RedState Briefing 10/17/2014

Thomas R. Frieden Should Resign From the CDC. And We Need a Travel Ban.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden is the Director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the past few weeks, the American people have seen him flail about spectacularly. He has tried to instill calm in the public and instead made the situation worse. Under Frieden’s leadership, hospitals across America are confused about Ebola protocols, a nurse with Ebola and symptoms traveled on a commercial airliner with the CDC’s permission, and confusion has set in. Frieden is in the unfortunate position of being a policy operative who has turned into a politician. He is doing a poor job at both. Prior to the CDC, Frieden came to Democrats’ attention as Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s healthcare expert intent on ending the scourge of second hand smoke and transfats. Frieden’s resume is impressive. But we are not now dealing with a transfat problem, a diabetes problem, or a second hand smoke problem. Despite his efforts to make a comparison, we are not even dealing with an HIV/AIDS equivalent situation. Were we dealing with any one of those situations, Frieden’s expertise could no doubt shine. No one expected Ebola would ever make it to the United States. Just a few weeks ago President Obama told the American public it would not make it here. It is here now and Dr. Frieden is not cut out for the job of calming a public and doing his job as CDC Director. It is not his fault. Events have gotten away from him and away from the administration he serves. But Frieden needs to resign or be removed by the President as a first step in restoring calm by placing the CDC in more capable hands.

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David Perdue and a Georgia Runoff   A few weeks ago, Republican Senate candidate David Perdue had a Senate win within his reach with no runoff. Now, it seems the best he can hope for is an overtime victory. Reporters nationally, since the 1970's, have warned of a demographic tide building, making it more difficult for Republicans to win. Pollsters, statisticians, and others claim that is happening now in Georgia. That is not actually true, despite how much so many invested in the “demographics as destiny” meme want it to be so. Demographics may hand Georgia back to the Democrats within the decade, but David Perdue’s slipping poll numbers have more to do with other easily understood factors.   Read More Sponsored Justice Dep't Seizes Money from Innocent US Citizens FREE BOOK: Rescue Your Money from US Debt Disaster Sudden Target for Gov't Confiscation: Your Savings

Mr. Frieden’s disastrous testimony To call CDC Director Thomas Frieden’s performance in front of yesterday’s hearing of Rep. Fred Upton‘s House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations disastrous would be like saying the Titanic had a leak. It was epic in its incompetence, One of the most hotly debated topics was that of a travel ban. Since the first patient presented at a Dallas hospital suffering from Ebola symptoms, a disease he acquired while in Liberia, the obvious question has been why do we allow travel to the US, especially air travel, from any nation with an active Ebola epidemic when we have the mechanisms to prevent that from happening. We can’t. Because racism. So no effort was spent to trace the unfortunate Mr. Duncan’s fellow passengers but now we are running down those who flew with the second Dallas nurse to develop Ebola. Read More

ISIS and the mystery of the jihadi brides Since prehistoric times, man has sought a meaning in his life beyond daily sustenance. This yearning has been the source of some mischief but it has also seen the development of arts, the humanities, and even the science that declares this yearning is a mere delusion. Post-Christian and, mostly post-nationalistic Europe has little to attract disaffected young people seeking meaning to their lives. These young people aren’t being lured to Syria and Iraq by “terrorism.” They are being lured there by Islam. That it is impolitic to state the obvious lest Ben Affleck wet himself in distress essentially disarms the West in its fight against Islamic fundamentalism and the indiscriminate terror that it advocates. One might well ask why young European women would be attracted to a lifestyle that views them as little more that chattel. I would offer that in current Western culture, for all its talk of feminism, that women are seen as little more than a life support system for sex organs. A quick look at the ads in Cosmo, an MTV music video, or the latest hit on HBO shows that feminism has become a by-word for promiscuity. The easy availability of divorce has shattered what was previously the cornerstone of society: the family. That young women who reject that culture might look for a belief system that offers them security and value, even if that value is based on childbearing, is hardly surprising. One of the most significant disservices done to the nation by President Bush after 9/11 was his refusal to name our enemy for what it is. While all of Islam isn’t necessarily violent it is inherently intolerant (Deerborn, Michigan, outlawed evangelists distributing Christian literature at a public festival; Malaysia has banned Christian from using the name Allah for God, Islamic theology notwithstanding). More to the point the violent part of Islam, as even Bill Maher has figured out, is not some rogue, outlying, heresy. The religious view that has manifested itself in al Qaeda and ISIS is how Islam is understood and practiced on the Arabian Peninsula and throughout the Maghreb. Read More

Sponsored Justice Dep't Seizes Money from Innocent US Citizens FREE BOOK: Rescue Your Money from US Debt Disaster Sudden Target for Gov't Confiscation: Your Savings   How biomedical research fails the nation why no one cares   Yesterday I detailed how the claim by NIH director, Dr. Francis Collins, that with more money an Ebola vaccine would have been developed was patently nonsense. In an annual budget of nearly $30 billion, a paltry $12 million a year, which is roughly equivalent to what Lindsay Lohan spends on blow, was earmarked for Ebola vaccine development. While the comment by Collins was ass-covering hyperbole and a fairly transparent attempt to turn an institutional failure into a financial windfall, it is important to understand how a situation like this comes to pass.   Read More

Sarah Palin: Prophet We are approaching an anniversary of sorts and while I will concede this is, to a degree, trolling the foreign policy big brains who belittled Sarah Palin it is also offering you, loyal RedState readers, a second helping of schadenfreude. Yesterday, you recall, we saw a stake finally driven through the crotch of the Bush Lied meme that the left used to try to defeat Bush electorally in 2004. There were, in fact, chemical weapons in Iraq and as my friend, Jim Lacey, writes in National Review, virtually every other allegation about Iraq’s weapons was actually substantiated by the invasion. On October 21, 2008, GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gave a speech in Reno, NV. Read More

Charlie Crist, Troll So in case you missed it last night, at the beginning of the Charlie Crist/Rick Scott debate, one of the most bizarre moments in recent political history unfolded when Florida Governor Rick Scott refused to take the stage because of controversy over a fan. Here is video of Fangate in all its cringing, awkward glory Read More

Can You Spare a Bible?   The mayor of Houston, TX, has subpoenaed the sermons of local pastors and the speeches of local religious leaders to see what they have to say about homosexuality. I fear Annise Parker has never read the Bible. If she wanted some sermons so bad, she could go to church, but I don’t know that she will. So I think we should help her out. You can get a copy of the NIV version on Amazon.com for $4.05. Annise Parker’s address is: Mayor Annise D. Parker City of Houston P.O. Box 1562 Houston, TX 77251 I kindly suggest you all send Ms. Parker a Bible. Maybe she might be tempted to read it.   Read More Sponsored Justice Dep't Seizes Money from Innocent US Citizens FREE BOOK: Rescue Your Money from US Debt Disaster Sudden Target for Gov't Confiscation: Your Savings

Sincerely yours, Erick Erickson Editor-in-Chief, RedState