Senator Jim DeMint (R-Corporations) was a busy fellow this past week. His Senate website blog says he and his 39 fellow refuseniks have demanded that Majority Leader Harry Reid let the public see the health care bill that has been sent to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis.
DeMint doesn't explain why a) if the bill hasn't been formally introduced yet, Senator Reid should have to give him a copy any more than DeMint should have to cough up new bills corporations are writing for him before he is instructed to sign and introduce them; and 2) if it has been introduced, why he can't drag his lazy ass over to the Bill Room and get a copy; and 3/ if they hadn't stuck their fingers in their ears, closed their eyes and shouted "la la la la la" for all of this year, he and the other 39 could have been in on the drafting of the bill.
Neither does DeMint explain the difference between "full transparency" and "greater transparency." And Mr. Transparency adds a link to the PDF of the letter- as if somehow seeing it will lend it greater (or full transparency)- but the link doesn't work.
DeMint also offers, with a straight face, a Wall Street Journal story citing a study by a massive insurance company that health care reform would require Americans who can afford health insurance to pay even more in premiums to the massive health care insurance company. The massive insurance company is distressed by this.
What's really distressing is that this kinda stuff has no intellectual substance. It's phrased to get people angry so DeMint can say "I am your leader, I will follow you." It's cynical and condescending. But, then, he is running for a second term in order to pass legislation to bar himself from running for a third.
In his "News Room"- which is not the same his "Jim's Blog", DeMint issued his first two press releases in three weeks. One bloviates about Boeing.
The other blusters about reports that the President "may" bring "terrorists" to the Charleston Navy Yard for trial from Gitmo:
“Let’s be perfectly clear: risking the safety of the people of South Carolina to curry favor with America’s enemies is foolish and unnecessary. These terrorist detainees can already be tried at Guantanamo Bay. The President should spend less time appeasing the United Nations, and more time defending America’s right to protect our own people. Bringing terrorists into our communities is unacceptable and I will fight any attempt to do so.”
DeMint must imagine the highly-skilled, smart worker voters of South Carolina Boeing came here to pay half what they pay their Washington employees must be stupid. How does bringing a bunch of derelicts who's been held in Cuba for seven years already without managing a clever escape or launching an attack on the US represent a threat to all South Carolinians and all the state's communities? Which communities besides Charleston might they be brought into? Which of America's enemies does this curry favor with, and how, exactly?
If being a terrorist is, by definition, a threat to Americans, where's DeMint's bill to remove the Unabomber to Guantanamo Bay? He could be breaking out of his supermax federal prison any minute and mailing shoe bombs to South Carolinians.
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