Another conservative asshole kept alive well beyond his sell-by date courtesy of your tax dollars is gone - Jesse Helms has expired. He was 86. Let’s recap:

In both 1990 and 1996, Helms won against Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte. Both campaigns attracted major national attention not only because of Helms’ national prominence and controversial positions on many issues, but also because Gantt was an African-American whose liberal political views provided a stark contrast to Helms. Helms’ 1990 victory has been partially credited to a late-running television commercial that urged white voters to reject Gantt because of the Democratic candidate’s support for affirmative action programs. The ad showed a white man’s hands ripping up a rejection notice from a company that had not hired him due to affirmative action policies that had given the job to “less qualified minority”. It was criticized for its perceived subliminal content; As the hands crumple it up, for a fraction of a second the letter fades to a picture of Mr.Gant and the hands appear to be crushing his head. The advert was produced by Alex Castellanos, who would in 2000 again come under fire for making an Bush campagin advert criticizing Al Gore’s healthcare policies and flashing the word ‘RATS’ over the top of it. ^[1]

And guess what cocksucker was also involved?

The ad was the brainchild of Dick Morris, who in the 1990s would become a key political adviser to President Bill Clinton. Helms won the 1990 election by 1,087,331 votes (52.5 percent) to Gantt’s 981,573 (47.4 percent). In his 1990 victory statement, Helms mocked the major North Carolina newspapers for their unhappiness over his victory, quoting a line from “Casey at the Bat“: “There’s no joy in Mudville tonight.”

We are governed by the worst elements of society.

And shit - we’ll probably wind up paying for some of the funeral too! Watch for him lying in state in the Senate and a bunch of weepy tributes by cowed Democrats afraid to tell the fucking truth.

And watch for the wingnuts to make a big deal of the fact that he managed to die on July 4th (as did Adams and Jefferson).