The longest serving Republican Senator in history has been indicted by a federal grand jury.

In a press conference, acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said that according to the indictment, Stevens is being charged with seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. The indictment alleges that Stevens did not, as he is required to do, report gifts he received from Veco Corp., which included $250,000 of materials and labor related to the renovation of his home in Girdwood.

Ted Stevens is well known for his love of bacon and ability to direct it toward his home state of Alaska.  Even the imminent threat of a corruption investigation couldn’t slow down his rampant porking.

“He’s at the head of the pack,” Ellis said. “His ability to bring home the bacon to Alaska is legendary and he doesn’t make any bones about doing that.”

Stevens gets his buying power from his staying power. With nearly four decades in the Senate, now at age 83, he’s the longest-serving Republican senator in history.

Less than three months after the FBI searched his Alaska home in a bribery and public corruption probe, Stevens proved he hasn’t lost an ounce of clout. He added an incredible $215 million in earmarks to the defense bill - more than any other senator.

Ted Stevens epitomized the failures of the republican party to govern responsibly.  Let’s hope his eventual replacement brings with him more respect for the taxpayer.

Remember, this bill was signed by a man who was a featured speaker at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.

Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

New York City adopted a similar ban in 2006 — it became fully effective on July 1 — and Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md., have done so as well.

Vocal do-gooders have once again conspired to deprave citizens of their freedom to choose.  You are simply not trusted to make the correct decisions in your own life, even if the weighting of risk versus reward is entirely subjective. That this charge was enabled, if not actually led by, a prominent republican illustrates the sad state of our national affairs.

McCain’s Straight Talk RINO Express is gaining momentum. Busy working the engines are notorious RINO’s Rudy Guiliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Pataki, Olympia Snowe, Mel Martinez and Susan Collins. Passengers are encouraged to read the liberal New York Times. Once heralded as the Straight Talk Express, McCain’s repeated lies on his opposition to the Bush tax cuts, his false attacks on Mitt Romney and his dishonest rhetoric on immigration have made a mockery of the idea of straight talk and recast his drive-by media powered train as The RINO Express.

The Conservative Movement is being sold down the river by a power hungry republican establishment. Prominent conservatives jumping aboard the RINO Express in hopes of finding favor in a McCain administration will be sorely disappointed. John McCain will have no more use for conservatism or conservatives as President than he’s had as Senator. The republican establishment has sorely underestimated the consequences that neglecting conservatives will have on the party, just as they sorely underestimated what the result would be in 2006 if they didn’t properly address immigration.

With John McCain we’ll get liberal policies on global warming, taxes, first amendment rights and immigration. When these policies fail miserably (as all liberal policies do), there won’t be a democrat to blame them on. John McCain and the sell-out conservatives who have suckered up to him will take the heat, but it will be the republican party as a whole, and ultimately conservatism, that will suffer the most.

Radio host and Townhall.com columnist Michael Medved wants conservatives to “Call Off the ‘RINO’ Hunt“.

Medved’s argument is strictly one of numbers. Parties need more than their opponents to win, so the bigger the better. But is it really wise to make no consideration of ideology?

…Those who make war on RINO’s, however, ought to confront an obvious question: would you really prefer that such people drop the Republican designation? How does it help if politicians or office-holders with whom you disagree leave your party and join the opposition? When alleged “RINO” Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP and joined the Democrats, it gave them control of the US Senate. When another RINO, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, lost his Senate seat in 2006, it also gave the Democrats control; if Chafee had won, we’d still have a Republican majority and GOP committee chairs. The truth is that no successful political party has ever been built on ideological purity. You can construct a majority coalition by bringing people into your party, not by driving them away.

The problem with this argument is that he only considers one side of the equation. He relies heavily upon two extremely rare cases where control of the Senate hinged on one seat, and in so doing missed the boat on what allowing people like Lincoln Chafee to run powerful committees usually means: conservative disillusionment in the Republican party. If the party has to compromise on all its principles just to gain one more seat, it can’t possibly hope to retain the support of its core constituency for long.

The fact of the matter is: it’s the big spending, big government Lincoln Chafee’s that made the previous election close in the first place. Obviously it would be unproductive to obsess on ideological purity to the point of paralysis, but it’s not unreasonable, and in fact it’s advantageous in the long run, to hold members accountable to the principles the party built its majority on in the first place.

Whatever will the GOP do without Lincoln Chafee?

. . .Chafee said he disaffiliated from the party ?in June or July,? making him an unaffiliated voter. He did so quietly, and until yesterday, he said, ?No one?s asked me about it.? He said he made the move because ?I want my affiliation to accurately reflect my status.?

. . .Yesterday, he criticized Republican leaders for abandoning fiscal conservatism, once a mainstay of Republican politics, by passing tax cuts without spending cuts to balance the resulting loss of revenue.

What wisdom! How will we survive without Chafee’s ignorance of the Laffer Curve? Elizabeth Dole, as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, must be so proud of taking the unusual step of taking sides in a Republican primary on behalf of this clown.

Grading House members according to their votes on 50 amendments offered to strike down various pieces of earmarks and pork, the Club For Growth has released a 2007 Congressional RePORK Card.

Some interesting numbers to consider:

* Sixteen congressmen scored a perfect 100%, voting for all 50 anti-pork amendments. They are all Republicans.

* The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2%.

* The average score for appropriators was 4%. The average score for non-appropriators was 25%.

* Kudos to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who scored an admirable 98%-the only Democrat to score above 20%.

* Rep. David Obey (D-WI) did not vote for his own amendment to strike all earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Rep. Obey scored an embarrassing 0% overall.

* 105 congressmen scored an embarrassing 0%, voting against every single amendment. The Pork Hall of Shame includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

* The Democratic Freshmen scored an abysmal average score of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored an average score of 78%.

Check the list to see how your Congressman did. Andrew Roth also provided a nice breakdown of the average scores by caucus. Note the significant difference between the conservative Republican Study Committee and the “moderate” Republican Main Street Partnership (which includes John McCain in its membership). This is the same Republican Main Street Partnership that moronically tried to blame the loss of the House to Democrats on conservatives, rather than on themselves where it properly belonged. Unfortunately, they haven’t learned their lesson.

Maybe as conservatives we should examine the current Republican frontrunner rather than anointing him simply because he has momentum or the polls say he can beat Hillary. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Rudy on freedom:
“Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it.”

Rudy on free speech:
“An exhibition of paintings is not as communicative as speech, literature or live entertainment, and the artists’ constitutional interest is thus minimal.”

Rudy on privacy:
“You don’t have a right not to be identified” (regarding taking DNA samples of all newborns).

Rudy on freedom again (some think I’m being a bit nitpicky here):
“I believe the Republican Party’s greatest contribution is when we give more freedom to people.”

Given
1. Has strong leanings towards authoritarianism
2. Believes that he can determine what speech should be protected
3. Believes that the state has the right to help itself to your DNA
4. Assuming he meant that quote as he said it, believes that freedom comes from government rather than being inherent to the individual
5. To top it off he’s liberal on social issues
How is it that this man is the Republican frontrunner?

When your resume boasts accolades such as reforming a class of screaming kindergarteners, over 120 confirmed terrorist kills, overthrowing an evil corporate dictatorship on Mars, defeating an alien Predator in the jungle, and stopping two advanced killing machines bent on causing the end of the world - you’d almost think you could do anything. Unfortunately, Arnold doesn’t seem up to the task of unclustering the mess that is healthcare in California. David Henderson has written a great piece outlining the prescription for disaster that Dr. Arnold is proposing.

The RINO’s are raging, and not surprisingly their anger is directed at all the wrong places. Of course, since it should all be directed at themselves, anywhere is a wrong place. But they somehow managed to find the most wrong place of all to fume at: conservatives. In a rambling diatribe of a press release that could only have been written by a high school sophomore in a state of confused delirium, RINO group Republican Main Street Partnership declares, “Far Right Soley Responsible for Democratic Gains“. Aside from the fact that these intellectual heavyweights can’t even spell “solely” correctly, the memo reads like your typical lefty blogosphere brain dump full of hate and half-baked nonsense.

“Tonight the American people made it clear that our party?s decision to ignore the middle of the American electorate was a disastrous one,” said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, Executive Director of the Republican Main Street Partnership. “For the last two years centrist GOPers have warned the leadership of our party of the consequences of pushing a legislative agenda cow-towing to the far right in our party. Our warnings were ignored, and now our party is paying a devastating price.”

“Republican candidates all across the country were hit by Democratic ads attacking the GOP for failure to raise the minimum wage, failure to advance embryonic stem cell research, and failure to pass strong ethics and lobbying reform,” continued Resnick. “If leadership had listened to our centrists members, we could have taken issues like this off the table. Centrist Republicans in the House and Senate pushed all session for an increase in the minimum wage, for expanded embryonic stem cell research, and for real ethics and lobbying reform.”

Since when has the content of Democratic attack ads been the measuring stick of Republican success? Should the Republican party really be rated on how well it adopts Democratic platforms? The press release concludes with this bit of moronic double-talk:

“What the extreme right of our party has worked to destroy ? centrist Republicans will now step in and rebuild,” continued Resnick. “The Republican Main Street Partnership is committed to bringing back Ronald Reagan?s Republican Party. The extreme right has had their turn at the wheel and the results have proven devastating for our party and our country.”

That’s funny, I seem to recall Reagan’s party as one that stood for principled conservatism, not liberal appeasement. If you want to know the real truth on why Republicans lost, look no further than these disheartening poll results from The Club for Growth.

Q: In the last four years, do you think the size and cost of the federal government has gone up, gone down, or stayed about the same?

A: Gone Up 73.0%
Gown Down 5.5%
Stayed the Same 14.4%
Don’t know/Refused 7.1

Q: All other things being equal, which type of candidate for Congress would you be more likely to vote for? A candidate who wants to reduce overall federal spending, even if that includes cutting some money that would come to your district; or, a candidate who is willing to increase overall spending on federal programs and grow the federal budget, in order to get more federal spending and projects for your district?

A: Cut spending 57.3%
Bring home projects 27.6%
Don’t know/Refused 15.1%

. . .

Introduction to Questions: Now, I’m going to read a list of issue topics. When you look at Washington today, please tell me whether you think the Republicans or the Democrats are doing a better job on each issue. If you see no difference between the parties on these issues, just say so.

Q: “Eliminating Wasteful Spending”;

A: Republicans 24.6%
Democrats 39.1%
No Difference 30.3%
Don’t know/Refused 6.0%

. . .

Now tell me whether you think the following phrases better describe the Republicans or the Democrats in Washington.
Q: “The Party of Big Government”;
A: Republicans 39.3%
Democrats 27.9%
Both 16.3%
Neither 9.3%
Don’t know/Refused 7.4%

Q: Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: “The Republicans used to be the party of economic growth, fiscal discipline, and limited government, but in recent years, too many Republicans in Washington have become just like the big spenders that they used to oppose.”

A: Agree 65.8%
Strongly Agree 43.4%
Somewhat Agree 22.4%

Disagree 26.4%
Strongly Disagree 13.4%
Somewhat Disagree 13.0%
Don’t know/Refused 7.9%

Not surprisingly, the RINO’s sent out another press release attacking The Club for Growth and praising Lincoln Chafee.

?Tonight the Club for Growth?s dishonest campaign against Senator Lincoln Chafee may very well have cost our party it?s majority in the U.S. Senate,? said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, Executive Director of the Republican Main Street Partnership. ?Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership in the Senate should call Pat Toomey and thank him for working hard to undermine the Republican majority.?

A Republican majority that counts on liberal Lincoln Chafee is worthless. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who refused to vote for President Bush. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who bragged about bringing home the pork. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who voted against Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who is now promising to oppose John Bolton’s nomination as UN ambassador. Why the hell is this moron in the Republican party in the first place, and what does it say about a group of people who think Lincoln Chafee is where we should be pinning our hopes for majority control?

These idiot RINO’s are agitating for even more of everything that the voters are rejecting. Give it up. Your brand of big government Republicanism failed. If you RINOs really want to restore the Republican party to Reagan’s values, you can start by leaving it.

This is unbelievable. Rep. Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has an op-ed titled “Now is the time to raise the minimum wage” that is little more than a copy/paste of socialist, left-wing talking points on the minimum wage. That he could be this ignorant is rather shocking.

It has been far too long since Congress last increased the minimum wage. In September 1997, minimum wage was increased from $4.75 to $5.15- where it still stands. Since then, Americans have seen a steady increase in living expenses. The price of food has increased by 21 percent, rent by 28 percent, childcare and preschool by 48 percent and gasoline by 81 percent.

It is getting increasingly difficult for a person making $5.15 an hour, even if they are working a full forty hours a week, to live off of this wage. That is a total of only $10,700 per annum! For a single mother or father with two children, this wage leaves them well below the federal poverty line. Hard working Americans who are just getting by on minimum wage are too often faced with the decision of paying their rent, or paying for groceries; paying their heating bill, or paying for medication. That is entirely unacceptable.

Once again, we see rank economic ignorance and disinformation on display at the highest levels of government. Rep. King wants you to believe that minimum wage workers are, by and large, family bread winners. Hard workers struggling to provide for their family and never catching a break. This is false. Only 19% of minimum wage earners fall below the poverty line. The average household income for minimum wage earners is $40,000. This is due to the fact that, of the 1.9 million minimum-wage earners, more than half are under the age of 24. And of minimum wage earners, 2 out of 3 will be earning 10% more within the year.

What King won’t tell you, but any economist can, is that minimum wage laws hurt, rather than help, the poor. Minimum wage laws increase poverty. They deny low skilled workers the opportunity to gain experience by increasing the costs to businesses that hire them.

Compendium File: Minimum wage laws