Morning Briefing: 14 Years Ago

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The Predicate Act Fourteen years ago this morning, hell flew out of the clear blue skies careening into tall buildings in New York City, careening into the Pentagon, and careening into a field in Pennsylvania. We have been at war ever since. The monstrous acts this day fourteen years ago led to the toppling of a regime in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, the left says if only George W. Bush had not invaded Iraq, ISIS would not exist. If only Al Qaeda had not attacked the United States, ISIS would not have existed. For that matter, if only the Soviet Union had not invaded Afghanistan, ISIS would not exist because the Soviet invasion raised up the Mujahadeed that Osama Bin Laden joined that then inspired Al Qaeda that attacked us that led to war that led to toppling Saddam Hussein that led to a surge strategy and war fatigue that led to Barack Obama's election that led to ISIS's rise. If we want to play the game, if the Soviet Union had not invaded Afghanistan, Barack Obama would not have been elected. Behold the chain of history and how it weaves and dances in our minds. But we should, just for a moment, concede the left's point. Had George W. Bush not invaded Iraq, this would not have happened. That's fine. Let's play this game to its end. Read More

Mitch McConnell's Fig Leaf to Justify Continued Funding to Kill Babies Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is going to allow a Senate vote on a 20 week abortion bad. Yes sir. He sure is. As Ben Pershing notes, this is to "defuse a shutdown fight over Planned Parenthood." There's just one problem. This is a fig leaf. He actually promised this vote back in July because the Planned Parenthood videos started having an impact. That's right. He's trotting out an old promise as new to try to distract us from the fact that he is willing to keep funding going to kill kids. But wait. There's more. Read More

Welcome to the Mob Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has become the latest GOP Presidential contender to throw a last-minute Hail Mary in a desperate plea to reinject themselves as a relevant force into the GOP Presidential debate. He joins Bobby Jindal, who unleashed a pretty good stemwinder of a speech today that was almost exclusively about Donald Trump and Scott Walker, who attempted to reinvigorate his flagging campaign in a speech at Eureka College today. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is following a different tack, choosing instead to follow Trump (and/or Huckabee) around the country in hopes that some of Donald's TV ratings will rub off on him. It wasn't really supposed to be this way, at least not this year. Apart from Rick Perry, none of Mitt Romney's rivals in 2012 was really a serious national candidate, but the deep-seated antipathy for Romney himself ensured that it would ultimately be a little bit of a circus (with even Rick Santorum getting a turn as ringmaster). Read More

Bobby Jindal declares war on Donald Trump Bobby Jindal launched a full on attack on Donald Trump today at the National Press Club. It wasn't a mean spirited attack. In my mind, as the RedState "Trumpette", I really can't disagree with anything he said. The full speech is here, I encourage you to read it. The full speech plus the Q&A session is below. Read More Sponsored

Lou Jacobson and PolitiFact descend into self-parody One of the many chancres on the genitalia of American journalism is the "fact check" scam. This is where reporters, who generally aren't terribly well educated about anything, take it upon themselves to act as a truth squad to uncover falsehoods by political figures. Virtually without fail, even the simplest statements by Republicans are false. Back in 2012, I grew so frustrated with the casual dishonesty of the Washington Post's "fact checker", Glenn Kessler, that I threatened, quite seriously, to ban anyone who quoted any of the media fact checkers in a comment. Read More

The Mayor of New Orleans is the Target of a Judicial Coup That is, if you believe the mayor of New Orleans* (Hint: He is a Democrat and he is the brother of former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu). Mitch Landrieu is on the hook for nearly $150 million dollars in back pay that is owed to the firefighters of New Orleans. It's been a big deal in New Orleans because, I kid you not, the Democrats who have run the city (this whole "not paying the firefighters" thing is a Democratic trait down here – there hasn't been a Republican mayor of New Orleans since the latter part of the 1800s) have left it completely broke… well, sorta. There is the money he's spending to renovate historic areas of town in order to remove any and all mention of the Confederacy. Other than that, there's no way you should expect them to have any extra money whatsoever to pay the firefighters who only really save buildings and lives. Read More

Sponsored Among Republicans, CNN poll shows a tight race between Trump and Carson ORC International conducted a poll for CNN asking about the 2016 Republican race. The headline number says Donald Trump 32, Ben Carson 19, and the rest in single digits. Page 29 of the PDF though says that among Republicans, it's a much tighter race than that. Read More

10,000 Refugees: The Net Result of Barack Obama's Inaction Barack Obama drew several lines in the sand that Syria kept crossing. He laughed off helping the rebels against Syria until he had to do something. Then he armed a bunch of rebels who sided with ISIS. The situation in Syria has continued to destablize. Barack Obama's answer was to help the people help themselves. We were not going to fight for them. They were going to have to do it themselves. And now we will be taking 10,000 Syrian refugees into our country because Barack Obama's inaction led to a refugee crisis. Mind you, we are learning from Europe that many of the refugees are disaffected young men. They are not all the Christian and Kurd refugees fleeing. But they're coming here. Read More

DNC nervously refuses to host more debates. The wagons are being circled: "Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is closing the door on adding more Democratic presidential debates, and said a controversial clause penalizing candidates for participating in unsanctioned debates would stand." The number will stay at 6, and never mind the complaints from inside the party. No, really, the Democratic leadership is determined to never mind them. Read More

The Stray Voltage of Bowe Bergdahl On May 31, 2014, Barack Obama ambled into the Rose Garden to announce that an American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, had been ransomed from the Taliban in exchange for five high-ranking Taliban captives… Read More Sponsored

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