Wednesday, November 21, 2012

RedState Briefing 11/21/2012


Morning Briefing
For November 21, 2012



Folks, have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving. I'm taking the rest of the week off and will be back in your inbox Monday morning.
-- Erick



1. I Believe and Am Thankful
Marco Rubio is getting beaten up by the press for not decisively and convincingly saying he thinks the world is billions of years old. The press gave Barack Obama a pass for largely the same answer. This issue has become the new litmus test in the media for conservative politicians. Believing what was believed to be literally true for a few thousand years is now nutty. Christian homeschool kids, often taught that the world is not as old as some believe and who routinely kick the rear ends of the ivy prep kids in academics, are considered stupid.

Truth be told, I think the world is billions of years old, but I have no doubt God created it. . . .


But let’s not stop with creation. Because once every Christian politician in the country has answered that question, the secular set will just move on. Let me move on first.

Yes, I believe there was an Adam and I believe there was an Eve.

Yes, I believe there were two cities named Sodom and Gomorrah and yes I do believe they were destroyed for rampant sin including deviating from God’s intentions sexually.

Yes, I believe there was a man named Noah who spent 100 years building a giant boat and I do believe there was a great flood and the survivors of which were all on that boat.

And yes, I do believe there was a man named Jonah who was swallowed up by a great big fish and survived.

Above all those things, I do believe God came down to Earth in the form of Jesus . . . . I absolutely believe it. I absolutely believe if by that time a person has not chosen Christ, he will end up in a very bad place. I believe in Heaven and Hell and the battle that rages between the two on a higher plane than we can often see.

Meanwhile, these secularists and atheists cannot even be honest about when life begins. . . . please click here for the rest of the post 

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2. Um . . . Heck Yeah We Are the Latter
"A deliberate choice is going to have to be made,” he said. “Is RedState a news and information website, or is it an activist partisan Republican website pushing specific politicians? Regrettably, right now I think it’s more the latter than the former.”

RedState is probably the most accurate barometer of the conservative movement outside Washington, D.C. We remain one of the few sites on the right where any conservative activist anywhere can create an account, get a diary, and write about what’s on their mind as a conservative in fly over country engaged in the fight for freedom. I think we have two or three of the front page writers who actually live inside the beltway. The rest of us are from all over the country, including me down in Georgia. With few exceptions, all of our front page contributors began as regular readers of RedState who were inspired to start writing as activists on the site.

We certainly provide news and information, but it is news and information conservatives are interested in and relevant to our mission. The mission is pretty damn simple: educate conservative activists by providing news and information relevant to the conservative movement, motivate conservative activists to get involved in the political process, and activate conservative activists within the political battlefield.  . . . please click here for the rest of the post 

3.  Chemical Safety Board Subpoenas Black Elk Energy re: the West Delta 32 Explosion and Fire
We mourn the loss of life and pray for the missing worker. We wish the injured a speedy recovery.

I am dismayed by a new development . . . please click here for the rest of the post 

4.  Obama’s EPA Continues Handouts for Rich Ethanol Farmers on the Backs of Consumers
Nothing exemplifies the failure of Republicans to communicate more than the exit polling data regarding the public’s perception of the cost of living.  A whopping 37% of voters selected ‘rising prices’ as their most important issue in the election, yet amazingly, they split their votes evenly between Romney and Obama.  Hence, the arsonist behind the high prices for food, fuel, healthcare, and every other vital product and service affected by his tax and regulatory regime, was regarded as the firefighter by half the electorate.

The single most regressive market-distorting policy to ever emanate from Washington is the absurd tendentious treatment of ethanol.  Over the past decade, ethanol has been the poster child for the worst aspects of big-government crony capitalism.  The ethanol industry has used the fist of government to mandate that fuel blenders use their product, to subsidize their production with refundable tax credits, and to impose tariffs on more efficient sugar-based ethanol from Brazil.  These policies have distorted the market for corn to such a degree that 44% of all corn grown in the country is diverted towards motor fuel blends.  If we would literally flush half the corn harvest down the toilet, we would be better off than using it to make our motor fuel less efficient.  . . . please click here for the rest of the post 

4.  The Golden Calf of Increased Tax Rates
Let me open by saying that if economics is a religion for you and your golden calf is government than you are already immune to logic and continuing with this piece any further is a waste of your time. It is with regret that I must preface this writing in such a way but I found during my nearly two-year campaign for the U.S. Senate in Maryland that no matter how powerful the argument against liberal economic policies there are some that are simply calcified in their beliefs. It is disturbing to watch a growing number of politicians, who fully understand the consequences of detrimental tax policy, begin to cower to those who perpetually yearn for more of your money.

The current fight to hike tax rates flies in the face of logic and in the interests of keeping the argument simple I want to address it from three fronts, tax rates and their effects on behavior, what the study of economics tells us about tax rates and the morality of increasing tax rates.  . . . please click here for the rest of the post 

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Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor,RedState.com

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