JIM DEMINT: THE NEW JESSE HELMS

I mean that in a good way. As a libertarian, I disagreed with Helms on almost all of the so-called "social issues," but Helms was also the stalwart of the Senate's true conservatives and saved our country from peril on more than a few occasions. To me, his shining moment came in 1999 when he was able to engineer the defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which would have rendered the United States impotent without a reliable nuclear arsenal while the rest of the world (i.e. Russia and China) did whatever the hell they wanted. It occurred to me then that we need guys like Helms in the Senate to stop these once a decade movements of sheer madness.

Turn the clock ahead to the present day and we find a Republican President and a Democrat Congress pushing for immigration reform that essentially rewards criminals and makes sure the Democrats hold a majority in government for generations. Helms is long retired, who's gonna pick up the conservative mantel?

Enter South Carolina Junior Senator Jim DeMint. He is considered the key player in the move that (at least temporarily) killed the amnesty bill (from Right Wing News):

After the cloture vote failure at noon on Thursday, Harry Reid could not get unanimous consent to call up amendments to the bill because Jim DeMint refused to give his consent. This was extremely problematic for Reid because he wanted to get in votes on 6 more amendments before the last try at a cloture vote.

At that point, all the senators who were participants in the "Grand Compromise" AKA the "Masters of the Universe" by the opponents of the bill, leaned on DeMint to try to get him to give consent for the bill to move forward. Unfortunately for them, DeMint wouldn't budge. This essentially killed the entire afternoon that the pro-amnesty side hoped to use to shore up support for the bill.

While DeMint was gumming up the works, the opponents of the bill, including most prominently Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, and Tom Coburn, huddled and came up with a list of conservative amendments they wanted considered.

The proverbial three amigos (pardon the ethnic pun): DeMint, Sessions, Coburn. These guys have stepped up the to plate and are defending our country and its foundation as a nation of laws, not men.