RALEIGH - Former U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms, the son of a Monroe police chief who rose to national prominence as one of the leading lions of the American right, died early this morning. He was 86.

During a political career that began with his election to the Raleigh City Council in the late 1950s and included 30 years in the U.S. Senate, Jesse Alexander Helms endeared himself to conservatives throughout the country.

Helms became known as “Senator No” for his constant battles against everything from increased government spending to civil rights legislation to communism to the National Endowment for the Arts. Helms was even willing to wage war against fellow Republicans if he felt they were straying from the conservative agenda, particularly in the area of foreign policy.

The News & Observer

Putting aside the racial issues associated with Helms, he was a model conservative for standing up to the excesses of government and for standing on principle.  He wasn’t even afraid to go after members of his own party, which I always found quite admirable.  I wish we could have more representatives in the GOP with his courage and character.

Across the country today family and friends are gathering for picnics and parties. This evening cities throughout the nation will be painting the night skies with fantastical displays of fireworks and light( the most phenomenal of which, by the way, are put on by Zambelli Fireworks in Pittsburgh). Today is July 4th, Independence Day and while Americans of all stripes are grilling burgers and digging into apple pie and oohing and ahhing at colorful splashes of fire in the night sky, I ponder just how many of these people really know what they are celebrating today and do they really understand why? I think the answer to that is no.

We’ve come a long way since 1776 when the Founders of this great nation declared us an independent people, free from the abuse and treachery at the hands of the British. But, after 232 years have we simply traded that foreign tyranny for a domestic? When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence he envisioned a society based on individual freedom and liberty. It was a society where anybody was free to choose their own destiny, to provide for themselves and their family, and achieve unlimited opportunity and where charity was a personal decision based on the kindness of one’s heart and the giving of others, but those days are well behind us.

You see, in today’s America an ever growing, overreaching government has bastardized that foundation and sent us down a path where it has become barely recognizable. In today’s America we are told by the state how, what and where to educate our children. Today we live in an America where our free speech is censored be it deemed too insensitive to others’ ears. We are told our moral faiths which have remained constant for thousands of years are hateful and bigoted. In today’s America our highest court gives precedent, to corporate conglomerates, our private land rights allowing them to snatch them away if they can better feed the state’s mammoth apatite than that of a working family. In today’s Land of the Free the prosperity of your average American is stunted by the theft of your labors at the hands of the collective. Today, you’re average American works until May just to pay the government. Indeed, we have truly strayed from the concepts of individualism and unlimited achievement. The Founders revolted over much less than this.

Now we are in another election year and half of our country’s voters are cheering on a full blown Marxist who uplifts them with promises of suckling off the rewards of the other half who have lived and exemplified the American dream, all under the guise of a spurious sense of “fairness” and the “greater good.” The other half have aligned themselves with a man who will continue to dredge us through several more years of death and struggle abroad in the name of nation building under the fraudulent notion of “safety” and “security.” Don’t you dare question it either. Surely, this is not what General Washington fought for in the American Revolution, nor General Grant in the Civil War. It is certainly not the America my grandfather defended in World War II nor the country my father served under in Vietnam.

I am certainly not ungrateful for what I have. I think too many Americans are ignorant as to how good we have it here compared to most of the world, but as each year passes I find less to celebrate. Perhaps I am too cynical, but I find it sad to see so many of my fellow countrymen sit back and willingly enable and cheer on a burgeoning bureaucratic beast as it swallows whole so much of what is rightly ours. I would like to believe that America’s best days still await, but I fear they are long gone.

[UPDATE - Langley]: Sam, while I agree with the sentiment here, I also agree with Erick at Red State that despite all of the flaws that we are surrounded by and the challenges we face, days like today are worth celebrating and recommit ourselves to fighting to restore the First Principles that the Declaration of Independence represented, and that our Founders pledged their lives and sacred honor to fight for.

The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance.

He declared: ‘Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.’

Daily Mail

Every time some damning story comes out about how the once “Great” Britain has sunk further into the abyss of tyranny and despotism, I ask myself, “What is it going to take for these people to wake up?”  Then something even more startling pops up.

This is unreal.  What in the hell are those people doing over there?  How much more evidence do they need that their country has been pulled out from under them by the enemy within?  I love the UK.  I’ve visited there and I almost went to college in London with the intention of even possibly remaining there afterwards.  In hindsight I thank God those plans never worked out.  I fear if I went back now I wouldn’t recognize it anymore.

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a “super super jumbo.” Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama’s rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Washington Post

Clearly the appropriate thing for Obama to do would be to demand that his interest rate as well as those of all the other greedy rich people be raised a few percent so that the poor and downtrodden who are losing their homes to foreclosure can get a break on their rates and stay in their homes.  I think that pretty much lines up with Obama’s general philosophy of wealth redistribution.  He should make an example of himself to show how much he cares about the little guy.

First Principles.

First, in case you haven’t heard, Christopher Hitchens got voluntarily waterboarded and says (this is me ripping from Ace) with Absolute Moral Authority that the practice is bad and torture.

The definition of torture?  Via Ace of Spades, via S. Weasel:

Torture is any experience so horrible that no-one would consider trying it out simply for the purpose of writing a Vanity Fair article about what it’s like.

Short statement, but it sure says a lot.

Even the McCain detractors around here have gotta love this story. This is from an article quoting Senator Thad Cochran, which is meant to be critical of McCain’s legendary temper:

Cochran said he saw McCain, who has a reputation for being hot tempered, rough up an Ortega associate during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.

“McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table and I don’t know what attracted my attention,” Cochran said in an interview with the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. “But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever …

“I don’t know what he was telling him but I thought, ‘Good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission.’ I don’t know what had happened to provoke John, but he obviously got mad at the guy … and he just reached over there and snatched … him.”

Jim Geraghty: “I realize I’m supposed to be horrified by this story…but if accurate, I can’t help but find myself hoping McCain comes to agree with Obama’s proposal for unconditional, face-to-face summits with dictators.”

Damn straight.

As some of you may know, conservative hero and Senator Jim DeMint (SC) recently started the Senate Conservatives’ Fund.  You can read my earlier write-up on the new group and how it fits into the growing list of movement conservative institutions here.

Senator DeMint is soliciting conservatives’ advice as to what races the SCF should support; obviously the candidates should be truly conservative ones, not simply anyone with an “R” next to their name.

I have already emailed them with my recommendations at this time.  I need to do a bit more research before I make any further ones; I sent them the names of three candidates that jumped out at me immediately as conservatives from my knowledge of them - they are Sens. Inhofe, Cornyn, and Rep. Pearce (running for NM - SEN).  I know several others are pretty reliably conservative, but I wanted to send them my initial thoughts immediately and hem and haw a bit about other races.  I’m sure other conservatives have sent them the most pressing names as well, meaning hopefully they can get a sense for the highest-priority races in the conservative sense.

The following is a list of Senate races this November:

ALABAMA: Jeff Sessions (R)* vs. Vivian Davis Figures (D)

ALASKA: Ted Stevens (R)* vs. Mark Begich (D)

COLORADO: Bob Schaffer (R) vs. Mark Udall (D)

GEORGIA: Saxby Chambliss (R)* vs. Vernon Jones (D)

IDAHO: James Risch (R) vs. Larry LaRocco (D)

KENTUCKY: Mitch McConnell (R)* vs. Bruce Lunsford (D)

LOUISIANA: John Kennedy (R) vs. Mary Landrieu (D)*

MAINE: Susan Collins (R)* vs. Tom Allen (D)

MINNESOTA: Norm Coleman (R)* vs. Al Franken (DFL)

MISSISSIPPI: Roger Wicker (R)* vs. Ronnie Musgrove (D

NEBRASKA: Mike Johanns (R) vs. Scott Kleeb (D)

NEW HAMPSHIRE: John Sununu (R)* vs. Jeanne Shaheen (D

NEW JERSEY: Dick Zimmer (R) vs. Frank Lautenberg (D)*

NEW MEXICO: Steve Pearce (R) vs. Tom Udall (D)

NORTH CAROLINA: Elizabeth Dole (R)* vs. Kay Hagan (D)

OKLAHOMA: Jim Inhofe (R)* vs. Andrew Rice (D)

OREGON: Gordon Smith (R)* vs. Jeff Merkley (D)

SOUTH DAKOTA: Joel Dykstra (R) vs. Tim Johnson (D)*

TEXAS: John Cornyn (R)* vs. Rick Noriega (D)

VIRGINIA: Jim Gilmore (R) vs. Mark Warner (D)

* Incumbent

You can email the SCF with recommendations at: info@senateconservatives.com .

California State Sen. Tom McClintock, darling of the conservatives in California and rabble-rouser against Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled CA legislature.  Club for Growth endorsed, as well.

We should start a series on this site highlighting Republican candidates worthwhile of SaveTheGOPers’ support this election cycle.  A Save the GOP “slatecard” if you will.

Members and readers of this site certainly have disagreements about the GOP nominee for president, which is understandable and healthy for us to debate.

With that disagreement (and lack of real passion for McCain for most STG supporters of him, anyway, more of a “anybody but Obama” mindset), we should focus on where conservatives can make a difference and need to rebuild our bench: Congress, governorships, state house control, et cetera.

The Alaskan Representative with Potomac Fever gets the endorsement of Huck PAC.

Republican Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, challenging Young in the party primary, has the endorsement of Gov. Sarah Palin (rapidly gaining attention beyond the blogosphere in recent weeks) and of the Club for Growth.

I’d say that’s a pretty good litmus test, and a microcosm of the battle within the Republican Party. On one side you have the Huck PACs and incumbent Don Youngs, and on the other side you have the upstart reformist conservatives. My bet? Young gets bested in the primary. Another RINO bites the dust. Slowly but surely, conservatives manage to accrue more power within the Party. This could mean great things for 2012, 2016, or beyond.

National Review has a primer on Don Young.

Cross-posted at The Next Right.

Call Senators DeMint and Ensign and let them know you support their efforts on this issue!

The housing lobby is frustrated by the delay in passing the Mortgage Bailout Bill and has decided to target Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and John Ensign (R-NV).  Recently, lobbyists representing housing industry have started putting pressure on these two Senators whom they view to be the source of the delay.

The motive of the housing lobby should be obvious - if the $300 billion bailout is passed, then they will stand to benefit greatly from not having to take responsibility for their bad loans.  However, Senators DeMint and Ensign have been on the right side of this issue from day one and are leading the fight to expose the bill for what it is: an irresponsible bailout for house flippers and their banks.

Please take a few minutes to call 1-866-928-3035 to express your support for Senators DeMint and Ensign and encourage them to continue to stand firm for limited, responsible government.

Andrew Brown
Federal and State Campaigns
FreedomWorks
601 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
North Building, Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004-2601
(202) 783-3870 phone
(214) 336-5273 cell
(202) 942-7649 fax
www.FreedomWorks.org

As the GOP in Congress appears about to be taking an “every man for himself” strategy for the fall elections, Gallup has just given the Republicans another gift (Americans Oppose Income Redistribution to Fix Economy). The results of this poll show that if the GOP ever gets back to preaching and adhering to the simple message that they used to have — one that they’ve previously ridden to victory on — they’d be shoe-ins in 2008. Whether or not the Republicans have cleaned their own house enough to take advantage of something like this remains to be seen.Barack Obama is running on an economic platform that promises to “restore fairness to the tax code”. On the same page of his campaign website that that quote came from, Obama also refers to Bush’s “Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class”. Put the two of them together and the message that Obama is sending to the public is that he wants to take money from the wealthy and give to the middle class - the very definition of the “Income Redistribution” that this Gallup poll measures public opinion on. Obama doesn’t even have to actively do much for this redistribution to happen - all he has to do is let the Bush tax cuts expire.The numbers in this poll are staggering. Overall, Americans are against the core principle behind Barack Obama’s domestic economic policy — income redistribution — by an astounding 84% to 13%. Republicans oppose it 90%-9%, Independents oppose it 85% to 13%, and even Democrats oppose it 77% to 19%.

American Thinker

It’s really no mystery why 1994 was the year that it was for the Republican Party.  Americans want less taxes.  They want less government.  They want people to be responsible for their actions and the Republican Party gave them that option that year and the voters ran with it.

Unless I’m mistaken, all of these results show support for - dare I say it - Reagan-brand conservatism. Even after all this time — after all the liberal garbage that the Democrats and the media relentlessly shove in our faces — when the public is faced with an economic crisis, Reagan’s conservative message of low taxes and limited government still wins.

So the question remains, why then are so many voters flocking to Barack Obama when he clearly doesn’t represent their beliefs?  I think the answer to that is simple.  The GOP no longer represents those beliefs either.  Bush flushed all our success down the toilet and the Congress joined in so it’s also no mystery why in the past couple of years people have been running from the GOP screaming.

Think about it.  In 1994 the Republicans promised to cut entitlement spending and they did.  Bush expanded entitlement spending by historical numbers.  Republicans promised a balanced budget and delivered.  In fact, the national debt was decreasing during the 1990s.  Bush has almost doubled the debt.  In 1994 Republicans promised less government and a more open government.  The Bush administration has grown government by record levels and has been one of the most secretive administrations in history while the GOP Congress during his administration has been rife with corruption.  Why would any rational thinking person want more of this?

Obama isn’t doing so well because Americans want to turn to Socialism as a cure.  He is simply the “anything but another Republican” candidate.  I don’t know what’s going to happen in November, but the odds are against McCain winning unless something really damning comes out against Obama.  What I do know is that the Republican Party needs to take advantage of the next few years and start pulling itself back together and rebranding themselves with that 1994 image that we all fell in love with.  People want fiscal conservatism and personal liberty.  They don’t want wreckless spending and gay marriage amendments.  The Republicans need to build again from the ground up in places that used to be fertile GOP territory, but now where scarcely a Republican can be found.  There is one Republican House member in all of New England and he is a poor example anyway.  They’re down to only a handful of Congressional seats in New York and California and the party hasn’t been competitive in Presidential races in those two states in 20 years.  They’re beginning to slip in the south and the west and starting to lose suburbia.

I have no doubt that if Obama wins he’ll be a one term wonder.  He’s going to completely bomb just like Carter did.  In fact, his administration won’t be any different than Carter’s other than Obama won’t have a retarded brother running around embarrassing him in public.  If the GOP can get its act together they can make some gains back in 2010 and then go for the full monty in ‘12, but it’s going to have to happen from the ground up.  The folks in leadership aren’t going to do it so it’s up to the people on the ground to start making the noise.

I did not think this was a real campaign ad when I first saw it, but at the end it does say paid for by the Coleman campaign and it’s on the Coleman for Senate YouTube page.

He needs to pull this embarrassment out of the media immediately.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint on Wednesday spearheaded Republican opposition to a $50 billion expansion of President Bush’s signature program to combat AIDS in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

DeMint, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and five other Republican senators blocked Senate consideration of a bill that would more than triple U.S. aid to nations most stricken by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to international relief groups helping them.

“For us to attempt to buy friendship around the world by spending $50 billion is just completely irresponsible,” DeMint said. “There are enough worthy causes around the world to bankrupt us a hundred times over.”

The State

Not just irresponsible, it’s unconstitutional!  There is nothing, NOTHING in the Constitution that allows our government to give any of our money away to other nations.  Why isn’t this stuff challenged in the courts anymore??  When FDR was trying to implement all of his Marxist programs the SCOTUS was striking them down left and right (until he scared the crap out of them by trying to expand the court and stack it with Socialist judges).  Yet, today we see unconstitutional bills passed almost daily and they are never challenged.  I hope these Senators hold firm on this.  I am so thankful to have a man like Jim DeMint representing my state.

Woohoo!!  This is a win for all Americans today, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal.  The Second Amendment does indeed guarantee an individual right to own a gun.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Washington D.C.’s sweeping ban on handguns is unconstitutional.

The justices voted 5-4 against the ban with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority.

At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether the city’s ban violated the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” by preventing individuals — as opposed to state militias — from having guns in their homes.

District of Columbia officials argued they had the responsibility to impose “reasonable” weapons restrictions to reduce violent crime, but several Washingtonians challenged the 32-year-old law. Some said they had been constant victims of crimes and needed guns for protection.

CNN

The decision being a 5 to 4 split though does bother me.  It shouldn’t have been that close.  We were one judge away from having the Second Amendment being totally gutted.  They should have been unanimous on this.  Anyone can clearly see what the intention of the Second Amendment was.  It’s not difficult.

Update:  I found some of the opinions of the dissenting justices.  Get a load of this crap:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.”

Fox News

The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the “Fairness Doctrine” (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush Limbaugh, other radio talk show hosts and much of the new alternative media) would not see the light of day in Congress during ’08.  In ruling out a vote on Pence’s proposed Broadcaster’s Freedom Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA.) also signaled her strong support for revival of the “Fairness Doctrine” — which would require radio station owners to provide equal time to radio commentary when it is requested.

Experts say that the “Fairness Doctrine,” which was ended under the Reagan Administration, would put a major burden on small radio stations in providing equal time to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative broadcasters, who are a potent political force.  Rather than engage in the costly practice of providing that time, the experts conclude, many stations would simply not carry Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other talk show hosts who are likely to generate demands for equal time.

Human Events

I’m not just loosely throwing out the term like stupid college kids do to describe George Bush when they don’t even know what the word means.  When the government can pass a law that dictates what is government permitted speech and what is not, that is real, live fascism folks.  We are already being told what to expect for the next four years under an Obama presidency and freedom is in jeopardy.

Oh Gordo, how pathetic……….

And he has been leading his Democratic opponent since day one too, that’s what I don’t get.  He may have just thrown it all away.

Feel the embarrassment!

But seriously, as I’ve stated before, this was a poor move by the Obama campaign that made him appear to be egotistical and self-righteous (which he is), and in the end adds only more credence to the notion that Sen. Barack Obama is an unserious, media-hyped candidate.

A piece by Robert Novak today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When John McCain met privately with Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin after a political event in the Milwaukee suburbs May 29, the Republican presidential candidate might not have realized that he had just come face to face with an opportunity and a test. Ryan showed him his plan to reform the economy. McCain expressed interest and said he would turn it over to his campaign’s economists.

That was truly ominous. If the Kemp-Roth tax cut had been handed over to economists three decades ago, it likely would have died in its crib and aborted the national and Republican revival under President Ronald Reagan. Ryan’s plan is more sweeping than the proposal by his boss and mentor Jack Kemp, who dealt only with taxes. In 70 pages, “Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future” shows the way to reform taxes, control spending and brake runaway entitlement outlays.

Ryan has proposed far too much to handle for nervous House Republican leaders. They have refrained from publicly knocking Ryan down only because they are in a state of terror over their party’s desperate condition, as indicated by plummeting polls and special election defeats. More important is the yet unstated reaction by McCain, famously uninterested in economics but never shy on courage to defy the conventional wisdom.

Actually, to embrace Ryan’s Roadmap requires more political insight than courage. Ryan was met with enthusiastic approval at some 35 town meetings in his southern Wisconsin industrial district, where he unveiled his plan over the last two months. His constituents, who sent liberal Democrat Les Aspin to Congress for 22 years, are legendary “Reagan Democrats” who have soured on the GOP. Ryan believes they are far ahead of politicians in their alarm over entitlements. “Do we have the guts to act?” asks Ryan.

Ryan fears potential national disaster is ahead because we “will exceed the European extent of government and bring our economy to extinction.” With the U.S. government share of the economy at 20 percent, he sees it rising to a calamitous 40 percent when his three children (ages 3, 4 and 6) reach their 30s, requiring a doubled tax rate. President Bush’s appropriations rose $49 billion over the last year, and the Democratic-controlled House upped that ante. But spending enacted by Congress is dwarfed by statutory increases in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.

Ryan’s Roadmap makes a serious effort, as neither Congress nor the Bush administration did, to cut appropriated spending. Ryan calls it “Gramm-Rudman on steroids” (referring to successive spending control measures beginning in 1985).

But his boldest thrust comes in radical changes to entitlements, including an option for persons under 55 years old to buy private retirement insurance, plus reduced benefits and delayed retirement for Social Security. His Internal Revenue reform would amount to an optional modified flat tax (advocated in principle by McCain) and substituting a small business consumption tax for the corporate income tax rate — while holding federal taxes to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product.

It is hardly likely the Republican leadership would embrace Ryan’s daring agenda if it cannot even bring itself temporarily to forego pork-barrel spending by passing a moratorium on earmarks. But Ryan represents a younger breed of reform Republicans who now have junior leadership positions.

Ryan, 38, top Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been working closely with freshman Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 43, who has been named chairman of the national platform by Minority Leader John Boehner, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, 45, the party’s chief deputy whip. After another expected bad GOP defeat in the 2008 congressional elections, Ryan, McCarthy and Cantor could constitute the party’s new House leadership.

But who will be in the White House? McCain so far has generated little excitement in his own Republican base, much less among Reagan Democrats. His cautious political and economic advisers flinch at complicated tax changes, massive budget cuts and tampering with Social Security. But a campaign based on Barack Obama’s shortcomings may not be enough on Election Day. While Ryan says the people are more than ready for his strong medicine, McCain has not yet agreed.

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain hopes to solve the country’s energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

The Times-News

Anyone catch the error in this article?  It’s the second sentence.  The author wrote that McCain was offering a $300 million prize in government money to whoever develops this battery.  The problem is that the government has no money.  What he is offering is $300 million of OUR money, yours and mine.