Jesse Helms R.I.P.

He is going to heaven, because he's already served his time in Hell.

As for his admonition that Clinton not visit Bragg, isn't it odd that he never did? I guess ole Bill took him seriously
I notice you keep ignoring some of the more distasteful parts of Helm's history. His racist views are already well documented so, in the interest of time and space, lets take a short look at some of the other more unpalatable parts of his political life, shall we?

Helms was a staunch ally of RW military rulers like Gen. Pinochet in Chile, Raoul Cedras in Haiti, and Roberto D'Aubuisson in El Salvador. Confronted with evidence that D'Aubuisson directed death squads to murder civilians, Helms made it clear that some things are more important than human life. "All I know," he replied, "is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."

Helms declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." Helms went after the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988 saying: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." By that statement alone, I guess we can safely say, in Helm's case, ignorance and discrimination went hand in hand.

In 1993 Helms sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries."

What kind of a man does that? We can disagree over things like gay rights but there is absolutely no excuse for Helm's long history of racism or his unabashed support of RW dictators. And there isn't anything you can say to justify his treatment of Carol Mosley-Braun.

Helms was a piece of human trash, one of the worst I've ever seen in public life. I feel bad for his family, not because the racist pig is finally dead, but because they have a stain on their family that will last for generations.
 
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Here is what people keep leaving off:

Moseley-Braun’s response: "Senator Helms, your singing would make me cry if you sang ’Rock of Ages.’ "

She didn't cry.
 
I notice that, in their zeal to delight in the passing of any Republican, they continue to only posit about his alleged "failings", and refuse to acknowledge the many great works and duties he performed in his years in the Senate. I guess it would be too much for a Libtard to even attempt to be honest about anything, even in their commentary about the recently departed.
 
I notice that, in their zeal to delight in the passing of any Republican, they continue to only posit about his alleged "failings", and refuse to acknowledge the many great works and duties he performed in his years in the Senate. I guess it would be too much for a Libtard to even attempt to be honest about anything, even in their commentary about the recently departed.


my, how funny that you can't be bothered to mention one.

Helms was an advocate of the tobacco industry

Helms opposed the Martin Luther King Day bill in 1983 on grounds that King had two associates with communist ties, Stanley Levison and Jack O'Dell.

Helms had close ties to the rightist Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson... When confronted with evidence that D'Aubuisson ran death squads that systematically murdered civilians, he replied that "[a]ll I know, is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."

Senator Helms was instrumental in obtaining the previously withheld black box to KAL 007 shot down by the Soviets

Helms' aired a late-running television commercial which showed a white man's hands ripping up a rejection notice

he pushed for reform of the United Nations and blocked payment of UN dues by the United States

But Helms passed few laws of his own in part because of his bridge-burning style

"Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries." He then proceeded to sing the song about "the good life" during slavery to Mosely-Braun

suggested Clinton, "better not show up around here [Fort Bragg] without a bodyguard."

Helms likened abortion to the Holocaust and the September 11 terrorist attacks

WHAT A DISTINGUISHED RECORD. and here i thought he was a race-baiting xenophobic troglodyte scumbag. i guess i was way off.

Jesse Helms said:
I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men
are equal, be they slants, beaners or ******s.

Jesse Helms said:
Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has gotten into the wrong hands.

Jesse Helms said:
There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.


so you hate gay people, i guess? and blacks? and women? and the handicapped? and all the people that jesse helms regularly denigrated in the pursuit of keeping YOU POOR PERSECUTED WHITE CHRISTIAN MEN in power.

whether or not you agree with affirmative action programs yourself, to defend jesse helms is to defend jesse helms' belief that all other types of people were inferior to his own, the WHITE CHRISTIAN MALE.

you whine on and on about how everyone else is given an unfair advantage... the fact, the circumstances of your birth- being MALE and born to WHITE CHRISTIANS give YOU an unfair advantage.

furthermore, you know, i'm a white male born to christians, too, and i've never suffered any adverse effects... maybe you just suck. that will be my assumption henceforth, unless you can prove to me that you have suffered some significant loss from the "special treatment" of a minority group.
 
all arm, you're a primary example of why I left the Democrat Party back in the late 60's. You're a Libtard. You spend so much time talking about "tolerence", and "loving people", and all that other Kumbya nonsense, but you're among the most vitriolic haters I've ever seen.

You're no different that all of the KKK jagoff store clerks I knew who put on their smiley face anytime a black was around, to show how "enlightened" they were, and then sat around at night with your racist buddies, chugging down your cheap beer and talking about how you ripped off the "n!gg@rs" and "jigaboos" by overcharging them. And then you'd don your bedsheets to hide your identity (because you're too much of a gutless coward to actually face anyone without a dozen of your buddies around) and ride around the countryside terrorizing decent, God fearing, hard working people by burning crosses in their yards or jumping some defenseless kid because he had the temerity to be in "YOUR" part of town.
 
Helms REAL record:

Helms authored a law in 1996 to tighten trade sanctions against libs' fav dictator, Castro.

He authored an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act to prohibit the finance of abortion, fighting libs attempt to export their special Holocaust to other countries.

Helms opposed the liberal project to help the nicaraguan communists. Libs never saw a commie they didn't like, and the nicaraguans were their second favorite after castro.

He took of the National Endowment for the Arts for using the tax money of working people to subsidize garbage such as Andres Serrano's depiction of a crucifix submerged in urine entitled "Christ piss".

He fought a valiant losing battle against the powerful homosexual lobby over trainloads of federal money used for research on the PC disease AIDS. Here is a disease for which the cause is known, and the method of prevention certain, yet major diseases have been underfunded for over two decades so a cure can be found for junkies and homosexuals who want to screw each other without protection.

In 1963, he adopted a disabled child, the kind of child who would have been aborted if his parents were liberals.

In other words, Helms fought his whole life against the death and destruction of liberalism. He will be missed.
 
Obituary: Jesse Helms

Senator Jesse Helms, member of the US Senate's foreign relations committee for two decades and its chairman from 1995 to 2001, has died at the age of 86. To echo this newspaper's memorable comment on the death of William Randolph Hearst, it is hard even now to think of him with charity. From his earliest years, Helms's attitudes recalled those of an earlier southern bigot, Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, who so outraged his Senate colleagues, that they eventually refused even to let him take his seat.

There was never a comparable risk for Helms, who maintained an old-world courtesy in his personal contacts. But that was only on the surface. He became one of the most powerful and baleful influences on American foreign policy, repeatedly preventing his country paying its UN contributions, voting against virtually all arms control measures, opposing international aid programmes as "pouring money down foreign rat holes", and avidly supporting military juntas in Latin America and minority white regimes in Southern Africa.

In domestic politics he denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress", voted against a supreme court justice because she was "likely to uphold the homosexual agenda", acted for years as spokesman for the large tobacco companies, was reprimanded by the justice department and the federal election commission for electoral malpractice, and compiled a dismal personal record as a slum landlord.

The world is a better place today. Good riddance to a piece of human trash.
 
Try this one.
Former Republican NC Sen. Jesse Helms dies at 86
July 04, 2008

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July.

He was 86.

"It's just incredible that he would die on July 4, the same day of the Declaration of Independence and the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, and he certainly is a patriot in the mold of those great men," said former North Carolina GOP Rep. Bill Cobey, the chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C.

Helms died at 1:15 a.m, the center said. He died in Raleigh of natural causes, said former chief of staff Jimmy Broughton.

"He was very comfortable," Broughton said.

Funeral arrangements were pending, the Helms center said.

"America lost a great public servant and true patriot today," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said few senators could match Helms' reputation.

"Today we lost a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals. Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in," McConnell said in a statement.

Helms, who first became known to North Carolina voters as a newspaper and television commentator, won election to the Senate in 1972 and decided not to run for a sixth term in 2002.

"Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?" Helms wrote in a 1959 editorial that foretold his political style.

As he aged, Helms was slowed by a variety of illnesses, including a bone disorder, prostate cancer and heart problems, and he made his way through the Capitol on a motorized scooter as his career neared an end. In April 2006, his family announced he had been moved into a convalescent center after being diagnosed with vascular dementia, in which repeated minor strokes damage the brain.

Helms' public appearances had dwindled as his health deteriorated. When his memoirs were published in August 2005, he appeared at a Raleigh book store to sign copies, but did not make a speech.

In an e-mail interview with The Associated Press at that time, Helms said he hoped what future generations learn about him "will be based on the truth and not the deliberate inaccuracies those who disagreed with me took such delight in repeating."

"My legacy will be up to others to describe," he added.

Helms served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee and Foreign Relations Committees over the years at times when the GOP held the Senate majority, using his posts to protect his state's tobacco growers and other farmers and place his stamp on foreign policy.

His opposition to Communism defined his foreign policy views. He took a dim view of many arms control treaties, opposed Fidel Castro at every turn, and supported the contras in Nicaragua as well as the right-wing government of El Salvador. He opposed the Panama Canal treaties that then-President Carter pushed through a reluctant Senate in 1977.

As Castro's fierce critic, Helms helped create legislation in 1996 to strengthen U.S. restrictions against the Caribbean island's communist government.

The Helms-Burton law bars the United States from normalizing relations with Cuba as long as Castro or his brother Raul -- who has been president since February -- are involved in government. That law also sought to pressure other nations not to do business with Cuba, a condition protested by Mexico and other third nations.

Early on, his habit of blocking nominations and legislation won him a nickname of "Senator No." He delighted in forcing roll-call votes that required Democrats to take politically difficult votes on federal funding for art he deemed pornographic, school busing, flag-burning and other cultural issues.

In 1993, when then-President Clinton sought confirmation for an openly homosexual assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms registered his disgust. "I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that," he said in a newspaper interview at the time. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine."

After Democrats killed the appointment of U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle, a former Helms aide, to a federal appeals court post in 1991, Helms blocked all of Clinton's judicial nominations from North Carolina for eight years.

Helms occasionally opted for compromise in later years in the Senate, working with Democrats on legislation to restructure the foreign policy bureaucracy and pay back debts to the United Nations, an organization be disdained for most of his career.

And he softened his views on AIDS after years of clashes with gay activists, advocating greater federal funding to fight the disease in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

But in his memoirs, Helms made clear that his opinions on other issues had hardly moderated since he left office. He likened abortion to the Holocaust and the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"I will never be silent about the death of those who cannot speak for themselves," he wrote in "Here's Where I Stand."

Helms never lost a race for the Senate, but he never won one by much, either, a reflection of his divisive political profile in his native state.

He knew it, too. "Well, there is no joy in Mudville tonight. The mighty ultraliberal establishment, and the liberal politicians and editors and commentators and columnists have struck out again," he said in 1990 after winning his fourth term.

He won the 1972 election after switching parties, and defeated then-Gov. Jim Hunt in an epic battle in 1984 in what was then the costliest Senate race on record.

He defeated black former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt in 1990 and 1996 in racially tinged campaigns. In the first race, a Helms commercial showed a white fist crumbling up a job application, these words underneath: "You needed that job ... but they had to give it to a minority."

"The tension that he creates, the fear he creates in people, is how he's won campaigns," Gantt said several years later.

Helms also played a role in national GOP politics -- supporting Ronald Reagan in 1976 in a presidential primary challenge to then-President Ford. Reagan's candidacy was near collapse when it came time for the North Carolina primary. Helms was in charge of the effort, and Reagan won a startling upset that resurrected his challenge.

"It's not saying too much to say that had Senator Helms not put his weight and his political organization behind Ronald Reagan so that he was able to win North Carolina, there may have never been a Reagan presidency," Cobey said. "Most people feel like there would have never been a President Reagan had it not been for Jesse Helms."

During the 1990s, Helms clashed frequently with Clinton, whom he deemed unqualified to be commander in chief. Even some Republicans cringed when Helms said Clinton was so unpopular he would need a bodyguard on North Carolina military bases. Helms said he hadn't meant it as a threat.

Asked to gauge Clinton's performance overall, Helms said in 1995: "He's a nice guy. He's very pleasant. But ... (as) Ronald Reagan used to say about another politician, `Deep down, he's shallow.'"

Helms went out of his way to establish good relations with Madeleine Albright, Clinton's second secretary of state. But that didn't stop him from single-handedly blocking Clinton's appointment of William Weld -- a Republican -- as ambassador to Mexico.

Helms clashed with other Republicans over the years, including fellow Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 1987, after Democrats had won a Senate majority. Helms had promised in his 1984 campaign not to take the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, but he invoked seniority over Lugar to claim the seat as the panel's ranking Republican.

He was unafraid of inconveniencing his fellow senators -- sometimes all of them at once. "I did not come to Washington to win a popularity contest," he once said while holding the Senate in session with a filibuster that delayed the beginning of a Christmas break. And he once objected to a request by phoning in his dissent from home, where he was watching Senate proceedings on television.

Helms was born in Monroe, N.C., on Oct. 18, 1921. He attended Wake Forest College in 1941 but never graduated and was in the Navy during World War II.

In many ways, Helms' values were forged in the small town where his father was police chief.

"I shall always remember the shady streets, the quiet Sundays, the cotton wagons, the Fourth of July parades, the New Year's Eve firecrackers. I shall never forget the stream of school kids marching uptown to place flowers on the Courthouse Square monument on Confederate Memorial Day," Helms wrote in a newspaper column in 1956.

He took an active role in North Carolina politics early on, working to elect a segregationist candidate, Willis Smith, to the Senate in 1950. He worked as Smith's top staff aide for a time, then returned to Raleigh as executive director of the state bankers association.

Helms became a member of the Raleigh city council in 1957 and got his first public platform for espousing his conservative views when he became a television editorialist for WRAL in Raleigh in 1960. He also wrote a column that at one time was carried in 200 newspapers. Helms also was city editor at The Raleigh Times.

Helms and his wife, Dorothy, had two daughters and a son. They adopted the boy in 1962 after the child, 9 years old and suffering from cerebral palsy, said in a newspaper article that he wanted parents.
 
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