Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) clashed late last year during a closed-door luncheon as they debated whether Republicans should take a strong stand against earmarking.

DeMint, the leader of the conservative Steering Committee, called for a renewed emphasis to rein in pet projects, angering Stevens, the notorious earmarker and senior appropriator from Alaska.

At the November meeting of DeMint’s committee, a fuming Stevens called on former Steering Committee heads to convene an unusual meeting to discuss the panel’s future steps, according to one person knowledgeable of the situation.

Calling for a meeting was an “obvious message” by Stevens that he wanted DeMint removed as chairman because of the junior conservative’s relentless push against earmarks, the source said, asking for anonymity because the talks generally occur in confidence.

“He certainly spoke up in some of our Steering Committee lunches and expressed his displeasure,” DeMint said in a recent interview.

“I’ve made a lot of enemies within my own party, but I think some of these folks have the responsibility to show what it means to be a Republican,” said DeMint.

Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Stevens, said his boss was “part of a group of several senators who were simply discussing the general management of the Steering Committee.”

Saunders said Stevens “made no such statement” about DeMint’s ouster, and DeMint could not recall whether the Alaskan sought to remove him from the post. Steering Committee staff declined to comment.

The Hill

If the Republicans really wanted to take back Congress this is how they could do it.  They could make a pledge to completely eliminate earmarks 100%.  Not a single one of them would request another.  They’d prove to the American people that they are going to walk the walk.  This won’t happen, of course, because there are too many in the party more concerned about buying votes for their reelection and you have senile old coots like Ted Stevens who get high off of the power they wield with our tax dollars.   Fortunately, I think 2008 will be the last we see of Ted Stevens.  He’s either going to jail or he is going to be defeated for reelection.

Even though the earmark push faces resistance within the GOP, DeMint and other conservatives say it would be wildly popular with the public and bring the party back to its core roots of fiscal conservatism.

“I think earmarks have basically destroyed the Republican Party,” DeMint said.

DeMint makes me proud to say I live in South Carolina.

A lot of Americans who believe in the right to own guns were very disappointed this weekend. On Friday, the Bush administration’s Justice Department entered into the fray over the District of Columbia’s 1976 handgun ban by filing a brief to the Supreme Court that effectively supports the ban. The administration pays lip service to the notion that the Second Amendment protects gun ownership as an “individual right,” but their brief leaves the term essentially meaningless.Quotes by the two sides’ lawyers say it all. The District’s acting attorney general, Peter Nickles, happily noted that the Justice Department’s brief was a “somewhat surprising and very favorable development.” Alan Gura, the attorney who will be representing those challenging the ban before the Supreme Court, accused the Bush administration of “basically siding with the District of Columbia” and said that “This is definitely hostile to our position.” As the lead to an article in the Los Angeles Times said Sunday, “gun-control advocates never expected to get a boost from the Bush administration.”As probably the most prominent Second Amendment law professor in the country privately confided in me, “If the Supreme Court accepts the solicitor general’s interpretation, the chances of getting the D.C. gun ban struck down are bleak.”

National Review

Bush is like Mr. Magoo creating a disaster to everyone around him. This ruling will be one of the most landmark cases in our nation’s history. It will basically determine what the Second Amendment means and Bush is siding with the gun control advocates. But the damage may not be contained to the just Second Amendment.

The biggest problem is the standard used for evaluating the constitutionality of regulations. The DOJ is asking that a different, much weaker standard be used for the Second Amendment than the courts demands for other “individual rights” such as speech, unreasonable searches and seizures, imprisonment without trial, and drawing and quartering people.

If one accepts the notion that gun ownership is an individual right, what does “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” mean? What would the drafters of the Bill of Rights have had to write if they really meant the right “shall not be infringed”? Does the phrase “the right of the people” provide a different level of protection in the Second Amendment than in the First and Fourth?

But the total elimination of gun control is not under consideration by the Supreme Court. The question is what constitutes “reasonable” regulation. The DOJ brief argues that if the DC government says gun control is important for public safety, it should be allowed by the courts. What the appeals court argued is that gun regulations not only need to be reasonable, they need to withstand “strict scrutiny” — a test that ensures the regulations are narrowly tailored to achieve the desired goal.

Perhaps the Justice Department’s position isn’t too surprising. Like any other government agency, it has a hard time giving up its authority. The Justice Department’s bias can been seen in that it finds it necessary to raise the specter of machine guns 10 times when evaluating a law that bans handguns. Nor does the brief even acknowledge that after the ban, D.C.’s murder rate only once fell below what it was in 1976.

Worried about the possibility that a Supreme Court decision supporting the Second Amendment as an individual right could “cast doubt on the constitutionality of existing federal legislation,” the Department of Justice felt it necessary to head off any restrictions on government power right at the beginning.

So there you have it. The real man behind the mask. Bush screwed us on fiscal policy.  He’s screwed us on protecting our nation’s borders.  He’s screwed us on foreign policy and now he is snipping the very roots of our Constitutional rights. It is the Second Amendment that allows all others to be enforced.

Bush is no different than his predecessor. Both Bush and Clinton lie and use people for what they want. Bush used evangelicals to get reelected in 2004 with his pandering marriage amendment and those of the eight states that had their own on the ballots. As we see now, he also used Second Amendment supporters and gun control advocates are gleaming over it.

You very rarely hear the Democrats campaigning on gun control and the reason for that is because it is a politically poisonous issue for them. Many southern Democrat voters and those in rural areas are strong gun rights supporters and an anti-gun policy would isolate them from the party and the Democrats would lose many of their votes. Thankfully for them, Bush has just opened the door for that. Since Bush has now said that restrictions like D.C.’s are acceptable, look for more to pop up.

I have truly begun to question in the past year whether or not we made the right choice in reelecting this man in 2004. I can’t help to wonder that we may have been better off electing Kerry and watching him fall flat on his face, giving us a chance to put in a real Republican in 2008. I bet we’d still have Congress too.

Lott nailed the reason for this right on the head too. It’s all about keeping the power.