RedState Briefing 10/20/2014

Join Me On the Phone

Please make plans to join me on a conference call the day after the mid-term elections, Wednesday, November 5th from 9-10am. I will review the results and give you my take on what the election means for RedState, the country as a whole, and what ramifications/recriminations are likely to unfold in the lame duck session of Congress. We will also walk through winners and losers on the political scene and set up what you should expect for the next two years as we prepare for the 2016 Presidential Election. This is insider thoughts and analysis you won’t hear on television or anywhere else. The second half of the call will be answering questions from you. You can ask questions live on the call, or submit questions through Facebook and Twitter. Register here and we will call you on that Wednesday morning, no need to dial in. We are making it easy to participate. This call has a limit of 5,000 participants so RSVP today to reserve your spot.

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The Blood on Obama’s Hands When conservatives consider the casualties of Obama’s national security policies, their attention is drawn quite naturally to Benghazi. In this shameful episode, the Obama Administration sacrificed an ambassador and three American heroes to protect a deceptive presidential campaign message in which Obama claimed that the war against al-Qaeda was over and won (“Osama bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda is on the run”). The facts are these: Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American heroes were sent into an al-Qaeda stomping ground that the British and other diplomatic consulates had already evacuated; they were denied the security they had requested; they were then left to die during a seven hour fire fight when their compound was attacked, and finally betrayed in death, when Obama and his representatives lied to the world about what had taken place and when he failed to bring their killers to justice as he had mendaciously promised he would. Read More

The Wolf   His responses for six years have been efforts to respond to news cycles. Policy battles have been bungled unless they could become political battles. A president who has routinely pitted American against American to affect political change has been lost when it comes to uniting Americans against external threats from ISIS to Ebola. His efforts to bring about hope and change have brought about despair and dread. When President Obama came into office, many in the media thought he would be less ideologically rigid than President Bush and his “cowboy diplomacy.” But President Obama has been, if anything, more prideful than President Bush. So convinced he is right, President Obama is unable to change even when he is clearly wrong.   Read More Sponsored Collect Your First "Presidents' Paycheck" on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 President Obama has quietly been collecting as much as \$5 million thanks to a very surprising source over the past few years... Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush have been cleaning up, too. Now you can start benefiting with as little as \$11... and see cash deposits in your brokerage account literally within the next 60 days. Details here.

In Idaho, Christian Pastors Ordered to Perform Gay Marriages. You Will Be Made to Care. It is one of the tenets of the current movement toward gay marriage. They get to get married, Christians are forced to provide goods and services if they demand it, but — and this is the key caveat of it all — but Christian ministers will not be forced to wed gays because of their religious concerns. That was last week. This is this week where the government of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho is forcing two Christians pastors to marry gays. Read More

Bobby Jindal: Ebola crisis enters Phase II of Obama plan Following a story in the New York Times today reporting that President Barack Obama is said to be showing “deepening frustration” and “anger” behind closed doors because of his administration’s lackluster response to the Ebola crisis, Governor Bobby Jindal declared that “we’ve reached the ‘I’m so mad’ stage of the President’s crisis management plan.” Read More

Sponsored Collect Your First "Presidents' Paycheck" on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 President Obama has quietly been collecting as much as \$5 million thanks to a very surprising source over the past few years... Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush have been cleaning up, too. Now you can start benefiting with as little as \$11... and see cash deposits in your brokerage account literally within the next 60 days. Details here.   Nate Silver’s dishonest critique of travel bans   Nate Silver, of fivethirtyeight.com, has apparently received the White House memo asking its bootlicks in the media to push back on the demand sane people are making for a travel ban on countries with an active Ebola epidemic. To make his case, in the words of William F. Buckley, he acts like a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen.   Read More

The government wants your data protected, except when it doesn’t. Sometimes the government cheers the idea that your data is being protected from the bad guys. Other times, the government grumbles and complains. It turns out they’re fine with your data being at risk, as long as it means government can get to it whenever it wants. Funny, that. Read More

Karl Rove suppressed WMD discoveries t is difficult to read the report this week by Eli Lake alleging that Karl Rove suppressed any push-back on the meme that Bush lied about WMD in Iraq without this question springing to mind: does Rove like to lose? This comes on the heels of a New York Times report that not only were WMD found in Iraq, but several US servicemembers were injured by them. (As an aside, some of what the Times reports on was known, Wikileaks, for instance, contained evidence of WMD and my friend, Jim Lacey, did an extensive article at National Review on what was known.) Read More

Is Ebola reaction being subordinated to foreign policy goals?   One of the great mysteries of the Ebola crisis has been the administration’s refusal to consider a travel ban from countries with active Ebola outbreaks. This technique is tested and proven. The technical term is “quarantine.” It has been in use since the days of sailing ships when a ship entered port it was inspected for any occurrence of an infectious disease and, if found, had to fly a yellow flag until it was certified clear. It is why Ellis Island was established.   Read More Sponsored Collect Your First "Presidents' Paycheck" on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 President Obama has quietly been collecting as much as \$5 million thanks to a very surprising source over the past few years... Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush have been cleaning up, too. Now you can start benefiting with as little as \$11... and see cash deposits in your brokerage account literally within the next 60 days. Details here.

Cronyists, Fake Libertarians, and Poker Regulation Often times in politics, we assume a very simple us-vs-them battle, where there’s one side of good guys looking to shrink government, and another side of bad guys looking to expand government. However in the case of online poker, it’s a three-cornered fight, and the two sides getting the most attention are both after big government, even the side pretending to be libertarian. Read More

RedState Weekly Briefing: ELECTIONS!!, Same Sex Marriage, and More! #RSWB This week on the RedState Weekly Briefing Thomas LaDuke, Joe Cunningham, Caleb Howe, and I discuss Horse Race Politics, Same Sex Marriage, and more. Read More

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