DOWNLOADS: (83)

PLAYS: (277)

Embed

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint on Monday said that he opposed a bipartisan plan for comprehensive immigration reform because "unlawful immigrants" could live "another 50 years" and take advantage of government benefits that they earned by paying taxes.

At a press conference on Monday, the Heritage Foundation released a report that claimed the immigration reform bill offered by the "Gang of Eight" senators would cost Americans $6.3 trillion.

"The number over the 50-year lifespan of an amnesty for unlawful immigrants, it's $6.3 trillion to the American taxpayer," DeMint told Fox News host Martha MacCallum prior to the press conference. "And we know over time that this is going to increase more debt, increase taxes. That has a depressing effect on our economy. And we know that unlawful immigrants -- once that they have amnesty -- are going to replace the jobs of many Americans and depress their salaries."

"So there is no way you can look at this and conclude that it's good for the American taxpayer, and that includes immigrants who are here lawfully."

MacCallum noted that most benefits would not be available to immigrants for 13 years under the proposed plan.

"I'll believe that when I see it," the former South Carolina senator quipped. "Even if they follow through, unlawful immigrants are already receiving many benefits. A lot of their children are legal American citizens, whether its public education or Medicaid. But if you just look at a 13-year window when the life expectancy of unlawful immigrants goes another 50 years and once they get on Social Security and Medicare -- I mean, the average cost of an unlawful immigrant is hundreds of thousands of dollars."

DeMint added that he was all for immigration reform as long as "lower-skilled, less-educated" immigrants were excluded from the plan.

"In 1960, the average immigrant had about the same education and skill level of an American citizen. Today, immigrants have -- they're four times less likely to even have a high school diploma. And now with all of our welfare benefits, the arithmetic for immigration is totally different."

(h/t: Twitter/@igorvolsky)

DOWNLOADS: (88)

PLAYS: (763)

Embed

Democratic strategist James Carville on Sunday praised tea party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as "the most talented and fearless Republican politician" in the last 30 years.

In a panel discussion on Sunday, ABC News host George Stephanopoulos noted that recent news reports indicated that Cruz had been examining a possible run for president in 2016.

"The people love Ted Cruz because he's taking on his own party, his own leadership, he's taking on the other party," former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) opined. "He's trying to rock the boat to get us to stop moving towards this cliff that we're headed for as a country. So I've been in about 25 cities in the last few months, all you have to do is mention Ted Cruz and people get on their feet."

"I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I've seen the last 30 years," Carville agreed. "I further think that he's going to run for president and he's going to create something. I'm not sitting here saying that he's going to win. And I think Sen. DeMint is right. I've listened to excerpts of his speech in South Carolina, he touches every button, and this guy has no fear. He just keeps ploughing ahead, and he is going to be something to watch."

"And a lot of Republicans feel this way," he continued. "You hear this a lot, 'If we only got someone who is articulate and was for what we were for, we would win elections. And we get these John McCains and these Mitt Romneys these squishy guys that can't do anything.' Well, there's one thing this guy is not: He ain't squishy, not in the least."

"We're anti-squishy men," Republican strategist Mary Matalin, who is married to Carville, volunteered. "We like really hard men."

(h/t: Mediaite)

DOWNLOADS: (89)

PLAYS: (256)

Embed

Here's hoping Stephen Colbert's sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, turns Tim Scott's district in South Carolina blue. Despite former Gov. Mark "Appalachian Trails" Sanford's prior problems, he managed to win the GOP's nomination for South Carolina's 1st District House seat. (This is the district from which Jim DeMint resigned.)

Mark Sanford Wins GOP Nomination For South Carolina's 1st District House Seat :

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday cleared another hurdle in his bid for political redemption, defeating a former Charleston County council member to win the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat he held for three terms. [...]

With all of the precincts reporting, Sanford had about 57 percent of the vote in the 1st District to 43 percent for Curtis Bostic, the former county council member. The candidates were vying in the GOP runoff after they finished as the top two vote-getters in a 16-way GOP primary last month.

Sanford will face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, and Green Party candidate Eugene Platt in a May special election.

Colbert Busch released a statement late Tuesday saying "I look forward to a vigorous campaign that focuses on creating jobs, balancing our country's budget and choosing an independent-minded leader who shares the values of the great people of South Carolina."

Sanford, a former three-term congressman and two-term governor, said earlier Tuesday that the runoff would give a good indication whether voters have moved past his personal indiscretions.

"I'm both humbled and grateful for the response of the voters here tonight," he said later. Read on...

DOWNLOADS: (171)

PLAYS: (3058)

Embed

Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on Sunday turned the subject to abortion and "unborn children" after being asked about "racist comments" that hurt the Republican Party brand.

During a panel segment on NBC's Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked DeMint to respond to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's charge that there was a "dark vein of intolerance" in the Republican Party because people like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had accused President Barack Obama of "shucking and jiving."

"Spending more than we're bringing in and this debt is a moral argument that we need to connect with the American people," the incoming Heritage Foundation president explained. "The reason that I left Congress is because I don't believe the politicians are going to solve our problems unless the American people force them to. They're going to keep spending and borrowing in Washington, they're going to keep implementing policies... that hurt minorities. They're worse off."

"And we can go to Detroit and Philadelphia and Chicago where these liberal progressive policies have been in place for decades, and you see Latinos and African-Americans in failing schools, with high unemployment," he continued. "What we're going to do and I know Gov. [Bobby] Jindal is going to do along with a lot of other governors is show the success stories where the right ideas are implemented, and we're going to show the failures in Detroit and Philadelphia and L.A."

NAACP president Ben Jealous, however, argued that Republicans would be better off "if they're willing to give up on the gasoline that's been the old Dixiecrat rhetoric they've indulged in for the last 40 years."

"They need to stop," Jealous explained. "They need to say, 'We have an old brand as the Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln, the party of Kemp, the party of people who united this country again and again. Let's be that and let's stop trying to be these Dixiecrats because it just doesn't work for anybody anymore.'"

Pressing DeMint, Gregory asked if he regretted "some of the comments about abortion in this last cycle, about rape, about, again, what Colin Powell thought were veiled racist comments from the party?"

The former South Carolina senator ignored the reference to "racist comments," instead responding with a rant about fetal personhood.

"The fact that we are losing over 3,000 unborn children a day is an important issue," DeMint opined. "But Republicans or conservatives should not engage in a wish list about exceptions for abortion when the other side will not even agree that we have real people, real human beings. And we need to fight the battle where it should be fought. Life is important. We know from all the new technology and improved sonograms that we do have a baby."

"Instead of just offering my opinion on some hypothetical debate about exceptions for abortions, we need to move it back and particularly work with the states that are fighting just for the personhood of the child. And if we can start there, I think America will move with us."

"Little different than the question about rhetoric and how it reaches voters," Gregory noted as he moved on to the next topic.

DOWNLOADS: (129)

PLAYS: (451)

Embed

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Rep. Tim Scott appeared on Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox to discuss Haley's decision to appoint Scott to take Sen. Jim DeMint's place, who is off to collect his wingnut welfare over at The Heritage Foundation after his retirement.

Right out of the gate we had Scott promising to focus on getting that government spending, that they all hate when there's a Democratic in the White House so much under control and advocating for a flat tax. Haley heaped praise on Scott and said that "he earned" this appointment. I guess that's true if anyone thinks there's merit in being even more of an extremist than his predecessor and so far, that seems to be the case.

Here's more on that from Think Progress: Meet Sen. Tim Scott: The Tea Party Lawmaker Who Wanted To Impeach President Obama And Kick Kids Off Food Stamps:

Though DeMint left big, controversial shoes to fill for Republicans, few conservatives will be disappointed with Scott’s record. Elected to Congress just two years ago in the Tea Party wave, Scott has already garnered headlines for his plan to impeach President Obama, his legislation to cut off union members’ children from food stamps, and his defense of Big Oil.

Here’s a quick look at Scott’s record:

• Floated impeaching Obama over the debt ceiling. As the debt ceiling debate raged in the summer of 2011 because of the intransigence of Tea Party freshmen like Scott, the nation inched perilously close to defaulting on its obligations. One option discussed by some officials to avoid that scenario was for the president to assert that the debt ceiling itself was an unconstitutional infringement on the 14th Amendment. However, Tim Scott told a South Carolina Tea Party group that if Obama were to go this route, it would be an “impeachable act.”
• Proposed a bill to cut off food stamps for entire families if one member went on strike. One of the most anti-union members of Congress, Scott proposed a bill two months after entering Congress in 2011 to kick families off food stamps if one adult were participating in a strike. Scott’s legislation made no exception for children or other dependents.
• Wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display Ten Commandments outside county building. When Scott was on the Charleston County Council, one of his primary issues was displaying the Ten Commandments outside the Council building. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Scott said the display “would remind council members and speakers the moral absolutes they should follow.” When he was sued for violating the Constitution and a Circuit Judge’s orders, Scott was nonplussed: “Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it.”
• Defended fairness of giving billions in subsidies to Big Oil. Scott and his Republican allies in Congress voted repeatedly last year to protect more than $50 billion in taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil corporations. When ThinkProgress asked Scott whether it was fair to do that, especially at a time when oil companies are earning tens of billions in profit every quarter, the Tea Party freshman defended the industry: “fair is a relative word,” said Scott.
• Helped slash South Carolina’s HIV/AIDS budget. As a state representative, Scott backed a proposal to cut the state’s entire HIV/AIDS budget, despite the fact that South Carolina ranks in the top-third of reported AIDS cases. The cuts were ultimately included in the state’s budget, impacting more than 2,000 HIV-positive South Carolinians who needed help paying for their medication.

DOWNLOADS: (494)

PLAYS: (4438)

Embed

Last week, I said that Stephen Colbert was the one candidate I could support to replace reting wingnut South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. It seems the voters there agree: Colbert is top pick to replace DeMint:

Talk-show host Stephen Colbert is South Carolina voters' preferred candidate to replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), according to a new poll by the Democratic Public Policy Polling.

The Comedy Central host, who's openly lobbied for the seat, leads a field where the rest of the names are Republicans: 20 percent of voters want South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to appoint him to DeMint's seat when the senator resigns from Congress.

Haley has publicly ruled him out, however, because he didn't know the official state drink is milk.

"Stephen, thank you for your interest in South Carolina's U.S. Senate seat and for the thousands of tweets you and your fans sent me," she wrote on her Facebook page on Friday. "But you forget one thing, my friend. You didn't know our state drink. Big, big mistake." Read on...

UPDATE: To no one's surprise, Colbert responded to the Governor's rejection on his show this Monday evening and Stephen and his Super PAC money are determined not to give up. After some ribbing about Haley not knowing that South Carolina's state amphibian is the spotted salamander, Colbert urged his viewers to continue to tweet Haley with the hashtag #spottedsalamander and ask her to name him as DeMint's replacement.

DOWNLOADS: (210)

PLAYS: (1545)

Embed

DOWNLOADS: (322)

PLAYS: (4886)

Embed

Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says that Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is taking "the think out of the think tank" and turning the Heritage Foundation into a "purely political institution" by accepting a job as its president.

The tea party-backed lawmaker announced last week that he would be resigning from the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation because "the conservative movement needs strong leadership in the battle of ideas."

During a Sunday panel discussion on ABC, Republican strategist Mary Matalin sarcastically noted that her "hero," British economist John Maynard Keynes, had said that "ideas drive history, ideas drive progress and Heritage has long been the fount of so many great ideas."

"As a conservative, as a constitutionalist, that was a brilliant move -- a good move for us, a brilliant move for him," she insisted.

"The actual Keynes quote was he said, it's ideas 'which are dangerous for good or evil,'" Krugman pointed out. "I guess I've got a view in this case."

"I'm more interested in what does this do to Heritage?" the liberal economist continued. "I mean, this is somebody who has no sense that he's a researcher or an academic, anything like that. This is sort of taking the think out of the think tank, right? This is turning into a purely political institution."

DOWNLOADS: (494)

PLAYS: (4438)

Embed

Now here's a potential Senator from South Carolina I could support: Stephen Colbert to America: I'm "Honored" and Ready to Serve in the US Senate:

Stephen Colbert has his opening. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the tea party icon, announced Thursday that he will retire from the US Senate in January, leaving Republican Gov. Nikki Haley the task of handpicking DeMint's immediate successor. A Colbert for Senate Twitter account, @ColbertforSC, sprung up almost immediately, and fans have called for Colbert, the author of such classics as I Am America (And So Can You!) and America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't, to replace DeMint in the hallowed halls of Congress.

Brace yourselves, Colbert Report fans: Colbert, who has made no secret of his desire to hold higher office, says through his publicist that he's ready and willing to step up for his home state. "Stephen is honored by the groundswell of support from the Palmetto State and looks forward to Governor Haley's call," his personal publicist, Carrie Byalick, writes in an email to Mother Jones.

Colbert asked his viewers this Thursday evening to tweet @nikkihaley with the hashtag #SenatorColbert and let her know why she should appoint him to replace wingnut Sen. Jim DeMint. It sure would be nice if he were serious, but I can't imagine Colbert wanting to actually subject himself to the putting up with the idiocy he mocks on a daily basis.

And if anyone wasn't sure what was up with the foot, it's "Hobbit Week" on the Colbert Report.

DOWNLOADS: (514)

PLAYS: (7193)

Embed

Jon Stewart took the members of the United States Senate Banking Committee to task after their disgusting display this week where they were fawning all over JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon. Not surprising, as Stewart pointed out, given Dimon is one of their largest campaign donors. As Stewart concluded after going through the list of reforms that these Republicans have opposed in regulating the banks:

STEWART: Must be nice to be a Republican Senator sometimes, because you get the fun of breaking sh*t and the joy of complaining the sh*t you just broke doesn’t work.

Here's more from TPM on this week's hearing: Senators Fawn Over JPMorgan CEO After Massive Trading Debacle:

The long-shot big hope for Wall Street reformers Wednesday was that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon would trip up before the Senate Banking Committee and expose the need for tighter rules governing big banks. His firm, after all, recently lost billions making risky bets with depositor funds on the line.

Instead, with some notable exceptions, the senators themselves turned the cross-examination into a coronation, and exposed the extent to which elected officials still feel compelled to genuflect to powerful financial interests.

“You’re obviously renowned, rightfully so I think, as being one of the most, you know, one of the best CEOs in the country for financial institutions,” crooned Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). “You missed this, it’s a blip on the radar screen.”

Most of the fawning came from GOP senators who in addition to relying on Wall Street largesse remain engaged in a political campaign against President Obama’s 2010 financial reform law. But some Democrats also treated Dimon if not quite like royalty then perhaps as a trusted confidant. [...]

His exchanges with GOP senators were even more saccharine. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) — a tea party hero — gave Dimon a full pardon. “I really appreciate you voluntarily coming in to talk with us,” he said. “It is important that we talk about things happening in the industry. It helps us as we look forward and, hopefully, it will contribute to best practice scenarios in industry. I appreciate your emphasis on continuous quality improvement. We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day in Washington.”

Stewart went after DeMint for that ridiculous remark, asking if he thought spending money was the same as losing money.

DOWNLOADS: (185)

PLAYS: (622)

Embed

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.