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In Tennessee last May, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam appointed Samar Ali as international director of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD). Attempts to connect her to stealth jihad have been ridiculed. Yet when one connects the dots between Ali and several organizations and individuals, a number of troubling relationships arise, especially regarding the phenomenon known as Sharia-compliant finance (SCF).

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A conservative fundraising group endorsed embattled Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin on Thursday and said its membership had pledged $290,000 to help replenish the Republican's financially strapped campaign against Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) "would never consider" endorsing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president again in 2012 unless Romney repudiates the health reforms he sought as governor, a source close to DeMint said Thursday. A source close to the conservative icon emphasized that, despite comments to The Hill indicating that Romney shouldn't shoulder all the political blame for the Massachusetts healthcare plan, DeMint wouldn't endorse Romney again unless he admits the plan was mistaken. "It's obvious Jim was just trying to be nice to the guy he backed over McCain, as many conservatives did in 2008," the source said. "But...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is asking supporters of his Senate Conservatives Fund to help him build a war chest ahead of the 2012 elections, when Republicans are hopeful they can take back the majority in the Senate. In an e-mail sent Tuesday with the subject line "Say No to RINOs in 2011," DeMint pledged that the Senate Conservatives Fund will play a key role in the upcoming legislative battles in the Senate with an eye towards 2012. RINO stands for politicians who are seen by some as "Republican in name only" and lack certain conservative credentials. In the fundraising appeal,...

Departing Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter on Tuesday said conservative Republicans who backed Tea Party challengers against establishment candidates in the recent elections engaged in political cannibalism. In his final floor speech, Specter complained there's scant room for centrists like himself in a polarized Senate where civility is in short supply. "In some quarters, compromise has become a dirty word," said Pennsylvania's longest-serving senator, who lost his re-election bid after three decades in the Senate. Specter complained that some GOP senators had helped Tea Party challengers beat incumbent Republicans like Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Mike Castle in his Delaware...

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R) is turning his attention to 2012 and using the vote this week on an earmark moratorium to pick his Democratic targets. DeMint sent an email to the supporters of his Senate Conservatives Fund early Wednesday highlighting four Democrats who voted against the earmark ban, are up for re-election in 2012 and sit in states that John McCain (R) carried in 2008: Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.). In the email, DeMint called for unseating Tester, Nelson, Conrad and Manchin. "These senators are nice folks but...

Washington — After his success in elevating conservative contenders in November, will an energized Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) go after earmark-supporting GOP senators in 2012? DeMint tells NRO that the Senate Conservatives Fund, his political-action committee, will not meddle in primary challenges against Republican incumbents. “We don’t intend to do that; there is no reason to do that with so many Democratic seats up.” “I don’t have plans to campaign against any of the ones here,” DeMint says. “That’s between them and their voters.” DeMint notes that his PAC followed a similar policy last cycle — directing money to...

After ripping Sarah Palin, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn’t mincing words about another one of her high-profile GOP critics: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. “I think some of the Republicans in the Congress feel pretty strongly that he and his actions potentially cost us the majority by encouraging candidates that ended up not being electable,” Murkowski told POLITICO outside her Senate office. “And I think Delaware is a pretty good example of that, and I think there’re some folks that feel that DeMint’s actions didn’t necessarily help the Republican majority.” Murkowski suggested the South Carolina conservative and favorite of the...

Sen. Jim DeMint says he's not running for president in 2012 even though he believes he has the “management and leadership skills” for the job. "Right now, I’m totally out," the South Carolina Republican and darling of the tea party movement told Fox News on Tuesday. “I want to look at the group of candidates who are standing up and telling the truth,” he added. “And I hope it’s somebody other than me.” But DeMint doesn't think he'd make a bad commander-in-chief. “It’s going to be a painful job for the next president if they do it right,” he said....

Dear Fellow Conservative: Joe Miller, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alaska, needs our help. He's in the race of his life against Senator Lisa Murkowski who ran as a independent write-in candidate after losing the Republican primary. With the race still too close to call, there are still tens of thousands of ballots that haven't been counted and there will be a recount to verify the integrity of the write-in ballots. Joe Miller can win this race but he's up against a well-financed legal team that is working for Lisa Murkowski. They will be fighting to bend the...

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The Senate Conservatives Fund, headed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), announced that it has contributed more than $5.2 million to 14 Republican Senate candidates this campaign season, almost all of them backed by tea party activists and opposed to compromise on fiscal and social principles. Mr. DeMint has fashioned a role for himself as an ally and supporter of these candidates, in many cases endorsing and funding them against the wishes of the Senate Republican leadership. This has raised questions about the role Mr. DeMint might play in the next Congress, and whether he’ll function as the de facto...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said he had no doubts about supporting Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell and other Republicans in key primary races this year. DeMint, the leader of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee that pushed through conservative, Tea Party candidates through GOP primaries earlier this year, said he was proud of his efforts. "I'm glad I did this," DeMint said Thursday evening on CNBC. "I came into the Senate with 55 Republicans, and I'm afraid that not enough of them believed in free-market capitalism and limited government."

Washington (CNN) - Republican Senator Jim DeMint conceded to CNN that he is trying to send a message to the GOP establishment by backing conservative candidates like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, but rejects concerns that his moves could rob the GOP of the Senate majority. "The GOP establishment is out," DeMint said in an interview in his Senate office, "what we're going to do is help the American people take back their government, and I hope the Republican Party will be the party that carries that banner." DeMint was an early supporter of O'Donnell, a candidate many Republicans did not...

A National Republican Senatorial Committee tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email it's very unlikely that national Republican party organizations will be spending money on Christine O'Donnell's Senate bid in Delaware: SNIP Matt Hoskins, a spokesman for Senator Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund, writes in an email to TWS that the Senate Conservatives Fund is rising to the challenge: The party's coordinated spending limit for a Senate nominee in Delaware is $87,000. The RNC and the NRSC each have that limit so it is double that amount. $174,000 total. Since the party is saying they will cut her off, this...

In the recent article entitled, “America’s Ruling Class,” author Angelo M. Codevilla writes that the ruling elite of this country... ...whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government. In other words, the god of those who use state power to push the rest of us into line is, well, the state, and anyone who might say anything against this god should be banished, if not from America, at least from Congress. So,...

Dino Rossi is also pro-life, pro-marriage, and pro-Second Amendment. He opposes government bailouts, wasteful earmarks, and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Dino Rossi will fight to preserve individual liberty by supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States. Dino is not a career politician. He's a businessman with a young family who has decided that he has to do something to save his country. Dino came to meet with me several weeks ago and told me he only wanted to run for the Senate if Republicans were going to be serious about shrinking the size of our government. This is...

A few days ago, former Utah Senate candidate Cherilyn Eager, the woman who claimed Tim Bridgewater offered to pay off her campaign debt in exchange for her endorsement then denied that was a bribe before - you know - endorsing Bridgewater, came onto RedState and attacked Jim DeMint. Eager claims that Jim DeMint and Mike Lee are both affiliated with some energy company I’ve never heard of and DeMint denies it. Best I can tell, the attack is as crazy as Cherilyn Eager is. However, concurrent to Eager attacking Jim DeMint on RedState, Tim Bridgewater’s campaign has been using the...

When voters go to the polls Tuesday for U.S. Senate primary elections in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, they'll write a new act in the ongoing shake-up of the Republican political establishment that's being led by conservative freshman Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. In Kentucky, GOP voters will choose between Trey Grayson - the handpicked choice of the state's most powerful Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - and DeMint-backed Rand Paul, son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul. In Pennsylvania, Democrats will select Rep. Joe Sestak or incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter, who bolted the Republican Party last year after DeMint became...

As it turns out, Senate Democrats may not be able to force healthcare legislation through the chamber on a simple majority vote. Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments. Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to block the Democrats from using the process to expedite changes to the healthcare bill.

SCF is a political action committee dedicated to electing strong conservatives to the United States Senate. We do not support liberal Republicans and we are not affiliated with the Republican Party or any of its campaign committees. SCF seeks to bring bold conservative leadership to Washington by supporting only the most rock-solid, conservative candidates nationwide -- candidates who believe in the principles of limited government, strong national defense, and traditional family values.

Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy warns that the president-elect should avoid financing his great society with tainted Islamic-correct petro dollars, saying their strings might be attached inextricably to the nation’s worst extremist enemies. With Barack Obama’s victory Tuesday sucking the oxygen from the air, few are focusing on Thursday, the day the U.S. Treasury Department will embrace the so-called “Shariah-Compliant Finance” or SCF.