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Historical or hysterical? What to make of Tim Scott replacing whack-job DeMint

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Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:48 pm

Tim Scott is back on the hill come 1/3/13, but he’s been booted upstairs to the upper house. From a one-term Representative to a newly DeMinted Senator.

There might be a little overlap with colleague Adalia Woodbury’s excellent summation of the appointment, but with such huge news as Republican and Black Republican in the same sentence and with a bit of a local perspective, who can resist? As predicted, it was Tim Scott all along. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced the appointment of SC House member Scott as the new Senior Senator parking his carcass in the seat formerly occupied by absurdly right-wing, Jim DeMint. DeMint, who is stepping down 4 years before the end of his term is taking over leadership of the Heritage Foundation.

It’s being billed as a historic selection insofar as Scott will be the South’s first black Republican Senator since Reconstruction. Yes, it took them that long to find an African-American radical enough to follow in the footsteps of the most racist elected officials on the planet. And a heads-up to Scott and the party. If y’all think your fooling the brothers and sisters into suddenly believing you’re inclusively hugging the black community to your suddenly accepting bosom, think again. That belief is patronizingly cynical and insulting. Your pick of Scott is so transparent, it’s embarrassing.

You see, the right-wing wants to have its cake and eat it too. Pick a token wacko black who is as nuts as his white counterparts and then point to the single Republican African American in the senate and say “see, we love our black brothers.” OK, let’s take a peek at the philosophy this appointment is soon to press upon the senate. What exactly does this historic figure bring to the upper house? Well, Haley stressed that she picked Scott for his “conservative values.”

Alrighty then, let’s check out Mr. Scott’s ‘conservative values’. What better method to track Scott’s ‘conservative values’ than through Jim DeMint’s new digs at the ultra right-wing Heritage Foundation where he is about to serve as President. An arm of the Foundation is something called Heritage Action. This is a scorecard of sorts that give a percentage grade primarily on the basis of conservative Congressional votes by Representatives and Senators. While falling short of DeMint’s extraordinary 99% allegiance to all things right-wing, Scott still manages to outpace the average Republican Representative by 22 percentage points.

Here’s how he does it. These are the votes that earned Scott the coveted green checkmarks from the Heritage folks, or whatever intern who was assigned to do the research, gratis. Welfare reform? Scott would freeze it at 2007 levels when and if unemployment hits 6.5%. He would extend TANF work requirements to the Food Stamp program. He wants to preempt the regulation of greenhouse gases with some high-sounding legislation that will ruin lots of citizens’ health – especially children and the elderly. I can hear DeMint applauding now. How about repealing all alternative energy tax subsidies? Scott’s a fan with the $90 billion in savings going to lower the corporate tax rate. Scott may be black, but that nose of his is pure Big Business Brown.

H.R.2 gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from the new Senator. It repeals ALL of Obamacare; every last comma. An amendment by fellow South Carolina wackadoo, Representative Mick Mulvaney cuts the overall level of nonsecurity spending back to FY 2006 levels. Scott’s got his back. How about defunding Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements? Yeah! Then there’s the big Scott shout-out for H.R. 1076; you remember; pull all government money away from National Public Radio and its “often-biased” programming as Heritage describes it.

Scott’s a big fan of a bill that terminates Obama foreclosure assistance calling such efforts “market-distorting.” Most evidence to the contrary, Scott is not completely against spending DC money. He likes the idea of expanding a grant program for 5 more years so young students in our nation’s capital can seek out expanded school choice opportunities. Oh oh, looks like the profiteers have gotten to him. Heritage calls it moving away from “the government’s education monopoly.” I call it exploiting children for fat cat bottom lines.

There are a bunch of more votes that progressives will find detestable. Hop on over to Heritage Action if you want to review them.

So Scott laps a field that included current SC Representatives Trey Gowdy and Mulvaney, former AG, Henry McMaster, former ‘lover-boy’ Governor Mark Sanford’s ex-wife Jenny and a lady you’ve never heard of, Health and Environmental Control Director Catherine Templeton. While legislative Democrats accused Templeton of going back on a promise and slashing and burning her department’s workforce, she managed to take care of her own. The $150,000 a year Director, a former anti-union attorney, has created 4 new high-paying jobs within SCHEC and, by golly, YOU can’t apply for them. She decides who gets the gravy. According to a popular state conservative blog, FITSNews, published by former Governor Sanford staffer, Will Folks, none were publicly posted.

Gowdy, who was named a finalist for PR purposes because he might challenge ‘moderate’ Senator, Lindsey Graham, had a rather odd endorsement of Scott. “Scott epitomized the American dream, pulling himself up by his bootstraps.” People are still using the ‘bootstrap’ thing? Gowdy went on to say, “Timmy is bilingual, but failed Spanish and English in the same year.” Tell you what Trey; ‘Timmy’ is about to fail Spanish again.

Scott says that as a youth a local Chick-fil-A franchise owner took him under his wing. You suppose Scott recognized the pun? The owner taught him the value of conservative principles. Conservative principles! As Adalia pointed out, another oxymoron. Maybe that’s where Scott picked up that anti-gay marriage thing.

Great Scott! They just keep on coming. Now there’s an empty seat in the House. The stampede is on. Maybe Joe Wilson’s kid, Alan, the current South Carolina Attorney General, will get the nod. He’s anti-immigration, loves the state’s new Voter-ID suppression legislation and defended his old man’s “You lie” idiocy…a real chip off the old blockhead!

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Dennis S

Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.

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