The Urban Grind

He was a good man, and a true conservative. It’s too bad we don’t have anyone like him running for President.

To his opponents, Helms was divisive, mean-spirited, race-baiting and manipulative. He was a pioneer of negative TV attack ads, which he used frequently and effectively in his political campaigns. In 1989, he drew wide-ranging national support, and derision, for his attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts after it funded works by artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, which Helms considered homoerotic and anti-Christian.

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Helms’s opposition to social change and what he viewed as legislative overreaching led to his nickname of “Senator No,” a title he came to relish. He blocked nominations for federal office, withheld funding for the United Nations, opposed gun control and threatened to cancel federal support for arts groups and school busing. A staunch opponent of communism, he sought to isolate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and refused to relent on strict U.S. trade embargoes of Cuba.

In 1977, Helms angrily denounced a treaty advanced by President Jimmy Carter to turn over the Panama Canal to Panama. From 1979 to 1986, over the objections of Republican leaders, Helms used parliamentary ploys to scuttle the SALT II arms limitation treaty, which he said made unwarranted concessions to the Soviet Union

They are shunning Republican candidate for Arizona’s 8th congressional district Randy Graf, who is tough on illegal immigration, and who also appears to be a true conservative.

Mind you, it’s the national GOP that is shunning him, not the Arizona Republican Party. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much choice between RINO’s and Democrats, (at least in New York) and those Donks must not regain control of the House, or things will only get worse. So aside from holding our noses and voting Republican, we can at least give the RNC a piece of our minds. Here’s what I wrote to them:

I am shocked, appalled and dismayed to learn that the GOP is shunning congressional candidate and true conservative Randy Graf. I have not voted Republican for all these years only to have you people spit on all legal, law abiding hard working American citizens in favor of the illegal aliens.

I am a first generation daughter of LEGAL immigrants. My parents did not come hear demanding that classes and government services be offered in their native language while proclaiming that the South West rightly belongs to them! And there is absolutely no reason why the GOP should court such people. Leave that to the Democrats.

On another note, what is it with the GOP en Espanol little banner on the sidebar of your home page??? Is, or is not English the official language of this country?

Anyway, I just want to end by saying that if you all continue to shun true conservatives in favor of RINO’s you will never again get a penny out of me!

Sincerely,

Murtha is up for re-election in 26 days. His opponent, is Washington Commissioner Diana Irey, a true coneserative, who could use our help. And she really comes out swinging too!

“Perhaps Mr. Murtha is scared to debate me because he knows I will hold him accountable before the voters for the lies he’s been feeding his constituents for more than a quarter century about his role in the biggest corruption scandal in history. Ever since the release of Jack Murtha’s full, unexpurgated ABSCAM FBI surveillance video 13 days ago, we have known the truth — that Jack Murtha has been lying to his constituents for 26 years now regarding his behavior.

“Perhaps Mr. Murtha is scared to debate me because he knows I will hold him accountable before the voters for his long history of ethically questionable behavior in trading hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked federal appropriations for millions of dollars in campaign contributions — behavior so flagrant that even a liberal congressional watchdog group listed him just a few weeks ago as one of the 25 most corrupt Members of Congress.

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“Perhaps Mr. Murtha is scared to debate me because he knows I will hold him accountable before the voters for his rush to judgment in the matter of U.S. Marines at Haditha — where he acted as prosecutor, judge, and jury, declaring that American soldiers had, and I quote, ‘killed innocent civilians in cold blood’ — before the first Marine was charged, before the first court-martial was convened, before the first Marine was convicted.

I would also add to the list, Murtha’s incessant whining about how we need to cut and run from Iraq, how the war in “unwinnable” and how our military is ailing. He needs to be thrown out of Congress, and Diana Irey looks like an excellent candidate for his seat.

Academic Elephant, posting at Redstate believes it’s possible.

Murtha’s rival, Diana Irey, is gaining on him according to a Public Opinion Strategies poll.

Now I’ve checked out Irey’s site, and she seems very impressive. She’s for small government and says flat out that she’s against birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, which is very gutsy of her. But most of all, she’s come out swinging against Murtha. So she’ll definitely be getting some money from me.

Some people have called Ann Coulter the Michael Moore of the Right. But that’s insulting to Ann since she was never ever as vicious as Michael Moore, who is always given a free pass by the Democrats and the MSM.

In 2000 Michael Moore wrote a famous letter to Elian Gonzalez. Among the highlights: “… your mother decided to kidnap you … in Cuba, you were in jeopardy of receiving free health care whenever you needed it, an excellent education in one of the few countries that has 100 percent literacy … your mother snatched you and put you on that death boat because she simply wanted to make more money. Your mother placed you in a situation where you were certain to die [italics mine] on the open seas and that is unconscionable. It was the ultimate form of child abuse.”

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Coulter refers to the media-lavished millionairesses as “Harpies” and “broads.” Moore trashes Elian’s martyred mother as a money-mad golddigger, a kidnapper and a child murderer.

So naturally the media brand Coulter as the insensitive spewer of hateful invective, as in the New York Daily News’ “Coulter the Cruel.” Moore, on the other hand, according to Frank Rich of the New York Times, is merely a “polemicist and powerful storyteller.”

Among many other crimes and horrors, Florida’s Cubans, writes Moore in his book “Downsize This,” are responsible for “sleaze and influence-peddling in American politics. … In every incident of national torment that has deflated our country for the past three decades … Cuban exiles are always present and involved.”

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“These Cuban exiles, for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps. That’s right. Wimps,” Moore continues in his book. His smear refers to all Cubans who left Cuba but singles out the Bay of Pigs invaders for particular scorn. “Ex-Cubans with a yellow stripe down their backs,” he calls them, in addition to “crybabies.”

So it’s ok then to be as vicious as you want, as long as it’s for the “noble” purpose of socking to the “EEEVIL” rich people, gutting the military, and turning America into a socialist welfare state.

But if you speak out against all that, only THEN are you “mean spirited.”

Just yesterday, Hillary Clinton came out swinging at Ann Coulter, and defended the 9/11 Widows.

“Perhaps her book should have been called ‘Heartless,”‘ the senator said. “I know a lot of the widows and family members who lost loved ones on 9/11. They never wanted to be a member of a group that is defined by the tragedy of what happened.”

The New York Democrat and former first lady said she found it “unimaginable that anyone in the public eye could launch a vicious, mean-spirited attack on people whom I’ve known over the last four and a half years to be concerned deeply about the safety and security of our country.”

While we all might disagree on the way Ann delivered her message, I think the larger issue here is that according to the MSM, if you lose a spouse or child and you blame President Bush for it, you have the absolute moral authority, and you are above reproach.

To her credit, Ann doesn’t buy into any of that.

“I think if she’s worried about people being mean to women she should have a talk with her husband,” Coulter told radio host Sean Hannity, who was hosting a book signing for the conservative firebrand on Long Island.

“This is, I remind you, Bill Clinton’s wife,” Coulter added. “[And I'm the one who's] mean to women?”

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But Coulter told Hannity: “She may know the 9/11 widows, but you and I know Juanita Broaddrick” – a reference to one of Mr. Clinton’s accusers.

I would love to see Ann run for political office, at the very least, just to see her debating Hillary Clinton.

Now it’s all over the news that Ann Coulter has taken swipes at a group of 9/11 widows in her new book Godless.

June 7, 2006 — WASHINGTON – Conservative rabble-rouser Ann Coulter created an uproar among 9/11 victims’ families yesterday after she charged in her new book that a group of “self-obsessed” politically active widows are enjoying their husbands’ deaths.

The razor-tongued blond polemicist made unflattering remarks about the high-profile widows who liked to call themselves the “Jersey girls.” In Coulter’s latest book, “Godless,” she calls them “harpies” and the “Witches of East Brunswick.”

“I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much,” Coulter wrote.

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In 2004, they endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, fiercely denounced President Bush and participated in political ads using images from the attacks – actions that prompted Coulter’s attack.

“These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. The whole nation was wounded, all our lives reduced. But they believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony,” Coulter said.

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis.”

Coulter accused the four widows of “trying to convert their personal tragedy into a weapon to dictate national policy.”

And then she got personal.

“And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy,” Coulter said.

In all honesty, I haven’t been following the activities of these 9/11 women. But I will say that I don’t understand how women who say they are trying to make our country safer could have endorsed John Kerry for President.

Here’s a link to the statement put out by these women in response to Ann.

We are continuously reminded that we are still a nation at risk. Therefore, the following is a partial list of areas still desperately in need of attention and public outcry. We should continuously be holding the feet of our elected officials to the fire to fix these shortcomings.

1. Homeland Security Funding based on risk. Inattention to this area causes police officers, firefighters and other emergency/first responder personnel to be ill equipped in emergencies. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

2. Intelligence Community Oversight. Without proper oversight, there exists no one joint, bicameral intelligence panel with power to both authorize and appropriate funding for intelligence activities. Without such funding we are unable to capitalize on all intelligence community resources and abilities to thwart potential terrorist attacks. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

3. Transportation Security. There has been no concerted effort to harden mass transportation security. Our planes, buses, subways, and railways remain under-protected and highly vulnerable. These are all identifiable soft targets of potential terrorist attack. The terror attacks in Spain and London attest to this fact. Fixing our transportation systems may save lives on the day of the next attack.

4. Information Sharing among Intelligence Agencies. Information sharing among intelligence agencies has not improved since 9/11. The attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented had information been shared among intelligence agencies. On the day of the next attack, more lives may be saved if our intelligence agencies work together.

5. Loose Nukes. A concerted effort has not been made to secure the thousands of loose nukes scattered around the world ? particularly in the former Soviet Union. Securing these loose nukes could make it less likely for a terrorist group to use this method in an attack, thereby saving lives.

6. Security at Chemical Plants, Nuclear Plants, Ports. We must, as a nation, secure these known and identifiable soft targets of Terrorism. Doing so will save many lives.

7. Border Security. We continue to have porous borders and INS and Customs systems in shambles. We need a concerted effort to integrate our border security into the larger national security apparatus.

8. Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Given the President?s NSA Surveillance Program and the re-instatement of the Patriot Act, this Nation is in dire need of a Civil Liberties Oversight Board to insure that a proper balance is found between national security versus the protection of our constitutional rights.

Quite frankly, item number 8 makes me question their credibility. It’s bad enough that terrorist sympathizers enter our country freely. Since stopping all immigration from the Middle East appears to not be an option, I have no problem whatsoever with the NSA surveillance program. And neither should these women.

I just wish Ann would let loose on Cindy Sheehan as well.

Ohio gubernatorial front runner, and Jesse Jackson’s worst nightmare, Ken Blackwell.

Zachary Wolf, one of the two men who threw a tofu pie at Ann Coulter in October 2004, has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor.

William Zachary Wolff, 25, was fined $250. But the fine will be suspended if he pays $915 to the University of Arizona for damage caused to a backdrop during the incident.

Wolff’s attorney, R. Antonio Felix, said in an e-mail to the Daily Star that Wolff knew before he threw the pie that there would be a punishment. “A letter to the editor saying that the columnist’s views were so extreme and inflammatory that she deserved to have a pie thrown at her just doesn’t get the same message across — to the same audience — as throwing the pie and accepting the consequences,” he wrote.

So Ann Coulter is too extreme, so she deserves to have a pie thrown at her? What do you think would happen if a conservative college student (hypothetically) were to throw a pie at Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore? There would be hell to pay! That student would probably do jail time, and there would be massive protests at the university. And the MSM would portray the pie thrower as a Hitler youth wannabe.

Today was the first day of the confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito. And from what, I’ve read, the judge has been holding his own.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito told senators Monday that good judges don’t have an agenda, don’t look for partisan outcomes and “always do what the law requires” as the Senate opened hearings on President Bush’s choice for the high court.

“A judge can’t have any agenda. A judge can’t have a preferred outcome in any particular case,” Alito told the Judiciary Committee in a brief statement in which he made a distinction between judges and attorneys working for clients.

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“The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand,” Alito said. “But a judge can’t think that way. A judge can’t have any agenda, a judge can’t have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn’t have a client.”

But that didn’t stop the Democrats from trying to go in for the kill. Tubby Ted Kennedy indirectly called Judge Alito a racist.

“In Alito’s 15-years on the bench, Judge Alito has not written one single opinion on the merits in favor of a person of color who alleged race discrimination in the workplace.”

Moments later, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) took Kennedy to task, leaving the liberal Massachusetts senator shaking his head.

Sessions cited three cases in which Alito demonstrated that “all Americans receive equal protection of the laws, regardless of race.”

How this drunken disgrace has the nerve to criticize anyone’s moral character, I just don’t understand.

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) also got her two cents in regarding a previous ruling of Alito’s regarding guns.

?Your dissent argued that Congress lacked the authority to ban the possession and transfer of machine guns based essentially on a technicality that congressional findings from previous statutes were not explicitly incorporated in the legislation.? [Note: Actually, Judge Alito said only that Congress could not ban mere possession of firearms, not transfer.]

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) took the hearings as an opportunity to slam the “extreme right.”

But, liberal commentator/law professor Susan Estritch says Judge Alito is very prepared.

For the last few weeks, Alito has been taking his “murder boards,” reportedly faring quite well under the grilling of top Republican lawyers who actually understand the law, which is more than you can really expect the Senate Democrats who will quiz him on the intricacies of constitutional law to do. They won’t. They’ll be reading questions.

The deck is stacked in his favor. He is the only legal scholar in the crowd. And no matter how many brilliant staffers and law professors contribute to writing each question, if the person asking it isn’t prepared to follow up, to engage, to keep going at it, it doesn’t matter. The judge reportedly had a way of pleasantly throwing the question back, and with a senator, that could really explode.

I, for one, would love to see Judge Alito throwing questions back at these Donk inquisitors.