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Last week, State Senator Bakari Sellars wrote in The State that United States Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., had failed to do enough to get federal funding for the state. On Sunday, a couple of South Carolina Country Republican Chairmen defended DeMint in a joint letter to a local newspaper where they resorted to the stereotype of penny-pinching Jews to make their point.

In their response, published in The Times and Democrat, Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulme offered the following logic:

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," Ulmer and Merwin wrote in their letter. "By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation's pennies and trying to preserve our country's wealth and our economy's viability to give all an opportunity to succeed."

A spokesman for Sen. DeMint was not immediately available for comment.

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On Wednesday, we reported on remarks made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama's former pastor, where he complained that "them Jews aren't going to let [Obama] talk to me."

Now Wright has addressed those remarks, as ABC News reports. Speaking on satellite radio, Wright said he "misspoke" when he complained that "Jews" were keeping him away from the president. The word he really meant to use, Wright said, is "Zionists."

"I’m not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith, I’m talking about Zionists," Wright told Mark Thompson, according to ABC. You can listen to portions of the interview here.

Though Zionism originated over a hundred years ago as a movement to establish an independent Jewish state, the term "Zionist" is sometimes now used in a derogatory way in reference to those who strongly support Israel.

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The criminal complaint filed today charging James von Brunn with murder references a notebook found in von Brunn's car in which the Holocaust Museum shooting suspect rails against President Obama, whom he writes "was created by Jews."

CBS News' Deirdre Hester flagged the passage, which appears on page three of the complaint.

"You want my weapons - this is how you'll get them," wrote von Brunn. "The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America's money. Jews control the mass media."

The passage continues in this fashion and is followed by the signature, "James W. Von Brunn."

The full complaint is below. (PDF)

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Criminal complaint against James Wenneker von Brunn

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President Obama today attended a Holocaust Remembrance program at the Rotunda in the Capitol. He called for the world not to be silent when similar atrocities occur in the future.

"We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives and celebrate those who saved them, honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living," Mr. Obama said.

Members of Congress, Holocaust survivors and U.S. soldiers who liberated concentration camps were also on hand for the event. It was sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and meant as a forum for remembering the estimated 12 million people, more than 6 million of them Jews, who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who spoke before Mr. Obama, discussed how the world didn't speak up, take action, or even just warn Jews about what was going on in Nazi Germany. He signaled out the U.S. government and even journalists at the Washington Post and the New York Times.

"I belong to a traumatized generation that often felt abandoned by God and betrayed by mankind," he said.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama castigated what he called a "willingness…to accept the assigned role of bystander" and paid tribute to those few in Europe who went out of their way to save Jews from the Nazis.

"While we are here today to bear witness to the human capacity to destroy, we are also here to pay tribute to the human impulse to save," he said. "They remind us that no one is born a savior or a murderer. These are choices we each have the power to make. They teach us that no one can make us into bystanders without our consent, and that we are never truly alone."

The president asked the following question: "How do we ensure that 'never again' isn't an empty slogan or merely an aspiration, but also a call to action?"

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