Sen. Jim DeMint just earned my “Coolest Senator of the Week Award” with these statements right here:

“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,”

See, Berkeley’s City Council voted this week to tell the Marines to get their recruiting office out of their city. The Marines, who fought the Battle of Iwo Jima for a month, thought that was kinda funny:

In the meantime, a senior Marine official tells FOX News that the Marine office in Berkeley isn’t going anywhere.

“We understand things are different there, but some people just don’t get it. This is a part of the military machine that gives them the right to do what they do, but what they are doing is extreme.”

Not to a liberal. This is just about right. To them, asking for volunteers to protect their rights is extreme.

Sen. DeMint details what he has targeted:

— $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.

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

Uh, yeah. Why are we paying for that in the first place?

Nice work, Sen. DeMint.