Morning Briefing: Just What is Carly Fiorina's Record?

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Just What is Carly Fiorina's Record? I still have concerns about Carly Fiorina. Conservatives who want to hold up Donald Trump's prior positions should do the same to Carly Fiorina. To the extent she has evolved, we should know. In fact, it is hard to label Carly Fiorina an outsider when she was the candidate the National Republican Senatorial Committee rallied to for the California Senate race in 2010. Fiorina then joined on to the NRSC in a formal capacity as Vice Chair after her loss at a time the NRSC was battling conservatives across the country, smearing candidates, and blacklisting conservative organizations and campaign teams that failed to get on board with men like Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) 36% and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 58%. Fiorina was also the Republican the DC-GOP trotted out to join the pile on against Rush Limbaugh during the Sandra Fluke controversy. She has had an impressive run this campaign cycle. She has been nearly flawless in message and style. But is this really her? Read More

The Eunuchs and Tyrants of Washington Right now, our government is filled with eunuchs and would-be tyrants, all out to increase power for themselves and do so at the expense of the people. This is not a partisan issue, as both Democrats and Republicans share responsibility in increasing the size and scope of government to give themselves as much power as possible. Because of this, an insurrection not unlike the Yellow Scarves Rebellion (minus the scarves and alleged magic) has taken hold in the form of populist movements within the presidential cycle we find ourselves in. If Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina are the results of populists wanting D.C. outsiders to take the reins of the country, and the Republican Party is not doing anything about it, they are setting themselves up for an embarrassing rout in 2016. Likewise, if the Democrats don't look at the rise of Bernie Sanders as a populist movement (if it was truly a non-Hillary movement, you would see O'Malley picking up some of Hillary's loss of support, too), they are also going to be in for a shock. Read More

Pope's Challenge to Protect Life Instantly Dismissed While Pope Francis did not use the term "abortion" in his speech before Congress, he has spoken out against it by including the "innocent victim of abortion" in the list of those needing our protection, and determining "It is wrong, then, to look the other way or to remain silent". This conflicts with those such as cowardly House minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) 16%, a pro-choice Catholic, who was recently quoted in a New York Times article: "The church has their position, and we have ours, which is that a woman has free will given to her by God". The dust had barely settled on media coverage of the Pope's visit to DC when news outlets began to carry articles of Carly Fiorina's visit to the ultrasound room of a pregnancy center. CNN's headline to the story? "Carly Fiorina trashes Planned Parenthood at South Carolina pregnancy center". That's odd, since about five minutes before that they were squealing with delight at the Pope's speech. Read More Sponsored

It's Time to Start the Dead Pool on Trump's Lead Last Wednesday, though, Donald Trump lost something more than the substantive argument over policy that occurred in the debate. He lost the feeling of being the fun candidate on stage. He had to stand there and get publicly dressed down by Carly Fiorina over his remarks over his looks, and issue what was the closest thing he will ever give to a crow-eating apology. As the debate wore on, Trump's energy visibly flagged and the conversation moved inexorably away from him. Trump was left trying to force awkward high fives from Ben Carson and Jeb Bush to make himself the center of attention again. The impression of a man who has lost his party mojo was reinforced yesterday when Trump petulantly tweeted that he was henceforth going on a boycott of FoxNews, then spent the entirety of last night tweeting passively aggressively about the FoxNews programs he was clearly sitting at home watching. The final capper was when the formerly boisterous and un-PC Trump actually suggested that the FCC ought to fine Rich Lowry for saying "balls" on air. In the span of one week, Trump has gone from the guy who would say anything to entertain a crowd to the scolding church lady complaining about standards on television. Read More

Man Buns, Microfedoras, and the End Times Somewhere along the way, we as a culture have decided to take fashion and turn it into a freakshow of experimentation that flirts with the androgyny (when they don't outright embrace it as a way of life). There is nothing a normal human being (read: anyone who is not 98% of millennials) would find attractive in this and related fashions. And you know what's worse? I can't tell if these stories about microfedoras for man buns are real or satire. Given that they originate from Seattle, it could, like these stupid androgynous fashionstas (fashionistos???), go either way. Microfedoras. Micro. Fedoras. We as a nation deserve Barack Obama. Read More

Sponsored It's Confirmed. Donald Trump is Sliding in the Polls. One would think that boycotting Fox News Channel, the cable leader and a long-time Republican favorite, would hurt him. But it's hard to know if that's the case. What we do know is that Trump is down, and Ben Carson is waiting in the wings. Trump had rattled off 11 of 12 polls, including seven in a row, with a double-digit lead. That's gone. His last five leads, from five different pollsters, have been 4, 9, 8, 5, and 8. While it's easy to say this is all the debate, that's only part of the story. Yes, the post-debate polls have been kind to Fiorina (though each successive poll since the debate has shown a decay in her poll bounce), but Trump's slide to Carson's benefit predates that. The CBS poll with Trump's lead cut to 4 came out before the debate! Read More

Senator Ted Cruz on the GOP's Surrender Politics Senator Cruz's analysis, as usual, is exactly correct. The GOP leadership is interested in nothing beyond getting re-elected. The battles they fight are for the benefit of we rubes in the cheap seats. They come out and talk pro-life and small government but when they go back to Congress they vote to allow 20-week old babies, babies that could be viable, hacked to bits. They vote to fund the corrupt Ex-Im Bank. They pour billions into the highway bill which is one of the most egregious examples of legal bribery and influence peddling available. It isn't that the GOP can't win, it is that they are losers and so losing comes pretty naturally to them. These filibusters could be broken very easily by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 58%. He could do what Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) 14% did and eliminate the filibuster altogether. He could simply refuse to act on any Executive Branch appointments unless and until Obama agrees to sign various pieces of legislation and turn over the secret side deals to the Iran nuclear deal. And let's be clear, there is absolutely nothing that is passing the Congress that is making the nation safer or more prosperous so bringing it to a screeching halt is not harmful. McConnell and Boehner could fund the government by short term continuing resolution which would make great fiscal sense as it would freeze federal outlays. But they won't do that because they'd rather have the little boy's seat at Obama's table than stand up on their hind legs and act like a man. Read More

Does Hillary Clinton Have Permanent Brain Damage? I know that after her fall and head injury Hillary Clinton got a clean bill of health. But now it turns out that Clinton approved Human Abedin's status at the State Department where Anthony Weiner's wife could work for both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation. I bring up the head injury and possible lasting damage because just last month Hillary Clinton denied she played any role in approving this. Read More

Evangelicals Love Them Some Marco Rubio (and Ted Cruz) World magazine has continued a series of stories surveying evangelical leaders in the country (Disclosure: I'm one of those surveyed). It's not a scientific survey per se, but a good snapshot of some of the major voices within evangelicalism in the country (and somehow me). I know a number of the people in the survey and it is really a solid list of some of the names you'd know. Rubio gets the highest score at 37.4%. Cruz is at 19.8%. The other interesting detail is that while Carly Fiorina is only at 18.7%, when asked about second choices, Fiorina is at 21.6%. She certainly impressed people with her debate performance. The survey was conducted after the CNN debate. Religious freedom and abortion are the top two issues evangelical leaders care about, followed by foreign policy and family issues. Read More Sponsored

Sincerely yours, Leon Wolf, Managing Editor