Pray and Work: Jim DeMint and the Earmark Ban

Jim DeMint is leading an effort to push for a ban within the Senate Republican Conference on earmarks. Tony Perkins and FRC are issuing a call to prayer for DeMint as he fights for a conservative senate. RedState has the battle plan for helping DeMint politically.

Are earmarks a way for the legislature to direct how money is spent as opposed to the executive? Yes.

Have they been added to bills regularly to encourage people to vote for bills? Yes.

In this way they lead to excess spending, and need to be banned for now.

Also call Mitch McConnell and let him know he needs to stop fighting against this effort.

For the record earmarks are not the solution to the deficit/spending problem in D.C. They are a key first step, partially symbolic partially meaningful, that must be followed by other things that will eventually culminate in a balanced budget amendment.

Tony Perkins: Don't Give Money to the RNC

Citing concerns about the recent use of RNC spent $2,000.00 at a depraved club near Los Angeles, Tony Perkins (head of the Family Research Council) told people not to donate to the RNC. In the letter he expressed his dissapointment that the RNC is happy about their use of Ted Olson for their campaign finance lawsuit. Ted Olson is also fighting hard in California to overturn Prop 8. Mark DeMoss has already closed his checkbook to the RNC after problems earlier this year.

GOP congressional leaders seem to be disenchanted with the current RNC leadership as well. The RNC is having a hard time with fundraising already. If Michael Steele can't fundraise and work with the congressional leadership, why is he chairman again?

(I am not advocating removing Michael Steel from chairman, just curious what the answer to that question is.)

Liveblogging the Values Voters Summit

Right now I am in Washington D.C. getting ready to liveblog the FRC Action's Values Voters Summit. This is a national gathering for social conservatives where they are addressed by a wide variety of conservative leaders about the major issues of the day. In 2007 Mike Huckabee's speech at this event following the Ame's Straw Poll helped kick his campaign into high gear. While it too early for presidential campaigns to be kicking into high gear, it will be interesting to see what the potential candidates and their supporters do, as well as which issues are brought up at this conference.

The schedule for this morning is:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

7:15—8:30 a.m. American Values Breakfast or breakfast on your own

8:45—8:55 a.m. Opening Ceremonies (National Anthem, Invocation, Pledge of Allegiance)

8:55—9:00 a.m. Welcome: Tony Perkins

9:00—9:20 a.m. Rep. Mike Pence (confirmed), introduced by Tony Perkins

9:25—9:45 a.m. Gov. Mike Huckabee (confirmed)

9:50—10:45 a.m. Congressional Health Care Townhall with Q&A: Rep. Tom Price (confirmed), Rep. Michele Bachmann (confirmed), Rep. Chris Smith (confirmed), Tom McClusky (moderator)

10:50—11:10 a.m. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (confirmed)

11:15—11:35 a.m. Rep. Eric Cantor (confirmed)

11:40—12:00 p.m. Miss California Carrie Prejean (confirmed), introduced by Maggie Gallagher

The following people will be listed on the straw poll ballot:

Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum.

Another Conservative Champion has Died

This morning conservatives were greeted with the news that Paul Weyrich died at the age of 66. Paul Weyrich was one of the leaders of the Reagan Revolution and has been lovingly referred to by some as the father of the modern conservative movement. He founded the Heritage Institute, Moral Majority,was a member of the Arlington Group, and when he died he was the President of the Free Congress Society. He was a principled leader and he will be missed. The old generation is passing hopefully new young principled people will rise up to be leaders in the conservative movement.

The following are a collection of early tributes to Paul Weyrich.

The Heritage Foundation

Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and the first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle. He won Heritage’s prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Award in 2005. Weyrich will be deeply missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, including son Steve, who currently works at Heritage.

Grover Norquist

Paul Weyrich created institutions and networks that incubated new and old powerful policies and strategies to advance liberty. ... He brought leaders of various freedom impulses together. Most of the successes of the Conservative movement since the 1970s flowed from structures, organizations, and coalitions he started, created or nurtured. Paul also lived a balanced life with work, family and his faith. We will miss his puns and wisdom and hard work.

Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online, who had the first word of his passing, called Weyrich "a Washington conservative institution" and "a patriot who lived a long life serving his nation."

Tony Perkins

My good friend Paul Weyrich is gone. He was just sixty-six years old. Many people will be surprised at that. That's because we've watched Paul for decades as he battled diabetes, as he suffered amputations, but never, never any loss of his fighting spirit. Paul Weyrich has been a fixture in Washington, D.C. for more than thirty years. He fathered the religious conservative movement in American politics. He didn't over-intellectualize about Christians "jumping into the fray." He recognized early that the fray had jumped onto us. Liberal bureaucrats were coming after us -- in our churches, in our schools, and in our families. Wherever a Planned Parenthood worker is breaking parents' hearts by leading their children into sin, we have a grievance against our government. Paul Weyrich was the first to show us how we could effectively petition our government for redress of our grievances. May our Lord keep His servant, Paul. And I pray our Lord will also comfort the loving Weyrich family.