UPDATE: Battleground Berkeley

There is at least one good man left in Washington.

US Senator Jim DeMint, R-SC, says the City of Berkeley no longer deserves federal money.

 

DeMint was angry after the Berkeley City Council voted to tell the U.S. Marine Corps to remove its recruiting station from the city's downtown.

"This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families. The First Amendment gives the City of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money."

"If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer-funded handouts."

The latest from Senator DeMint's website:

Berkeley, California is probably a very nice place to live, but the recent action of their City Council has consequences. To spit in the eyes of the United States Marine Corps will not stand. We shouldn’t allow cities to play silly games at our troops’ expense — during a time of war — and continue to shower them with special taxpayer handouts.

That is why I will propose legislation rescinding Berkeley’s earmarks and transferring the funds to the Marine Corps.

Over $2 million was secretly tucked away for Berkeley earmarks in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill. These were projects that were never even voted on or debated.

Two of the earmarks provide gourmet school lunches in the Berkeley School District, while our hard working Marines eat basic MRE’s."

The irony is the Marines are glad to do it and that is why most Americans are so proud of them.

DeMint's office provided a preliminary list of items that would be subject to his proposal:

— $975,000 for the University of California at Berkeley, for the Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, which may include establishing an endowment, and for cataloguing the papers of Congressman Robert Matsui.

 

— $750,000 for the Berkeley/Albana ferry service.

 

— $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, for a school lunch initiative to integrate lessons about wellness, sustainability and nutrition into the academic curriculum.

 

— $94,000 for a Berkeley public safety interoperability program

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— $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District, nutrition education program.

 

UPDATE II:

A week after the Berkeley City Council voted to un-welcome the US Marines to their city; after giving CodePink-o a primo parking spot directly in front of the recruiting office and a sound permit (for a bullhorn) for every Wednesday; after hundreds of emails, and the closing/or crash of the city website due to hundreds/thousands of emails; after a US Senator proposed re-allocating federal funds, some of the City Council members have rethought their vote.

Some council members said the original proposals "inadvertantly insulted veterans and those currently serving in the military".

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates (former Army Captain and major dipshit asswad):

"I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don't belong here, they shouldn't have come here, and they should leave. Marines are the President's own gangsters. They are trained killers." - January 29th, after the votes.
"A lot of people think we're anti-Marine, but there's a difference between the warriors and the war. This is an attempt to clarify that."- February 4th, after the uproar.

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"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." –John Stewart Mill–