeks before an election.  Over 75% of people polled knew very little about any of the Democrats running.  When it came to favorable ratings among all candidates of both parties, Lt Gov. Andre Bauer squeaked out through the top of the pack.

Regarding other questions that were asked, people in the state like Michelle Obama better than her husband.  Jenny Sanford is held in fairly high regard and Republicans are far more fond of Senator Jim DeMint than they are of Senator Lindsey Graham.

Erick Erickson from the conservative organization RedState wrote a piece this morning explaining why it’s futile for grassroots conservatives within the Republican Party to depend on conservative party “leaders” to make the first move in getting behind a quality candidate.  He cites Nikki Haley’s candidacy as an example.

In Pennsylvania, again Jim DeMint showed real leadership. He came out for Pat Toomey when everybody else went with Specter. Now it looks like Toomey has a serious shot at winning. Conservatives took real risks in going with Toomey. But with that great risk is coming a great reward.

That’s not happening so much any more.

In South Carolina, Nikki Haley struggles to get momentum. Republicans like Sarah Palin and others could come in and endorse her. But then if she loses these potential 2012 Presidential candidates might have to face a South Carolina Governor who they didn’t endorse. But Haley is the one who is most right on the most issues. She is the dream candidate with the compelling narrative.

RedState

I don’t know that I’d consider Sarah Palin to be a grassroots conservative leader considering that she required a $100,000 fee to be a speaker at the recent national tea party event in Nashville, but conservatives around the country seem to have an infatuation with her.  Her example aside, I do agree with Erickson when it comes to Nikki Haley.  Of all candidates on both sides of the aisle Haley is the one I am most confident in when it comes to bringing this state forward and achieving positive results.  The fact that RedState has endorsed her candidacy tells me that she should be the ideal candidate for most conservatives as well, yet leaders of the conservative movement are MIA when it comes to getting out in public and pushing her candidacy to Republican primary voters.  Is Erickson correct in his assessment that Republican presidential wannabees are reluctant to weigh in on the gubernatorial race due to a fear of not backing the eventual winning candidate and losing support of the future governor of the first in the south primary come 2012?  After all, historically the Republican candidate that has won the South Carolina presidential primary has gone on to win the party nomination at the convention.

A true principled leader would certainly not let politics sway their voice.  As Erickson pointed out, political convenience did not stop Senator DeMint from publicly stating that he would not back the reelection of an incumbent seeking reelection in his own party.  That, my friends, is true leadership, so where are the movement “leaders” for Haley?

The Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, began this morning and continues through Saturday.  Senator Jim DeMint spoke there earlier today.  Here is his speech.

From McGowan’s website:

“I’ve come to the conclusion that now is the wrong time for me to mount a successful campaign for the United States Senate. The demands of a young family place a premium on every minute. There is nothing more important to me than my wife and three small children. In order to fulfill my duties as a husband and a father, I’ll be leaving the race for United States Senate effective immediately. A few years from now, the kids will be older and in a phase of life that can tolerate the demands of a successful run. In the meantime, I’d like to thank my supporters for standing tall with me thus far, but ask that they understand that my kids comes first and they need me at home. I am still very much committed to the cause of fixing our broken political system, and will be fighting from the sidelines to defeat Jim DeMint and others who think South Carolina’s best days are behind us.”

Jim DeMint thinks S.C.’s best days are behind ya, huh? Yeah… you made the right call by dropping out. The Mighty Jim DeMint is gonna wipe the floor with anyone the Dems put up against him this year.

(h/t: The Campaign Spot)

Senator Jim DeMint Twittered that across the World Wide Web this afternoon.  I was in Florida the past few days for work and as I was at the airport in Fort Myers this morning catching my flight home all of the flights to Washington D.C had been canceled due to the second brutal snow storm to hit them in a week.  D.C. already received about 30 inches a few days ago and they are expecting another 14 inches.  In fact, today’s Senate global warming (hehe) hearing has been canceled.

Man made climate change is the hoax of the century and most Americans now reject the belief that man is responsible for the weather patterns.  It’s conventional wisdom that you can only keep a secret for so long and so it’s no surprise that the scam is unraveling.  For the past five years we’ve seen record setting snow and colder temperatures across the country and around the world.  Folks in the north barely saw much of a summer this past year and even down here in the south we didn’t reach the usual number of sweltering dogs days we usually suffer through.  People only need to go outside to know that Al Gore is in serious need of a body cavity search compliments of Nurse Ratched.

It sure feels like the White Witch has taken hold of the throne and in the midst of her reign the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has pretty much lost all its credibility.  What many of us have known for years is finally being revealed.  They’ve been lying.  It began in November with the hacked emails from East Anglia University in England in which climate “scientists” admitted on paper that they had cherry picked evidence that supported their beliefs and excluded that which did not.  Just two weeks ago it got even more embarrassing when the world discovered that U.N. “scientists” based their climate change claims on a student dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.  Liars and shysters and frauds, oh my! Despite these “errors” in judgment the IPCC insists its work is sound.  The universe is laughing behind their backs.

Let it be known that for the believers in man made climate change, it is their religion and Al Gore is the pope.

An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama’s nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

As al Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for the thwarted attack and President Barack Obama made a public statement about it, Democrats urged DeMint to drop his objection and allow quick confirmation of nominee Erroll Southers, a counterterrorism expert, when the Senate reconvenes in three weeks.

McClatchy

If you read through the whole article you’ll see that the primary reason Senator DeMint has been holding up this appointment is over fears of the TSA unionizing.  I lean in that same direction that I don’t feel the TSA need to be unionized, but I’m not dead set against it.  I don’t feel they do a job that needs union representation for one, but furthermore, whether or not I would be fully opposed to the idea is how it would effect air transportation.  Anyone old enough can remember when the air traffic controllers went on strike in 1981.  Fortunately, then President Reagan was ready for it and was able to mitigate the damage ahead of time that would have been much worse to the nation had he not been prepared.  Even then, it still effected about 50% of flights nationwide.  If TSA were able to strike and did it would wreak havoc on the entire country.  All air traffic would have to stop and that would give the TSA far too much leverage.  Even if they have a no strike clause in their contract, the transit workers in New York City showed us back in 2005 that it doesn’t really mean anything.

Having said that, I don’t see how a Presidential appointment of the individual to head the TSA really makes it more or less likely that they would unionize.  It would appear to me that person would not have the power to make that determination and so I can’t see much reason for DeMint holding up the appointment, particularly now in the wake of what happened in Detroit over the weekend.  I realize DeMint is a principled individual and is not afraid to stand up for what he believes which is one of the qualities I admire about him, but I think in this particular instance he needs to concede for the sake of national security.

Senator Jim DeMint has taken the lead in the Senate over the past couple of years to promote responsible government spending and sound the warning siren on the waste and excess in the Federal government that is slowly bankrupting our nation.  It is for that reason that I am supporting his reelection next year to the U.S.  Senate.  There are only a handful of representatives in Congress that are taking up this cause and we need to hang on to each and every one of them.

Bloomberg has a featured article on DeMint today that goes over his plan on actions he thinks the government should take in order to save our nation.  Here is a piece of that:

Against Bailouts

Thus, he believes that the bailouts of New York-based American International Group Inc. and probably Citigroup Inc. were a mistake, and that former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan to purchase toxic assets was a fraud.

He doesn’t spare Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. “If you look at his mission, which is to protect the value of the dollar and to protect employment, the grades aren’t good,” DeMint says. He plans to vote against extending the Fed chief’s term for another four years.

Fiscally, he wants to balance the budget and cut taxes, while acknowledging that defense spending will have to increase. “You’ve got the Air Force flying around in 50-year-old airplanes right now,” he says, “and we don’t have anything scheduled to replace the antiquated things.”

Flat Tax

On taxes, DeMint advocates a flat rate of 10 percent on the first $100,000 of income for a couple, and 25 percent on income above that. He would eliminate all taxes on interest income, capital gains, dividends and estates and end the alternative minimum tax.

For businesses, DeMint would kill the corporate income tax and substitute an across-the-board 8.5 percent consumption tax.

He would balance the federal budget in 10 years and then constitutionally require it to stay balanced.

This would call for draconian changes in the big entitlements.

DeMint would allow those currently 55 and older to receive Medicare benefits at 65. The program would be discontinued for younger Americans, who would get a $9,500 yearly stipend when they turn 65 to pay for private health insurance. The federal- state Medicaid program, which covers health-care costs for poor people, is “financially unsustainable,” he says.

‘Socialist Solutions’

DeMint considers Social Security a “socialistic” measure and blasts the American Association of Retired Persons for promulgating “socialist solutions.”

“What’s the harm of your grandma getting a Social Security check every month from the government?” he asks in his book. “It seems harmless enough, but that check changes the relationship between your grandma and the government.”

In the interview, he talks of reviving President George W. Bush’s failed plan to partially privatize Social Security by having workers put a small percentage of the current levy in a personal savings account.

Now this is an agenda I could get behind wholeheartedly.  Medicare and Social Security expenditures are consuming more and more of our Federal budget each year.  Today they eat up 44% of it.  By 2050, they are projected to account for 18.6% of GDP.  Federal revenues as of 2007 were 18.8% of GDP.  As you can see, that path will be completely unsustainable.  We’ll have to kill the programs or gut them to a fraction of what they provide today, cheating the people (which will include me) who will have paid into it our entire lives or raise taxes so astronomically that we will wipe out the middle class and create an elite aristocracy of the few that have money while the rest of us are serfs on the manor.

I think his Medicare idea has a lot of merit.  I also agree with the main principles behind the Bush Social Security plan, however, the main flaw with that is that it would have created a trillion dollar budget deficit off the bat and that is not acceptable so something would need to be done to address that issue.  As for his tax plan, I would prefer a national consumption tax to replace the income tax, but a two-tier income tax, much like Reagan had implemented, would be a substantial improvement over the mess we have today.

Rumors have been brewing that DeMint could be a possible presidential candidate in 2012.  So far, all the potential nominees being thrown around have not enamored me.  He could be an interesting option.

November 10, 2009 – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) introduced an amendment to the United States Constitution that would apply term limits to all members of Congress, limiting U.S. Representatives to three terms and U.S. Senators to two terms in office. The amendment is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). As an amendment to the Constitution, it would require a two-thirds majority vote approval in the House and Senate and must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

DeMint Introduces “Term Limits for All” Constitutional Amendment

I give him credit for introducing this, but it’s got zero chance of ever seeing the light of day.  I’m just being realistic.  If you read the whole press release, DeMint goes on to describe how the current system is set up to allow career politicians to amass power.  Unfortunately, it’s that same personal benefit that will keep term limits from even being implemented.  These people aren’t going to give all that up.  The Republicans spoke of enacting term limits when they campaigned on the Contract for America in 1994.  It never happened and if it didn’t happen with them it most certainly won’t happen today.  There aren’t enough decent, moral members of Congress in either party to get this through.

Good for him.

Six House members on Friday sent a letter to the president of the Honduran Congress warning that the Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and his travel delegation to Honduras do not represent the views of the White House or Congress, but are mere members of the “minority party.”

“We understand that you received visitors from our Congress who represent the minority party, the Republican Party, who have expressed views that differ markedly from those of President Obama’s administration and the Democratic Majority in the U.S. Congress,” they wrote.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27862.html#ixzz0SuHl6ETB

Senate foreign relations committee Chairman John Kerry and the State Department have canceled Sen. Jim DeMint’s plans to meet interim Honduran President Roberto Micheletti on Friday. The trip, which DeMint was going to make with three members of the House, would have flouted a White House ban against direct contact with the leaders of the June military coup. While the White House seeks to pressure the interim government through isolation, DeMint and other conservatives have defended the coup, which the Honduran miltary claims was necessary to prevent then-President Manuel Zelaya from rewriting the country’s constitution.

The Slate

What authority does the White House have to tell members of Congress where they can or can’t travel to?  Did Pelosi have Bush’s permission to go to Damascus?  The members of Congress are not employed by the President nor are they subservient to his demands.  I don’t see how DeMint and his colleagues can be legally blocked from making this trip.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has blocked two of President Obama’s ambassador nominations based on their opposition to the Honduran government’s removal of former President Jose Manuel Zelaya.

DeMint has blocked the nominations of Thomas Shannon, President Barack Obama’s pick to serve as ambassador to Brazil, and Arturo Valenzuela, the choice for the post of assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Richard Verma, the State Department’s assistant secretary of legislative affairs, approached DeMint this past week about releasing the holds but the South Carolina senator is standing firm.

“Both of these nominees rushed to oppose the rule of law in Honduras and want to force a Chavez-style dictator back into power,” DeMint told The Hill. “They exemplify this administration’s misguided and heavy-handed tactics against the Honduran people and side with those who trample freedom.”

The Hill

I concur.  Despite what the misinformed and the media (which sometimes describes both group) have said, Zelaya was not removed by a coup.  There was no coup in Honduras.  Not even close.  Zelaya was attempting to engage in an unconstitutional establishment of a life presidency, much like Obama’s buddy Hugo Chavez attempted.  Obama seems to have a liking for Marxist thugs.  The Honduran Parliament warned him to desist and he refused so they legally and constitutionally removed him from power by a unanimous vote, meaning every member of Zelaya’s own socialist party voted for his ouster.  He refused to obey the removal order so it went to the nation’s supreme court who also ruled that Zelaya was officially impeached.  When Zelaya still refused to leave the presidency they sent in the military to remove and escort him to the borders of Costa Rica.  Appointees who refuse to acknowledge the legality of this move and the crimes committed by Zelaya should not be U.S. ambassadors.  So on this point, DeMint is right.

This is where he is wrong.

DeMint said in an interview that he does not want the standoff over the nominees to erupt into a major confrontation but felt he had to pressure the administration into restoring foreign aid to Honduras.

We should not be restoring aid to Honduras.  For that fact, we should not be giving aid to any nation.  A country that is carrying a national debt of $11 trillion and long term debt obligations of over $60 trillion has no business handing money out around the world.  Our government can’t even write a balanced budget (actually they can, they just won’t) so there is no logic in restoring foreign aid to Honduras or continuing it with any other nation going forward.  It’s reckless and irresponsible policy.

The size of that crowd is incredible.

What’s the matter with South Carolina?  That’s the question asked by Politico columnist Alexander Burns.  Indeed, South Carolina has been a focal point of hot bed politics and political scandal recently, but as former State Republican Chairman Katon Dawson points out, it’s really nothing new.

Dawson agreed, citing the state’s long and tempestuous political history as a mark of pride: “South Carolina’s been yelling from the top of our lungs on national politics since this nation was formed and entered the union.”

Consider the attention, sometimes unwanted, that we’ve received over the past year.  You could write a whole book on Mark Sanford.  The Governor went from being the favorite son of conservatives and economic libertarians to rumored presidential candidate only to then fall from grace as his scandalous extra-marital affair became headline news around the nation.  Sanford’s status rose quickly when he was the only governor to fight the wasteful stimulus package thrust on us by the Federal government.  He received endless and thunderous applause at the Greenville Tea Party earlier this year, yet in a flash all of that respect and fame soured to notoriety and disappointment as details of his Argentine “soul mate” Maria Chapur pierced the airwaves.

Look at conservative rising star Senator Jim DeMint who has made it his career to call out waste and corruption in Washington D.C. and be the general in the battle against the unconstitutional overreaching grip of the Federal government.  DeMint took flak earlier this year when referring to health care as Obama’s “Waterloo”, but was he necessarily wrong?

On the flip side is Republican Congressman Bob Inglis who hasn’t wavered in ruffling the feathers of the conservative base of his Congressional district.  He has taken an onslaught of criticism for his changing opinion towards accepting the fraudulent theory of man made climate change.  Even more recently he riled the far right at a town hall meeting when he told them to turn off Glenn Beck.  Inglis has earned himself several primary challengers in next year’s election.

Let’s also not forget former State Treasurer Tom Ravenel who was sent up the river for the distribution of cocaine.  Then of course, Joe Wilson has become the most well known Congressman in America over the past couple of days for his outburst during Obama’s Congressional address accusing the President of lying.

Is this bad for South Carolina?  Are we embarrassing or are we emboldened?  We did fire the first shot in the Civil War, after all.  I guess the impression of our state is in the eye of the beholder.  We certainly aren’t perfect, but we definitely could be worse.  We aren’t in a full fledged melt down like California.  We aren’t chasing every business and hard working American out of the state like New York.  Our own scandals really aren’t any less comparative than those of Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio.

Personally, it gives me a lot to write about and opine on.  I’d probably be pretty bored with writing if I lived in Vermont.