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.

Clarence Thomas: One of the Five Worst Supreme Court Justices In American History

This blog has frequently looked at the the manner in which Justice Clarence Thomas (and Justice Scalia) disregards the canons of judicial conduct that applies to federal judges and the mandates to avoid circumstances that will raise questions as to a judge or justices impartiality.  Between his wife's political activities, his "lapses in memory" about the six figure income his wife has generated, and his attendance at scurrilously partisan events, Thomas is a train wreck who, if he were a typical federal judge, would be removed from the bench.  And that doesn't even get into Thomas' idiocy on the Supreme Court and his seeming intellectual obtuseness.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the five worse justices in America's history and, not surprisingly, Thomas makes the list.  Here are some highlights:

Today is the official release date for my book, Injustices: The Supreme Court’s History of Comforting the Comforted and Afflicting the Afflicted. As you might guess from the title, it is not particularly complimentary of the Supreme Court as an institution. As the book’s jacket explains, “the justices of the Supreme Court have shaped a nation where children toiled in coal mines, where Americans could be forced into camps because of their race, and where a woman could be sterilized against her will by state law. The Court was the midwife of Jim Crow, the right hand of union busters, and the dead hand of the Confederacy. Nor is the modern Court a vast improvement, with its incursions on voting rights and its willingness to place elections for sale.”

Even amidst this dark history, certain justices stand out as particularly mean-spirited, ideological or unconcerned about their duty to follow the text of the Constitution. Based on my review of over 150 years of Supreme Court history in Injustices, here are the five jurists who stand out as the worst justices in American history:

1) Justice Stephen Johnson Field.  As a sitting justice in 1880, Justice Stephen Johnson Field launched a dark horse bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Claiming that “the chilling shadow of the empire” was descending upon the United States, Field fronted an anti-government campaign that would make all but the most strident modern day tea partiers blush. . . . . . Justice Field never became president, but he worked as a justice to implement the very same policies his campaign promised that he would support if elected to the White House. Field joined the Court’s pro-segregation decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, and he authored another opinion permitting former Confederate officials to practice law in federal court. . . . The cause of Field’s life, however, was neutering the government’s power to enact economic and business regulation. 

2) Chief Justice Roger Taney. Taney authored what is widely viewed as the worst single decision in the Supreme Court’s history, the pro-slavery decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Though Taney was far more moderate on the issue of slavery at a young man — he once referred to slavery as a “blot on our national character” and he emancipated his own slaves — his views hardened in his old age. In 1857, the same year as Dred Scott, Taney labeled the abolitionist movement “northern aggression.”  . . . . Dred Scott was an abominable decision, rooted in the notion that men and women of African descent “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order” who are “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

3) Justice James Clark McReynolds.  McReynolds was, in Time magazine’s words, “a savagely sarcastic, incredibly reactionary Puritan anti-Semite.” McReynolds was lazy. He often would not even open the briefs lawyers filed to prepare him to hear a case until hours before the case was argued, and he frequently spent just a few hours crafting opinions that would govern all other courts in the country. McReynolds was nasty. He labeled President Franklin Roosevelt “that crippled son-of-a-bitch . . . in the White House,”. . . . . above all, Justice McReynolds was a bigot. He refused to speak to Justice Louis Brandeis for Brandeis’s first three years on the Court because Brandeis was Jewish, and he forbade contact between his staff and the Jewish Justices Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo. . . . . McReynolds was, sadly, one of many justices who joined opinions striking down child labor laws or a minimum wage

4) Chief Justice Melville Fuller.  As a delegate to Illinois’s constitutional convention in 1862, he voted to prohibit black men and women from settling in the state or casting a ballot in its elections. As a member of the state legislature, he labeled the Emancipation Proclamation “unconstitutional, contrary to the rules of civilized warfare,” and “calculated to bring shame, disgrace and eternal infamy” upon the nation. He also backed a constitutional amendment preventing congressional interference with slavery. . . .  Chief Justice Fuller presided over the Court’s infamous decision in Lochner v. New York, which struck down a New York law prohibiting bakeries from overworking their workers. Lawyers and legal historians widely view this decision as symbolic of the entire era in the early twentieth century when Field’s values dominated the Supreme Court — indeed, this age is commonly referred to as the Lochner Era.

 5) Justice Clarence Thomas.  Justice Clarence Thomas is the only current member of the Supreme Court who has explicitly embraced the reasoning of Lochner Era decisions striking down nationwide child labor laws and making similar attacks on federal power. Indeed, under the logic Thomas first laid out in a concurring opinion in United States v. Lopez, the federal minimum wage, overtime rules, anti-discrimination protections for workers, and even the national ban on whites-only lunch counters are all unconstitutional.

There's more on each justice, so read the entire piece.  The take away on Thomas?  He is unfit to be on the Court and needs to be removed.  I can understand that the Republicans wanted to appoint a black to the Court.  What I don't understand is why they insisted on appointing a total idiot, in my opinion.

Tom Cotton: Dumber than Michele Bachmann?

GOP Senator Tom Cotton - the numb nuts who dreamed up the Senate Republican letter to Iran - seems to be on a mission to (i) prove he's even dumber than Michele Bachmann and (ii) destroy any pretense the GOP may have had that it was the superior party when it comes to foreign policy.  On Face the Nation yesterday, Cotton proved he seemingly know little or no geography and is likely challenged when he tries to walk and chew gum at the same time.  All he needs to do now is learn to mimic the Bachmann "crazy eye" stare and he will truly be the male version of Bachmann - which, of course, will make him the darling of the knuckle draggers of the GOP base.  An article in The Raw Story looks at Cotton's idiocy on display.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Sunday cited Iran’s control of their own capital, Tehran, as a reason that the country had to be stopped from obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

In a interview on CBS, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer pointed out that Cotton’s letter to Iran, which was also signed by 46 other Republican senators, may have undermined President Barack Obama’s ability to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

“Moreover, we have to stand up to Iran’s attempts to drive for regional dominance,” he continued. “They already control Tehran and, increasingly, they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad. And now, Sana’a as well.”

Cotton told Schieffer that he had “no regrets at all” about sending the letter to Iran. 

 As I have said before, to be a Republican nowadays, one must be (i) insane, (ii) a religious fanatic, (iii) white supremacist, and/or (iv) have had a lobotomy.   Cotton seems to meet both categories (i) and (iv).

Fox News "Expert" Does Damage Control After Claiming Santa Barbara Shooter Was "Fighting Homosexual Impulses

Santa Barbara Shooter

Leave it to Fox News , a/k/a Faux News, to air a piece that sought to depict the mentally ill shooter in the Santa Barbara knifing and shooting spree to be gay.  It's yet another example of Fox News deliberately fanning the prejudices and bigotry of its base of viewers who surveys have shown to be among the least informed of American citizens.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the fast damage control efforts of Fox News' Dr. Robi Ludwig.  Here are highlights:

Dr. Robi Ludwig, facing a firestorm, late this morning took to Facebook and claimed that her provocative homophobic comments about Santa Barbara killer Elliot Rodger had been “misunderstood.” Ludwig this weekend had gone on Fox News and told millions of viewers that Elliot Rodger, the 22-year old who allegedly killed six people near the University of California Santa Barbara Friday night might have been fighting “against his homosexual impulses,” and implied they could be responsible for his rage that resulted in the deaths of three of his roommates, three others, and himself.

Rodger had left a 141-page manifesto and several YouTube videos angrily lamenting that he had consistently been rejected by women and promising he would “slaughter every single one of” them. He also belonged to several misogynistic “men’s rights” groups and had posted racist remarks in an online forum.

But nowhere and at no time did Rodger suggest he was gay, or unsure of his sexuality. There is not one clue, one suggestion — not one iota of proof that Rodger might have been gay. There is also not one study that finds men who are fighting “homosexual impulses” would turn violent and go on a killing spree.

“When I was first listening to him, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s angry with women for rejecting him,’” Ludwig told the millions of Fox News viewers. “And then I started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses?’”

Ludwig claims she was “misunderstood.” No, she was not. She chose to introduce into a discussion and news report that gay people can be overcome with rage and cannot control their unwanted impulses — when homosexuality had nothing to do with the story because Rodger was not gay.
Note also she chooses to use the word “homosexual,” not “gay” — a common choice by those who are homophobic or anti-gay.

Dr. Ludwig might have violated the rules of the American Psychological Association, which prohibits members from diagnosing patients or public figures they have not personally 
examined.

Hopefully, the APA will investigate Ludwig and, if appropriate, take disciplinary action against her. The ultimate irony, of course, is that time and time again it is the conservative Republicans, not gays who seem to have problems with their sexual impulse.  Just ask GOP Senator David Vitter about his use of prostitutes in New Orleans and Washington, DC.  I would also add that as one who fought my sexual orientation for decades, women were NEVER the target of my anger.  It was always self-directed.