Another Republican Bites The Dust

Republican Jim DeMint resigned from the Senate today, and I started blowing up balloons, pouring the booze, and breaking out the noisemakers until I realized that he's from South Carolina, where it's as likely he'll be replaced by a Democrat as it is that Rush Limbaugh will join the ACLU. The South Carolina governor, Nikki Hailey, will simply appoint another right-wing extremist who will make us wish for the good old days when DeMint was in the Senate. DeMint resigned to head up the Heritage Foundation, a "right-wing think tank." This oxymoronic term is right up there with jumbo shrimp, Army intelligence, open secret, and Hell's Angels. There is no such thing as a conservative intellectual, and right-wing "think tanks" are nothing more than gatherings of quasi-fascists construing outlandish justifications for making the rich richer and the poor poorer. One Republican nut job, upon hearing of DeMint's resignation, said, "No Senator has fought harder for liberty and freedom than Jim DeMint." Horse manure. DeMint spent his entire time in the Senate fighting against our liberties--to breathe clean air and drink fresh water, to be free of random gun violence, to die with dignity, to have a meager income in old age to be free of starvation, to have women do what they wish with their own bodies, to be free of economic oppression, to be free of unnecessary war, to be free to collectively bargain for better wages, and to have the liberty of speaking freely in public places. DeMint's version of freedom is only this--the freedom of corporations to pollute, to control, to buy politicians and elections, to oppress workers, and pay no taxes while making huge profits. That's not engendering freedom; that's catering to plutocratic self-interest. Good-bye, DeMint...and go fuck yourself.