Tuesday, May 26, 2015 10:37:25 PM
Ben Carson at South Carolina Freedom Summit [FULL SPEECH]
Published on May 10, 2015 by The Right Scoop [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz8Wm50F9mY_C6rDTFWXBBA , http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz8Wm50F9mY_C6rDTFWXBBA/videos ]
Presidential hopeful Ben Carson [on 5-9-15] brought his campaign to the good people of South Carolina at the Freedom Summit. Even though they were all racist Conservatives, he was well received.
I was kidding about the racist part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJctOoj1Rsk [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTgw44OmDVA (with comment)]
--
What If Sarah Palin Were a Brain Surgeon?
In some early GOP polls, Carson—seen here in Kentucky—has run ahead of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Ted Cruz.
Photograph by Benjamin Rasmussen
Though he's a hero in the black community, Carson's political constituency today is much paler.
Photograph by Benjamin Rasmussen
Until two years ago, Ben Carson was a mild-mannered neurosurgeon—a hero to black America, the subject of a tender made-for-TV movie. Then he started raving about Nazis and America's demise. Now he's the Tea Party's great White House hope—and the GOP's worst nightmare. Never mind that he's never been elected to anything: Being president, Carson says, ain't exactly brain surgery
By Jason Zengerle
April 2015 [issue of]
On the night earlier this year that Barack Obama stepped before the nation to deliver his sixth State of the Union address, Ben Carson—a political newcomer who harbors dreams of soon giving his first—settled into a sofa just a few blocks away. He was eager to hate everything the president was about to say.
Carson had come to the Capitol Hill home of Armstrong Williams, a conservative media impresario who officially serves as Carson's business manager and who lately has functioned as Carson's unofficial image-maker and political adviser as well. As the two men turned to the TV, they began dissecting Obama's performance.
"He looks good," Williams said. "He looks clean. Shirt's white. The tie. He looks elegant."
"Like most psychopaths," Carson grumbled. "That's why they're successful. That's the way they look. They all look great."
For those unfamiliar with the mood of America's far right, casually branding the president a psychopath is exactly the sort of talk that strikes a chord—and just the thing that has made Carson a sensation in the GOP. Today the former pediatric neurosurgeon—who's never run for elected office—is suddenly besting candidates like Jeb, Marco, and Rand in some 2016 polls and preparing to announce his campaign for the White House. As for the current resident, well, Carson is sometimes encouraged to cut him just a little slack before he hands over the keys.
"He faces the same challenges you will face," Williams said of Obama as he spoke. "He's gotta convince people to believe him. That's all he's doing: selling his narrative."
"But he knows he's telling a lie!" Carson vented. "He's trying to sell what he thinks is not true! He's sitting there saying, 'These Americans are so stupid I can tell them anything.' "
Since his inadvertent entry into politics two years ago, Carson has defined himself chiefly as a rhetorical bomb-thrower. He's invoked bestiality and pedophilia while arguing against gay marriage, and earlier this month, during an appearance on CNN, he argued that homosexuality is a choice, "because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight, and when they come out, they're gay." (After an uproar, Carson issued an apology and declared he would no longer talk about gay rights.) With equally provocative flair, he's railed against the forces of government, declaring that Obamacare is "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery" and, in fact, "is slavery, in a way." Similarly outrageous was his contention that "we live in a Gestapo age" and that America today is "very much like Nazi Germany."
This time next year, in the thick of the primaries, such wild statements could sink a candidate. Not so in these hurly-burly months before the race begins in earnest. Indeed, it's in these early days of the campaign—before armies of political professionals descend and campaign contributions skyrocket—when a familiar sort of long shot can thrive. And among a certain segment of the GOP, Ben Carson is thriving. Yes, his chances for winning may be slim—only two presidents have reached the White House without electoral experience or high military rank—but activists on the right hope that, at the very least, Carson will give voice to a conservative anger and resentment that'll influence the rest of the GOP field. "He's like a messenger," Williams says of Carson. "He might not be king, but he will have the ear of the king."
Of course, one big way Carson differs from most quixotic right-wing ideologues is his race. Conservatives, long frustrated that their disgust with Obama and his policies is regarded as racist, no doubt find it politically advantageous—and psychologically helpful—to have a black person offering those critiques. As one GOP fund-raising guru told Time, "There's nothing they love more than a black candidate who agrees with them on conservative views."
Carson's restrained manner helps a lot, too. Though his outrage can be excessive, it's never spittle-flecked. Rather, he speaks in the dulcet and intelligent tones of a surgeon reassuring parents that, although their child has brain cancer, he has the power to heal her. He shrewdly camouflages his vitriol as wisdom, dismisses those who disagree as fools, and, perhaps more than any other far-right candidate in recent years, gives establishment Republicans heartburn. They are, after all, eager to coronate an electable candidate to run against Hillary Clinton, not get drawn into a fractious fight with a Tea Party rock star who forces the eventual GOP nominee to the unelectable fringe. "When I call my mom back home, she asks me, 'What do you think of Dr. Ben Carson?' " one top Republican operative lamented to me. "I tell her he's not ready to be president, and she gets so mad at me."
Even among Carson's political team, though, there's some recognition that he could benefit from a little more polish. The day of the president's State of the Union, Carson had spent five hours getting briefed on domestic and foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank; the next morning, he would travel to Texas for two days of media training. But on the night of Obama's speech, the task of getting Carson ready for the White House fell to Williams alone. He'd arranged for Carson to appear on cable news to offer some post-speech commentary and was busily prepping the doctor.
"We don't have to call him a psychopath. I don't want you to go to CNN with that kind of mood," Williams cautioned.
To groom Carson in more literal ways, Williams had also hired a barber to come to his home and cut Carson's hair. That way, when he offered his assessment of Obama on TV, he'd look, as Williams put it, "presidential." With Carson perched on a stool in the dining room, the barber took maybe a millimeter off the top before he asked Williams about the doctor's goatee. "I'm gonna leave that alone," Williams said. "We'll revisit it one day, but not today. I pick my battles. He likes that goatee. But do you know a president who's been elected with a goatee?"
···
"In the United States, we have Republicans, Democrats, and independents. What do you have?" Carson asked.
It was about a month before the president's State of the Union speech, and Carson was in the first-class lounge at the Newark airport, waiting for a flight to Tel Aviv. He'd never been to Israel before, but a trip to the Holy Land has become, in recent years, a prerequisite for presidential aspirants. When Governor George W. Bush went in 1998, he was given a helicopter tour by Ariel Sharon. Ten years later, Senator Barack Obama met with the Israeli prime minister as well as the leader of the Palestinian Authority. Now, as Carson sat across from the young Israeli woman who'd be his guide, he was getting a head start on what he called his own "fact-finding mission." The more basic the facts, the better.
The woman answered Carson's question about political parties, telling him that there were Labor and Likud and a host of other factions in the Knesset. "And what is the role of the Knesset?" he interjected. This prompted a tutorial on Israel's legislature. Carson is a tall, dignified-looking man with a placid, almost sleepy face. As he tried to concentrate on his Hebrew Schoolhouse Rock primer, he seemed even more fatigued. "It sounds complex," he finally said. "Why don't they just adopt the system we have?"
Sparse as Carson's foreign-policy bona fides may be, the trip was devised to bolster them. And although he wasn't able to secure a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Carson and his entourage—consisting of his wife, Candy; Williams; and a handful of aides and their spouses-visited the Western Wall, lit a menorah with the mayor of Jerusalem, and drove to the Golan Heights for what was billed as a "geopolitical strategic briefing." But the three members of the Israeli Defense Forces assigned to give it-a portly male lieutenant colonel in the medical corps and two twentysomething female soldiers from the public-affairs unit—didn't seem to be at risk of revealing classified information. Adding to the low-key vibe, the briefing took place at an observation deck on Mount Bental, a popular tourist destination with a gift shop and coin-operated binoculars, where a group of high school students on a field trip were making a ruckus.
"Perhaps we can move over here," the lieutenant colonel suggested, steering Carson's group to a quieter spot to discuss the nearby Syrian civil war. He claimed that most of the Islamist fighters weren't Syrian but came from Morocco and Europe. "It's just like the troublemakers in Ferguson," Carson said, betraying a habit of wedging the unfamiliar into a context he understands.
The lieutenant colonel tried to direct Carson's attention to a Syrian city in the distance, where some of the war's fiercest fighting has raged. But Carson seemed just as interested in his own location—and whether he was safely under the cover of Israel's vaunted missile-defense system. "Is this area right here protected by the Iron Dome?" he wondered.
The next day, Carson was standing on a pleasant hillside outside Jerusalem that overlooked a grove of olive trees; a shepherd tended his flock of sheep in the distance. Carson heard some noise from a construction site, and he flinched. "Was that machine-gun fire?" he asked.
···
How Carson wound up in Israel contemplating the hazards and intricacies of the Middle East is one of the unlikelier stories in recent American politics. A little more than two years ago, he was nearing retirement as the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Although Carson was only 61, he wanted to leave medicine behind while he could still enjoy life. He and Candy had bought a house on a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was looking forward to lowering his handicap and learning to play the organ.
But then he was asked to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual apolitical gathering that Carson, a devout Seventh Day Adventist, had addressed once before, in 1997, when he gave a typically anodyne speech. It was expected he'd do the same in 2013. But Carson struggled for months to formulate his thoughts. "When I woke up the morning of the speech," he says, "I felt very clear on what I should talk about." Carson decided he'd discuss what a mess the United States had become under Barack Obama. With the president sitting just to his right on the dais, Carson railed against progressive tax policies and Obama's signature health care law, comparing America to ancient Rome. "Moral decay. Fiscal irresponsibility. They destroyed themselves," Carson warned. "If you don't think that can happen to America, you get out your books and you start reading."
Obama, naturally, didn't take too kindly to Carson's speech, his thin smile gradually turning into a frown as he sat through all twenty-seven minutes of it. Although Carson couldn't see Obama's face while he was giving the speech, he's subsequently studied the president's reaction on video. "I thought in the beginning he was much more animated," Carson told me. "He was laughing along with his wife. She continued to laugh while he got quiet beside her, and then it looked like he was texting. I think he was texting her, because after he did that, she stopped."
Carson hadn't uttered anything that countless Republicans hadn't said before. The difference was that Carson delivered his message mere feet from Obama—and that his skin is the same color as the president's. Hours after the speech, Rush Limbaugh was playing excerpts on his show and telling listeners, "I love this guy!" That week The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial titled "Ben Carson for President." A month later, Carson was invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he met Sarah Palin, who greeted him with the bowing "We're not worthy" routine from Wayne's World. (Carson, for his part, thought Palin "looked anorexic.") "Would you ever run for president, sir?" Sean Hannity asked Carson during what would become one of his countless Fox News interviews. "I'd vote for you in a heartbeat." Not long after that, the network signed up the neurosurgeon as a paid political commentator, and Carson, who says he'd previously turned down entreaties to run for office in Maryland—as well as feelers from both the Bush and Obama administrations about serving as surgeon general—began thinking about the White House.
His 2012 book, America the Beautiful, which sold fewer than 2,000 copies in the six weeks before the Prayer Breakfast, sold almost 60,000 copies in the six weeks after. He hastily wrote—or rather, dictated—another tome, One Nation, which outsold Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices. "God speaks through him, and it goes into that Dragon"—Carson's voice-recognition software—"and we have a best-seller," Candy, who serves as her husband's book researcher, told me. Armstrong Williams offers a less exalted rationale. "He is a hot property. His brand is huge right now."
But long before he was a mega-star to the Tea Party, Carson was a bona fide hero in the black community. He grew up poor in Detroit, raised by a single mother who had dropped out of school after the third grade and was married at 13. Nonetheless, she required her two sons to read two books a week and write reports (never mind that she could barely read them). Her boys quickly became star students. Not that there weren't other challenges. Carson had a terrible temper. When he was in high school, he got into an argument with a friend over the radio station they were listening to. In a flash of anger, Carson tried to plunge a camping knife into his friend's stomach. But the knife hit the boy's belt buckle instead and snapped in half. As Carson tells it, the moment was a turning point. He ran home and prayed for patience. "God heard my deep cries of anguish," Carson later wrote in his memoir Gifted Hands. "A feeling of lightness flowed over me, and I knew a change of heart had taken place. I felt different. I was different."
Carson eventually went to Yale and then on to med school at Michigan. In 1984, when he was just 33, he became the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, the first African-American to run a division at the prestigious hospital. He quickly earned a reputation as a daring surgeon, and in 1987 Carson performed one of the most storied operations in medical history by separating a pair of Siamese twins joined at the head. It was the first time such a surgery had been successful, and it made international headlines. "I knew that my life was going to change after that, because the media isn't completely stupid," Carson says now. "They'd start looking at my background, and they'd say, 'Whaaaaaat?' " He soon received the first of his sixty-two honorary degrees. Not long ago, I overheard a woman ask Carson if he still had roots in Michigan. "My roots there are there's a high school in Detroit named after me," Carson replied.
For all of Carson's medical renown, his greatest fame came in the African-American community. Even as a young resident, Carson spent many of his precious few hours outside the operating room visiting inner-city Baltimore schools. "I can't even count how many times I saw Ben Carson when I was a kid," the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who grew up in inner-city Baltimore in the '80s and '90s, told me. "Any time anyone wanted to bring out any sort of inspirational figure for young black kids, especially young black boys, in Baltimore, you turned to Ben Carson." In those days, Carson and his family were something like a real-life version of the Cosbys: The doctor's three sons played around town in a string quartet with Candy called the Carson Four.
He started an educational foundation to help black students, and across the country Carson's memoir Gifted Hands—which was later turned into a TV movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr.—became required reading for African-American kids. "My mother gave me a copy," recalls Joshua DuBois, the Obama White House's former director of faith-based initiatives, "and said, 'This man is a symbol of how you need to be looking at your life.' "
In the summer of 1994, when Essence decided to pay tribute to an elite group of male role models, the magazine packed the theater at Madison Square Garden with a Who's Who of black America. Up onstage, the handful of icons selected to be honored that night included Jesse Jackson, Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, and Ben Carson.
···
On a cold January morning in Des Moines, Ben Carson gazed out into a crowd that had crowded into an historic theatre—an audience that looked nothing like the ones he used to draw for events like the Essence Awards gala. He had come to Iowa for a cattle call of Republican presidential hopefuls, joining a group of white candidates competing for the affections of (almost entirely) white conservative activists. As he paced the stage with a wireless microphone clipped to his jacket, he looked more like he was giving a TED Talk than a political stump speech. He told his inspirational life story interspersed with the stray political thought.
"Ben's unlike any national political figure I've ever met," the influential Iowa conservative talk-radio host Steve Deace told me. "He's less a politician and more like a life coach." And the activists at the Freedom Summit were eminently coachable, awarding Carson one of the loudest and most prolonged ovations of the day.
Since embarking on his political journey, Carson has received more than just applause. He's generated plenty of cash. The Draft Carson Super PAC, which was founded in late 2013 by the conservative activist John Philip Sousa IV (yes, the composer's great-grandson), has raised more than $13 million from over 150,000 donors who want to see Carson run for president. (By comparison, the pro-Clinton Super PAC Ready for Hillary raised $9 million last year.) Meanwhile, the American Legacy PAC enlisted Carson to fund-raise for efforts to repeal Obamacare; since the program was launched in early 2014, it's brought in $6 million. "The fire hose got turned on, and the money came so fast," says Mike Murray, American Legacy's founder and a Republican direct-mail guru who's worked with Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and a host of other leading conservatives. "In terms of direct marketing, I've never seen anything like Dr. Carson."
Terry Giles, a trial lawyer with no political experience whom Carson will tap to run his campaign, predicts his candidate will have financial resources not typically available to far-right challengers. He expects that, between the various conservative causes Carson has lent his name to (or had his name appropriated by), the campaign will have a mailing list with upwards of 2 million potential supporters on it—all of whom have expressed their interest in Carson in the past two years. "If I can get $100 from 1.5 million people," Giles told me, "I'll have $150 million for the first four primaries, and we'll be extremely competitive."
While it's true that Carson possesses rare attributes his opponents can't claim, the doctor's résumé is glaringly thin in certain spots. But Carson believes his lack of political experience is an asset, not a failing. "We're at a point in time where it's been demonstrated fairly dramatically that political experience doesn't seem to help a whole lot and perhaps may be hurtful," he told me.
I pressed him on this point. What if Barack Obama, I posited with a bit of hyperbole, decided to change careers and said that he now wanted to be a neurosurgeon—and, what's more, that he wanted his first operation to be separating conjoined twins? Did Carson see any parallels between that hypothetical and his situation? "No," he said emphatically. "Just the fact that you would ask that question tells me that you don't understand all that's involved in becoming a neurosurgeon. There's so much more than becoming a political figure, it's not even in the same ballpark."
Carson is rarely shy telling others that they're foolish. With both the stereotypical arrogance of a surgeon and the understandable brio of a self-made man, Carson seems to harbor an unshakable belief that he knows more than most anyone else. But while being president may seem simple to him, running for the job is invariably tough—and already the limits of Carson's political acumen show. For instance, though he's answered criticism about his lack of experience by promising to rely heavily on his advisers, he has little notion of who or what he'd be looking for in his cabinet. When I asked him which secretary of state he most admired, he replied Condoleezza Rice—who, of course, happened to be the most recent person to hold that post in a Republican administration. Similarly, Robert Gates was Carson's favorite secretary of defense. And when I asked Carson to name his favorite secretary of the treasury, he was stumped. "Andrea Mitchell's husband," he eventually offered. I reminded him that Mitchell's husband, also known as Alan Greenspan, had actually been chairman of the Federal Reserve. "I don't know that there's anybody that really stands out to me as an outstanding treasury secretary. I mean, that's a pretty hard place to be outstanding," he finally said. "Secretaries of the treasury, for the most part, are not big policy people."
By his own admission, Carson's serious interest in Republican politics is rather recent. As a young man, he was a "radical, wild-eyed, left-wing Democrat" who crossed over to the right during the Reagan years. After the impeachment of Bill Clinton, he was so sickened by the hypocrisy of adulterous congressional Republicans that he became an independent. He only rejoined the GOP last year as a matter of convenience. "If I weren't thinking about running for office, I would remain an independent," he told me.
And yet today's GOP has proven to be a comfortable fit. Carson, to be sure, is a longstanding conservative in both temperament and ideology. His message of self-empowerment is part of a black-conservative tradition that dates back to at least the nineteenth century and Booker T. Washington. But Carson—who was understandably busy with his medical career, not to mention his philanthropic efforts aimed at African-American youth—didn't begin paying serious attention to broader issues until more recently. Which, of course, is right around the time that large portions of conservatism went insane. As a result, Carson's ideology of late appear to have been formed in the fever swamps of right-wing websites and Fox News—where Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are portrayed as Manchurian candidates sent by Saul Alinsky to undermine the United States. He's taken the same sincere up-by-the-bootstraps message that he once preached to black children and grafted it onto a worldview promulgated largely on conservative talk radio, validating many of the most provocative sentiments popular on the far right by repeating them in his mellifluous tone. He's that rarest of breeds: a soft-spoken demagogue.
Carson is so certain of the rightness of his views that he's practically incapable of admitting error. The controversies he's ignited with his overheated rhetoric are, in his telling, the result of "political correctness run amuck." He complains, "We've reached a point where if you say the word 'slavery' or you say the word 'bestiality,' it's like you've sprayed a fly with Raid—people start spinning, and they just can't function anymore."
On several occasions, I tried to get Carson to concede that his analogy likening the U.S. to Nazi Germany was out of line (he's said that Americans under Obama are as intimidated and afraid to criticize their government as Germans under the Third Reich). But he refused to give any ground. Our longest discussion about the matter came in Jerusalem, in the cafeteria of the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem. We'd spent the previous ninety minutes touring the museum, followed by Carson entering Yad Vashem's Hall of Remembrance and, black kippah atop his head, laying a wreath made of red, pink, and orange poppies that read "Courage and Truth Will Win: In loving memory the 6 million." Given all this, I asked Carson, did it make him reconsider his analogy?
"Not at all," he said. "It makes it even stronger."
···
The most discomfiting part of Carson's coming campaign, and the one that holds the most peril, will be his handling of race. For as much as race has made him a star in Republican politics, the way he's courted that attention is what most threatens his standing among African-Americans. What's more, unlike Herman Cain, Michael Steele, and the parade of other black conservatives who have burned bright during the Age of Obama before ultimately fading away, Carson, when it comes to his place in African-American life, actually has something to lose.
Already he's adopted positions that vex the black community. He's become a booster of GOP-backed voter-ID laws—which many African-Americans view as an effort to disenfranchise them but that Carson, citing largely discredited anecdotes of voter fraud, argues are necessary. And then there's Barack Obama, whose 95 percent share of the African-American vote Carson mainly attributes to ignorance. "I remember one of the man-on-the-street interviews with Jesse Watters"—the Fox News producer who does ambush interviews for Bill O'Reilly—"where he went to Harlem and he was asking people about Obama's policies, except they were all McCain's policies," Carson says. "And they were like, 'Oh yeah, it's brilliant!' 'What do you think of his vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin?' 'Oh, she's the best!' I think a lot of people are like that."
(Like those voter-fraud anecdotes, this appears to be a figment of Carson's imagination: Fox News denies that such a segment ever aired.)*
These stances are painful for African-Americans like Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of America's most celebrated writers on race, who credits Carson with providing an example to young blacks. "I'll always be in debt to him for what he did, but in terms of who he is now, I don't quite understand that," Coates says. "It seems like Barack Obama is the exact sort of person he'd have wanted us to grow up to be." When I mentioned Coates's criticism to Carson, he betrayed no discomfort. "It doesn't surprise me," he said, "because people grow up and they listen to propaganda."
One morning in Israel, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Carson crossed paths with a dozen or so members of a black Baptist church from Brooklyn. Upon the discovery that the man in the North Face fleece was none other than Dr. Ben Carson, all heck broke loose. Carson was besieged. He posed for pictures and doled out hugs. "Is it all right if I touch you?" one woman said.
As the rest of the church ladies continued to fawn over Carson, I asked Nadine Clarke, the group's leader, how she knew who he was. "I've known about him for years!" she exclaimed. I inquired if she was similarly enthused about Carson's new political career. I watched the smile vanish from her face, replaced by a look of worry, as if she now remembered some of the things Carson had said in the past two years. "He's a Republican?" she asked.
Carson and the church group said their good-byes, and Carson headed to a skiff that would take him out on the Sea of Galilee. As the boat puttered along, he fell into a reverie about how Jesus had walked on these waters and taught his disciples to be fishers of men here. I interrupted with my own more earthly concerns. What had he thought of the church group?
"They seemed like typical Brooklyn folk. Very nice," Carson said. He was unfazed by all the fuss. "I'm pretty used to that reaction, once they figure out who I am."
Do you think any of them will vote for you? I wondered.
He paused for a moment and looked out on the water. "No," Carson said, "I don't imagine that a lot of them would."
*After this story was published, a reader noted [ https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/580436499604332545 ] that Carson was likely referring to interviews that aired on the Howard Stern Show.
© 2015 Condé Nast
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party [with comments]
--
Ben Carson doesn’t really know what a ‘psychopath’ is
Ben Carson speaks at National Harbor, Md., in February.
March 25, 2015
In GQ's profile of Ben Carson [ http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party (just above)], the former neurosurgeon and potential 2016 presidential candidate called President Obama a "psychopath."
Calling politicians you aren't fond of psychopaths feels like an unfortunately routine part of our political landscape today, but Carson did more than just name call. In the interview, he pointed to Obama's neat appearance as proof he's a psychopath ("That's why they're successful. That's the way they look. They all look great," he said.).
Carson is a doctor, but I talked to some professionals to see whether they agreed with him.
Lisa Kays, a licensed clinical social worker in Washington, said in a phone interview that to clinically be described as a psychopath, someone must show signs before age 15, and must meet three criteria from a list that includes things like deceitfulness, failure to plan ahead, consistent irresponsibility and a lack of remorse. There's also the possibility of anti-social behavior, increased risk of violence, failure to conform to social norms and saying things for shock value.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/25/ben-carson-doesnt-really-know-what-a-psychopath-is/ [with comments]
--
As Ben Carson bashes Obama, many blacks see a hero’s legacy fade
Carson poses for a photo with Page High School students Lizabeth Schaede, Anna Bateman and Atie Thomas while signing his book after a speech at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, N.C.
(Jerry Wolford/For The Washington Post)
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, delivers his speech at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, N.C.
(Jerry Wolford/For The Washington Post)
By Robert Samuels
May 2, 2015
The black man courting crowds of white conservatives doesn’t seem like the same guy that H. Westley Phillips once idolized. Phillips still relishes the day he heard Ben Carson inspire minority students at Yale University with his story of persistence. He can still feel the nervous anticipation he had while waiting in line to shake Carson’s hand.
After the speech, Phillips followed Carson’s path and began to study neurosurgery.
“I had come from a public school in Tulsa and came from a single-parent household and thought I was the admissions mistake,” said Phillips, now 27. “But he gave me the comfort to know that if I did struggle — and I thought I would — that I wouldn’t have been the first, and there are ways to handle it. The message he gave was this backup artillery when times were hard.”
For many young African Americans who grew up seeing Carson as the embodiment of black achievement — a poor inner-city boy who became one of the world’s most accomplished neurosurgeons — his emergence as a conservative hero and unabashed critic of the United States’ first black president has been jarring.
Carson has been a black icon since 1987, when he became the first person to successfully separate twins conjoined at the backs of their heads. He was a rare and much-desired role model: a black man who became known for his intellect, not for telling jokes or shooting basketballs.
Posters of Carson hung on bulletin boards in classrooms. Reading “Gifted Hands [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310214696 ],” his 1992 autobiography, was practically a rite of passage.
But now retired from his medical career, Carson, 63, has become known more widely since using his speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast to offer a conservative critique of U.S. health-care and spending policies, while standing a few feet from President Obama.
In the ensuing months and years, Carson’s attacks grew sharper — deriding Obama’s signature health-care law as the “worst thing to have happened in this nation since slavery” and, in the pages of GQ [above], likening Obama to a “psychopath.” Carson’s 2014 book, “One Nation [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595231129 ],” assails a decline of moral values in America and its government.
As Carson prepares to announce his candidacy for president on Monday in his home town of Detroit, his political base is now whiter and more rural.
Carson’s personal accomplishments — and the work he has done to help black communities — still garner respect and pride among African Americans. Yet, while he has been a conservative for as long as he has been famous, many worry that he risks eroding his legacy in their community and transforming himself into a fringe political figure.
Some black pastors who were Carson’s biggest promoters have stopped recommending his book. Members of minority medical organizations that long boasted of their affiliations with him say he is called an “embarrassment” on private online discussion groups.
“Has he lost his sense of who he is?” said the Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent black pastor in Baltimore, where Carson lived for decades when he was director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. “He does not see he is the next Herman Cain.”
Mark Terrelonge, 26, who is in his final year at Stanford University School of Medicine, said he feels his heart sink every time another clip of Carson shows up on his Facebook feed.
Reading “Gifted Hands” as a teenager, Terrelonge said he saw Carson’s story as an affirmation of his own ambitions to become a doctor. Never before had he heard of a black man in the upper echelons of medicine. But Terrelonge, who is gay, was stung when he heard Carson say that homosexuality was a choice.
“I don’t know how to say it exactly,” Terrelonge said. “I don’t want to attack him because he’s done great things in medicine, but the role-model aspect of him has kind of diminished in my life.”
Carson, too, is trying to fully understand his new place in black America. He spoke recently at the National Action Network, the civil rights group headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who once ran for president as a Democrat. Carson also issued a statement criticizing Baltimore demonstrators protesting after the death of Freddie Gray — urging parents to “please take control of your children and do not allow them to be exposed to the dangers of uncontrolled agitators on the streets.”
In an interview, Carson said he laments that many in the black community “drank the Kool-Aid and think I have forsaken them.”
“People write things. They say things. It saddens me,” Carson said. “There are forces in this country that really like to foster division and conflict, particularly in the black community, because they don’t want the synergy of them working together. Because that would advance them.”
The admiration many blacks have long felt for Carson differentiates him from past black conservative presidential candidates such as Cain, the former pizza executive who briefly rose in the polls during the 2012 primary season, Carson’s political supporters say. He has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by Republican President George W. Bush, and the Spingarn Medal, the top honor given by the traditionally liberal NAACP.
His stature, Carson supporters say, helps him combat the perception that the far right is exclusive and out of touch. Critics, these supporters say, underestimate Carson’s potential impact on the race at their own peril.
“I would be elated if the left felt this too shall pass and he is just the chocolate flavor of the election cycle,” said Vernon Robinson, a fellow black conservative and chairman of the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee. So far, Robinson said, the group has raised $16?million.
“Despite everything so far,” Robinson said, “he still has a reservoir of residual admiration.”
Carson’s renown — and his stature in black America — dates to his early years as a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. Even then, Carson said, he always felt a sense of duty to help advance his race.
When the hospital started to receive publicity in the late 1980s for its attempt to separate German twins conjoined at the back of the head, Carson took the unusual step of asking not to be initially identified as the lead surgeon.
He said he worried that the procedure might not be treated as groundbreaking or important if the media and the broader public saw a black man in charge.
“Historically, when black people had done things of a scientific nature, many times either it wasn’t appropriately covered or someone else received most of the credit,” he said.
“And I was thinking what more of a tremendous thing it would be for young black kids to know something of this magnitude and this complexity was done by someone who looked like them,” Carson said.
After the surgery, Carson — young and soft-spoken — stepped forward. Intrigued journalists became “more interested in me than they were in the twins,” Carson recalled with a chuckle.
Someone suggested he write an autobiography. Agents kept calling for him, Carson said, “and then I thought to myself, ‘I should write a book.’?”
“Gifted Hands” chronicles his unlikely journey into medicine. His mother, a devout Seventh-day Adventist, raised Carson and his brother alone. She taught them that they could be anything they wanted to be. Carson was the worst student in his class and suffered a debilitating anger after his father walked out on his family, he wrote.
The autobiography described how Carson’s mother barred television from the house and mandated her children read two books a week. He wrote that he prayed to God to cleanse him from his angry feelings. His grades soared, and he went on to graduate from Yale and then the University of Michigan Medical School.
He became the youngest director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and the first black person to hold the position.
Carson said his agent expected the memoir to sell about 14,000 copies. According to its publisher Zondervan, the Christian arm of HarperCollins, it has sold 1.7?million.
Religious leaders in the black community emphasized the spiritual overtones and recommended the book to their youth groups. Teachers saw the narrative of achievement and social mobility and taught the book in their schools.
The legend of Ben Carson took flight. He became a regular speaker at graduations and churches, encouraging parents to find positive role models for their children — particularly black men. He asked them to instill pride by teaching minorities about the many inventions of black people, including the traffic light, the gas mask and the hair products of entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker.
He founded a nonprofit called the Carson Scholars Fund. The group has distributed nearly $700,000 for scholarships to middle- and high-schoolers, awarding them with big trophies so academic success could be put on the same plane as athletic success.
Carson has also raised money to refurbish libraries in nearly 150 of the country’s poorest schools. A Detroit public school was named for him, as was a medical school in Nigeria. By 2009, “Gifted Hands” was adapted to a made-for-TV movie.
Matt Dean Campbell, 25, remembers being tucked into bed growing up in South Florida as his mother read “Gifted Hands” to him. His mother, a domestic worker, struggled to pay the bills, but she wanted to imbue her son with stories of uplift, he said.
Campbell, now a high school teacher near Miami, said he has drawn on that message any time he has faced adversity. He was one of the slowest sprinters on his track team at the University of Michigan, Campbell said. He graduated as the captain. He continued pushing himself, because “that’s what Ben Carson would do.”
Sara McLaughlin, a teacher in Virginia Beach who works with troubled middle-schoolers, thought the book would be perfect for her class. Students wrote essays about Carson’s resilience and got queasy when they watched the surgery scenes from the movie.
“Is this the same Ben Carson who is running for president?” she recalled a student asking.
Then came more questions: But he’s not a politician, he’s a doctor. Why would he run? A reading assignment became a civics lesson.
McLaughlin said she could offer no answer.
“It’s funny,” she said. “A lot of people are asking the same thing.”
Presidential politics was not originally in Carson’s plans, he said.
Retirement, he said, meant relaxing in his Florida home, playing golf, maybe a television appearance here or there.
That all changed after his appearance at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast. It was the second time Carson was invited to speak at the event. The first time, in 1997, he made quips about the unfairness of HMOs. But this time, he went further. With repeated references to his tendency to be politically incorrect and offend the “PC police,” he offered an alternative view of health-care reform in which people would simply have private accounts to pay for their own care with pre-tax income. He railed against the debt and tax policies that seek to force the wealthy to pay a higher share than others — endorsing a flat tax, similar to tithing.
Carson, who does not often speak with notes, insisted that this was not a political speech but an exhale of frustration of the state of the country. But then new admirers started suggesting he run for president. Within days, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial proclaiming “Ben Carson for President.” He began thinking maybe he should.
The political turn was unexpected for many who knew him. The Rev. Frank Reid of Bethel AME Church in Baltimore found it “astounding.” When they were at Yale together, Reid said, Carson was universally regarded as brilliant and hard-working. Reid could not recall Carson participating in student activism because he was too busy studying with his future wife, Candy, in the library.
When Carson first promoted “Gifted Hands,” Reid invited him to his church so his congregation could hear the story. But if Carson were to speak today, Reid said he would ask him to come in for a “family session, with our leaders, behind closed doors, to find out what is really going on.
“I am hedging about what to say, because you cannot take away the impact that he’s had,” Reid said. “But before we turn on the brother, we have to hear him out. As shocking as some of the things he’s said are, I would rather have a discussion than attack someone who has done respectful work.”
Carson says he is willing to put his legacy aside to do what he thinks is best for the country. Still, it matters to him.
Sitting at the Sheraton Hotel in New York last month, Carson seemed anxious as he prepared to address the National Action Network a few hours later. This audience, a mostly black group seeking the advancement of black people, used to be an easy crowd for Carson. But times had changed.
“I have no idea how they are going to receive me,” Carson said.
As Carson waited to go on stage, Sharpton pleaded with the crowd to give him a fair hearing. Carson got some applause when he reiterated his belief that marriage was between a man and a woman. He said it was “a bunch of crap” for critics to say he doesn’t like black people anymore.
“I love black people. My wife is a black woman,” he said.
Then came the Carson of old, borrowing parts of the speeches he used to give in the 1990s.
He talked about the need for black role models and the importance of teaching young people about those black inventors. His voice shook as he described the horrors of growing up in neighborhoods crippled by drugs and overrun by rodents, and of losing families members to gun violence. He asserted that hard work and faith were able to lift him — and anyone else — out of poverty.
The crowd rose to their feet.
The next week, Carson returned to more comfortable terrain for a prospective GOP presidential candidate: the convention of the National Rifle Association. There, he spoke of how he thinks the need to control gun violence on the streets does not outweigh the need to combat “radical Islamic terrorists.”
Days later, he appeared at a fundraiser for a faith-based medical clinic in the lush upstate South Carolina city of Greenville. He talked about the importance of putting God first and speaking honestly. The emcee of the event said Carson would help fill in the gap of having “good, godly leaders to stand up for what is right.” The neurosurgeon received another standing ovation.
Carson then sat at a table to sign copies of his books. A line of mostly white attendees formed. Near the end was Landry Assinesi, a 19-year-old student at Piedmont College in Georgia who came back home to listen to Carson speak.
Assinesi said he never read “Gifted Hands,” but he devoured “One Nation.” Reading Carson’s words, Assinesi said he found a new political hero.
© 2015 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-ben-carson-bashes-obama-many-blacks-see-a-heros-legacy-fade/2015/05/02/b9ce53c8-e850-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html [with embedded video report, and (over 4,000) comments]
--
Carson runs into another ‘learning curve’
Ben Carson announces his candidacy for president during an official announcement in Detroit, Mich., May 4, 2015.
Photo by Paul Sancya/AP
By Steve Benen
05/07/15 05:04 PM
A couple of months ago, retired far-right neurosurgeon Ben Carson acknowledged [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ben-carson-and-the-learning-curve-candidate ] that the “learning curve of a candidate” can be daunting. The Republican presidential hopeful conceded he still has a lot to learn “in terms of becoming both a better candidate and a better potential president.”
But if he’s trying to brush up on the basics of how the U.S. government works, Carson clearly has quite a bit of ground [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-federal-government-doesnt-need-recognize-gay-marriage-scotus-ruling ] to make up.
Yesterday on Newsmax TV, Ben Carson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ben-carson ] said that the federal government does not need to recognize a Supreme Court decision on gay marriage because the president is only obligated to recognize laws passed by Congress, not judicial rulings.
“First of all, we have to understand how the Constitution works, the president is required to carry out the laws of the land, the laws of the land come from the legislative branch,” Carson said. “So if the legislative branch creates a law or changes a law, the executive branch has a responsibly to carry it out. It doesn’t say they have the responsibility to carry out a judicial law.”
He also added that members of the judiciary should have term limits in order to “adjust with the times.”
Carson, who announced his campaign for president on Monday, has previously floated the idea of impeaching [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-impeach-justices-if-they-back-gay-marriage ] judges [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-congress-should-oust-judges-who-rule-marriage-equality ] who back marriage equality.
All of this, regrettably, was on video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5jHI7bhMoo (next below; with comments)].
As should be obvious to anyone who passed Civics 101 at a high-school level, the U.S. Supreme Court has the final word on the constitutionality of American laws. Sometimes, the legislative branch passes a law, but it’s challenged in the courts, and if a high court majority strikes it down, then it can’t legally be enforced by the executive branch.
There is no such thing as “a judicial law.”
The fact that Carson doesn’t understand this is alarming. The fact that he prefaced his comments by saying we “have to understand how the Constitution works” is rather sad.
It also gets back to something we talked about the other day [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/right-wing-neurosurgeon-ben-carson-enters-2016-race , also http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-the-newest-unemployment-truther ]: the Republican doctor seems badly confused about some pretty basic stuff.
GQ recently profiled [ http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party (above)] the Republican doctor under the headline, “What If Sarah Palin Were a Brain Surgeon?” In the piece, Carson was asked to name his favorite secretary of the treasury. He eventually replied, “Andrea Mitchell’s husband.”
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, of course, is married to Alan Greenspan – the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has never been the Treasury secretary.
The same piece noted Carson’s trip to Israel, where he seemed surprised to discover that Israel has a legislative branch.
The article was published around the time Carson did another interview in which he seemed confused [ http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/18/do-you-read-this-stuff-hugh-hewitt-questions-ben-carsons-foreign-policy-chops/ , http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-stumbles-little-details ] about NATO and suggested violence among Islamic radicals dates back several centuries before Islam even existed.
At the time, he denounced the importance of “little details.”
It’s certainly possible that Carson can learn more as the campaign progresses, just as it’s possible that primary voters won’t hold his missteps against him. But it’s incidents like these that suggest Carson’s future as a national candidate is probably going to be quite limited.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-runs-another-learning-curve [with comments]
--
CNBC Digital Video Exclusive: Maverick Republican Presidential Candidate Ben Carson Sits Down with CNBC's Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood
Friday, 8 May 2015 | 10:47 AM ET
WHEN: Today, Friday, May 8, 2015
WHERE [video at]: CNBC.com's Speakeasy with John Harwood - http://www.cnbc.com/id/102658083
Dr. Ben Carson is among the most renowned physicians in the world. As director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, he led the only successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head. He achieved that success despite growing up poor in a single parent household in Detroit, excelling in high school and graduating from Yale University and the University of Michigan's medical school. Now retired from medicine, he seized attention in conservative circles for a 2013 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Before announcing his candidacy in Detroit on May 3, he sat down with CNBC's Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood at the Harbor House Detroit.
A partial transcript from Speakeasy with John Harwood featuring Dr. Ben Carson follows. All references must be sourced to CNBC.com:
HARWOOD: People talk about American exceptionalism, Ben Carson is clearly exceptional. But just like you wouldn't expect Babe Ruth to be an ice skater or LeBron James to play the piano, why should should you have the confidence and feeling that you can be exceptional in this other field, which of course you've gotta do if you're gonna be president?
CARSON: We have gotten into this arena where we think the only people who can handle the kinds of decisions that need to be made at the state level are people who are steeped in politics.
HARWOOD: As I understand the message you wanna drive and the change you wanna bring to the country if you are elected is a move towards self-reliance. In Baltimore, when you look at those neighborhoods and the people who are committing violence and vandalism, do you think government should be getting out of the way and doing less, because what government has done has robbed their sense of initiative?
CARSON: Well, one of the things that I've learned as a neuroscientist is that the human brain is an amazing organ system. And if you have a normal one, you really shouldn't be thinking about what you can't do. Just be thinking about what you can do. As you probably know, in several states you can get as much or more on government assistance as you can by working a minimum wage job. I don't necessarily blame people for saying, "I can stay at home and I can make this money, or I can go and work this little chicken job that doesn't have many benefits." However, recognize that if you go and take that chicken job, you gain skills.
HARWOOD: And what about minimum wage?
CARSON: I think probably it should be higher than it is.
HARWOOD: It sounds as if your preferred alternative, both to Obamacare and to Medicare, is a system of self-reliance in which you would be responsible for your own care and that of members of your family.
CARSON: That's how you pay for it.
HARWOOD: And you could replace both the Medicare system and the Obamacare with that system of HSAs.
CARSON: Absolutely. I think when people are able to see how much more flexibility they will have I think it's gonna be a no-brainer.
HARWOOD: Obama you referred to him as a psychopath. What did you mean by that?
CARSON: I said he reminds you of a psychopath.
HARWOOD: And tell me how.
CARSON: Because they tend to be extremely smooth-- charming people who can tell a lie to your face with complete-- looks like sincerity, even though they know it's a lie.
HARWOOD: Do you think he's a liar?
CARSON: Well, I think he knows full well that the unemployment rate is not 5.5%. He knows that. And he knows that people who are not well-informed will swallow it hook, line, and sinker, even though they are sitting there in the city and can't find a job.
HARWOOD: When you look at what's going on, say, in Baltimore, do you think – the structure of racism as it inhibits opportunities for the young people in those communities is a big problem? Or do you think it's exaggerated?
CARSON: I think the biggest problem is economic. And I think if we begin to open up the opportunities again that you'll see a lot of improvement, in Baltimore and around the country. There is no question that racism still exists in our society. Of course it does. Amongst particularly liberals who think that if you're black you have to think a certain way. You-- you don't have a possibility of thinking any other way. And if you do, you're crazy. That's very racist, but they don't recognize it.
© 2015 CNBC LLC
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102662789 , non-YouTube video at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102658083 [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPeGp0PgkZU (with comments)]
--
Can Dr. Ben Carson emerge from crowded GOP field? Plus, Rep. Michael McCaul on threat from homegrown terrorism
Fox News Sunday
Published May 10, 2015
This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," May 10, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.
The Republican presidential field gets even more crowded as three new candidates join the race.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: From hope to higher ground.
CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Restore possibility for everyone.
DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Change the government into something that looks more like a well-run business.
WALLACE: We'll talk with one of the new members of the GOP field, rising conservative star and Washington outsider, Dr. Ben Carson.
Then, Bill Clinton weighs into the 2016 race to defend speaking fees and foreign donations, but is he helping or hurting Hillary? Our panel tackles "Clinton Cash."
Plus, the threat of homegrown terror reemerges after ISIS claims responsibility for the shooting in Texas.
REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R), TEXAS: This is the kind of attack, quite frankly, we're most concerned about.
WALLACE: We'll discuss the recruitment of domestic terrorist with the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul.
And our power player of the week -- as the nation remembers VE Day 70 years later, we go up in a B24 bomber.
All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Hello again and happy Mother's Day from Fox News in Washington.
Three new candidates entered the Republican presidential race this week with a field that's likely to grow to more than dozen. The challenge will be finding a way to stand out.
Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has made it clear he has no desire to fit into the mold of a Washington politician.
Dr. Carson joins us now. Welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."
CARSON: Thank you. Good to be here.
WALLACE: First of all, especially on this Mother's Day, how is your mom, who I know is ill? Briefly, looking back, what was the greatest impact that she's had on your life?
CARSON: Well, thanks for asking. And thank you for the millions of people who have started praying for her, because she's starting to eat again. We thought she was gone and she's starting to eat again.
So -- she had the biggest impact of any human being on my life because she refused to be a victim and she refused to let me and my brother be victims. And that was really the key.
And she made us do things we didn't wanted to do. She reminds me of that Baltimore mother who went out and got her son off the streets. That would have been her. And it made a huge difference.
WALLACE: And when you say she refused to be a victim, I mean, you grew up in dire poverty in inner city of Detroit.
CARSON: Absolutely. Never had money for anything. But I tell you what did really work -- books. Between the covers of those books I could go anyplace, I could be anybody, I could do anything.
And particularly as I read about people of great accomplishment, I began to realize that the person who has the most to do what happens to you in life is you. Not somebody else and not the environment.
WALLACE: OK. Your greatest strength in the race, I would argue, and -- some would argue is also your greatest label, and that is you've never run for or held political office. How do you answer the experience question?
CARSON: I simply say experience can come from a variety of different places. There have been many people who have been groomed to believe that experience can only come in the political arena, but I've had a lot of experience, world experience, putting together teams to accomplish things never done before, incredible complex surgical procedures.
Putting together a national scholarship program. Nine out of ten nonprofits fail. Ours not only has not failed, has thrived. Working in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We're putting in reading rooms all over the country affecting people's lives. I've had lot of corporate board experience, 18 years on Kellogg's, 16 years on Costco, as well as other boards.
So, you know, there's real-life experience and there's politics. Politics, you know, there are some good politics in the political arena but I'm not sure they actually, in many cases, understand real life.
WALLACE: All right. Let's talk about real policies and drill down into some of them.
Here's what you say on your Web site about Russia, "All options should remain on the table when dealing with international bullies such as President Putin."
Dr. Carson, when you say all options, does that include the use of military force?
CARSON: All options includes all options. That doesn't mean that would be my first option. When we look at Russia and we look at Putin, we can realize that he has great ambitions. His ambitions have been thwarted of late because of falling oil prices. And we should take note of that and realize that the economic weapon is a tremendous one in his case.
We have incredible natural resources in this country in terms of oil, in terms of natural gas, but we have energy exportation rules from the '70s when we had an energy crisis that need to be gotten rid of, so we can use that to make Europe and other portions of the world more dependent on us. And that decreases his influence and his ability to expand.
WALLACE: But let me follow up. You say all options, all options. Under what circumstances would President Carson be willing to go to war with Russia? What are your red lines?
CARSON: Well, I would, obviously, do that in consultation with very competent generals and people who are more knowledgeable in that area than I would be. But, clearly, if the interest and the existence and the safety of the people of the United States was at stake -- and that was the only way to protect them -- of course, I would do whatever was necessary.
WALLACE: Would you go to war over Ukraine?
CARSON: No, I wouldn't go to war over Ukraine, but I would handle Ukraine a very different way. You know, Ukraine was a nuclear arms state. They gave up their weapons. You know, it was agreed they would be protected if something happened with aggression.
Have we -- have we lived up to that? Of course, we have not. And what does that say to our other allies around the world? It's not a good sign.
WALLACE: One of the pillars of your economic program is a flat tax. How would that work?
CARSON: Well, I like the idea of a proportional tax. That way you pay according to your ability. And I got that idea, quite frankly, from the Bible, tithing. You make $10 billion a year, you pay $1 billion. You make $10 a year, you pay $1. You get the same rights. That's pretty darn fair, if you ask me.
Now, some people say it's not fair because, you know, the poor people can't afford to pay that dollar. That's very condescending. You know, I grew up very poor. I experienced every economic level. And I can tell you poor people have pride, too. And they don't want to be just taken care of.
And also, if everybody is paying, it makes it very difficult for these politicians to come along and raise taxes. It's easy to raise it on 1 percent or 2 percent or 5 percent. It's very difficult to raise it on 100 percent.
WALLACE: But, Doctor, here is a problem with flat tax in the real world -- according to the Tax Policy Center, to raise the same amount of revenue we do now, the tax rate would have to be in the low to mid 20 percent range.
CARSON: Wrong.
WALLACE: Low and middle income families would get a big tax hike, while wealthy families would actually get a tax cut.
CARSON: That's actually not -- I don't agree with that assessment, let me put it that way, because I've been in contact with many economists. And, in fact, if you eliminate loopholes and deductions, then you're really talking about a rate somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent.
WALLACE: I got to tell you, the outside experts we talk to say you're talking -- in the 20s.
CARSON: Let's have a battle of the experts.
WALLACE: Well, we'll have a battle of the experts -- I mean, that's right. But, for instance, you talk about low income families. Not only don't they pay, they actually get an earned income tax credit. Now, you're going to have them pay 10 percent to 15 percent of income they have, or 20 percent if my experts are right.
CARSON: Well, Chris --
WALLACE: I mean, is there danger -- I got to tell you, a lot of independent study say the people that make out like bandits in this are the wealthy.
CARSON: Bear in mind, Chris, this is part of an overall complex program, because it also involves reorienting the way we do things in government, making the government run more like a business in this great, inefficient behemoth that we have now. It involves, you know, utilizing our energy resources. We can get an enormous amount of revenue from that. It involves a balance budget.
You know, by the time you put all those things, and it involves getting rid of all of these things that are fettering, the economic engine and revamping corporate taxes and bringing in money that's overseas, by giving a tax holiday, that's $2 trillion right there. I mean, there are a number of things involved in doing this.
WALLACE: Fair enough. We're beginning to run out of time, so I'm going to -- we'll do something of a lightning round here. One of things you say you're learning is not to be on so inflammatory in the language that you use.
But I want to ask you about some remarks you've made that you say that you stand by.
You have compared our government today to Nazi Germany. Do you really believe that?
CARSON: Well, a lot of people like to say that. But what I said is that in Nazi Germany, most of those people didn't believe in what Hitler was doing, but did they say anything? They did not. That's what allowed people to progress to that point.
We need to be willing to stand up and speak up for what we believe.
WALLACE: But people oppose Barack Obama all the time.
CARSON: There are a lot of people in our society who are afraid to say what they really mean because they may get an IRS audit, people will call them names, their jobs may be interfered with. This is not what America was supposed to be.
WALLACE: OK. Here's what you said about ObamaCare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARSON: ObamaCare is, really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: The worst thing since slavery?
CARSON: Well, you have to understand what I'm talking about. You know, ObamaCare fundamentally changes the relationship between the people and the government. The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing. And with this program, we're allowing that whole paradigm to be switched around.
WALLACE: Finally in the area of these remarks, just this week, you said that the president must carry out a law passed by Congress, but you said he doesn't necessarily have to pass what you called a judicial law -- which raises the question: Do you believe that the president must observe a decision by the Supreme Court?
CARSON: Well, what I said is the president doesn't have to agree with it.
WALLACE: No, of course not. But does he have to -- but does he have to enforce it?
CARSON: Well, Dred Scott, a perfect example. You know, the Supreme Court came up with this and Abraham Lincoln did not agree with it. Now, admittedly, it caused a lot of conflict and eventually led to a civil war, but we're in a better place because of it.
WALLACE: But does the president have to carry out a Supreme Court ruling?
CARSON: The way our Constitution is set up, the president or the executive branch is obligated to carry out the laws of the land. The laws of the land, according to our Constitution, are provided by the legislative branch.
WALLACE: But, sir --
CARSON: The laws of the land are not provided by the judiciary branch. So --
WALLACE: But, sir, since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, we have lived under the principle of judicial review which says, if the Supreme Court says this is the law, this is constitutional, the rest -- the executive has to observe that.
CARSON: And I have said, this is an area we need to discuss. We need to get into a discussion of this because it has changed from the original intent. And --
WALLACE: So, you're saying this is an open question as far as you're concerned?
CARSON: It is an open question. It needs to be discussed.
WALLACE: Finally, when people heard I was interviewing you this week, there was one question I got more than any other. And that was -- does he really think he has a chance of being elected president? How do you answer that?
CARSON: Well, I would answer it by saying, my life has been so full of people telling me what I couldn't do that I would be more concerned if they told me I could do it. That's how I would answer it.
You know, there's been a gazillion things people say, no one's done that before, you can't do that. You know, in my surgical career, you know, when I joined ROTC, I joined late, and I wanted to get to the top rank, they said you can't do that -- did it. You know, they said, you can't start a scholarship program. There's a gazillion of them. It has excelled.
You know, it's not just me. You know, there are -- there's the ability to work with a lot of people to achieve what you need to achieve.
WALLACE: Dr. Carson, thank you. Thanks for coming in today. Always a pleasure to talk to you. We'll see you down the campaign trail.
CARSON: Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: Up next, ...
[...]
©2015 FOX News Network, LLC
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/05/10/can-dr-ben-carson-emerge-from-crowded-gop-field-plus-rep-michael-mccaul-on/ [with embedded video; the YouTube of the Carson segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcE9oxqktN4 (with comments), another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSW0pzVSTYU (with comment)]
--
Ben Carson: Anti-American Spirit Within Obama Administration
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Saturday, 5/16/2015 1:00 pm
Today at the Iowa National Security Action Summit [ https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/05/15/the-iowa-national-security-action-summit/ , http://www.thefamilyleader.com/national-security-summit-comes-to-iowa/ , http://highfrontier.org/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y73UlQZ9AQY (next below; with comments; audio begins at the 0:10:30 mark, Carson's speech begins at 3:05:30 and his Q&A at 3:21:30, and the particular question and answer, the last, begins at 3:31:50)],
Naturally, when a member of the audience told Carson that there is a “strong anti-American spirit that is undermining everything that we stand for” within the Obama administration, Carson told him that he was “absolutely right [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st9gdkCXp8c (next below, as embedded; with comments)].”
Carson said that even before President Obama took office, the U.S. government was turning against the American people and recommended that people read far-right author W. Cleon Skousen’s book “The Naked Communist [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/mitt-romney-cleon-skousen-nutty-professor ].”
As Alexander Zaitchick notes, Skousen argued that a cabal of wealthy globalists bent on creating a one-world government [ http://www.salon.com/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/ ] has infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
“This has been going on long before this administration, though, this has been going on for 30, 40, 50 years, it’s called the progressive agenda,” Carson said. “There’s a book called 'The Naked Communist ' by Cleon Skousen, it was written in 1958, and it goes through the agenda that they have here to fundamentally change our country, and I recommend that book because you would think it was written last year. But I believe that this is well orchestrated and the thing that they need in order to finally achieve their goal is for people with common sense to keep their mouths shut. And that’s what we can’t do, we have to stand up for what we believe in.”
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-anti-american-spirit-within-obama-administration
===
Would You Vote For God?
Published on May 10, 2015 by DarkMatter2525 [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ / http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525 , http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525/videos ]
You're willing to give Him an eternity in the next life, but could you even tolerate four years of Him in this life?
Several of my old cartoons have been in need of updating, but rather than do that, I decided to make a more serious animation that is sort of an amalgamation of their different points, along with a few more. The others were more silly, which I enjoy, but I thought multiple approaches would benefit the message.
Royalty-free music used:
"Ocean Dream" by Windpearl
https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/39919/ocean-dream
Please consider supporting my animations through Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/DarkMatter2525
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIxSeiqyGXQ [with comments]
===
America’s Changing Religious Landscape
Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow
May 12, 2015
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
--
Screw Sharia: Godlessness Is Creeping Across America
5/12/15
Perhaps you’re concerned about the rise of Islam in American life. Or the rising influence of evangelical Christians who express concern about the rise of Islam. It may surprise you to learn that America’s fastest-growing religious demographic is people who just don’t give a shit.
[...]
http://gawker.com/screw-sharia-godlessness-is-creeping-across-america-1703977215 [with comments]
--
Christianity faces sharp decline as Americans are becoming even less affiliated with religion
The Memorial Peace Cross is a well-known landmark in Bladensburg, Md.
(Mark Gail for The Washington Post)
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/pew-religious-landscape-survey-2014_n_7259770.html (with comments)]
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey
May 12, 2015
Christianity is on the decline in America, not just among younger generations or in certain regions of the country but across race, gender, education and geographic barriers. The percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years to about 71 percent, according to a survey [ http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ ] conducted by the Pew Research Center.
“It’s remarkably widespread,” said Alan Cooperman, director of religion research for the Pew Research Center. “The country is becoming less religious as a whole, and it’s happening across the board.”
At the same time, the share of those who are not affiliated with a religion has jumped from 16 percent to about 23 percent in the same time period. The trend follows a pattern found earlier in the American Religious Identification Survey [ http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf ], which found that in 1990, 86 percent of American adults identified as Christians, compared with 76 percent in 2008.
Here are three key takeaways from Pew’s new survey.
1. Millennials are growing even less affiliated with religion as they get older
The older generation of millennials (those who were born from 1981 to 1989) are becoming even less affiliated with religion than they were about a decade ago, the survey suggests. In 2007, when the Pew Research Center did their last Religious Landscape Survey and these adults were just entering adulthood, 25 percent of them did not affiliate with a religion, but this grew to 34 percent in the latest survey.
The trends among the aging millennials is especially significant, said Greg Smith, associate director of research at the Pew Research Center. In 2010, 13 percent of baby boomers were religiously unaffiliated as they were entering retirement, the same percentage in 1972.
“Some have asked, ‘Might they become more religiously affiliated as they get older?’ There’s nothing in this data to suggest that’s what’s happening,” he said. Millennials get married later than older generations, but they are not necessarily more likely to become religiously affiliated, he said.
2. There are more religiously unaffiliated Americans than Catholic Americans or mainline Protestant Americans
The numbers of Catholics and Protestants have each shrunk between three and five percentage points since 2007. The evangelical share of the American population has dropped by one percentage point since 2007.
There are more religiously unaffiliated Americans (23 percent) than Catholics (21 percent) and mainline Protestants (15 percent). “That’s a striking and important note,” Smith said.
The groups experience their losses through what’s called “religious switching,” when someone switches from one faith to another. Thirteen percent of Americans were raised Catholic but are no longer Catholic, compared with just 2 percent of Americans who are converts to Catholicism.
“That means that there are more than six former Catholics for every convert to Catholicism,” Smith said. “There’s no other group in the survey that has that ratio of loss due to religious switching.”
There are 3 million fewer Catholics today than there were in 2007. While the percentage of Catholics in the United States has remained relatively steady, Smith said we might be observing the beginning of the decline of the Catholic share of the population.
Pew estimates there are about 5 million fewer mainline Protestants than there were in 2007. About 10 percent of the U.S. population say they were raised in the mainline Protestant tradition, while 6 percent have converted to mainline Protestantism.
Evangelical Protestants have experienced less decline, due to their net positive retention rate. For every person who has left evangelical Protestantism after growing up, 1.2 have switched to join an evangelical denomination.
3. Those who are unaffiliated are becoming more secular
The “nones,” or religiously unaffiliated, include atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe in “nothing in particular.” Of those who are unaffiliated, 31 percent describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up six points from 2007.
“What we’re seeing now is that the share of people who say religion is important to them is declining,” Smith said. “The religiously unaffiliated are not just growing, but as they grow, they are becoming more secular.”
And people in older generations are increasingly disavowing organized religion. Among baby boomers, 17 percent identify as a religious “none,” up from 14 percent in 2007.
“There’s a continuing religious disaffiliation among older cohorts. That is really striking,” Smith said. “I continue to be struck by the pace at which the unaffiliated are growing.”
White Americans (24 percent) are more likely to say they have no religion, compared with 20 percent of Hispanic Americans and 18 percent of black Americans. The retention rates of the “nones” who say they were raised as religiously affiliated has grown by seven points since 2007 to 53 percent.
The Pew survey was conducted between June and September of 2014.
© 2015 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/05/12/christianity-faces-sharp-decline-as-americans-are-becoming-even-less-affiliated-with-religion/ [with comments]
--
Big Drop in Share of Americans Calling Themselves Christian
Wednesday afternoon Mass at Holy Name Church in Brooklyn. Attrition in religious affiliation was most notable among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics.
Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
By Nate Cohn
MAY 12, 2015
The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and crossing age, race and region, according to an extensive survey by the Pew Research Center [ http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ ].
Seventy-one percent of American adults were Christian in 2014, the lowest estimate from any sizable survey to date, and a decline of 5 million adults and 8 percentage points since a similar Pew survey in 2007.
The Christian share of the population has been declining for decades, but the pace rivals or even exceeds that of the country’s most significant demographic trends, like the growing Hispanic population. It is not confined to the coasts, the cities, the young or the other liberal and more secular groups where one might expect it, either.
“The decline is taking place in every region of the country, including the Bible Belt,” said Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at the Pew Research Center [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pew_research_center/index.html ] and the lead editor of the report.
The decline has been propelled in part by generational change, as relatively non-Christian millennials reach adulthood and gradually replace the oldest and most Christian adults. But it is also because many former Christians, of all ages, have joined the rapidly growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or “nones”: a broad category including atheists, agnostics and those who adhere to “nothing in particular.”
The Pew survey [ http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ ], which included 35,000 adults, offers an unusually comprehensive account of religion in the United States because the Census Bureau does not ask Americans about their religion. Most other nongovernmental surveys do not interview enough adults to allow precise estimates, do not ask other detailed questions about religion or do not have older surveys for comparison.
The report does not offer an explanation for the decline of the Christian population, but the low levels of Christian affiliation among the young, well educated and affluent are consistent with prevailing theories for the rise of the unaffiliated, like the politicization of religion by American conservatives, a broader disengagement from all traditional institutions and labels, the combination of delayed and interreligious marriage, and economic development.
Over all, the religiously unaffiliated number 56 million and represent 23 percent of adults, up from 36 million and 16 percent in 2007, Pew estimates. Nearly half of the growth was from atheists and agnostics, whose tallies nearly doubled to 7 percent of adults. The remainder of the unaffiliated, those who describe themselves as having “no particular religion,” were less likely to say that religion was an important part of their lives than eight years ago.
The ranks of the unaffiliated have been bolstered by former Christians. Nearly a quarter of people who were raised as Christian have left the group, and ex-Christians now represent 19 percent of adults.
Attrition was most substantial among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics, who have declined in absolute numbers and as a share of the population since 2007. The acute decline in the Catholic population, which fell by roughly 3 million, is potentially a new development. Most surveys have found that the Catholic share of the population has been fairly stable over the last few decades, in no small part because it has been reinforced by migration from Latin America.
Not all religions or even Christian traditions declined so markedly. The number of evangelical Protestants dipped only slightly as a share of the population, by 1 percentage point, and actually increased in raw numbers.
Non-Christian faiths, like Judaism, Islam and Hinduism, generally held steady or increased their share of the population, reaching 5.9 percent of adults, up from 4.7 percent in 2007. Jewish adherence was steady at 1.9 percent of adults, a statistically insignificant increase of 0.2 percentage points from 1.7 percent in 2007. Adherence to Islam grew faster than any other major religious affiliation, rising by 0.5 percentage points over the last eight years, but Muslims still represent just 0.9 percent of adults in the United States.
Younger adults have been particularly likely to join the unaffiliated in recent years. In 2007, 25 percent of 18-to-26-year-olds were unaffiliated; now 34 percent of the same cohort is unaffiliated.
But the unaffiliated share of the population is increasing among older Americans as well. The Christian share of the population born before 1964 has dipped by 2 percentage points since 2007.
There are few signs that the decline in Christian America will slow. Although some might assume that young people will become more religious as they age, the Pew data gives reason to think otherwise.
“It’s not that they start unaffiliated and become religious,” Mr. Cooperman said. “In fact, it’s the opposite.”
At the same time, every new cohort has been less affiliated than the last, with even the youngest millennials proving less affiliated, at 36 percent, than older millennials, at 34 percent.
The changing religious composition of America has widespread political and cultural ramifications. Conservatives and Republicans, for example, have traditionally relied on big margins among white Christians to compensate for substantial deficits among nonwhite and secular voters. The declining white share of the population is a well-documented challenge to the traditional Republican coalition, but the religious dimension of the G.O.P.’s demographic challenge has received less attention, perhaps because of the dearth of data.
Mitt Romney received 79 percent support among white evangelicals, 59 percent among white Catholics, 54 percent among nonevangelical white Protestants, but only 33 percent among nonreligious white voters.
But others argue that the relationship between politics and religion might work the other way: The declining number of self-identified Christians could be the result of a political backlash [ http://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/volume%201/october/SocSci_v1_423to447.pdf ] against the association of Christianity with conservative political values.
“The two are now intertwined,” said Mike Hout, a professor of sociology at New York University. “You can’t use one to predict the other, because if the Republicans switched to more economic or immigration issues, then perhaps the rise of the unaffiliated will slow down.”
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/big-drop-in-share-of-americans-calling-themselves-christian.html [with comments]
--
Bill O'Reilly Blames The Decline Of American Religion On Hip-Hop
By Antonia Blumberg
Posted: 05/14/2015 12:30 pm EDT Updated: 05/14/2015 12:59 pm EDT
A new Pew Research report found that the number of Americans who identify as Christian dropped from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/pew-religious-landscape-survey-2014_n_7259770.html ] between 2007 and 2014, and conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly thinks he knows why.
In a Wednesday segment, the Fox News anchor said that "people of faith are being marginalized by a secular media and pernicious entertainment."
"The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people -- the group that is most likely to reject religion," he said. "Also, many movies and TV shows promote non-traditional values. If you are a person of faith, then the media generally thinks you are a loon."
O'Reilly's conclusion is flawed and "troubling" for many reasons, said the Rev. Tony Lee, the senior pastor at the Community of Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church. Lee noted that the pundit specifically did not mention rock, pop, country or any other genre of music.
"I think we need to be very careful about some of the coded language in that, because in many ways that is kind of using black culture as a scapegoat for the decline of Christianity," Lee said.
"People will blame hip-hop for everything," he added. "There is a much larger context of scapegoating of hip-hop."
Philip Bump at The Washington Post writes [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/13/bill-oreilly-blames-rap-music-for-the-decline-of-organized-religion-that-makes-no-sense/ ]:
We'll start by noting that O'Reilly -- like a remarkable number of pundits! -- apparently still thinks hip-hop is dominated by "gangster rap." Snoop Dogg is posing for photos with cops, guys. Kendrick Lamar, perhaps hip-hop's most respected artist, is being recognized for his community service. The '90s are over.
From rappers to religious scholars, many recognize the spirituality contained within much of hip-hop music, as well. Christian rapper Lecrae is one of many mainstream hip-hop artists today weaving religion into his songs.
"For me, my faith dictates everything I do, so no matter what I’m saying in my art, my faith is the driver for that," the rapper said in a 2014 interview [ http://www.religionnews.com/2014/09/26/interview-lecrae-on-rap-theology-billboard-success/ ] with Religion News Service. "That’s what I’d encourage people to understand as they listen to my music. It’s distinct. My worldview bleeds through my music."
Lecrae is "able to share the gospel past the confines of the church," Lee said, which is increasingly important for a younger generation. By focusing on the so-called "depravity" of hip-hop, O'Reilly fails to recognize the true implication of the Pew report and the real challenges the church faces today, Lee said.
"Millennials are not finding their place within church because the boomer generation is continuing to express the gospel in a language that is theirs," he argued. "My prayer is we will be able to turn the corner and will be able to reach back out to their generation."
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/bill-oreilly-hip-hop_n_7283556.html [with embedded non-YouTube version of the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_S16SGgYE (with comments), included above, and comments]
--
Court Transcripts: Bill O’Reilly’s Daughter Saw Him “Choking Her Mom”
Photo credit: Getty Images, AP
J.K. Trotter
5/20/15 3:00pm
Gawker has obtained partial transcripts from the custody trial at the center of Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly’s vicious [ http://gawker.com/5834808/how-bill-oreilly-tried-to-get-his-wifes-boyfriend-investigated-by-the-cops ] dispute [ http://gawker.com/5990571/bill-oreillys-divorce-is-so-ugly-god-got-involved ] with his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy. The documents, which record testimony given last year, confirm that the ex-couple’s teenage daughter told a court-appointed forensic examiner that she witnessed O’Reilly “choking her mom” as he “dragged her down some stairs” by the neck. The same transcripts also reveal that O’Reilly—who famously settled a lurid sexual harassment claim from one of his young female producers—told his daughter that her mother is an “adulterer”; that he struggles to control his rage around his family; and that his daughter regards him as an absentee father.
Gawker first reported [ http://gawker.com/bill-o-reilly-accused-of-domestic-violence-in-custody-b-1705006992 ] the domestic violence allegations against O’Reilly on Monday, citing a source familiar with the case. In response, O’Reilly provided a vague statement to Politico [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/bill-oreilly-domestic-abuse-allegation-false-207335.html ]: “All allegations against me in these circumstances are 100% false. I am going to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect my children and will not comment any further.” The transcripts we’ve acquired will help O’Reilly’s fans and critics alike judge that statement for themselves.
In the summer of 2014, the Nassau County Supreme Court justice overseeing the O’Reilly-McPhilmy custody dispute assigned a Manhattan psychologist named Larry Cohen [ https://plus.google.com/109118236367205743211/about ] to interview and assess each member of the family: Bill O’Reilly, Maureen McPhilmy, and their son and daughter. Cohen produced evaluations of their individual interviews and later testified in court about what he observed. The transcripts below draw from the cross-examination of Cohen at the Nassau County Supreme Court by McPhilmy’s attorney, Casey Greenfield (who has had her own struggles [ http://gawker.com/5534609/cnn-analyst-jeffrey-toobin-graciously-offered-to-pay-for-mistress-abortion ] with an errant father). Also present in the court room were O’Reilly’s attorney, Bernard Clair, and the independent attorney assigned to represent both children, Barbara Kopman.
At one point, Greenfield asked Cohen, who was under oath, whether his investigation had turned up any evidence of domestic violence in the O’Reilly-McPhilmy household. (Note: In this transcript, O’Reilly and McPhilmy’s daughter is identified as “M.”)
Q: In the course of your meetings with the children, did either of them describe any incidents of domestic violence between their parents?
A: Yes.
Q: And who was that?
A: M. reported—having seeing an incident where I believe she said her dad was choking her mom or had his hands around her neck and dragged her down some stairs.
Q: And?
MR. CLAIR: Your Honor, to the extent that that incident as alleged may have predated the signing of the agreement.
THE COURT: Counsel. Counsel, she asked the question, we got the answer. Let’s move on.
From the transcript itself:
This exchange lends additional context to O’Reilly’s quasi-denial. Considering his evasive language—“in these circumstances [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/bill-oreilly-domestic-abuse-allegation-false-207335.html ]”—he appears to be challenging either Cohen’s evaluation (if not necessarily accusing him of perjury) or accusing his daughter of lying about his behavior. In any case, it is impossible for O’Reilly to seriously claim that his daughter’s allegation of domestic violence did not arise in court.
According to a different part of the transcript, Cohen revealed that the daughter claimed that O’Reilly—identified as “Mr. Anonymous”—told her that her mother is an “adulterer.” O’Reilly’s daughter was 15 at the time of the testimony.
Q [Greenfield]: What sorts of things did M. tell you that Mr. Anonymous says about their mother?
A [Cohen]: That she is an adulterer, and that her husband is, M.’s new stepfather is not a good person, and oh, if she spends her time or more time at the mother’s home, it will ruin her life.
It is unclear whether McPhilmy, who has subsequently remarried, ever committed adultery. There is plenty of publicly available evidence—thanks to a 2004 sexual harassment lawsuit [ http://gawker.com/5380802/happy-bill-oreilly-loofah-day ] filed by former Fox News producer Andrea Mackris—that O’Reilly engaged in lewd, highly sexual behavior with at least one other woman while he was married to McPhilmy. O’Reilly reached an out-of-court settlement [ http://gawker.com/5380802/happy-bill-oreilly-loofah-day ] with Mackris, but not before she filed an incredible 22-page affidavit [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/oreilly-falafel-suit-turns-five ] detailing the precise methods of O’Reilly’s harassment, including transcripts from phone conversations in which the anchor insisted Mackris masturbate with a vibrator, bragged about attending “a sex show in Thailand,” and promised to fondle her vagina using a “falafel thing.”
Another portion of the transcript shows that the daughter regarded O’Reilly—who has sanctimoniously [ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/07/25/oreilly_liberals_are_running_from_the_truth_on_black_families.html ] and repeatedly [ http://fair.org/blog/2014/08/06/fox-bill-oreilly-and-young-black-men/ ] criticized [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/oreilly-goes-off-on-baltimore-black-communities-need-to-police-themselves/ ] the “black community” [ http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2014/11/12/bill-oreilly-mistreating-black-americans/ ] for failing to parent children appropriately—as an absentee father.
Q [O’Reilly attorney]: And M. reported to you that her father was never around to have a relationship with her for 11 years, correct?
A [Cohen]: That’s what she said.
Q: And the word, when I emphasize the word “never,” that was her word, was it not?
A: Yes, it was.
When O’Reilly was around, he was apparently prone to bouts of rage so disruptive he occasionally had to go outside and punch a tree. Under questioning from McPhilmy’s attorney, Cohen relays his observations from interviews he conducted with O’Reilly about his anger problems.
Q [Greenfield]: And Mr. Anonymous himself admitted that he has trouble with impatience and he sometimes goes quite ballistic?
A [Cohen]: He did use the word “going ballistic,” but it was on limited occasions he did say that, but I think it was on limited occasions.
Q: Did you ask him what he meant by that, by “ballistic”?
A: I don’t recall. I think I did but I don’t recall.
Q: Yes, on page 53. 53, middle, pretty much half-way down?
A: Yes, I see it. Well, when I asked dad what he meant by going ballistic, he said that he would, quote, act like an idiot, close quote, which he can no longer do at his age or he can institute Plan B, which would be going out, hitting a tree or yelling and moaning. He said he worked hard to keep his emotions under control.
In the same cross-examination, Cohen testified that McPhilmy—“Mrs. Anonymous”—detailed the impact of O’Reilly’s rage on her, and that their daughter found his temper to be “scary”:
Q: And Mrs. Anonymous told you about Mr. Anonymous’ tantruming (sic)?
A: She used that word.
Q: And M. described him as flipping out and being quote, scary and demeaning?
A: She used those words.
Q: And that sometimes that makes her cry?
A: She said that.
Taken together, these revelations indicate that O’Reilly has brought nearly every feature of his tremendously profitable public persona—his absurd moralizing [ http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/05/27/decline-morality-in-america/ ], his obscene religiosity [ http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/04/03/bill-oreilly-war-on-christianity-getting-even-worse/ ], his habitual cruelty toward women [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/23/36966/watters-ambush/ ]—to bear on his own family, with predictable consequences.
Neither O’Reilly nor McPhilmy have responded to requests for comment. A voicemail left at Dr. Cohen’s office was not returned.
Copyright 2015 Gawker (emphasis in original)
http://gawker.com/court-transcripts-bill-o-reilly-s-daughter-saw-him-ch-1704717356 [with
===
Now I lay me down to sleep
Edison Talking Doll (full height, front view, with reproduction dress), source of 'Now I lay me down to sleep'
[this and additional images via http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=A4B96C5C-155D-451F-67626F0B677097A6 ]
Title: Now I lay me down to sleep (English bedtime prayer)
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
Amen.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_I_Lay_Me_Down_to_Sleep ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_England_Primer ]
Record type: Edison Talking Doll cylinder, brown wax (production design)
Recording date and location: c. February to May 1890, Edison Phonograph Works, West Orange, New Jersey
From collection: David Heitz
Provenance of the cylinder: Unknown.
Source of the digital audio: Collectors David Heitz, Peter Dilg, and Chuck Azzalina digitized this cylinder on February 11, 2002, at the home of David Heitz, using Dilg's custom-made stylus-playback apparatus: 0.75 mil ball stylus, Pickering V15 cartridge, and a DC gearhead motor to turn the doll mandrel.
Now I lay me down to sleep (Restored audio)
[audio embedded]
Edison Talking Doll cylinder, brown wax
Heitz collection
Recording date: c. February to May 1890
Playback speed: 90 RPM
Duration: 20 seconds
Credit / Author:David Heitz collection
Download Original File: http://www.nps.gov/av/ner/avElement/edis-heitz-dilg-edison-c-now-i-lay-me-20020211-90rpm-restored.mp3
323 KB
Now I lay me down to sleep (Audio not restored)
[audio embedded]
Edison Talking Doll cylinder, brown wax
Heitz collection
Recording date: c. February to May 1890
Playback speed: 90 RPM
Duration: 17 seconds
Credit / Author:David Heitz collection
Download Original File: http://www.nps.gov/av/ner/avElement/edis-heitz-dilg-edison-c-now-i-lay-me-20020211-90rpm.mp3
285 KB
http://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/photosmultimedia/now-i-lay-me-down-to-sleep-edison-talking-doll-cylinder-brown-wax-heitz-collection.htm [complete collection at/via http://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/photosmultimedia/hear-edison-talking-doll-sound-recordings.htm ], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryN2iIepa0s [with comments; another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5mnQfmk9sg (no comments yet)] [more at/via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/11/thomas-edisons-talking-dolls_n_7259194.html (with comments)]
===
this is the concluding part 5 of a 5-part post; part 4 is the post to which this is a reply
the following list of 'see also' linkings covers and is common to all 5 parts of this post
--
in addition to (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113381741 and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13376053 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=25151993 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32565156 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91147164 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39632707 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=56102844 (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66822383 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77608102 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=90402843 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94499157 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=40248523 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=49466173 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113637562 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53837793 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=57053351 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63537901 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71940978 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80446524 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81122451 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81513940 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=87137870 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94081957 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=95424311 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66812099 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66821790 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69717811 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70131094 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70426261 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=87181145 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79360305 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=60698174 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81837278 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82222573 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=90153301 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83420759 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84115869 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84194478 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86436069 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91324036 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=96759462 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91368986 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=93675334 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108384353 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112503588 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112556765 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112781214 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97217659 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97287340 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97287026 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=96759860 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97347214 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97804129 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=98339780 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=100650957 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=102001887 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103565432 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104020025 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104301261 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104317832 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105164907 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105242008 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105614785 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106732567 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456218 and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456362 and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456392 and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456471 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110581235 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111804225 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111983905 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112434098 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112630346 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113055842 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113421430 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113454687 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113459772 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113494423 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113513448 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113521766 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113550970 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113603070 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113633619 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113633795 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113634218 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113697467 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113709590 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113725750 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113734510 and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113757202 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113742734 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113754948 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113759693 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113793307 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113793712 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113818183 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113847936 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113878246 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113892049 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113910001 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113910791 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113923660 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113953512 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113957823 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113969749 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113971588 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113980777 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113981101 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114004281 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113989280 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114022502 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114033550 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113991421 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113992287 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113996990 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114034672 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114001066 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114004452 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114030985 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114035979 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114038063 and preceding (and any future following)
Published on May 10, 2015 by The Right Scoop [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz8Wm50F9mY_C6rDTFWXBBA , http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz8Wm50F9mY_C6rDTFWXBBA/videos ]
Presidential hopeful Ben Carson [on 5-9-15] brought his campaign to the good people of South Carolina at the Freedom Summit. Even though they were all racist Conservatives, he was well received.
I was kidding about the racist part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJctOoj1Rsk [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTgw44OmDVA (with comment)]
--
What If Sarah Palin Were a Brain Surgeon?
In some early GOP polls, Carson—seen here in Kentucky—has run ahead of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Ted Cruz.
Photograph by Benjamin Rasmussen
Though he's a hero in the black community, Carson's political constituency today is much paler.
Photograph by Benjamin Rasmussen
Until two years ago, Ben Carson was a mild-mannered neurosurgeon—a hero to black America, the subject of a tender made-for-TV movie. Then he started raving about Nazis and America's demise. Now he's the Tea Party's great White House hope—and the GOP's worst nightmare. Never mind that he's never been elected to anything: Being president, Carson says, ain't exactly brain surgery
By Jason Zengerle
April 2015 [issue of]
On the night earlier this year that Barack Obama stepped before the nation to deliver his sixth State of the Union address, Ben Carson—a political newcomer who harbors dreams of soon giving his first—settled into a sofa just a few blocks away. He was eager to hate everything the president was about to say.
Carson had come to the Capitol Hill home of Armstrong Williams, a conservative media impresario who officially serves as Carson's business manager and who lately has functioned as Carson's unofficial image-maker and political adviser as well. As the two men turned to the TV, they began dissecting Obama's performance.
"He looks good," Williams said. "He looks clean. Shirt's white. The tie. He looks elegant."
"Like most psychopaths," Carson grumbled. "That's why they're successful. That's the way they look. They all look great."
For those unfamiliar with the mood of America's far right, casually branding the president a psychopath is exactly the sort of talk that strikes a chord—and just the thing that has made Carson a sensation in the GOP. Today the former pediatric neurosurgeon—who's never run for elected office—is suddenly besting candidates like Jeb, Marco, and Rand in some 2016 polls and preparing to announce his campaign for the White House. As for the current resident, well, Carson is sometimes encouraged to cut him just a little slack before he hands over the keys.
"He faces the same challenges you will face," Williams said of Obama as he spoke. "He's gotta convince people to believe him. That's all he's doing: selling his narrative."
"But he knows he's telling a lie!" Carson vented. "He's trying to sell what he thinks is not true! He's sitting there saying, 'These Americans are so stupid I can tell them anything.' "
Since his inadvertent entry into politics two years ago, Carson has defined himself chiefly as a rhetorical bomb-thrower. He's invoked bestiality and pedophilia while arguing against gay marriage, and earlier this month, during an appearance on CNN, he argued that homosexuality is a choice, "because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight, and when they come out, they're gay." (After an uproar, Carson issued an apology and declared he would no longer talk about gay rights.) With equally provocative flair, he's railed against the forces of government, declaring that Obamacare is "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery" and, in fact, "is slavery, in a way." Similarly outrageous was his contention that "we live in a Gestapo age" and that America today is "very much like Nazi Germany."
This time next year, in the thick of the primaries, such wild statements could sink a candidate. Not so in these hurly-burly months before the race begins in earnest. Indeed, it's in these early days of the campaign—before armies of political professionals descend and campaign contributions skyrocket—when a familiar sort of long shot can thrive. And among a certain segment of the GOP, Ben Carson is thriving. Yes, his chances for winning may be slim—only two presidents have reached the White House without electoral experience or high military rank—but activists on the right hope that, at the very least, Carson will give voice to a conservative anger and resentment that'll influence the rest of the GOP field. "He's like a messenger," Williams says of Carson. "He might not be king, but he will have the ear of the king."
Of course, one big way Carson differs from most quixotic right-wing ideologues is his race. Conservatives, long frustrated that their disgust with Obama and his policies is regarded as racist, no doubt find it politically advantageous—and psychologically helpful—to have a black person offering those critiques. As one GOP fund-raising guru told Time, "There's nothing they love more than a black candidate who agrees with them on conservative views."
Carson's restrained manner helps a lot, too. Though his outrage can be excessive, it's never spittle-flecked. Rather, he speaks in the dulcet and intelligent tones of a surgeon reassuring parents that, although their child has brain cancer, he has the power to heal her. He shrewdly camouflages his vitriol as wisdom, dismisses those who disagree as fools, and, perhaps more than any other far-right candidate in recent years, gives establishment Republicans heartburn. They are, after all, eager to coronate an electable candidate to run against Hillary Clinton, not get drawn into a fractious fight with a Tea Party rock star who forces the eventual GOP nominee to the unelectable fringe. "When I call my mom back home, she asks me, 'What do you think of Dr. Ben Carson?' " one top Republican operative lamented to me. "I tell her he's not ready to be president, and she gets so mad at me."
Even among Carson's political team, though, there's some recognition that he could benefit from a little more polish. The day of the president's State of the Union, Carson had spent five hours getting briefed on domestic and foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank; the next morning, he would travel to Texas for two days of media training. But on the night of Obama's speech, the task of getting Carson ready for the White House fell to Williams alone. He'd arranged for Carson to appear on cable news to offer some post-speech commentary and was busily prepping the doctor.
"We don't have to call him a psychopath. I don't want you to go to CNN with that kind of mood," Williams cautioned.
To groom Carson in more literal ways, Williams had also hired a barber to come to his home and cut Carson's hair. That way, when he offered his assessment of Obama on TV, he'd look, as Williams put it, "presidential." With Carson perched on a stool in the dining room, the barber took maybe a millimeter off the top before he asked Williams about the doctor's goatee. "I'm gonna leave that alone," Williams said. "We'll revisit it one day, but not today. I pick my battles. He likes that goatee. But do you know a president who's been elected with a goatee?"
···
"In the United States, we have Republicans, Democrats, and independents. What do you have?" Carson asked.
It was about a month before the president's State of the Union speech, and Carson was in the first-class lounge at the Newark airport, waiting for a flight to Tel Aviv. He'd never been to Israel before, but a trip to the Holy Land has become, in recent years, a prerequisite for presidential aspirants. When Governor George W. Bush went in 1998, he was given a helicopter tour by Ariel Sharon. Ten years later, Senator Barack Obama met with the Israeli prime minister as well as the leader of the Palestinian Authority. Now, as Carson sat across from the young Israeli woman who'd be his guide, he was getting a head start on what he called his own "fact-finding mission." The more basic the facts, the better.
The woman answered Carson's question about political parties, telling him that there were Labor and Likud and a host of other factions in the Knesset. "And what is the role of the Knesset?" he interjected. This prompted a tutorial on Israel's legislature. Carson is a tall, dignified-looking man with a placid, almost sleepy face. As he tried to concentrate on his Hebrew Schoolhouse Rock primer, he seemed even more fatigued. "It sounds complex," he finally said. "Why don't they just adopt the system we have?"
Sparse as Carson's foreign-policy bona fides may be, the trip was devised to bolster them. And although he wasn't able to secure a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Carson and his entourage—consisting of his wife, Candy; Williams; and a handful of aides and their spouses-visited the Western Wall, lit a menorah with the mayor of Jerusalem, and drove to the Golan Heights for what was billed as a "geopolitical strategic briefing." But the three members of the Israeli Defense Forces assigned to give it-a portly male lieutenant colonel in the medical corps and two twentysomething female soldiers from the public-affairs unit—didn't seem to be at risk of revealing classified information. Adding to the low-key vibe, the briefing took place at an observation deck on Mount Bental, a popular tourist destination with a gift shop and coin-operated binoculars, where a group of high school students on a field trip were making a ruckus.
"Perhaps we can move over here," the lieutenant colonel suggested, steering Carson's group to a quieter spot to discuss the nearby Syrian civil war. He claimed that most of the Islamist fighters weren't Syrian but came from Morocco and Europe. "It's just like the troublemakers in Ferguson," Carson said, betraying a habit of wedging the unfamiliar into a context he understands.
The lieutenant colonel tried to direct Carson's attention to a Syrian city in the distance, where some of the war's fiercest fighting has raged. But Carson seemed just as interested in his own location—and whether he was safely under the cover of Israel's vaunted missile-defense system. "Is this area right here protected by the Iron Dome?" he wondered.
The next day, Carson was standing on a pleasant hillside outside Jerusalem that overlooked a grove of olive trees; a shepherd tended his flock of sheep in the distance. Carson heard some noise from a construction site, and he flinched. "Was that machine-gun fire?" he asked.
···
How Carson wound up in Israel contemplating the hazards and intricacies of the Middle East is one of the unlikelier stories in recent American politics. A little more than two years ago, he was nearing retirement as the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Although Carson was only 61, he wanted to leave medicine behind while he could still enjoy life. He and Candy had bought a house on a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was looking forward to lowering his handicap and learning to play the organ.
But then he was asked to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual apolitical gathering that Carson, a devout Seventh Day Adventist, had addressed once before, in 1997, when he gave a typically anodyne speech. It was expected he'd do the same in 2013. But Carson struggled for months to formulate his thoughts. "When I woke up the morning of the speech," he says, "I felt very clear on what I should talk about." Carson decided he'd discuss what a mess the United States had become under Barack Obama. With the president sitting just to his right on the dais, Carson railed against progressive tax policies and Obama's signature health care law, comparing America to ancient Rome. "Moral decay. Fiscal irresponsibility. They destroyed themselves," Carson warned. "If you don't think that can happen to America, you get out your books and you start reading."
Obama, naturally, didn't take too kindly to Carson's speech, his thin smile gradually turning into a frown as he sat through all twenty-seven minutes of it. Although Carson couldn't see Obama's face while he was giving the speech, he's subsequently studied the president's reaction on video. "I thought in the beginning he was much more animated," Carson told me. "He was laughing along with his wife. She continued to laugh while he got quiet beside her, and then it looked like he was texting. I think he was texting her, because after he did that, she stopped."
Carson hadn't uttered anything that countless Republicans hadn't said before. The difference was that Carson delivered his message mere feet from Obama—and that his skin is the same color as the president's. Hours after the speech, Rush Limbaugh was playing excerpts on his show and telling listeners, "I love this guy!" That week The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial titled "Ben Carson for President." A month later, Carson was invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he met Sarah Palin, who greeted him with the bowing "We're not worthy" routine from Wayne's World. (Carson, for his part, thought Palin "looked anorexic.") "Would you ever run for president, sir?" Sean Hannity asked Carson during what would become one of his countless Fox News interviews. "I'd vote for you in a heartbeat." Not long after that, the network signed up the neurosurgeon as a paid political commentator, and Carson, who says he'd previously turned down entreaties to run for office in Maryland—as well as feelers from both the Bush and Obama administrations about serving as surgeon general—began thinking about the White House.
His 2012 book, America the Beautiful, which sold fewer than 2,000 copies in the six weeks before the Prayer Breakfast, sold almost 60,000 copies in the six weeks after. He hastily wrote—or rather, dictated—another tome, One Nation, which outsold Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices. "God speaks through him, and it goes into that Dragon"—Carson's voice-recognition software—"and we have a best-seller," Candy, who serves as her husband's book researcher, told me. Armstrong Williams offers a less exalted rationale. "He is a hot property. His brand is huge right now."
But long before he was a mega-star to the Tea Party, Carson was a bona fide hero in the black community. He grew up poor in Detroit, raised by a single mother who had dropped out of school after the third grade and was married at 13. Nonetheless, she required her two sons to read two books a week and write reports (never mind that she could barely read them). Her boys quickly became star students. Not that there weren't other challenges. Carson had a terrible temper. When he was in high school, he got into an argument with a friend over the radio station they were listening to. In a flash of anger, Carson tried to plunge a camping knife into his friend's stomach. But the knife hit the boy's belt buckle instead and snapped in half. As Carson tells it, the moment was a turning point. He ran home and prayed for patience. "God heard my deep cries of anguish," Carson later wrote in his memoir Gifted Hands. "A feeling of lightness flowed over me, and I knew a change of heart had taken place. I felt different. I was different."
Carson eventually went to Yale and then on to med school at Michigan. In 1984, when he was just 33, he became the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, the first African-American to run a division at the prestigious hospital. He quickly earned a reputation as a daring surgeon, and in 1987 Carson performed one of the most storied operations in medical history by separating a pair of Siamese twins joined at the head. It was the first time such a surgery had been successful, and it made international headlines. "I knew that my life was going to change after that, because the media isn't completely stupid," Carson says now. "They'd start looking at my background, and they'd say, 'Whaaaaaat?' " He soon received the first of his sixty-two honorary degrees. Not long ago, I overheard a woman ask Carson if he still had roots in Michigan. "My roots there are there's a high school in Detroit named after me," Carson replied.
For all of Carson's medical renown, his greatest fame came in the African-American community. Even as a young resident, Carson spent many of his precious few hours outside the operating room visiting inner-city Baltimore schools. "I can't even count how many times I saw Ben Carson when I was a kid," the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who grew up in inner-city Baltimore in the '80s and '90s, told me. "Any time anyone wanted to bring out any sort of inspirational figure for young black kids, especially young black boys, in Baltimore, you turned to Ben Carson." In those days, Carson and his family were something like a real-life version of the Cosbys: The doctor's three sons played around town in a string quartet with Candy called the Carson Four.
He started an educational foundation to help black students, and across the country Carson's memoir Gifted Hands—which was later turned into a TV movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr.—became required reading for African-American kids. "My mother gave me a copy," recalls Joshua DuBois, the Obama White House's former director of faith-based initiatives, "and said, 'This man is a symbol of how you need to be looking at your life.' "
In the summer of 1994, when Essence decided to pay tribute to an elite group of male role models, the magazine packed the theater at Madison Square Garden with a Who's Who of black America. Up onstage, the handful of icons selected to be honored that night included Jesse Jackson, Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, and Ben Carson.
···
On a cold January morning in Des Moines, Ben Carson gazed out into a crowd that had crowded into an historic theatre—an audience that looked nothing like the ones he used to draw for events like the Essence Awards gala. He had come to Iowa for a cattle call of Republican presidential hopefuls, joining a group of white candidates competing for the affections of (almost entirely) white conservative activists. As he paced the stage with a wireless microphone clipped to his jacket, he looked more like he was giving a TED Talk than a political stump speech. He told his inspirational life story interspersed with the stray political thought.
"Ben's unlike any national political figure I've ever met," the influential Iowa conservative talk-radio host Steve Deace told me. "He's less a politician and more like a life coach." And the activists at the Freedom Summit were eminently coachable, awarding Carson one of the loudest and most prolonged ovations of the day.
Since embarking on his political journey, Carson has received more than just applause. He's generated plenty of cash. The Draft Carson Super PAC, which was founded in late 2013 by the conservative activist John Philip Sousa IV (yes, the composer's great-grandson), has raised more than $13 million from over 150,000 donors who want to see Carson run for president. (By comparison, the pro-Clinton Super PAC Ready for Hillary raised $9 million last year.) Meanwhile, the American Legacy PAC enlisted Carson to fund-raise for efforts to repeal Obamacare; since the program was launched in early 2014, it's brought in $6 million. "The fire hose got turned on, and the money came so fast," says Mike Murray, American Legacy's founder and a Republican direct-mail guru who's worked with Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and a host of other leading conservatives. "In terms of direct marketing, I've never seen anything like Dr. Carson."
Terry Giles, a trial lawyer with no political experience whom Carson will tap to run his campaign, predicts his candidate will have financial resources not typically available to far-right challengers. He expects that, between the various conservative causes Carson has lent his name to (or had his name appropriated by), the campaign will have a mailing list with upwards of 2 million potential supporters on it—all of whom have expressed their interest in Carson in the past two years. "If I can get $100 from 1.5 million people," Giles told me, "I'll have $150 million for the first four primaries, and we'll be extremely competitive."
While it's true that Carson possesses rare attributes his opponents can't claim, the doctor's résumé is glaringly thin in certain spots. But Carson believes his lack of political experience is an asset, not a failing. "We're at a point in time where it's been demonstrated fairly dramatically that political experience doesn't seem to help a whole lot and perhaps may be hurtful," he told me.
I pressed him on this point. What if Barack Obama, I posited with a bit of hyperbole, decided to change careers and said that he now wanted to be a neurosurgeon—and, what's more, that he wanted his first operation to be separating conjoined twins? Did Carson see any parallels between that hypothetical and his situation? "No," he said emphatically. "Just the fact that you would ask that question tells me that you don't understand all that's involved in becoming a neurosurgeon. There's so much more than becoming a political figure, it's not even in the same ballpark."
Carson is rarely shy telling others that they're foolish. With both the stereotypical arrogance of a surgeon and the understandable brio of a self-made man, Carson seems to harbor an unshakable belief that he knows more than most anyone else. But while being president may seem simple to him, running for the job is invariably tough—and already the limits of Carson's political acumen show. For instance, though he's answered criticism about his lack of experience by promising to rely heavily on his advisers, he has little notion of who or what he'd be looking for in his cabinet. When I asked him which secretary of state he most admired, he replied Condoleezza Rice—who, of course, happened to be the most recent person to hold that post in a Republican administration. Similarly, Robert Gates was Carson's favorite secretary of defense. And when I asked Carson to name his favorite secretary of the treasury, he was stumped. "Andrea Mitchell's husband," he eventually offered. I reminded him that Mitchell's husband, also known as Alan Greenspan, had actually been chairman of the Federal Reserve. "I don't know that there's anybody that really stands out to me as an outstanding treasury secretary. I mean, that's a pretty hard place to be outstanding," he finally said. "Secretaries of the treasury, for the most part, are not big policy people."
By his own admission, Carson's serious interest in Republican politics is rather recent. As a young man, he was a "radical, wild-eyed, left-wing Democrat" who crossed over to the right during the Reagan years. After the impeachment of Bill Clinton, he was so sickened by the hypocrisy of adulterous congressional Republicans that he became an independent. He only rejoined the GOP last year as a matter of convenience. "If I weren't thinking about running for office, I would remain an independent," he told me.
And yet today's GOP has proven to be a comfortable fit. Carson, to be sure, is a longstanding conservative in both temperament and ideology. His message of self-empowerment is part of a black-conservative tradition that dates back to at least the nineteenth century and Booker T. Washington. But Carson—who was understandably busy with his medical career, not to mention his philanthropic efforts aimed at African-American youth—didn't begin paying serious attention to broader issues until more recently. Which, of course, is right around the time that large portions of conservatism went insane. As a result, Carson's ideology of late appear to have been formed in the fever swamps of right-wing websites and Fox News—where Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are portrayed as Manchurian candidates sent by Saul Alinsky to undermine the United States. He's taken the same sincere up-by-the-bootstraps message that he once preached to black children and grafted it onto a worldview promulgated largely on conservative talk radio, validating many of the most provocative sentiments popular on the far right by repeating them in his mellifluous tone. He's that rarest of breeds: a soft-spoken demagogue.
Carson is so certain of the rightness of his views that he's practically incapable of admitting error. The controversies he's ignited with his overheated rhetoric are, in his telling, the result of "political correctness run amuck." He complains, "We've reached a point where if you say the word 'slavery' or you say the word 'bestiality,' it's like you've sprayed a fly with Raid—people start spinning, and they just can't function anymore."
On several occasions, I tried to get Carson to concede that his analogy likening the U.S. to Nazi Germany was out of line (he's said that Americans under Obama are as intimidated and afraid to criticize their government as Germans under the Third Reich). But he refused to give any ground. Our longest discussion about the matter came in Jerusalem, in the cafeteria of the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem. We'd spent the previous ninety minutes touring the museum, followed by Carson entering Yad Vashem's Hall of Remembrance and, black kippah atop his head, laying a wreath made of red, pink, and orange poppies that read "Courage and Truth Will Win: In loving memory the 6 million." Given all this, I asked Carson, did it make him reconsider his analogy?
"Not at all," he said. "It makes it even stronger."
···
The most discomfiting part of Carson's coming campaign, and the one that holds the most peril, will be his handling of race. For as much as race has made him a star in Republican politics, the way he's courted that attention is what most threatens his standing among African-Americans. What's more, unlike Herman Cain, Michael Steele, and the parade of other black conservatives who have burned bright during the Age of Obama before ultimately fading away, Carson, when it comes to his place in African-American life, actually has something to lose.
Already he's adopted positions that vex the black community. He's become a booster of GOP-backed voter-ID laws—which many African-Americans view as an effort to disenfranchise them but that Carson, citing largely discredited anecdotes of voter fraud, argues are necessary. And then there's Barack Obama, whose 95 percent share of the African-American vote Carson mainly attributes to ignorance. "I remember one of the man-on-the-street interviews with Jesse Watters"—the Fox News producer who does ambush interviews for Bill O'Reilly—"where he went to Harlem and he was asking people about Obama's policies, except they were all McCain's policies," Carson says. "And they were like, 'Oh yeah, it's brilliant!' 'What do you think of his vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin?' 'Oh, she's the best!' I think a lot of people are like that."
(Like those voter-fraud anecdotes, this appears to be a figment of Carson's imagination: Fox News denies that such a segment ever aired.)*
These stances are painful for African-Americans like Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of America's most celebrated writers on race, who credits Carson with providing an example to young blacks. "I'll always be in debt to him for what he did, but in terms of who he is now, I don't quite understand that," Coates says. "It seems like Barack Obama is the exact sort of person he'd have wanted us to grow up to be." When I mentioned Coates's criticism to Carson, he betrayed no discomfort. "It doesn't surprise me," he said, "because people grow up and they listen to propaganda."
One morning in Israel, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Carson crossed paths with a dozen or so members of a black Baptist church from Brooklyn. Upon the discovery that the man in the North Face fleece was none other than Dr. Ben Carson, all heck broke loose. Carson was besieged. He posed for pictures and doled out hugs. "Is it all right if I touch you?" one woman said.
As the rest of the church ladies continued to fawn over Carson, I asked Nadine Clarke, the group's leader, how she knew who he was. "I've known about him for years!" she exclaimed. I inquired if she was similarly enthused about Carson's new political career. I watched the smile vanish from her face, replaced by a look of worry, as if she now remembered some of the things Carson had said in the past two years. "He's a Republican?" she asked.
Carson and the church group said their good-byes, and Carson headed to a skiff that would take him out on the Sea of Galilee. As the boat puttered along, he fell into a reverie about how Jesus had walked on these waters and taught his disciples to be fishers of men here. I interrupted with my own more earthly concerns. What had he thought of the church group?
"They seemed like typical Brooklyn folk. Very nice," Carson said. He was unfazed by all the fuss. "I'm pretty used to that reaction, once they figure out who I am."
Do you think any of them will vote for you? I wondered.
He paused for a moment and looked out on the water. "No," Carson said, "I don't imagine that a lot of them would."
*After this story was published, a reader noted [ https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/580436499604332545 ] that Carson was likely referring to interviews that aired on the Howard Stern Show.
© 2015 Condé Nast
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party [with comments]
--
Ben Carson doesn’t really know what a ‘psychopath’ is
Ben Carson speaks at National Harbor, Md., in February.
March 25, 2015
In GQ's profile of Ben Carson [ http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party (just above)], the former neurosurgeon and potential 2016 presidential candidate called President Obama a "psychopath."
Calling politicians you aren't fond of psychopaths feels like an unfortunately routine part of our political landscape today, but Carson did more than just name call. In the interview, he pointed to Obama's neat appearance as proof he's a psychopath ("That's why they're successful. That's the way they look. They all look great," he said.).
Carson is a doctor, but I talked to some professionals to see whether they agreed with him.
Lisa Kays, a licensed clinical social worker in Washington, said in a phone interview that to clinically be described as a psychopath, someone must show signs before age 15, and must meet three criteria from a list that includes things like deceitfulness, failure to plan ahead, consistent irresponsibility and a lack of remorse. There's also the possibility of anti-social behavior, increased risk of violence, failure to conform to social norms and saying things for shock value.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/25/ben-carson-doesnt-really-know-what-a-psychopath-is/ [with comments]
--
As Ben Carson bashes Obama, many blacks see a hero’s legacy fade
Carson poses for a photo with Page High School students Lizabeth Schaede, Anna Bateman and Atie Thomas while signing his book after a speech at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, N.C.
(Jerry Wolford/For The Washington Post)
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, delivers his speech at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, N.C.
(Jerry Wolford/For The Washington Post)
By Robert Samuels
May 2, 2015
The black man courting crowds of white conservatives doesn’t seem like the same guy that H. Westley Phillips once idolized. Phillips still relishes the day he heard Ben Carson inspire minority students at Yale University with his story of persistence. He can still feel the nervous anticipation he had while waiting in line to shake Carson’s hand.
After the speech, Phillips followed Carson’s path and began to study neurosurgery.
“I had come from a public school in Tulsa and came from a single-parent household and thought I was the admissions mistake,” said Phillips, now 27. “But he gave me the comfort to know that if I did struggle — and I thought I would — that I wouldn’t have been the first, and there are ways to handle it. The message he gave was this backup artillery when times were hard.”
For many young African Americans who grew up seeing Carson as the embodiment of black achievement — a poor inner-city boy who became one of the world’s most accomplished neurosurgeons — his emergence as a conservative hero and unabashed critic of the United States’ first black president has been jarring.
Carson has been a black icon since 1987, when he became the first person to successfully separate twins conjoined at the backs of their heads. He was a rare and much-desired role model: a black man who became known for his intellect, not for telling jokes or shooting basketballs.
Posters of Carson hung on bulletin boards in classrooms. Reading “Gifted Hands [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310214696 ],” his 1992 autobiography, was practically a rite of passage.
But now retired from his medical career, Carson, 63, has become known more widely since using his speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast to offer a conservative critique of U.S. health-care and spending policies, while standing a few feet from President Obama.
In the ensuing months and years, Carson’s attacks grew sharper — deriding Obama’s signature health-care law as the “worst thing to have happened in this nation since slavery” and, in the pages of GQ [above], likening Obama to a “psychopath.” Carson’s 2014 book, “One Nation [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595231129 ],” assails a decline of moral values in America and its government.
As Carson prepares to announce his candidacy for president on Monday in his home town of Detroit, his political base is now whiter and more rural.
Carson’s personal accomplishments — and the work he has done to help black communities — still garner respect and pride among African Americans. Yet, while he has been a conservative for as long as he has been famous, many worry that he risks eroding his legacy in their community and transforming himself into a fringe political figure.
Some black pastors who were Carson’s biggest promoters have stopped recommending his book. Members of minority medical organizations that long boasted of their affiliations with him say he is called an “embarrassment” on private online discussion groups.
“Has he lost his sense of who he is?” said the Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent black pastor in Baltimore, where Carson lived for decades when he was director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. “He does not see he is the next Herman Cain.”
Mark Terrelonge, 26, who is in his final year at Stanford University School of Medicine, said he feels his heart sink every time another clip of Carson shows up on his Facebook feed.
Reading “Gifted Hands” as a teenager, Terrelonge said he saw Carson’s story as an affirmation of his own ambitions to become a doctor. Never before had he heard of a black man in the upper echelons of medicine. But Terrelonge, who is gay, was stung when he heard Carson say that homosexuality was a choice.
“I don’t know how to say it exactly,” Terrelonge said. “I don’t want to attack him because he’s done great things in medicine, but the role-model aspect of him has kind of diminished in my life.”
Carson, too, is trying to fully understand his new place in black America. He spoke recently at the National Action Network, the civil rights group headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who once ran for president as a Democrat. Carson also issued a statement criticizing Baltimore demonstrators protesting after the death of Freddie Gray — urging parents to “please take control of your children and do not allow them to be exposed to the dangers of uncontrolled agitators on the streets.”
In an interview, Carson said he laments that many in the black community “drank the Kool-Aid and think I have forsaken them.”
“People write things. They say things. It saddens me,” Carson said. “There are forces in this country that really like to foster division and conflict, particularly in the black community, because they don’t want the synergy of them working together. Because that would advance them.”
The admiration many blacks have long felt for Carson differentiates him from past black conservative presidential candidates such as Cain, the former pizza executive who briefly rose in the polls during the 2012 primary season, Carson’s political supporters say. He has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by Republican President George W. Bush, and the Spingarn Medal, the top honor given by the traditionally liberal NAACP.
His stature, Carson supporters say, helps him combat the perception that the far right is exclusive and out of touch. Critics, these supporters say, underestimate Carson’s potential impact on the race at their own peril.
“I would be elated if the left felt this too shall pass and he is just the chocolate flavor of the election cycle,” said Vernon Robinson, a fellow black conservative and chairman of the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee. So far, Robinson said, the group has raised $16?million.
“Despite everything so far,” Robinson said, “he still has a reservoir of residual admiration.”
Carson’s renown — and his stature in black America — dates to his early years as a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. Even then, Carson said, he always felt a sense of duty to help advance his race.
When the hospital started to receive publicity in the late 1980s for its attempt to separate German twins conjoined at the back of the head, Carson took the unusual step of asking not to be initially identified as the lead surgeon.
He said he worried that the procedure might not be treated as groundbreaking or important if the media and the broader public saw a black man in charge.
“Historically, when black people had done things of a scientific nature, many times either it wasn’t appropriately covered or someone else received most of the credit,” he said.
“And I was thinking what more of a tremendous thing it would be for young black kids to know something of this magnitude and this complexity was done by someone who looked like them,” Carson said.
After the surgery, Carson — young and soft-spoken — stepped forward. Intrigued journalists became “more interested in me than they were in the twins,” Carson recalled with a chuckle.
Someone suggested he write an autobiography. Agents kept calling for him, Carson said, “and then I thought to myself, ‘I should write a book.’?”
“Gifted Hands” chronicles his unlikely journey into medicine. His mother, a devout Seventh-day Adventist, raised Carson and his brother alone. She taught them that they could be anything they wanted to be. Carson was the worst student in his class and suffered a debilitating anger after his father walked out on his family, he wrote.
The autobiography described how Carson’s mother barred television from the house and mandated her children read two books a week. He wrote that he prayed to God to cleanse him from his angry feelings. His grades soared, and he went on to graduate from Yale and then the University of Michigan Medical School.
He became the youngest director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and the first black person to hold the position.
Carson said his agent expected the memoir to sell about 14,000 copies. According to its publisher Zondervan, the Christian arm of HarperCollins, it has sold 1.7?million.
Religious leaders in the black community emphasized the spiritual overtones and recommended the book to their youth groups. Teachers saw the narrative of achievement and social mobility and taught the book in their schools.
The legend of Ben Carson took flight. He became a regular speaker at graduations and churches, encouraging parents to find positive role models for their children — particularly black men. He asked them to instill pride by teaching minorities about the many inventions of black people, including the traffic light, the gas mask and the hair products of entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker.
He founded a nonprofit called the Carson Scholars Fund. The group has distributed nearly $700,000 for scholarships to middle- and high-schoolers, awarding them with big trophies so academic success could be put on the same plane as athletic success.
Carson has also raised money to refurbish libraries in nearly 150 of the country’s poorest schools. A Detroit public school was named for him, as was a medical school in Nigeria. By 2009, “Gifted Hands” was adapted to a made-for-TV movie.
Matt Dean Campbell, 25, remembers being tucked into bed growing up in South Florida as his mother read “Gifted Hands” to him. His mother, a domestic worker, struggled to pay the bills, but she wanted to imbue her son with stories of uplift, he said.
Campbell, now a high school teacher near Miami, said he has drawn on that message any time he has faced adversity. He was one of the slowest sprinters on his track team at the University of Michigan, Campbell said. He graduated as the captain. He continued pushing himself, because “that’s what Ben Carson would do.”
Sara McLaughlin, a teacher in Virginia Beach who works with troubled middle-schoolers, thought the book would be perfect for her class. Students wrote essays about Carson’s resilience and got queasy when they watched the surgery scenes from the movie.
“Is this the same Ben Carson who is running for president?” she recalled a student asking.
Then came more questions: But he’s not a politician, he’s a doctor. Why would he run? A reading assignment became a civics lesson.
McLaughlin said she could offer no answer.
“It’s funny,” she said. “A lot of people are asking the same thing.”
Presidential politics was not originally in Carson’s plans, he said.
Retirement, he said, meant relaxing in his Florida home, playing golf, maybe a television appearance here or there.
That all changed after his appearance at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast. It was the second time Carson was invited to speak at the event. The first time, in 1997, he made quips about the unfairness of HMOs. But this time, he went further. With repeated references to his tendency to be politically incorrect and offend the “PC police,” he offered an alternative view of health-care reform in which people would simply have private accounts to pay for their own care with pre-tax income. He railed against the debt and tax policies that seek to force the wealthy to pay a higher share than others — endorsing a flat tax, similar to tithing.
Carson, who does not often speak with notes, insisted that this was not a political speech but an exhale of frustration of the state of the country. But then new admirers started suggesting he run for president. Within days, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial proclaiming “Ben Carson for President.” He began thinking maybe he should.
The political turn was unexpected for many who knew him. The Rev. Frank Reid of Bethel AME Church in Baltimore found it “astounding.” When they were at Yale together, Reid said, Carson was universally regarded as brilliant and hard-working. Reid could not recall Carson participating in student activism because he was too busy studying with his future wife, Candy, in the library.
When Carson first promoted “Gifted Hands,” Reid invited him to his church so his congregation could hear the story. But if Carson were to speak today, Reid said he would ask him to come in for a “family session, with our leaders, behind closed doors, to find out what is really going on.
“I am hedging about what to say, because you cannot take away the impact that he’s had,” Reid said. “But before we turn on the brother, we have to hear him out. As shocking as some of the things he’s said are, I would rather have a discussion than attack someone who has done respectful work.”
Carson says he is willing to put his legacy aside to do what he thinks is best for the country. Still, it matters to him.
Sitting at the Sheraton Hotel in New York last month, Carson seemed anxious as he prepared to address the National Action Network a few hours later. This audience, a mostly black group seeking the advancement of black people, used to be an easy crowd for Carson. But times had changed.
“I have no idea how they are going to receive me,” Carson said.
As Carson waited to go on stage, Sharpton pleaded with the crowd to give him a fair hearing. Carson got some applause when he reiterated his belief that marriage was between a man and a woman. He said it was “a bunch of crap” for critics to say he doesn’t like black people anymore.
“I love black people. My wife is a black woman,” he said.
Then came the Carson of old, borrowing parts of the speeches he used to give in the 1990s.
He talked about the need for black role models and the importance of teaching young people about those black inventors. His voice shook as he described the horrors of growing up in neighborhoods crippled by drugs and overrun by rodents, and of losing families members to gun violence. He asserted that hard work and faith were able to lift him — and anyone else — out of poverty.
The crowd rose to their feet.
The next week, Carson returned to more comfortable terrain for a prospective GOP presidential candidate: the convention of the National Rifle Association. There, he spoke of how he thinks the need to control gun violence on the streets does not outweigh the need to combat “radical Islamic terrorists.”
Days later, he appeared at a fundraiser for a faith-based medical clinic in the lush upstate South Carolina city of Greenville. He talked about the importance of putting God first and speaking honestly. The emcee of the event said Carson would help fill in the gap of having “good, godly leaders to stand up for what is right.” The neurosurgeon received another standing ovation.
Carson then sat at a table to sign copies of his books. A line of mostly white attendees formed. Near the end was Landry Assinesi, a 19-year-old student at Piedmont College in Georgia who came back home to listen to Carson speak.
Assinesi said he never read “Gifted Hands,” but he devoured “One Nation.” Reading Carson’s words, Assinesi said he found a new political hero.
© 2015 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-ben-carson-bashes-obama-many-blacks-see-a-heros-legacy-fade/2015/05/02/b9ce53c8-e850-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html [with embedded video report, and (over 4,000) comments]
--
Carson runs into another ‘learning curve’
Ben Carson announces his candidacy for president during an official announcement in Detroit, Mich., May 4, 2015.
Photo by Paul Sancya/AP
By Steve Benen
05/07/15 05:04 PM
A couple of months ago, retired far-right neurosurgeon Ben Carson acknowledged [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ben-carson-and-the-learning-curve-candidate ] that the “learning curve of a candidate” can be daunting. The Republican presidential hopeful conceded he still has a lot to learn “in terms of becoming both a better candidate and a better potential president.”
But if he’s trying to brush up on the basics of how the U.S. government works, Carson clearly has quite a bit of ground [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-federal-government-doesnt-need-recognize-gay-marriage-scotus-ruling ] to make up.
Yesterday on Newsmax TV, Ben Carson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ben-carson ] said that the federal government does not need to recognize a Supreme Court decision on gay marriage because the president is only obligated to recognize laws passed by Congress, not judicial rulings.
“First of all, we have to understand how the Constitution works, the president is required to carry out the laws of the land, the laws of the land come from the legislative branch,” Carson said. “So if the legislative branch creates a law or changes a law, the executive branch has a responsibly to carry it out. It doesn’t say they have the responsibility to carry out a judicial law.”
He also added that members of the judiciary should have term limits in order to “adjust with the times.”
Carson, who announced his campaign for president on Monday, has previously floated the idea of impeaching [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-impeach-justices-if-they-back-gay-marriage ] judges [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-congress-should-oust-judges-who-rule-marriage-equality ] who back marriage equality.
All of this, regrettably, was on video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5jHI7bhMoo (next below; with comments)].
As should be obvious to anyone who passed Civics 101 at a high-school level, the U.S. Supreme Court has the final word on the constitutionality of American laws. Sometimes, the legislative branch passes a law, but it’s challenged in the courts, and if a high court majority strikes it down, then it can’t legally be enforced by the executive branch.
There is no such thing as “a judicial law.”
The fact that Carson doesn’t understand this is alarming. The fact that he prefaced his comments by saying we “have to understand how the Constitution works” is rather sad.
It also gets back to something we talked about the other day [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/right-wing-neurosurgeon-ben-carson-enters-2016-race , also http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-the-newest-unemployment-truther ]: the Republican doctor seems badly confused about some pretty basic stuff.
GQ recently profiled [ http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party (above)] the Republican doctor under the headline, “What If Sarah Palin Were a Brain Surgeon?” In the piece, Carson was asked to name his favorite secretary of the treasury. He eventually replied, “Andrea Mitchell’s husband.”
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, of course, is married to Alan Greenspan – the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has never been the Treasury secretary.
The same piece noted Carson’s trip to Israel, where he seemed surprised to discover that Israel has a legislative branch.
The article was published around the time Carson did another interview in which he seemed confused [ http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/18/do-you-read-this-stuff-hugh-hewitt-questions-ben-carsons-foreign-policy-chops/ , http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-stumbles-little-details ] about NATO and suggested violence among Islamic radicals dates back several centuries before Islam even existed.
At the time, he denounced the importance of “little details.”
It’s certainly possible that Carson can learn more as the campaign progresses, just as it’s possible that primary voters won’t hold his missteps against him. But it’s incidents like these that suggest Carson’s future as a national candidate is probably going to be quite limited.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-runs-another-learning-curve [with comments]
--
CNBC Digital Video Exclusive: Maverick Republican Presidential Candidate Ben Carson Sits Down with CNBC's Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood
Friday, 8 May 2015 | 10:47 AM ET
WHEN: Today, Friday, May 8, 2015
WHERE [video at]: CNBC.com's Speakeasy with John Harwood - http://www.cnbc.com/id/102658083
Dr. Ben Carson is among the most renowned physicians in the world. As director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, he led the only successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head. He achieved that success despite growing up poor in a single parent household in Detroit, excelling in high school and graduating from Yale University and the University of Michigan's medical school. Now retired from medicine, he seized attention in conservative circles for a 2013 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Before announcing his candidacy in Detroit on May 3, he sat down with CNBC's Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood at the Harbor House Detroit.
A partial transcript from Speakeasy with John Harwood featuring Dr. Ben Carson follows. All references must be sourced to CNBC.com:
HARWOOD: People talk about American exceptionalism, Ben Carson is clearly exceptional. But just like you wouldn't expect Babe Ruth to be an ice skater or LeBron James to play the piano, why should should you have the confidence and feeling that you can be exceptional in this other field, which of course you've gotta do if you're gonna be president?
CARSON: We have gotten into this arena where we think the only people who can handle the kinds of decisions that need to be made at the state level are people who are steeped in politics.
HARWOOD: As I understand the message you wanna drive and the change you wanna bring to the country if you are elected is a move towards self-reliance. In Baltimore, when you look at those neighborhoods and the people who are committing violence and vandalism, do you think government should be getting out of the way and doing less, because what government has done has robbed their sense of initiative?
CARSON: Well, one of the things that I've learned as a neuroscientist is that the human brain is an amazing organ system. And if you have a normal one, you really shouldn't be thinking about what you can't do. Just be thinking about what you can do. As you probably know, in several states you can get as much or more on government assistance as you can by working a minimum wage job. I don't necessarily blame people for saying, "I can stay at home and I can make this money, or I can go and work this little chicken job that doesn't have many benefits." However, recognize that if you go and take that chicken job, you gain skills.
HARWOOD: And what about minimum wage?
CARSON: I think probably it should be higher than it is.
HARWOOD: It sounds as if your preferred alternative, both to Obamacare and to Medicare, is a system of self-reliance in which you would be responsible for your own care and that of members of your family.
CARSON: That's how you pay for it.
HARWOOD: And you could replace both the Medicare system and the Obamacare with that system of HSAs.
CARSON: Absolutely. I think when people are able to see how much more flexibility they will have I think it's gonna be a no-brainer.
HARWOOD: Obama you referred to him as a psychopath. What did you mean by that?
CARSON: I said he reminds you of a psychopath.
HARWOOD: And tell me how.
CARSON: Because they tend to be extremely smooth-- charming people who can tell a lie to your face with complete-- looks like sincerity, even though they know it's a lie.
HARWOOD: Do you think he's a liar?
CARSON: Well, I think he knows full well that the unemployment rate is not 5.5%. He knows that. And he knows that people who are not well-informed will swallow it hook, line, and sinker, even though they are sitting there in the city and can't find a job.
HARWOOD: When you look at what's going on, say, in Baltimore, do you think – the structure of racism as it inhibits opportunities for the young people in those communities is a big problem? Or do you think it's exaggerated?
CARSON: I think the biggest problem is economic. And I think if we begin to open up the opportunities again that you'll see a lot of improvement, in Baltimore and around the country. There is no question that racism still exists in our society. Of course it does. Amongst particularly liberals who think that if you're black you have to think a certain way. You-- you don't have a possibility of thinking any other way. And if you do, you're crazy. That's very racist, but they don't recognize it.
© 2015 CNBC LLC
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102662789 , non-YouTube video at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102658083 [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPeGp0PgkZU (with comments)]
--
Can Dr. Ben Carson emerge from crowded GOP field? Plus, Rep. Michael McCaul on threat from homegrown terrorism
Fox News Sunday
Published May 10, 2015
This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," May 10, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.
The Republican presidential field gets even more crowded as three new candidates join the race.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: From hope to higher ground.
CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Restore possibility for everyone.
DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Change the government into something that looks more like a well-run business.
WALLACE: We'll talk with one of the new members of the GOP field, rising conservative star and Washington outsider, Dr. Ben Carson.
Then, Bill Clinton weighs into the 2016 race to defend speaking fees and foreign donations, but is he helping or hurting Hillary? Our panel tackles "Clinton Cash."
Plus, the threat of homegrown terror reemerges after ISIS claims responsibility for the shooting in Texas.
REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R), TEXAS: This is the kind of attack, quite frankly, we're most concerned about.
WALLACE: We'll discuss the recruitment of domestic terrorist with the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul.
And our power player of the week -- as the nation remembers VE Day 70 years later, we go up in a B24 bomber.
All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Hello again and happy Mother's Day from Fox News in Washington.
Three new candidates entered the Republican presidential race this week with a field that's likely to grow to more than dozen. The challenge will be finding a way to stand out.
Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has made it clear he has no desire to fit into the mold of a Washington politician.
Dr. Carson joins us now. Welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."
CARSON: Thank you. Good to be here.
WALLACE: First of all, especially on this Mother's Day, how is your mom, who I know is ill? Briefly, looking back, what was the greatest impact that she's had on your life?
CARSON: Well, thanks for asking. And thank you for the millions of people who have started praying for her, because she's starting to eat again. We thought she was gone and she's starting to eat again.
So -- she had the biggest impact of any human being on my life because she refused to be a victim and she refused to let me and my brother be victims. And that was really the key.
And she made us do things we didn't wanted to do. She reminds me of that Baltimore mother who went out and got her son off the streets. That would have been her. And it made a huge difference.
WALLACE: And when you say she refused to be a victim, I mean, you grew up in dire poverty in inner city of Detroit.
CARSON: Absolutely. Never had money for anything. But I tell you what did really work -- books. Between the covers of those books I could go anyplace, I could be anybody, I could do anything.
And particularly as I read about people of great accomplishment, I began to realize that the person who has the most to do what happens to you in life is you. Not somebody else and not the environment.
WALLACE: OK. Your greatest strength in the race, I would argue, and -- some would argue is also your greatest label, and that is you've never run for or held political office. How do you answer the experience question?
CARSON: I simply say experience can come from a variety of different places. There have been many people who have been groomed to believe that experience can only come in the political arena, but I've had a lot of experience, world experience, putting together teams to accomplish things never done before, incredible complex surgical procedures.
Putting together a national scholarship program. Nine out of ten nonprofits fail. Ours not only has not failed, has thrived. Working in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We're putting in reading rooms all over the country affecting people's lives. I've had lot of corporate board experience, 18 years on Kellogg's, 16 years on Costco, as well as other boards.
So, you know, there's real-life experience and there's politics. Politics, you know, there are some good politics in the political arena but I'm not sure they actually, in many cases, understand real life.
WALLACE: All right. Let's talk about real policies and drill down into some of them.
Here's what you say on your Web site about Russia, "All options should remain on the table when dealing with international bullies such as President Putin."
Dr. Carson, when you say all options, does that include the use of military force?
CARSON: All options includes all options. That doesn't mean that would be my first option. When we look at Russia and we look at Putin, we can realize that he has great ambitions. His ambitions have been thwarted of late because of falling oil prices. And we should take note of that and realize that the economic weapon is a tremendous one in his case.
We have incredible natural resources in this country in terms of oil, in terms of natural gas, but we have energy exportation rules from the '70s when we had an energy crisis that need to be gotten rid of, so we can use that to make Europe and other portions of the world more dependent on us. And that decreases his influence and his ability to expand.
WALLACE: But let me follow up. You say all options, all options. Under what circumstances would President Carson be willing to go to war with Russia? What are your red lines?
CARSON: Well, I would, obviously, do that in consultation with very competent generals and people who are more knowledgeable in that area than I would be. But, clearly, if the interest and the existence and the safety of the people of the United States was at stake -- and that was the only way to protect them -- of course, I would do whatever was necessary.
WALLACE: Would you go to war over Ukraine?
CARSON: No, I wouldn't go to war over Ukraine, but I would handle Ukraine a very different way. You know, Ukraine was a nuclear arms state. They gave up their weapons. You know, it was agreed they would be protected if something happened with aggression.
Have we -- have we lived up to that? Of course, we have not. And what does that say to our other allies around the world? It's not a good sign.
WALLACE: One of the pillars of your economic program is a flat tax. How would that work?
CARSON: Well, I like the idea of a proportional tax. That way you pay according to your ability. And I got that idea, quite frankly, from the Bible, tithing. You make $10 billion a year, you pay $1 billion. You make $10 a year, you pay $1. You get the same rights. That's pretty darn fair, if you ask me.
Now, some people say it's not fair because, you know, the poor people can't afford to pay that dollar. That's very condescending. You know, I grew up very poor. I experienced every economic level. And I can tell you poor people have pride, too. And they don't want to be just taken care of.
And also, if everybody is paying, it makes it very difficult for these politicians to come along and raise taxes. It's easy to raise it on 1 percent or 2 percent or 5 percent. It's very difficult to raise it on 100 percent.
WALLACE: But, Doctor, here is a problem with flat tax in the real world -- according to the Tax Policy Center, to raise the same amount of revenue we do now, the tax rate would have to be in the low to mid 20 percent range.
CARSON: Wrong.
WALLACE: Low and middle income families would get a big tax hike, while wealthy families would actually get a tax cut.
CARSON: That's actually not -- I don't agree with that assessment, let me put it that way, because I've been in contact with many economists. And, in fact, if you eliminate loopholes and deductions, then you're really talking about a rate somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent.
WALLACE: I got to tell you, the outside experts we talk to say you're talking -- in the 20s.
CARSON: Let's have a battle of the experts.
WALLACE: Well, we'll have a battle of the experts -- I mean, that's right. But, for instance, you talk about low income families. Not only don't they pay, they actually get an earned income tax credit. Now, you're going to have them pay 10 percent to 15 percent of income they have, or 20 percent if my experts are right.
CARSON: Well, Chris --
WALLACE: I mean, is there danger -- I got to tell you, a lot of independent study say the people that make out like bandits in this are the wealthy.
CARSON: Bear in mind, Chris, this is part of an overall complex program, because it also involves reorienting the way we do things in government, making the government run more like a business in this great, inefficient behemoth that we have now. It involves, you know, utilizing our energy resources. We can get an enormous amount of revenue from that. It involves a balance budget.
You know, by the time you put all those things, and it involves getting rid of all of these things that are fettering, the economic engine and revamping corporate taxes and bringing in money that's overseas, by giving a tax holiday, that's $2 trillion right there. I mean, there are a number of things involved in doing this.
WALLACE: Fair enough. We're beginning to run out of time, so I'm going to -- we'll do something of a lightning round here. One of things you say you're learning is not to be on so inflammatory in the language that you use.
But I want to ask you about some remarks you've made that you say that you stand by.
You have compared our government today to Nazi Germany. Do you really believe that?
CARSON: Well, a lot of people like to say that. But what I said is that in Nazi Germany, most of those people didn't believe in what Hitler was doing, but did they say anything? They did not. That's what allowed people to progress to that point.
We need to be willing to stand up and speak up for what we believe.
WALLACE: But people oppose Barack Obama all the time.
CARSON: There are a lot of people in our society who are afraid to say what they really mean because they may get an IRS audit, people will call them names, their jobs may be interfered with. This is not what America was supposed to be.
WALLACE: OK. Here's what you said about ObamaCare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARSON: ObamaCare is, really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: The worst thing since slavery?
CARSON: Well, you have to understand what I'm talking about. You know, ObamaCare fundamentally changes the relationship between the people and the government. The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing. And with this program, we're allowing that whole paradigm to be switched around.
WALLACE: Finally in the area of these remarks, just this week, you said that the president must carry out a law passed by Congress, but you said he doesn't necessarily have to pass what you called a judicial law -- which raises the question: Do you believe that the president must observe a decision by the Supreme Court?
CARSON: Well, what I said is the president doesn't have to agree with it.
WALLACE: No, of course not. But does he have to -- but does he have to enforce it?
CARSON: Well, Dred Scott, a perfect example. You know, the Supreme Court came up with this and Abraham Lincoln did not agree with it. Now, admittedly, it caused a lot of conflict and eventually led to a civil war, but we're in a better place because of it.
WALLACE: But does the president have to carry out a Supreme Court ruling?
CARSON: The way our Constitution is set up, the president or the executive branch is obligated to carry out the laws of the land. The laws of the land, according to our Constitution, are provided by the legislative branch.
WALLACE: But, sir --
CARSON: The laws of the land are not provided by the judiciary branch. So --
WALLACE: But, sir, since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, we have lived under the principle of judicial review which says, if the Supreme Court says this is the law, this is constitutional, the rest -- the executive has to observe that.
CARSON: And I have said, this is an area we need to discuss. We need to get into a discussion of this because it has changed from the original intent. And --
WALLACE: So, you're saying this is an open question as far as you're concerned?
CARSON: It is an open question. It needs to be discussed.
WALLACE: Finally, when people heard I was interviewing you this week, there was one question I got more than any other. And that was -- does he really think he has a chance of being elected president? How do you answer that?
CARSON: Well, I would answer it by saying, my life has been so full of people telling me what I couldn't do that I would be more concerned if they told me I could do it. That's how I would answer it.
You know, there's been a gazillion things people say, no one's done that before, you can't do that. You know, in my surgical career, you know, when I joined ROTC, I joined late, and I wanted to get to the top rank, they said you can't do that -- did it. You know, they said, you can't start a scholarship program. There's a gazillion of them. It has excelled.
You know, it's not just me. You know, there are -- there's the ability to work with a lot of people to achieve what you need to achieve.
WALLACE: Dr. Carson, thank you. Thanks for coming in today. Always a pleasure to talk to you. We'll see you down the campaign trail.
CARSON: Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: Up next, ...
[...]
©2015 FOX News Network, LLC
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/05/10/can-dr-ben-carson-emerge-from-crowded-gop-field-plus-rep-michael-mccaul-on/ [with embedded video; the YouTube of the Carson segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcE9oxqktN4 (with comments), another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSW0pzVSTYU (with comment)]
--
Ben Carson: Anti-American Spirit Within Obama Administration
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Saturday, 5/16/2015 1:00 pm
Today at the Iowa National Security Action Summit [ https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/05/15/the-iowa-national-security-action-summit/ , http://www.thefamilyleader.com/national-security-summit-comes-to-iowa/ , http://highfrontier.org/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y73UlQZ9AQY (next below; with comments; audio begins at the 0:10:30 mark, Carson's speech begins at 3:05:30 and his Q&A at 3:21:30, and the particular question and answer, the last, begins at 3:31:50)],
an event organized by right-wing conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/frank-gaffney , http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/center-for-security-policy ], GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ben-carson ] delivered a vague speech about how divisive political rhetoric is undermining the country’s security.
Naturally, when a member of the audience told Carson that there is a “strong anti-American spirit that is undermining everything that we stand for” within the Obama administration, Carson told him that he was “absolutely right [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st9gdkCXp8c (next below, as embedded; with comments)].”
Carson said that even before President Obama took office, the U.S. government was turning against the American people and recommended that people read far-right author W. Cleon Skousen’s book “The Naked Communist [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/mitt-romney-cleon-skousen-nutty-professor ].”
As Alexander Zaitchick notes, Skousen argued that a cabal of wealthy globalists bent on creating a one-world government [ http://www.salon.com/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/ ] has infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
“This has been going on long before this administration, though, this has been going on for 30, 40, 50 years, it’s called the progressive agenda,” Carson said. “There’s a book called 'The Naked Communist ' by Cleon Skousen, it was written in 1958, and it goes through the agenda that they have here to fundamentally change our country, and I recommend that book because you would think it was written last year. But I believe that this is well orchestrated and the thing that they need in order to finally achieve their goal is for people with common sense to keep their mouths shut. And that’s what we can’t do, we have to stand up for what we believe in.”
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-anti-american-spirit-within-obama-administration
===
Would You Vote For God?
Published on May 10, 2015 by DarkMatter2525 [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ / http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525 , http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525/videos ]
You're willing to give Him an eternity in the next life, but could you even tolerate four years of Him in this life?
Several of my old cartoons have been in need of updating, but rather than do that, I decided to make a more serious animation that is sort of an amalgamation of their different points, along with a few more. The others were more silly, which I enjoy, but I thought multiple approaches would benefit the message.
Royalty-free music used:
"Ocean Dream" by Windpearl
https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/39919/ocean-dream
Please consider supporting my animations through Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/DarkMatter2525
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIxSeiqyGXQ [with comments]
===
America’s Changing Religious Landscape
Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow
May 12, 2015
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
--
Screw Sharia: Godlessness Is Creeping Across America
5/12/15
Perhaps you’re concerned about the rise of Islam in American life. Or the rising influence of evangelical Christians who express concern about the rise of Islam. It may surprise you to learn that America’s fastest-growing religious demographic is people who just don’t give a shit.
[...]
http://gawker.com/screw-sharia-godlessness-is-creeping-across-america-1703977215 [with comments]
--
Christianity faces sharp decline as Americans are becoming even less affiliated with religion
The Memorial Peace Cross is a well-known landmark in Bladensburg, Md.
(Mark Gail for The Washington Post)
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/pew-religious-landscape-survey-2014_n_7259770.html (with comments)]
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey
May 12, 2015
Christianity is on the decline in America, not just among younger generations or in certain regions of the country but across race, gender, education and geographic barriers. The percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years to about 71 percent, according to a survey [ http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ ] conducted by the Pew Research Center.
“It’s remarkably widespread,” said Alan Cooperman, director of religion research for the Pew Research Center. “The country is becoming less religious as a whole, and it’s happening across the board.”
At the same time, the share of those who are not affiliated with a religion has jumped from 16 percent to about 23 percent in the same time period. The trend follows a pattern found earlier in the American Religious Identification Survey [ http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf ], which found that in 1990, 86 percent of American adults identified as Christians, compared with 76 percent in 2008.
Here are three key takeaways from Pew’s new survey.
1. Millennials are growing even less affiliated with religion as they get older
The older generation of millennials (those who were born from 1981 to 1989) are becoming even less affiliated with religion than they were about a decade ago, the survey suggests. In 2007, when the Pew Research Center did their last Religious Landscape Survey and these adults were just entering adulthood, 25 percent of them did not affiliate with a religion, but this grew to 34 percent in the latest survey.
The trends among the aging millennials is especially significant, said Greg Smith, associate director of research at the Pew Research Center. In 2010, 13 percent of baby boomers were religiously unaffiliated as they were entering retirement, the same percentage in 1972.
“Some have asked, ‘Might they become more religiously affiliated as they get older?’ There’s nothing in this data to suggest that’s what’s happening,” he said. Millennials get married later than older generations, but they are not necessarily more likely to become religiously affiliated, he said.
2. There are more religiously unaffiliated Americans than Catholic Americans or mainline Protestant Americans
The numbers of Catholics and Protestants have each shrunk between three and five percentage points since 2007. The evangelical share of the American population has dropped by one percentage point since 2007.
There are more religiously unaffiliated Americans (23 percent) than Catholics (21 percent) and mainline Protestants (15 percent). “That’s a striking and important note,” Smith said.
The groups experience their losses through what’s called “religious switching,” when someone switches from one faith to another. Thirteen percent of Americans were raised Catholic but are no longer Catholic, compared with just 2 percent of Americans who are converts to Catholicism.
“That means that there are more than six former Catholics for every convert to Catholicism,” Smith said. “There’s no other group in the survey that has that ratio of loss due to religious switching.”
There are 3 million fewer Catholics today than there were in 2007. While the percentage of Catholics in the United States has remained relatively steady, Smith said we might be observing the beginning of the decline of the Catholic share of the population.
Pew estimates there are about 5 million fewer mainline Protestants than there were in 2007. About 10 percent of the U.S. population say they were raised in the mainline Protestant tradition, while 6 percent have converted to mainline Protestantism.
Evangelical Protestants have experienced less decline, due to their net positive retention rate. For every person who has left evangelical Protestantism after growing up, 1.2 have switched to join an evangelical denomination.
3. Those who are unaffiliated are becoming more secular
The “nones,” or religiously unaffiliated, include atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe in “nothing in particular.” Of those who are unaffiliated, 31 percent describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up six points from 2007.
“What we’re seeing now is that the share of people who say religion is important to them is declining,” Smith said. “The religiously unaffiliated are not just growing, but as they grow, they are becoming more secular.”
And people in older generations are increasingly disavowing organized religion. Among baby boomers, 17 percent identify as a religious “none,” up from 14 percent in 2007.
“There’s a continuing religious disaffiliation among older cohorts. That is really striking,” Smith said. “I continue to be struck by the pace at which the unaffiliated are growing.”
White Americans (24 percent) are more likely to say they have no religion, compared with 20 percent of Hispanic Americans and 18 percent of black Americans. The retention rates of the “nones” who say they were raised as religiously affiliated has grown by seven points since 2007 to 53 percent.
The Pew survey was conducted between June and September of 2014.
© 2015 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/05/12/christianity-faces-sharp-decline-as-americans-are-becoming-even-less-affiliated-with-religion/ [with comments]
--
Big Drop in Share of Americans Calling Themselves Christian
Wednesday afternoon Mass at Holy Name Church in Brooklyn. Attrition in religious affiliation was most notable among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics.
Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
By Nate Cohn
MAY 12, 2015
The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and crossing age, race and region, according to an extensive survey by the Pew Research Center [ http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ ].
Seventy-one percent of American adults were Christian in 2014, the lowest estimate from any sizable survey to date, and a decline of 5 million adults and 8 percentage points since a similar Pew survey in 2007.
The Christian share of the population has been declining for decades, but the pace rivals or even exceeds that of the country’s most significant demographic trends, like the growing Hispanic population. It is not confined to the coasts, the cities, the young or the other liberal and more secular groups where one might expect it, either.
“The decline is taking place in every region of the country, including the Bible Belt,” said Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at the Pew Research Center [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pew_research_center/index.html ] and the lead editor of the report.
The decline has been propelled in part by generational change, as relatively non-Christian millennials reach adulthood and gradually replace the oldest and most Christian adults. But it is also because many former Christians, of all ages, have joined the rapidly growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or “nones”: a broad category including atheists, agnostics and those who adhere to “nothing in particular.”
The Pew survey [ http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ ], which included 35,000 adults, offers an unusually comprehensive account of religion in the United States because the Census Bureau does not ask Americans about their religion. Most other nongovernmental surveys do not interview enough adults to allow precise estimates, do not ask other detailed questions about religion or do not have older surveys for comparison.
The report does not offer an explanation for the decline of the Christian population, but the low levels of Christian affiliation among the young, well educated and affluent are consistent with prevailing theories for the rise of the unaffiliated, like the politicization of religion by American conservatives, a broader disengagement from all traditional institutions and labels, the combination of delayed and interreligious marriage, and economic development.
Over all, the religiously unaffiliated number 56 million and represent 23 percent of adults, up from 36 million and 16 percent in 2007, Pew estimates. Nearly half of the growth was from atheists and agnostics, whose tallies nearly doubled to 7 percent of adults. The remainder of the unaffiliated, those who describe themselves as having “no particular religion,” were less likely to say that religion was an important part of their lives than eight years ago.
The ranks of the unaffiliated have been bolstered by former Christians. Nearly a quarter of people who were raised as Christian have left the group, and ex-Christians now represent 19 percent of adults.
Attrition was most substantial among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics, who have declined in absolute numbers and as a share of the population since 2007. The acute decline in the Catholic population, which fell by roughly 3 million, is potentially a new development. Most surveys have found that the Catholic share of the population has been fairly stable over the last few decades, in no small part because it has been reinforced by migration from Latin America.
Not all religions or even Christian traditions declined so markedly. The number of evangelical Protestants dipped only slightly as a share of the population, by 1 percentage point, and actually increased in raw numbers.
Non-Christian faiths, like Judaism, Islam and Hinduism, generally held steady or increased their share of the population, reaching 5.9 percent of adults, up from 4.7 percent in 2007. Jewish adherence was steady at 1.9 percent of adults, a statistically insignificant increase of 0.2 percentage points from 1.7 percent in 2007. Adherence to Islam grew faster than any other major religious affiliation, rising by 0.5 percentage points over the last eight years, but Muslims still represent just 0.9 percent of adults in the United States.
Younger adults have been particularly likely to join the unaffiliated in recent years. In 2007, 25 percent of 18-to-26-year-olds were unaffiliated; now 34 percent of the same cohort is unaffiliated.
But the unaffiliated share of the population is increasing among older Americans as well. The Christian share of the population born before 1964 has dipped by 2 percentage points since 2007.
There are few signs that the decline in Christian America will slow. Although some might assume that young people will become more religious as they age, the Pew data gives reason to think otherwise.
“It’s not that they start unaffiliated and become religious,” Mr. Cooperman said. “In fact, it’s the opposite.”
At the same time, every new cohort has been less affiliated than the last, with even the youngest millennials proving less affiliated, at 36 percent, than older millennials, at 34 percent.
The changing religious composition of America has widespread political and cultural ramifications. Conservatives and Republicans, for example, have traditionally relied on big margins among white Christians to compensate for substantial deficits among nonwhite and secular voters. The declining white share of the population is a well-documented challenge to the traditional Republican coalition, but the religious dimension of the G.O.P.’s demographic challenge has received less attention, perhaps because of the dearth of data.
Mitt Romney received 79 percent support among white evangelicals, 59 percent among white Catholics, 54 percent among nonevangelical white Protestants, but only 33 percent among nonreligious white voters.
But others argue that the relationship between politics and religion might work the other way: The declining number of self-identified Christians could be the result of a political backlash [ http://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/volume%201/october/SocSci_v1_423to447.pdf ] against the association of Christianity with conservative political values.
“The two are now intertwined,” said Mike Hout, a professor of sociology at New York University. “You can’t use one to predict the other, because if the Republicans switched to more economic or immigration issues, then perhaps the rise of the unaffiliated will slow down.”
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/big-drop-in-share-of-americans-calling-themselves-christian.html [with comments]
--
Bill O'Reilly Blames The Decline Of American Religion On Hip-Hop
By Antonia Blumberg
Posted: 05/14/2015 12:30 pm EDT Updated: 05/14/2015 12:59 pm EDT
A new Pew Research report found that the number of Americans who identify as Christian dropped from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/pew-religious-landscape-survey-2014_n_7259770.html ] between 2007 and 2014, and conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly thinks he knows why.
In a Wednesday segment, the Fox News anchor said that "people of faith are being marginalized by a secular media and pernicious entertainment."
"The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people -- the group that is most likely to reject religion," he said. "Also, many movies and TV shows promote non-traditional values. If you are a person of faith, then the media generally thinks you are a loon."
O'Reilly's conclusion is flawed and "troubling" for many reasons, said the Rev. Tony Lee, the senior pastor at the Community of Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church. Lee noted that the pundit specifically did not mention rock, pop, country or any other genre of music.
"I think we need to be very careful about some of the coded language in that, because in many ways that is kind of using black culture as a scapegoat for the decline of Christianity," Lee said.
"People will blame hip-hop for everything," he added. "There is a much larger context of scapegoating of hip-hop."
Philip Bump at The Washington Post writes [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/13/bill-oreilly-blames-rap-music-for-the-decline-of-organized-religion-that-makes-no-sense/ ]:
We'll start by noting that O'Reilly -- like a remarkable number of pundits! -- apparently still thinks hip-hop is dominated by "gangster rap." Snoop Dogg is posing for photos with cops, guys. Kendrick Lamar, perhaps hip-hop's most respected artist, is being recognized for his community service. The '90s are over.
From rappers to religious scholars, many recognize the spirituality contained within much of hip-hop music, as well. Christian rapper Lecrae is one of many mainstream hip-hop artists today weaving religion into his songs.
"For me, my faith dictates everything I do, so no matter what I’m saying in my art, my faith is the driver for that," the rapper said in a 2014 interview [ http://www.religionnews.com/2014/09/26/interview-lecrae-on-rap-theology-billboard-success/ ] with Religion News Service. "That’s what I’d encourage people to understand as they listen to my music. It’s distinct. My worldview bleeds through my music."
Lecrae is "able to share the gospel past the confines of the church," Lee said, which is increasingly important for a younger generation. By focusing on the so-called "depravity" of hip-hop, O'Reilly fails to recognize the true implication of the Pew report and the real challenges the church faces today, Lee said.
"Millennials are not finding their place within church because the boomer generation is continuing to express the gospel in a language that is theirs," he argued. "My prayer is we will be able to turn the corner and will be able to reach back out to their generation."
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/bill-oreilly-hip-hop_n_7283556.html [with embedded non-YouTube version of the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_S16SGgYE (with comments), included above, and comments]
--
Court Transcripts: Bill O’Reilly’s Daughter Saw Him “Choking Her Mom”
Photo credit: Getty Images, AP
J.K. Trotter
5/20/15 3:00pm
Gawker has obtained partial transcripts from the custody trial at the center of Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly’s vicious [ http://gawker.com/5834808/how-bill-oreilly-tried-to-get-his-wifes-boyfriend-investigated-by-the-cops ] dispute [ http://gawker.com/5990571/bill-oreillys-divorce-is-so-ugly-god-got-involved ] with his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy. The documents, which record testimony given last year, confirm that the ex-couple’s teenage daughter told a court-appointed forensic examiner that she witnessed O’Reilly “choking her mom” as he “dragged her down some stairs” by the neck. The same transcripts also reveal that O’Reilly—who famously settled a lurid sexual harassment claim from one of his young female producers—told his daughter that her mother is an “adulterer”; that he struggles to control his rage around his family; and that his daughter regards him as an absentee father.
Gawker first reported [ http://gawker.com/bill-o-reilly-accused-of-domestic-violence-in-custody-b-1705006992 ] the domestic violence allegations against O’Reilly on Monday, citing a source familiar with the case. In response, O’Reilly provided a vague statement to Politico [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/bill-oreilly-domestic-abuse-allegation-false-207335.html ]: “All allegations against me in these circumstances are 100% false. I am going to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect my children and will not comment any further.” The transcripts we’ve acquired will help O’Reilly’s fans and critics alike judge that statement for themselves.
In the summer of 2014, the Nassau County Supreme Court justice overseeing the O’Reilly-McPhilmy custody dispute assigned a Manhattan psychologist named Larry Cohen [ https://plus.google.com/109118236367205743211/about ] to interview and assess each member of the family: Bill O’Reilly, Maureen McPhilmy, and their son and daughter. Cohen produced evaluations of their individual interviews and later testified in court about what he observed. The transcripts below draw from the cross-examination of Cohen at the Nassau County Supreme Court by McPhilmy’s attorney, Casey Greenfield (who has had her own struggles [ http://gawker.com/5534609/cnn-analyst-jeffrey-toobin-graciously-offered-to-pay-for-mistress-abortion ] with an errant father). Also present in the court room were O’Reilly’s attorney, Bernard Clair, and the independent attorney assigned to represent both children, Barbara Kopman.
At one point, Greenfield asked Cohen, who was under oath, whether his investigation had turned up any evidence of domestic violence in the O’Reilly-McPhilmy household. (Note: In this transcript, O’Reilly and McPhilmy’s daughter is identified as “M.”)
Q: In the course of your meetings with the children, did either of them describe any incidents of domestic violence between their parents?
A: Yes.
Q: And who was that?
A: M. reported—having seeing an incident where I believe she said her dad was choking her mom or had his hands around her neck and dragged her down some stairs.
Q: And?
MR. CLAIR: Your Honor, to the extent that that incident as alleged may have predated the signing of the agreement.
THE COURT: Counsel. Counsel, she asked the question, we got the answer. Let’s move on.
From the transcript itself:
This exchange lends additional context to O’Reilly’s quasi-denial. Considering his evasive language—“in these circumstances [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/bill-oreilly-domestic-abuse-allegation-false-207335.html ]”—he appears to be challenging either Cohen’s evaluation (if not necessarily accusing him of perjury) or accusing his daughter of lying about his behavior. In any case, it is impossible for O’Reilly to seriously claim that his daughter’s allegation of domestic violence did not arise in court.
According to a different part of the transcript, Cohen revealed that the daughter claimed that O’Reilly—identified as “Mr. Anonymous”—told her that her mother is an “adulterer.” O’Reilly’s daughter was 15 at the time of the testimony.
Q [Greenfield]: What sorts of things did M. tell you that Mr. Anonymous says about their mother?
A [Cohen]: That she is an adulterer, and that her husband is, M.’s new stepfather is not a good person, and oh, if she spends her time or more time at the mother’s home, it will ruin her life.
It is unclear whether McPhilmy, who has subsequently remarried, ever committed adultery. There is plenty of publicly available evidence—thanks to a 2004 sexual harassment lawsuit [ http://gawker.com/5380802/happy-bill-oreilly-loofah-day ] filed by former Fox News producer Andrea Mackris—that O’Reilly engaged in lewd, highly sexual behavior with at least one other woman while he was married to McPhilmy. O’Reilly reached an out-of-court settlement [ http://gawker.com/5380802/happy-bill-oreilly-loofah-day ] with Mackris, but not before she filed an incredible 22-page affidavit [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/oreilly-falafel-suit-turns-five ] detailing the precise methods of O’Reilly’s harassment, including transcripts from phone conversations in which the anchor insisted Mackris masturbate with a vibrator, bragged about attending “a sex show in Thailand,” and promised to fondle her vagina using a “falafel thing.”
Another portion of the transcript shows that the daughter regarded O’Reilly—who has sanctimoniously [ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/07/25/oreilly_liberals_are_running_from_the_truth_on_black_families.html ] and repeatedly [ http://fair.org/blog/2014/08/06/fox-bill-oreilly-and-young-black-men/ ] criticized [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/oreilly-goes-off-on-baltimore-black-communities-need-to-police-themselves/ ] the “black community” [ http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2014/11/12/bill-oreilly-mistreating-black-americans/ ] for failing to parent children appropriately—as an absentee father.
Q [O’Reilly attorney]: And M. reported to you that her father was never around to have a relationship with her for 11 years, correct?
A [Cohen]: That’s what she said.
Q: And the word, when I emphasize the word “never,” that was her word, was it not?
A: Yes, it was.
When O’Reilly was around, he was apparently prone to bouts of rage so disruptive he occasionally had to go outside and punch a tree. Under questioning from McPhilmy’s attorney, Cohen relays his observations from interviews he conducted with O’Reilly about his anger problems.
Q [Greenfield]: And Mr. Anonymous himself admitted that he has trouble with impatience and he sometimes goes quite ballistic?
A [Cohen]: He did use the word “going ballistic,” but it was on limited occasions he did say that, but I think it was on limited occasions.
Q: Did you ask him what he meant by that, by “ballistic”?
A: I don’t recall. I think I did but I don’t recall.
Q: Yes, on page 53. 53, middle, pretty much half-way down?
A: Yes, I see it. Well, when I asked dad what he meant by going ballistic, he said that he would, quote, act like an idiot, close quote, which he can no longer do at his age or he can institute Plan B, which would be going out, hitting a tree or yelling and moaning. He said he worked hard to keep his emotions under control.
In the same cross-examination, Cohen testified that McPhilmy—“Mrs. Anonymous”—detailed the impact of O’Reilly’s rage on her, and that their daughter found his temper to be “scary”:
Q: And Mrs. Anonymous told you about Mr. Anonymous’ tantruming (sic)?
A: She used that word.
Q: And M. described him as flipping out and being quote, scary and demeaning?
A: She used those words.
Q: And that sometimes that makes her cry?
A: She said that.
Taken together, these revelations indicate that O’Reilly has brought nearly every feature of his tremendously profitable public persona—his absurd moralizing [ http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/05/27/decline-morality-in-america/ ], his obscene religiosity [ http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/04/03/bill-oreilly-war-on-christianity-getting-even-worse/ ], his habitual cruelty toward women [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/23/36966/watters-ambush/ ]—to bear on his own family, with predictable consequences.
Neither O’Reilly nor McPhilmy have responded to requests for comment. A voicemail left at Dr. Cohen’s office was not returned.
Copyright 2015 Gawker (emphasis in original)
http://gawker.com/court-transcripts-bill-o-reilly-s-daughter-saw-him-ch-1704717356 [with
( http://gawker.com/man-you-should-use-the-real-thing-no-reason-to-use-tha-1705870361 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy-Y3HJNU_s {with comments}) comments]
===
Now I lay me down to sleep
Edison Talking Doll (full height, front view, with reproduction dress), source of 'Now I lay me down to sleep'
[this and additional images via http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=A4B96C5C-155D-451F-67626F0B677097A6 ]
Title: Now I lay me down to sleep (English bedtime prayer)
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
Amen.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_I_Lay_Me_Down_to_Sleep ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_England_Primer ]
Record type: Edison Talking Doll cylinder, brown wax (production design)
Recording date and location: c. February to May 1890, Edison Phonograph Works, West Orange, New Jersey
From collection: David Heitz
Provenance of the cylinder: Unknown.
Source of the digital audio: Collectors David Heitz, Peter Dilg, and Chuck Azzalina digitized this cylinder on February 11, 2002, at the home of David Heitz, using Dilg's custom-made stylus-playback apparatus: 0.75 mil ball stylus, Pickering V15 cartridge, and a DC gearhead motor to turn the doll mandrel.
Now I lay me down to sleep (Restored audio)
[audio embedded]
Edison Talking Doll cylinder, brown wax
Heitz collection
Recording date: c. February to May 1890
Playback speed: 90 RPM
Duration: 20 seconds
Credit / Author:David Heitz collection
Download Original File: http://www.nps.gov/av/ner/avElement/edis-heitz-dilg-edison-c-now-i-lay-me-20020211-90rpm-restored.mp3
323 KB
Now I lay me down to sleep (Audio not restored)
[audio embedded]
Edison Talking Doll cylinder, brown wax
Heitz collection
Recording date: c. February to May 1890
Playback speed: 90 RPM
Duration: 17 seconds
Credit / Author:David Heitz collection
Download Original File: http://www.nps.gov/av/ner/avElement/edis-heitz-dilg-edison-c-now-i-lay-me-20020211-90rpm.mp3
285 KB
http://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/photosmultimedia/now-i-lay-me-down-to-sleep-edison-talking-doll-cylinder-brown-wax-heitz-collection.htm [complete collection at/via http://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/photosmultimedia/hear-edison-talking-doll-sound-recordings.htm ], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryN2iIepa0s [with comments; another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5mnQfmk9sg (no comments yet)] [more at/via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/11/thomas-edisons-talking-dolls_n_7259194.html (with comments)]
===
this is the concluding part 5 of a 5-part post; part 4 is the post to which this is a reply
the following list of 'see also' linkings covers and is common to all 5 parts of this post
--
in addition to (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113381741 and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13376053 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=25151993 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32565156 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91147164 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39632707 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=56102844 (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66822383 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77608102 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=90402843 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94499157 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=40248523 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=49466173 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113637562 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53837793 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=57053351 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63537901 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71940978 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80446524 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81122451 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81513940 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=87137870 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94081957 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=95424311 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66812099 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66821790 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69717811 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70131094 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70426261 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=87181145 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79360305 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=60698174 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81837278 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82222573 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=90153301 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83420759 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84115869 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84194478 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86436069 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91324036 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=96759462 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91368986 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=93675334 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108384353 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112503588 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112556765 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112781214 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97217659 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97287340 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97287026 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=96759860 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97347214 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=97804129 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=98339780 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=100650957 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=102001887 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103565432 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104020025 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104301261 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104317832 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105164907 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105242008 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105614785 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106732567 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456218 and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456362 and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456392 and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110456471 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110581235 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111804225 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111983905 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112434098 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112630346 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113055842 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113421430 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113454687 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113459772 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113494423 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113513448 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113521766 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113550970 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113603070 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113633619 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113633795 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113634218 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113697467 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113709590 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113725750 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113734510 and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113757202 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113742734 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113754948 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113759693 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113793307 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113793712 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113818183 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113847936 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113878246 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113892049 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113910001 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113910791 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113923660 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113953512 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113957823 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113969749 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113971588 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113980777 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113981101 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114004281 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113989280 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114022502 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114033550 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113991421 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113992287 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113996990 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114034672 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114001066 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114004452 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114030985 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114035979 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114038063 and preceding (and any future following)
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
