Morning Briefing: Carson is Legit

Today's Sponsor

Rick Perry's Guide to Getting Back in the Race Rick Perry running out of money is not fatal to his chances for 2016. It happened to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2007, prior to him accepting the GOP's Presidential nomination in 2008. It happened to Newt Gingrich in 2011, prior to beating Mitt Romney in South Carolina in 2012. But both of those men had to tinker with their message. Rick Perry needs to do the same. I would submit that Perry, having taken on Frankenstein's monster in the form of Donald Trump, now needs to take on Dr. Frankenstein — that is the Washington Republican elite. They created Donald Trump the candidate. The people who are attracted to Donald Trump are patriots pissed off not at Obama, but at Republicans who've refused to fight Obama and broken just about every promise they made to get into power. Rick Perry needs to take on Boehner and McConnell and the Washington Republican political elite. He needs to take them on directly. Read More

The One I Got Wrong If I had to do it over again, I would have rescinded the invitation to Donald Trump again. It was the right thing to do. I am more sure that it was the right thing to do by the response of many Trump supporters to highlight all the terrible things I've said in my career. Those don't mean Trump should have been given a pass. They mean both he and I are called to account for our sins and only one of us was willing to apologize and admit we'd done wrong. But the one I got wrong was Ben Carson. To understand why I got it wrong, you should know first the full reasoning for my decision to consider him a flash in the pan and not a serious candidate. Read More

John Kasich Runs From His Own Record In October of 2013, Kasich began the expansion of Obamacare into Ohio, which makes today very interesting. Speaking to a group of New Hampshire voters, Kasich said the legislature should get to decide on medicaid. You read that right. Kasich thinks the legislature should make the decision on what to do with medicaid — suddenly pretending his legislature told him not to expand it and he overrode their decision with a veto. Here's Kasich in his own words today directly contradicting his own actions… Read More Sponsored

Ted Cruz refuses to play 'good Republican' Everyone knows the game. When a Republican candidate is asked a gotcha question by some grad from a third tier journalism school he is supposed to give that stunned-mullet look, mumble incoherently, and have his or her communications director profusely apologize hours later. We are blessed this year with a crop of candidates who do not go along with the game. Ted Cruz is one of the new breed of intelligent, articulate and committed conservatives who don't play the game. Read More

WaPo: Three Pinocchios for Planned Parenthood's "3 Percent" Abortion Lie Planned Parenthood has long been able to promulgate its 3% abortion lie, and the mainstream media has eaten it up hook line and sinker, not once questioning the veracity of the largest abortion provider in the U.S. That is all changing. For the first time, the mainstream media has begun to question Planned Parenthood. The gruesomeness of Planned Parenthood's barbarity – selling murdered babies for parts – has been exposed, and the mainstream media has been forced to look at the stark reality of the Culture of Death. Read More

Sponsored Chris Christie Signs No Tax Hike Pledge From Group That Has Previously Attacked Him On Taxes On Wednesday, Chris Christie, along with other Republican candidates, signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to raise taxes, certainly a winning proposition among Republicans. The vow states that Christie would "oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes," something which Christie has had a problem doing in the past. In fact, he was knocked pretty hard for that. By the Americans for Tax Reform. Read More

The POW MIA Flag Is Racist Sometimes the left does things that are so bizarre that at first blush you think you are being trolled. Take this, for instance. In Newsweek "historian" (this is an appellation that, in this particular case, doesn't seem to require any academic credentials), accused plagiarist Rick Perlstein claims to have discovered yet another "racist" flag… Read More

Bobby Jindal: It's Me You're Looking For Republican primary voters have long had a habit of, as the song says, lookin' for love in all the wrong places. This year, they appear to be doing a lot more of the same during the course of searching for a Presidential frontrunner – but the good news is that it's yet early in the process and the polls this far out are largely meaningless. Which is a good thing, because that means voters have plenty of time to check some of their pre-conceived notions at the door and give another long, hard look at Bobby Jindal. I understand what the knocks on Jindal are – too professorial, not combative enough, not enough TV presence. I think, quite frankly, that most of these criticisms have been baked in for years by people who haven't really seen him in action a lot. I was able to see his full stump speech at the RedState Gathering last week, and on the merits his was the best candidate speech of the bunch – including both Cruz and Rubio. He was funny, engaging, substantive, and carried the natural ease of a man who is comfortable in his skin and has something important to say. Read More

Jeb Bush attacks Hillary on Iraq If Hillary Clinton possesses any unique selling propostion beyond proving even a homely woman can sleep her way into power, it is her tenure as Barack Obama's secretary of state. That seems to be a slender enough reed when polls show the electorate could give a flying rat's patootie about experience and favor a change agent above all. Read More Sponsored

Hillary's Private E-Mail Server Contains Exactly What We Thought It Would The ongoing scandal involving the contents of Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server appears to have gotten too big for even our government to ignore. For months, conservatives have been saying she used her private e-mail server for official business during her time as Secretary of State, including the possible transmission of classified material. The Clinton campaign, Democrats across the nation, and her allies in the media have denied it for months, but now that she has turned her server over to the FBI, it appears that we on the Right have been vindicated. Read More

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