Jim Demint driving the austerity bus: "most powerful political figure" next to President Obama according to The Atlantic

Senator Demint demands the kind of austerity  for the rest of the nation, that consevatives have been imposing on South Carolina for years. His home state is one of the poorest in the nation, has the highest violent crime rate,  and suffers from enormous public health problems. By nearly every social indicator it is a failure. Now its Senator is building a legislative movement to drive the rest of the US down the same road.


August 1, 2011.Senator Jim DeMint was not one of the major political players whose every move we watched this weekend, but he was the animator of much of the high stakes drama over raising the debt ceiling and cutting the national deficit and debt.  DeMint has been the driver of the 'never give up, never surrender' drum beat of the largely freshman class of Tea Party conservatives in both the Senate and the House.  DeMint provided muscle and counsel to Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his posturing during this debate.
Read the rest of The Atlantic's analysis

DeMint’s leadership PAC battles leaders in fight for future of Senate GOP caucus

By Alexander Bolton - 08/04/11 The Hill

Members of the Tea Party Caucus and the GOP leadership are in a money race that could shape the ideology of the Senate Republican Conference.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) remains the king of GOP fundraising, but members of the Tea Party Caucus are getting more active about electing conservatives in their mold to the upper chamber.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who often battles his leadership over the direction of the conference, has been more aggressive this year in the use of his fundraising committee.
Read the entire report from The Hill

Read more about who own's Jim Demint
Demint blames Geithner in transparent attempt to get tea party of the hook
Mitch McConnell: victor and "great dismantler" in debt ceiling deal
Wisconsin conservatives ask Demint and Club for Growth to back off  in selection of congressional candidates

Senator Demint's web site goes down and stays down after President's debt ceiling speech

Could President Obama's July 25th speech on the debt ceiling debate be the reason why Senator Demint's official Senate web site is currently off line? Perhaps the President's plea to Americans to appeal to their Congressional representatives was more than the South Carolina Senator wanted to hear. After all the hard working families of South Carolina can't provide the kind of support Boeing and the Koch Brothers generously give.

For some inexplicable reason, a number of Congressional web sites went down after President Obama's latest speech on the debt ceiling crisis. They included web sites operated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner. As of this morning those sites were back on line. However South Carolina Senator Jim Demint's site remains down. Since we provide a link to the Senator's web page from this blog we thought it worthwhile to report this news.

SENATOR DEMINT'S OFFICIAL WEBSITE BACK ON LINE BY 6PM EST. HUGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CONTACTING REPRESENTATIVES OVER THE DEBT CEILING CRISIS IS THE ONLY EXPLANATION THAT HAS BEEN OFFERED SO FAR FOR THE POSSIBLE WEB SITE CRASH (CNN July 25, 2011). 

Was it a crash, server problem, hacker or intentional shutdown of the web page by its administrators? We will publish any further explanations that we find on this quirky event.

Demint blames White House for U.S. credit downgrade following tea party driven debacle