The Coming Trump/Pence War on LGBT Americans

As the previous post noted, the number of LGBT Americans is growing as is their acceptance by larger and larger portions of the general population.  Indeed, 68% of Americans now support same sex marriage or some form of legal recognition of same sex relationships.  The exception to this trend?  The Christofascist and falsely named "family values" organization, many of which are certified hate groups, and, of course, scamvangelists like Pat Robertson and similar carnival barkers who use religion to fleece the ignorant and gullible while enriching themselves.  Sadly, Mike Pence is himself one of these religious extremists and Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Fuhrer, sold his soul to the Christofascist leadership in exchange for evangelical support.  Trump is now keeping his bargain with these foul people by way of his cabinet nominees and legislation he has promised to support. Ben Carson displayed the war about to be launched against the LGBT community when he said he opposed "extra rights" for LGBT Americans.  Seemingly, in Carson addled mind, being treated equally and not being subjected to discrimination for which other demographics already enjoy have legal protections constitutes "extra rights."  Unfortunately, Carson is the norm among Trump's cabinet appointees.  LGBTQ Nation looks at Carson's disturbing view of LGBT citizens and taxpayers.  Here are excerpts:

Ben Carson was asked about his position on LGBT housing discrimination and said he opposed “extra rights” for LGBT people.

In confirmation hearings for the Housing and Urban Development Secretary-nominee  on Thursday, Senator Sherrod Brown pressed Carson on whether he believed the HUD had “a duty” to take actions to reduce anti-LGBT discrimination.

“Of course, I would enforce all the laws of the land,” Carson responded. “And I believe that all Americans regardless of any of the things that you mentioned should be protected by the law. What I have mentioned in the past is the fact that no one gets extra rights. Extra rights means you get to redefine everything for everybody else. That doesn’t seem very fair to me.”

Later, in response to a question from Senator Cortez Masto, Carson said he would “absolutely” protect the LGBTQ communinity from discrimination.

It is unclear what exactly Carson meant in his answer. There is no statutory law that prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and discrimination on the basis of gender identity is only actionable under the Fair Housing Act’s ban on sex-based discrimination. Discrimination is only prohibited by the HUD’s Equal Access Rule that bans discrimination in FHA-backed loans.

The term “extra rights” is also unclear in this context. Carson defined it as “to redefine everything for everybody else,” an apparent reference to same-sex marriage rights, which the HUD does not regulate.

Trump Is A Symptom of America's Embrace of Ignorance

Once upon a time, America - and even the Republican Party - embraced knowledge and science and academics and the highly educated were respected.  But then something happened.  The Republican Party was largely hijacked by right wing Christians, those I call Christofascists, who hold science, knowledge and anything that questions their myth and legend based belief in open contempt.  That corruption of the GOP has been compounded by Donald Trump who has embraced and would normalize white supremacists.  A piece in Psychology Today looks at this frightening trend which threatens not only America's position as a leader in the world, but also the constitutional framework laid down by the Founding Fathers.  Here are some highlights: 

The United States is tumbling fast toward a dangerous place. In just the last twenty years or so it has become increasingly acceptable for national political candidates to be openly and obviously dumb about things that matter. More than okay, dumb is now a selling point, an admirable quality that separates uninformed politicians from despised scientists, historians, and other educated experts. Empty-headed politicians and their handlers were once tasked with figuring out how to fool voters into believing that the candidate was smart and competent. Today it no longer seems necessary to hide or pretend. Vote for me because I’m as dumb as you are!

The United States may be on the verge of electing Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who has relied on conspiracy theories, fear, anger, and volume to win over the mob. But Trump’s success to date is a mere symptom of something far worse. He is but the latest candidate in a surge of loud and proud stupidity that threatens to reshape American culture long-term if it hasn’t already. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Ben Carson, and other such candidates achieved national political prominence in recent years to show that anti-intellectual reality distortion can gain traction now better than ever before. Trump’s lack of knowledge about government, history, science, current events, national security, foreign and domestic policy, and the military may be alarming but it does not make him unique.

[T]his problem is larger than Republican vs. Democrat and contrasting political ideas. Intelligence and knowledge should be valued by all in a way that political labels can’t overcome. Voters ought to make the minimal effort necessary to recognize the wisdom in wisdom.

To be clear, for those who find it difficult to see over the walls of tribal politics, I stress that the problem addressed here stands apart from political philosophies. This has nothing to do with small vs. big government, gay marriage, tax rates, gun control, abortion, or any of the other usual points of contention. This is about millions of Americans failing to value intelligence, critical thinking, and a rational worldview when choosing candidates to support.

Trump’s critics have accused him of being racist, sexist, corrupt, a corrupt capitalist, war monger, fascist, and ego maniac. But such charges are not nearly as worrisome as Trump’s demonstrated lack of awareness and understanding of important topics. For example, a debate moderator asked him a question about America’s nuclear triad (the system of planes, land-based missiles, and subs that can deliver nuclear weapons) and it was clear that Trump didn’t know what nuclear triad meant.  . . . . Many people have expressed their concern about Trump having his finger on the nuclear button because they feel he is too sensitive and temperamental. The greater concern, however, ought to be that Trump doesn’t seem to know much about what “the button” does when pushed.

America can survive a racist or sexist president. There have been more than a few of those in the past. America can suffer through incompetent and corrupt presidents. We have had those, too. But I’m not sure it can endure many leaders who embrace, flaunt, and champion stupidity. The new dunce worship threatens everything good about America.

We all labor within a steep-walled canyon of ignorance. What has changed is that fewer Americans seem to agree that scaling those walls toward knowledge is a good and worthwhile thing to do. Many now seem content to lie down and wallow in the ignorance. And this is the greater problem. Consider what a Trump presidency might mean given his vigorous embrace of stupidity. Ben Carson—a man Trump has mentioned as a possible cabinet member—thinks the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and humans once coexisted with the stegosaurus and triceratops. Yes, a man who would be incompetent as an elementary school teacher might be the nation’s Education Secretary. 

[W]e can’t just laugh along and enjoy the circus because national leaders make decisions that can get people killed. President George W. Bush, a Yale and Harvard graduate, was not the complete imbecile his critics charged. But even his most loyal supporters never described him as a policy wonk or deep-thinking intellectual with a keen eye for world affairs. And, sure enough, this mattered. It was revealed after the invasion of Iraq, for example, that Bush knew nothing about the centuries-old tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Bush had never heard of, much less studied and considered, this obvious and foreseeable powder keg that turned out to be the very thing that sent the Iraq War spiraling down into a still-unsettled catastrophe that has cost many thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

We must abandon the peculiar desire to recognize a peer or even an inferior in a national leader. Let’s admire and elevate people who are brighter, more educated, and more capable than us. Leaders should be out in front leading because they are the best. We don’t need presidents who shuffle alongside of us or, worse, behind us. America is a huge country with a population of more than three hundred million people. It’s not as if the supply of bright people has been exhausted. . . . . This is an easy fix. . . . . All we need is a new awareness movement to sell the public on an old idea. Spread the word: Presidents should be smart and well informed.

Ben Carson Aides Resign Over Conflict with Closeted Adviser

As noted in a prior post, the already troubled Ben Carson campaign is being wracked by rumors about Carson friend and non-titled adviser Armstrong Williams who has faced male-on-male sexual harassment allegations.  Now, campaign manager Barry Bennett and communications director Doug Watts have resigned due to apparent conflict with Williams, a long time Carson friend and confident.  Talking Points Memo looks at the development and one can only wonder when Carson opponents try to fan the flames over Williams.  Here are highlights:

Two top aides to Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson resigned from the campaign and predicted a wave of departures to come Thursday, casting the troubled campaign into uncertainty with just a month until the Iowa caucuses.

Campaign manager Barry Bennett and communications director Doug Watts resigned over conflict with Armstrong Williams, a Carson adviser the campaign has said has no official role, according to the Des Moines Register.

The Register later reported Deputy Campaign Manager Lisa Coen had also left the campaign.
Days before Christmas, Armstrong and Williams invited The Washington Post and Associated Press for a sit-down at the candidate's Maryland home about upcoming staffing changes to the campaign – without Bennett's knowledge, the Post reported.

"I spent the holidays hearing every day that I had lost my job,” Bennett told the Post in an interview Thursday. “My relationship with Carson was always good and friendly but being campaign manager in that kind of situation, where outside advisers are in essence driving the campaign and setting up interviews and raising questions about everything, it’s not the right atmosphere.”

Bennett said he thought airing the campaign's dirty laundry to the press was a "stupid move," one that Williams pushed for.

On Thursday, Williams told the Post he heard the news of Bennett and Watts' departures on Twitter.
"There’s enough pain today, enough feelings that have been damaged in some ways," Williams said. "I’m already being blamed, as I knew I would be, but I would never criticize Barry and Doug."

The Post's Robert Costa reported the campaign was in "chaos" over the news.

I have long viewed Carson as a whack job and we can only hope that this is the beginning of the end of his campaign.

Larry Flynt Offers $1Million For Proof "Outing" Ben Carson's Top Advisor

Click image to enlarge

Just when you think that things in the GOP clown car cannot possibly get any more crazy, another shoe drops.  Now, adding the the circus atmosphere, porn magnate Larry Flynt has published an open letter - see the image above - accusing GOP idiot savant, Ben Carson of hypocrisy based on Carson's attacks on gays even as his top advisor, Armstrong Williams, may be gay and has a possible history of sexually harassing males.  Adding to the fun, Flynt has offered $1 Million to anyone who can provide proof that  Williams is a "predator" who harasses men.   Here are highlights from Hollywood Reporter:

In an open letter set to be published Monday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Larry Flynt is offering "between $50,000 and $1 million" to anyone with proof that a top adviser to Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is guilty of sexual harassment.

"Dr. Carson, Heal Thyself!" the Hustler publisher begins in the paid ad, then goes on to describe a nearly 20-year-old lawsuit against Armstrong Williams, a conservative radio personality whom Carson has described as being part of a "package deal" should he be elected president. 

"Armstrong Williams, your brother in faith and the person you say you trust more than anyone else outside of your immediate family," Flynt writes, "settled a lawsuit out of court after affidavits provided allegations that he initiated unwanted sexual advances toward other men."

In 1998, Williams was accused by former personal trainer Stephen Gregory of more than 50 separate incidents of sexual harassment. In the filing, Gregory says that Williams repeatedly "kissed him on the mouth, grabbed his buttocks and genitals and climbed into bed with him on business trips."

When Gregory refused the advances, Gregory claimed in the suit, Williams retaliated by firing him. Gregory sought $200,000 in damages but ultimately settled with Williams out of court.

In his letter, Flynt accuses Carson of being "a hypocrite" for associating with Williams. "You have linked gays with bestiality and the North American Man/Boy Love Association. You have opposed same-sex marriage, accusing marriage equality advocates of 'directly attacking the relationship between God and his people,'" Flynt asserts (accurately). "Yet, you have partnered with an accused sexual predator."

Flynt says he will pay for "confirmable information" relating to the "curious relationship" between Williams and Gregory.

Flynt has a long history of offering hefty cash payouts to prove conservative politicians are guilty of unlawful, unsavory and hypocritical behavior. At the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he offered $1 million for evidence that Bill Clinton's Republican foes had committed acts of adultery. In 2012, he put up a similar bounty for stories of "infidelity, sexual impropriety or corruption” involving members of Congress.

Carson's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

GOP Dismiss Own Responsibility for Anti-Abortion Extremism; Cruz: Shooter Was a "Transgender Leftist Activist"

Carly Fiorina - who has made the worse false statements against Planned Parenthood

Overheated rhetoric and fabricated and false "facts" - outright lies might be an more apt description - often set the stage for violent acts.   And no one disseminates more deliberate lies and falsehoods than the "godly Christian" crowd be it about Planned Parenthood or LGBT citizens.  Yet when violence results from such efforts these same hate merchants feign shock, surprise and denial over their own the consequences of their handiwork.  The same holds true to political whores within the Republican Party, who parrot the same lies and dangerous rhetoric as they prostitute themselves to the ugliest elements of the party base.  An example of this phenomenon was on display as a number of the GOP presidential candidates condemned the murders at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility out of one side of their mouths even as they dismissed any responsibility for repeating false and inflammatory religious extremist propaganda.  The Washington Post looks at this disgusting behavior as does Think Progress.  Here are highlights from the Post:

Several Republican presidential candidates on Sunday condemned the attack on a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs but stopped short of agreeing with liberal critics who say that fiery antiabortion rhetoric contributed to the shooting.

“It’s obviously a tragedy. Nothing justifies this,” former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Any protesters should always be peaceful. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter or pro-life protesters.”

Calls to defund Planned Parenthood through congressional action have escalated in recent months amid a protracted national debate about the ethics of collecting fetal tissue for research.

That dialogue was cast in a grim light after reports that the suspected Colorado gunman is said to have used the phrase “no more baby parts’’ while discussing his motives for the attack, as reported by The Washington Post on Saturday. Liberal critics of antiabortion activism have linked escalating rhetoric on the right with Friday’s attack, including Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

“We’ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months,” Cowart said in a statement. “That environment breeds acts of violence.”

Fiorina took a particularly hard line against Planned Parenthood during the second Republican presidential debate, held in September. In one instance, she described “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”

That characterization struck an emotional chord with voters but was ultimately proven to be an inaccurate representation. Though no video showing what she described was found to exist, Fiorina has held that her depiction was accurate.

Carson did not directly address antiabortion rhetoric but did warn of increasing political divisions in the country.    “If we can get rid of the rhetoric from either side and actually talk about the facts, I think that's when we begin to make progress,” he said. “And, you know, a lot of people, when they don't have facts, when they don't have a good backup, that's when the rhetoric starts.

Ben Carson's remark about facts is ridiculous since he is the one with no facts to back up his batshitery.  The most dis gusting of all, however is Ted Cruz who described Planned Parenthood shooter as  a "transgendered leftist activist."   Here are excerpts from Think Progress:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is the latest presidential candidate trying to downplay the role anti-abortion rhetoric may have played in motivating the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs Friday afternoon. When a reporter asked him at an Iowa campaign stop Sunday evening about suspect Robert Lewis Dear saying he was motivated by “no more baby parts,” Cruz countered that he’s also been reported to be a “transgendered [sic] leftist activist.”

Cruz explained, “We know that he was a man registered to vote as a woman.” This discrepancy on Dear’s voter registration was first reported by The Gateway Pundit, a self-described “right-of-center news website,” under the claim that he “identifies as [a] woman.” Conservatives have since run with the claim that Dear is transgender.

There is actually no evidence to suggest that he is transgender, nor a “leftist,” nor any kind of activist. In fact, all of the available information suggests he was none of those things.

But since before the shooting was even resolved on Friday, conservatives have been clinging to such discrepancies in an attempt to suggest that it had little to do with the issue of abortion. When a witness called MSNBC Friday afternoon and indicated that the shooting had come from the direction of the Chase bank, a building that was between her location and the Planned Parenthood, conservatives invented an entirely new narrative claiming that the incident was a bank robbery gone wrong and that the shooter had simply hidden in the Planned Parenthood when he was unable to get away. Colorado Springs police debunked this story before the situation was over, clarifying that he had not entered any other buildings at any point.

Dear’s reference to “baby parts” clearly refers to deceptively edited videos suggesting that Planned Parenthood was selling parts of aborted fetuses for a profit. The claims were quickly debunked; in fact, the cut footage from one of the surreptitiously recorded videos even shows the targeted doctor saying, “Nobody should be ‘selling’ tissue. That’s just not the goal here.” The myth, nevertheless, has persisted.

 

Trump Drops to Third Place in Iowa Poll

While it is far too early to know if the trend will continue, a new Iowa State University and WHO-HD poll shows Donald Trump falling to third place in that state.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that GOP idiot savant Ben Carson is in first place.  The take away is that perhaps even the Republican Party base is getting cold feet over Trumps increasingly fascist rhetoric.  But with Carson polling in first places, it's obvious that Iowa Republicans are still insane and not living in touch with objective reality.  In second place is the self-prostituting Marco Rubio.   WHO-TV has details on the poll findings.  Here are highlights:

A poll released Wednesday from Iowa State University and WHO-HD shows Ben Carson in the top spot among Republicans seeking their party's nomination for president.

The poll shows 27.2 percent of Republicans likely to participate in the Iowa Caucuses would support Carson, a former neurosurgeon. With 16.7 percent, Marco Rubio comes in ahead of businessman Donald Trump, who is in third place with 14.7 percent. Ted Cruz comes in fourth with 8.9 percent.

Mack Shelley, Iowa State University professor and chair of political science and professor of statistics, said there is still an ebb and flow of support among the large field of GOP contenders. “That can make a huge difference in that fragmented electorate, where a candidate could ‘win’ the caucuses with only about 20 to 30 percent of the vote."

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, with 49.5 percent support, continues to lead in the three-way race. Bernie Sanders trails with 27.8 percent of respondents saying they would support the Vermont senator. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley receives 2.7 percent support in the poll.

"The contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination delegates in Iowa seems to have settled down to being in Hillary Clinton’s favor, barring some major personal or policy issue arising between now and Feb. 1,” said Shelley.

Is Ben Carson Finally (and Belatedly) Finished?

The 2016 GOP presidential nominee clown car continues to be a train wreck and a frightening one at that.  The good news? Ben Carson, the GOP's idiot savant du jour, seems to finally falling in the polls.  Between being utterly unqualified for the presidency and faced with increased scrutiny in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, GOP voters apparently are belatedly realizing that Carson has no business in the White House or any elected office.  The scary part is that a significant number of Republicans are either so stupid or crazy (or both) that Carson ever rose to second place in numerous polls.  A piece in Salon looks at what we can only hope is the beginning of Carson's implosion.  Here are highlights:

Ben Carson has had a great run. He has no experience, no knowledge of the issues, and no real inclination to learn the things he has to learn in order to run for office. In every debate so far, he’s embarrassed himself with meandering non-answers. Oftentimes it’s not clear Carson even understands the question he’s been asked, and that’s pretty much the case across topics.

Remarkably, none of that has mattered in this race. Carson has slithered his way to the top of the polls in recent months, and he appeared well-positioned at least until the Iowa caucuses. Carson’s only real competition thus far has been Trump.
But things have changed.   It appears the recent terrorist attacks in Paris have awakened GOP primary voters from their slumber – well, sort of. And that’s bad news for Carson, who just had one of his worst weeks as a presidential candidate. In case you missed it, Carson stumbled last week when he mistakenly claimed that China was militarily involved in Syria. He then failed to name the nations he would ask to join a coalition against ISIS.

Things spiraled further out of control for the retired neurosurgeon when his own foreign policy adviser questioned his understanding of and interest in the issues.

Even in a party that devalues experience and champions know-nothingism, this is a potential death knell for Carson’s campaign.

The attacks in Paris, for better or worse, have pushed national security and foreign policy to the top of the Republican agenda. Discussions about ISIS and Syria and Iraq will dominate the debate for the foreseeable future. Carson sounds like a fatuous gasbag on virtually all topics save for neuroscience, but he’s especially bad on foreign policy.

And his numbers are starting to reflect that.  A NBC poll released last week shows that Trump has solidified his frontrunner spot in the wake of Paris, mostly because of his openly fascistic calls to surveil Mosques, reinstate waterboarding, and register all Muslims in a “database.” Carson, however, who was tied with Trump as recently as two weeks ago, has dropped 8 points and is now tied with Ted Cruz at 18 percent.

Things look worse for Carson in Iowa, where his evangelical base is most concentrated. A report by Politico over the weekend confirms that Carson is in trouble. The terror attacks have changed the conversation, and Carson is the obvious loser. “He’s a great guy, he’s fun to listen to, but I didn’t hear anything substantive,” said one Iowa-based GOP voter, who now ranks national security as an “extremely high” priority.

Carson’s downward slide is likely to continue in the coming weeks. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and it’s too late to pretend otherwise. Unlike Trump, who at least has an obnoxious but successful tough guy shtick, Carson’s nice guy routine won’t play well in this political climate.

All of this is great news for Ted Cruz. Cruz doesn’t have any meaningful foreign policy experience, but he is an active U.S. Senator and, more importantly, he’s quite good at sounding like he knows what he’s talking about. His rhetorical gifts will serve him well in this debate. Cruz can pander to Christians as well or better than Carson, and he knows it. Having some actual experience as a politician will make him far more appealing to conservatives in Iowa and elsewhere who want their foreign policy bravado served with a dash of religious lunacy.

Advisers: Carson Doesn't Understand Foreign Policy Issues

While many of the white Christofascists of the Republican Party base have surprisingly rallied to Ben Carson (surprising because they loath a black man in the White House in general) thanks to Carson insane religiosity, the GOP debates and the growing complexities of foreign affairs issues are exposing Carson's ignorance, especially in the area of foreign policy.  Even his advisers are admitting that Carson is over his head - I'd say WAY over his head - and the question becomes whether his increasingly obvious unfitness and lack of knowledge will finally end his luster with the portion of the GOP base most out of touch from objective reality.  A piece in the New York Times looks at Carson's adviser's efforts to deal with the man's blatant ignorance.  Note that Carson's only paid foreign policy adviser is out of Liberty University, a continual embarrassment to the Commonwealth of Virginia and gathering place for Christofascist nutcases. Here are article excerpts:

Ben Carson’s remarks on foreign policy have repeatedly raised questions about his grasp of the subject, but never more seriously than in the past week, when he wrongly asserted that China had intervened militarily in Syria and then failed, on national television, to name the countries he would call on to form a coalition to fight the Islamic State.

Faced with increasing scrutiny about whether Mr. Carson, who leads in some Republican presidential polls, was capable of leading American foreign policy, two of his top advisers said in interviews that he had struggled to master the intricacies of the Middle East and national security and that intense tutoring was having little effect.

“Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East,” said Duane R. Clarridge, a top adviser to Mr. Carson on terrorism and national security. He also said Mr. Carson needed weekly conference calls briefing him on foreign policy so “we can make him smart.”

As the deadly assaults in Paris claimed by the Islamic State reframe the presidential race, the candidates’ foreign policy credentials are suddenly under scrutiny. And Mr. Carson has attracted extra attention because his statements give rise to questions about where, as a retired neurosurgeon without government experience, he turns for information and counsel on complex global issues. 

But the briefings do not always seem to sink in, Mr. Clarridge said. After Mr. Carson struggled on “Fox News Sunday” to say whom he would call first to form a coalition against the Islamic State, Mr. Clarridge called Mr. Williams in frustration. “We need to have a conference call once a week where his guys roll out the subjects they think will be out there, and we can make him smart,” Mr. Clarridge said he told Mr. Williams.

Once written off by political insiders, Mr. Carson has rocketed to the top tier of candidates and has traded off a lead in recent polls with Donald J. Trump.

But the stress of his ascent has revealed an inexperienced political operation and a lack of connections to informed and respected advisers. Whereas Jeb Bush can call on dozens of experts from the foreign policy establishment who once worked for the administrations of his father and brother, Mr. Carson so far has only one paid national security adviser, Robert F. Dees, a retired Army general on the staff of Liberty University in Virginia.

On Facebook, where the campaign connects to its vast grass-roots army, two of his top campaign aides posted a video on Monday highlighting his “Fox News Sunday” interview with no hint of Mr. Carson’s private acknowledgment that he had performed poorly. The Facebook page included what it said was supporting evidence of Mr. Carson’s claim of Chinese involvement in Syria: a satellite image of a purported Chinese-made radar system in Syria, and a Syrian soldier posing on a Chinese-made armored vehicle.

But the effort to claim that Mr. Carson had meant only that there was Chinese-made matériel in Syria, not military personnel, was contradicted by his top Middle East adviser, Mr. Clarridge.

Carson is truly frightening and, in my view, needs a mental health care intervention.  The man is supremely confident that he knows everything and is seemingly unable to recognize his own limitations and shocking ignorance on a host of matters.  We do not need him anywhere near the White House. 

 

The GOP’s Embarrassing Vetting Season

As a number of recent posts have noted, the crop of 2016 GOP presidential candidates seems to be unusually filled with pathological liars with Ben Carson being but one of the candidates challenged when it comes to truth and veracity.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's problem of dishonest candidates - a phenomenon which should come as no surprise given the party's embrace of ignorance and self-prostitution to Christofascists who lie seemingly more than any other segment of society.  Here are column excerpts:

Welcome to the vetting season, in which presidential candidates’ résumés are pumped full of air, submerged in water and tested for bubbles like an inner tube. 

None of the Republican candidates, even the few with actual governing experience, has ever suffered the level of scrutiny given to a top-tier presidential prospect. It is part journalism, part tax audit, part fraternity hazing and part, especially when it comes to Republicans, ideological hit job. Only Democrat Hillary Clinton has made a career of sailing in this hurricane.

Carson’s claim that his treatment is unique — “I have not seen that with anyone else” — is disproved by, well, just about everyone else. Marco Rubio is being called to account for questionable purchases as a state representative on a GOP American Express card, including some flooring.

For Jeb Bush, the vetting process has been more about performance. How does he distinguish himself from the wallpaper in the debates? His town hall meetings, by one media account, are “charmingly anachronistic,” apparently because political discourse is better served by Twitter sarcasm. The real question: Is Bush’s stated refusal to be an “angry agitator” disqualifying in a political party that seems to view angry agitation as the sum of the political enterprise?

All the while, Donald Trump lobs sarcastic tweets, appears on late-night television and leads the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Trump is somehow enjoying the presidential vetting season as a spectator instead of a target. For about a quarter of the Republican electorate, there is apparently no scandal that could rock their high regard.

[W]hat does it mean that a significant portion of prospective GOP voters are seriously considering a leader who can’t be embarrassed because he is incapable of shame? A leader who can’t be disgraced because expectations are already so low?

The choice of a president, at least in theory, should have something to do with character, policy views, temperament, governing record and political philosophy. Trump is judged by his followers on an entirely different set of standards, imported from reality television. Is he entertaining? Check. Is he angry? Check. Does he demolish political correctness and political convention? Double check. Is he authentic? Ah, here is the rub.

By one definition, political authenticity is defined by the impulsive expression of everyman instincts. By another definition, authenticity means taking serious things — such as rhetoric and political ideas — seriously. The former unleashes and rides political passions. The latter channels passions into useful public purposes through political and governing skill. The former culminates in the cutting tweet. The latter in Lincoln writing and rewriting the Gettysburg Address or his second inaugural, which were made authentic through thought and craft.

So far, this is the sad, overall summary of the 2016 campaign: They took unserious things seriously.

Unfortunately, the column's author fails to  acknowledge that the party leadership welcomed the crazy and extreme elements into the GOP and that they are now reaping the whirlwind that they put into motion.

Ben Carson: A Totally Unfit Candidate

Only in today's Republican Party could a candidate as demonstrably unfit - and I would add insane - as Ben Carson be at or near the top of the polls of GOP voters.  I like many are now wondering how the man ever got through medical school and practiced medicine at a top rated hospital.  With every passing day it seems new lies are being exposed and more lunacy is coming to light.  Yet despite all the damning disclosures, the Christofascist element of the GOP base in particular clings to supporting Carson and acts as if the exposure of the man's nonstop untruths is all some liberal plot.  Somehow, Carson is absolved from having stated the lies in the first place. The Republican Party has indeed become an insane asylum being run by the inmates.  Here are highlights from a piece in Salon that look at the unfitness of Carson:

Ben Carson has had a very strange couple of weeks. Let’s take a moment to review precisely what the arguable front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has undergone since the CNBC debate in late October. At that debate, he was challenged on his relationship with a shady nutritional supplement company that sells fart pills to very sick people. Carson denied any relationship existed, despite the many paid speeches and promotional videos he did for the group. In the days that followed, it was revealed that Carson thinks the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built by Joseph to store grain – a biblical literalist view that is supported by precisely zero historical or archaeological evidence.

But hey we’re not done yet. . . . This string of scarcely believable events culminated on Friday with a Politico report that Carson’s oft-repeated claim to have been offered a “full scholarship” to West Point was untrue.

All this follows months and months of other weird Carson behaviors – his repeated and inappropriate invocations of the Nazis and slavery to attack policies he doesn’t like, his Bible-based tax plan, his “book tour” in the middle of the campaign, his insistence that a Muslim should not be president, his ignorance of basic economic matters, his plan to have the government investigate “propaganda” on college campuses, and the fact that his “campaign” increasingly resembles an elaborate direct-marketing scam. And that’s only a few select tiles from the rich mosaic of Ben Carson’s strangeness.

One might think that a candidate with this many warning lights and trouble signs would have crashed fairly quickly, or never even taken off in the first place. But the Republican Party and its voters have declared war on the very concept of competent, reliable governance, which has provided space for “outsider” candidates who are manifestly unfit for the office of the presidency to seize the GOP electorate and retain a firm hold on it. Now that he’s at the top of the GOP 2016 polling, he’s facing a great deal more scrutiny, and people are starting to wonder whether Carson will survive as a front-runner for the presidential nomination.

The obvious impulse for conservatives is to rally around Carson and protect him from the nasty liberal media and its pernicious biases. The derpier corners of the conservative media are already doing exactly that, arguing that media scrutiny of Carson’s past is motivated by racial hatred and part of a broader scheme to attack black conservatives. 

But when you look at the entire Ben Carson experience to date, what’s really needed is more scrutiny, and more and better explanations for why, exactly, he thinks he’s ready to serve as president. Carson rose to prominence based on his inspiring life story and his willingness to be harshly critical of President Obama. But, as Paul Waldman notes, the more we hear from Carson on policy matters and issue of national importance, the more it becomes clear that he frequently has no idea what he’s talking about, is “impervious to evidence,” and is unwilling to entertain the notion that his convictions may be wrong. His policy platform is stuffed with grandiose and insane proposals that are completely untethered to the reality of how governments work and violate principles of basic mathematics, but he argues that he’ll accomplish them anyway because he believes in himself.

It feels safe to assume, given the mood of the Republican electorate, that Carson won’t have too difficult a time enduring these unwelcome probes into his background and bugnuts worldview. Donald Trump’s enduring popularity in the Republican primary already stands as a stinging indictment of the direction the GOP has taken. 

I honestly do not know how any sane and rational person can remain a Republican when the party has become so insane that someone like Carson can rise to the top of the polls.  I did not think it possible, but Carson is beginning to make Michelle Bachmann look sane.  Few things are more dangerous than an idiot who thinks he/she is a genius.