Carson Blames ‘Secular Progressive Movement” For His Lies

Current Republican presidential front-runner Ben Carson has faced heightened media scrutiny in the past week as the accuracy of numerous stories from his 1990 book, Gifted Hands, are called into question — a scrutiny Carson attributes to the “secular progressive movement.”

The latest controversies stem from whether his recollection of being admitted to West Point was true, if he indeed attempted to stab someone, whether he did actually protect white students from violence during the riots following Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder, and if he was voted the “most honest student” at Yale University.

In an interview with NBC News’ Chris Jansing on Meet The Press Sunday, Carson blamed the “secular progressive movement” for many of the stories reporting on claims made in Gifted Hands. However, the most prominent articles calling his stories into question have come from Politico and the Wall Street Journal, both of which are owned by conservatives: Robert Allbritton and Rupert Murdoch.

Carson said the news stories are coming out now because he is considered a threat to “the progressive, the secular progressive movement in this country.”

“I’m a very big threat because you know they can look at the polling data, they can tell that I’m the candidate who’s most likely to beat Hillary Clinton,” Carson told Jansing.

Last week, Politico reported that Carson never applied or was admitted to West Point. Carson never explicitly said he applied to West Point but said he was offered a “full scholarship.” Carson said he met with Gen William Westmoreland, who offered a scholarship to then 17-year-old Carson. West Point said they do not offer full scholarships, according to the report.

There were also questions of whether or not Carson’s story that he attempted to stab someone is actually true, as it has changed substantially over the years, and students do not recall Carson’s recollection of protecting white students from violence in the aftermath of the Martin Luther King Jr. murder.

In his interview with Jansing, Carson was asked about his account that he was accepted into West Point. Carson said he had nothing to apologize for, that the media should focus on “big major scandals,” and that he wanted to talk about policy issues and threats facing the U.S., such as cyber attacks and the electrical grid.

After Jansing asked if Carson attempted to stab his own brother, Carson did not confirm or deny whether his brother was the man in the story.

“We spoke to Steve Choice, I don’t know if you remember him, you went to grade school with him,” Jansing said. “He said that the only time he remembers you having a temper is, and I’m going to quote him here: ‘They came flying out of the house, Benny was slim — a skinny ass. Curtis worked out. Pumped up. Can’t see why he was running from Ben, unless he knew something we didn’t.’ Was your brother afraid of you?”

“Uh, I don’t think he was afraid of me. But he certainly knew about my temper,” Carson said.

When asked if his brother was the person he attempted to stab, Carson answered, “I’m not giving any information about who the person was that I tried to knife… I won’t say it was, I won’t say it wasn’t.”

When Jansing asked if he was trying to protect his brother by leaving his name out of the story, Carson said, “I would not want anybody actually to be put under the microscope because of my doing.”

The media scrutiny Carson received last week was not confined to his 1990 book, however. Other major news stories included Carson claiming that the pyramids were built to store grain in a 1998 Andrews University commencement address and his remarks over undocumented immigrants’ children born in the U.S. Carson said it was “not intended” for children of undocumented immigrants to have birthright citizenship.

[Cross-Posted from thinkprogress]

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ITS TIME FOR CHUCK TODD TO GO

While the country — and South Carolina, in particular — is once again debating racism in America, NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday offered a video of men in prison expressing regret for their own gun violence. All of the men in the video are black.

The segment was part of Sunday’s show, which focused on the recent killing of nine black people at a bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina. The alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, is accused of making racist statements during the rampage and in an online manifesto that describes black people as “stupid and violent.” He has been seen in photos online holding a Confederate flag and wearing the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and white-ruled Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

“The circumstances you are about to see are very different from the racist violence in Charleston,”Meet the Press host Chuch Todd said in the introduction to the video.

“But their lessons remain important, and we simply ask you to look at this as a colorblind issue,” he said.

“The last thing we wanted was to cloud the discussion of the topic,” Todd wrote on the NBC website after receiving a wave of negative feedback on social media about the video.

“The original decision to air this segment was made before Wednesday’s massacre. However, the staff and I had an internal debate about whether to show it at all this week. When we discussed putting it off, that conversation centered around race and perception – not the conversation we wanted the segment to invoke,” he said.

In a panel discussion responding to the blowback, Todd said, “It wasn’t meant to be a black and white issue. And I understand maybe it’s one of those moments when people are only seeing through black and white.”

The church where the shooting took place, Emanuel A.M.E., is historically significant for its role in the history of black religious freedom in the South. Among other things, last week’s shooting has raised questions over whether it is appropriate to fly the Confederate flag — a “symbol of racial hatred” outside the South Carolina statehouse. The shootings are being investigated as a hate crime.

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Roger West

MADDOW SCHOOLS THE TALIBANGELICALS

Ultra social conservatives came out in full force on NBC’s Meet The Press on the Sunday after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) of the Heritage Foundation and Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) both claimed the court’s decision to recognize same-sex marriages sacrificed children’s wellbeing — only to have their arguments promptly slapped down by MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and David Gregory.

DeMint said the court had privileged “the desires of adults” over “the best environment for children,” arguing that heterosexual marriage is “the environment where children can thrive and succeed.” Maddow immediately pointed out that this argument ignores the Meechildren of same-sex couples, who have up till now been treated as second-class citizens under the law:

Justice Kennedy addressed that issue specifically in his ruling. He says that by denying marriage rights to same-sex couples who have kids, you’re humiliating and demeaning those kids. By denying their families equal protection under the law by the parents who are raising them and who love them and who make their family. So we can put it in the interests of children, but I think that cuts both ways. And the ruling cuts against that argument. I mean, gay people exist. There’s nothing we can do in public policy can do to make more of us exist or less of us exist. And you guys for a generation have argued that public policy ought to demean gay people as a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist. But you don’t make any less of us exist, you are just arguing for more discrimination. And more discrimination doesn’t make straight people’s lives any better.

Maddow slams DeMint



Later in the program, Huelskamp tried to justify his introduction of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage by touting debunked research that supposedly shows heterosexual parents are better for kids. Gregory challenged the congressman, insisting that he admit the research is bogus:


David Gregory debunks Huelskamp




Huelskamp ducked the debunk and again claimed that “the court decided the desires of adults should trump the needs of children.” Nevertheless, Gregory is correct that the research cited by marriage equality opponents actually has nothing to do with same-sex couples. In fact, the largest study of families with same-sex parents recently concluded these children are not only thriving, but even beat the national average for overall health and family cohesion.

That is the point that is so frequently lost in all this. All of us are citizens and are entitled to equal rights under the law. We used to set aside the group called "women" and say that they are "less-than" and could not vote. We used to set aside a group called blacks and say they could not marry outside their own race; we used to set aside a group called blacks again and say that they could not vote in spite of the fact that it was their right under our Constitution. We used to set aside a group called "gays" and say that because our own particular religion did not like them, we could refuse to let them marry. We have grown up, matured, evolved and we realize that we were wrong.

For some people, admitting that they were wrong is like tearing out their heart and they just can't do it. They go to the Old Testament, ignoring most of it, but forget the New Testament. Jesus said, "There is neither Greek nor Jew, male or female, gentile or Christian" (paraphrased here) and that we are all equal in his sight.

Talibangelicals believe in Jesus, but not what he stood for, nor for how he defied authority because it was right. They don't understand that Jesus was liberal in his practices and he broke all the old, wrong rules.

It is not the purview of the government (state or federal) to offer benefits to some citizens and not others - end of story. It doesn't matter about children, or what some think is God's will, or what anyone thinks pro or con about same-sex marriage - It does not matter, period. If there is a government benefit offered, which marriage as presently treated by government surely is, the benefit must be offered to all.

Talibangelicals want us to believe that they have a direct line to God. My thought, the more convinced you are that you know what God wants, the less you should be taken seriously.



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Roger West