Tag Archives: Carson

The 9 Best Moments From Thurday’s GOP Debate

by TimKAHSsslhrs Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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The first Republican presidential debate of 2016 was one of realignment. The candidates themselves had a bit more space on stage, after Carly Fiorina and Sen. Rand Paul were kicked out of the prime-time debate thanks to their dwindling poll numbers. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump broke their tentative alliance as Trump pondered whether Cruz could legally serve as president. Marco Rubio and Trump got wonky on tax policy and immigration as they sought to tear each other down.

With just over two weeks left before the Iowa caucuses, here are a few of the highlights from Thursday’s debate.

Cruz would have retaliated for captured sailors.

Even though the 10 sailors captured by Iran were released on Wednesday, Cruz opened the debate by promising that “any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America.”

Cruz also railed against President Barack Obama for failing to mention the sailors in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, which occurred before the sailors were released. The White House has already explained the decision not to discuss the situation in that speech as a foreign policy decision:

Watch:

In a birther debate, Cruz points out that Trump’s mother was born in Scotland.

Cruz and Trump had a drawn out confrontation over whether Cruz is eligible to be president. Cruz made the legal case for his eligibility, but then tried to turn the argument against Trump—whose mother was born in Scotland.

“I would note that the birther theories that Donald has been relying on, some of the more extreme ones insist that you must not only be born on U.S. soil, but have two parents born on U.S. soil. Under that theory, not only would I be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be disqualified, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified, and interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified. Because Donald’s mother was born in Scotland. She was naturalized.”

“Donald, I’m not going to use your mother’s birth against you,” Cruz promised Trump of the revelation about his mother. “Good,” Trump responded. “Because it wouldn’t work.”

Watch:

Trump foresees a lawsuit over Cruz’s birther problem.

In launching a birther attack on Cruz, Trump predicted a disaster scenario for the GOP: Trump wins the nomination, picks Cruz as his running mate, and then Democrats file a lawsuit over Cruz’s eligibility that ruins the campaign.

“I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit. You have a big lawsuit over your head while you’re running. And if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?” Trump warned. “So you should go out, get a declaratory judgment, let the courts decide.”

“Why are you saying this now right now?” moderator Neil Cavuto asked Trump.

“Because now he’s doing a little bit better,” Trump responded. “Hey look, he never had a chance. Now, he’s doing better. He’s got probably a 4 or 5 percent chance.”

Trump gladly accepts the “mantle of anger.”

During her response to Obama’s State of the Union this week, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called out the “angriest voices” in the party. Moderator Maria Bartiromo wondered if Trump thought she’d gone too far. Trump said no.

“I’m very angry because our country is being run horribly and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger,” Trump responded, saying he had no beef with Haley. He proudly touted how angry he was, and said he’d stay that way until he’s elected president and fixes things up. “I’m very, very angry,” Trump said. “So when Nikki said that, I wasn’t offended. She said the truth.”

Watch:

Rubio vs. Christie: The battle for third.

Rubio was probably hoping he would not be bickering with Chris Christie two weeks before voting starts while Trump and Cruz repeatedly engage each other as the two front-runners. And yet, that’s what happened Thursday night. Christie has been gaining support in New Hampshire, threatening to overtake Rubio in the polls. So the super PAC supporting Rubio has launched negative attacks ads on Christie. Rubio doubled down on those attacks when asked if he stood by those attack ads. But Christie, prepared for the attack, returned fire.

Watch:

Asked about Bill Clinton, Ben Carson bemoans…internet commenters?

Oh, Ben. The Fox moderators asked Carson whether it was fair to hold Hillary Clinton responsible for her husband’s “sexual misconduct.” Carson didn’t have much of a response for that, but he wanted to discuss “values and principles.” What, in Carson’s mind, was an indication that the nation’s morals had fallen?

“You know, you go to the internet, you start reading an article and you go to the comments section—you cannot go five comments down before people are calling each all manner of names,” Carson said. “Where did that spirit come from in America? It did not come from our Judeo-Christian roots, I can tell you that. And wherever it came from we need to start once again recognizing that there is such a thing as right and wrong. And let’s not let the secular progressives drive that out of us.”

Rubio wants a gun in case ISIS attacks.

None of the Republicans on stage were fans of Obama’s calls for further gun control. But Rubio took his defense of Second Amendment rights a step further, saying that bearing arms is not just a constitutional right, but a necessity for keeping the country safe from ISIS.

“And let me tell you, ISIS and terrorists do not get their guns from a gun show,” Rubio said. “Here’s a fact. We are in a war against ISIS. They are trying to attack us here in America. They attacked us in Philadelphia last week. They attacked us in San Bernardino two weeks ago. And the last line standing between them and our families might be us and a gun.”

Watch:

Trump plays the 9/11 card.

Cruz walked right into this one. The senator from Texas, who has been attacking Trump as a New York liberal, made the accusation to his face Thursday night. And just like that, Cruz handed Trump the opportunity to defend New York with the mother of all trump cards.

“When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York,” he said. “And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death—nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.”

“And I have to tell you,” he concluded, “that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”

All Cruz could do was smile, nod, and clap for Trump.

Watch:

Rubio takes on Cruz as a flip-flopping politician.

Near the end of the evening, Rubio finally got a chance to go after Cruz—and he went all out. Rubio accused Cruz of changing his positions on issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and ethanol subsidies to win voters.

When Rubio had finished, Cruz responded that his opponent had dumped his entire opposition research file on him.

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The 9 Best Moments From Thurday’s GOP Debate

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Poor People Really Get Screwed By Ben Carson’s Tax Plan

by SherleneThurgood Posted on January 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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Back in the day—meaning approximately 2008 or so—Republican presidential candidates made a big mistake. They released their tax plans without bothering to figure out anything other than the average tax cut each one provided. The frequent result was that taxes went up on the poorest people and down on the richest. That’s bad optics.

By 2012 they’d all wised up. Their tax cuts might be bigger for the rich, but they made sure everyone got a cut.

When I was looking at Ben Carson’s plan last night, I realized that the poor guy hadn’t been paying attention. He figured that by setting a zero percent tax rate on income up to $36,000, he’d be guaranteeing that the poor would get a tax cut. Unfortunately, his actual knowledge of the tax code is so shallow that he didn’t realize what he meant when he said his plan eliminated all credits and deductions. That means he’s getting rid of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which often amounts to a negative tax rate for the poor. In other words, paying $0 is a tax increase for a lot of them. Citizens for Tax Justice provides the details:

Under Carson’s plan, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers would receive an average annual tax increase of $792 and the second 20 percent would get an average annual tax increase of $447, while the top one percent would receive an average annual tax cut of $348,434. The main reason Carson’s plan would increase taxes on low-income families is that it would eliminate all tax credits, including the highly effective Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

There’s still no reason to care about this since Carson is obviously doomed to return to the book promotion racket at this point. Still, just for the record, I figure this deserves a chart to memorialize it for posterity. So here it is.

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Poor People Really Get Screwed By Ben Carson’s Tax Plan

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Quote of the Day: Here’s What the Republican Primary Has Come To

by JanellBbqoc Posted on November 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Gideon Resnick shows us what the Republican primary has come to:

A Carson campaign official told CBS News on Sunday that the candidate has considered taking a trip to Asia, Africa, or Australia in order to do something “eye-opening” prior to the Iowa caucus in February….(Australia was likely in the mix because Carson says he spent time working there at Charles Gairdner Hospital in 1983, according to his autobiography Gifted Hands. The Daily Beast has reached out to the hospital to confirm.)

A leading presidential candidate makes a simple, entirely plausible statement in his autobiography and yet a reporter feels like maybe he ought to make a call to double check it. Just in case. And I can’t say that I blame him.

(Fine: I’m being snarky. For the record, I believe that Carson really was there.)

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Quote of the Day: Here’s What the Republican Primary Has Come To

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Carson Joins Trump Idiocy About Jersey City, Then Backs Away

by DorcasScrymgeour Posted on November 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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The latest from la-la land:

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson joined GOP rival Donald Trump in claiming that he, too, saw news footage of Muslim-Americans cheering as the World Trade Center towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 — despite the fact that no such footage has turned up yet. “I saw the film of it, yes,” Carson told reporters at a Monday campaign event, adding that it was documented by “newsreels.”

Newsreels? What is this? 1943? But wait. We have breaking news via Twitter from Jon Karl of ABC News:

@RealBenCarson spox Doug Watts: Carson was mistaken when he said he saw film of Muslims celebrating on 9/11 in Jersey City….”He doesn’t stand behind his comments on New Jersey and American Muslims,” Watts told ABC’s @KFaulders….”He was rather thinking of the protests going on in the Middle East and some of the demonstrations” there on 9/11.

This is nuts. These guys are trying to put the Onion out of business for real. “We have investigated and discovered that East Jerusalem is not on the Hudson River after all.” But hell, at least Carson is willing to admit his error. One brownie point for that—though it does raise some questions about his vaunted memory. Trump will continue to insist forever that he saw it, and his supporters will continue to believe him because you can never trust the mainstream media, can you? They’re always covering up for Jersey City’s Muslim community.

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Carson Joins Trump Idiocy About Jersey City, Then Backs Away

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Ben Carson Just Made a Completely Bogus Argument for Not Raising the Minimum Wage

by CarmonRoy Posted on November 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Flying in the face of what most economists believe, GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson announced that raising the minimum wage would cost America jobs.

“Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases,” the retired neurosurgeon said during the fourth televised GOP debate. “If you lower those wages, that comes down,”

Only one problem: this claim is seriously contested. More than 600 economists signed a letter to President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders last year urging the government to raise the federal minimum wage.

“The weight of evidence now shows that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market,” the economists wrote.

There are some forecasts that support Carson’s view: the Congressional Budget Office last year said that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 would cost the US economy 500,000 jobs.

But many economists disagree with these estimates and so does the US Department of Labor. State-by-state hiring data released last year by the Department of Labor showed that the 13 states that raised their minimum wages at the start of the year gained jobs faster than their peers.

The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009.

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Ben Carson Just Made a Completely Bogus Argument for Not Raising the Minimum Wage

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Here’s the Latest in the GOP Horserace

by FranCarranza Posted on November 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s the latest Pollster aggregate for the Republican nomination. It looks to me like Trump is finally sliding, while Carson seems to have plateaued around 20 percent or so. Rubio and Cruz are up over the past few weeks, but it’s too soon to tell if this just a blip, or the start of something real. Jeb Bush is declining slightly, but not out of it yet.

So who gets all the Trump and Carson votes when those two inevitably implode? And is it really inevitable? Beats me. This is just the weirdest Republican race ever. Ever since Scott Walker, my early favorite, displayed such awesome ineptitude that he literally dropped to 0 percent in the polls, I’ve been reluctant to utter a peep about who seems likely to win this year. Who knows? Maybe it will all come down to a savage brawl between the two Floridians.

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Here’s the Latest in the GOP Horserace

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Ben Carson Seems to Have a Serious Personal Honesty Problem

by WilfredFulcher Posted on November 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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We all know that Ben Carson has some wacky ideas. We also know that he has some pretty strange views of history. And that a lot of his policy proposals make no sense at all. But he’s long had a pretty good reputation for being truthful. Crazy but honest, that’s Ben. Except that it’s now starting to look like he has some real problems with being honest in his personal life. For example:

West Point

Then: A guy named Bill asked Carson if “it’s true that I was offered a slot at West Point after high school.” Carson replied, “Bill, that is true. I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point.”

Now: He never got an offer from West Point. Apparently some people told him he could probably get in with his ROTC record, but he never even applied.

Mannatech

Then: “Three years ago I had an endowed chair bestowed upon me….I’m proud to say that part of that $2.5 million came from Mannatech.”

Now: He now denies that any of the money for the endowed chair actually came from Mannatech. “He simply got things mixed up,” a campaign spokesman said. That seems a little unlikely since Carson made this claim in a prepared speech given at a Mannatech sales conference.

Plagiarism

Then: “Several sections of potential Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson’s 2012 book America the Beautiful were plagiarized from various sources, BuzzFeed News has found….In one instance, Carson cites wholesale from an old website that has been online since at least 2002, Socialismsucks.net.”

Now: “I attempted to appropriately cite and acknowledge all sources in America the Beautiful, but inadvertently missed some.” This is such a common excuse among plagiarists that it’s practically become a joke.

Violent Past

Then: “There was a time when I was, you know, very volatile….As a teenager. I would go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers. And, of course, many people know the story when I was 14 and I tried to stab someone.”

Now: CNN interviewed nine of Carson’s childhood friends. None of them could recall any violent incidents. Carson’s response: “This is a bunch of lies, that is what it is.”

Drones on the Border

Then: “I’m suggesting we do what we need to do to secure the border whatever that is….You look at some of these caves and things out there one drone strike, boom, and they’d gone.”

Now: “It was quite clear what I was talking about. That drones are excellent for surveillance.”

The Psychology Test at Yale

Then: “The day before I’d been informed that the final examination papers in a psychology class, Perceptions 301, ‘were inadvertently burned’….So I, with about 150 other students, went to the designated auditorium for the repeat exam….The questions were incredibly difficult….Soon half the class was gone, and the exodus continued. Not one person turned in the examination before leaving.

“….Suddenly the door of the classroom opened….The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘A hoax,’ the teacher said. ‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class.’ She smiled again. ‘And that’s you.’ “

Now: The Wall Street Journal reports that “no photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student ever ran, according to the Yale Daily News archives, and no stories from that era mention a class called Perceptions 301. Yale Librarian Claryn Spies said Friday there was no psychology course by that name or class number during any of Mr. Carson’s years at Yale.”

These aren’t policy issues. They’re examples of Carson saying things that he later denies or that turn out to be untrue. If he does it as often as this list suggests, he’s probably done it a few more times as well. We just don’t know it yet. Now that the press is onto this, however, I’ll bet we’re going to come across a few more before long. Anyone who continues to support Carson had better be prepared for the worst.

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Ben Carson Seems to Have a Serious Personal Honesty Problem

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Ben Carson Says Honesty Is More Important Than Political Experience

by AlmaBarbacbv Posted on November 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ben Carson’s improbable presidential campaign took a big hit on Friday when Politico reported that a key story Carson has long told—that he was offered a “full scholarship” to the prestigious US Military Academy at West Point after meeting a prominent Army general—was false. It turns out that Carson never sought admission to West Point. There was no offer of any scholarship. (In fact, there are no scholarships to West Point; cadets attend free). Carson’s campaign acknowledged to Politico that his account was inaccurate.

With Carson faring so well in the GOP contest—especially among evangelical Christians who admire his Christian faith, character, and biography—how might this news affect his presidential bid? Perhaps when it comes to evaluating this revelation, his supporters and fans should take their cue from Carson.

In a recent email solicitation—headlined, “I’m not a politician”—Carson, while asking for donations, explained what he believes are the most important qualifications for the job of president. Political experience (of which he has none) was not at the top of the list. Instead, he prioritized the moral fortitude of the candidate. And he claimed that the success of his campaign showed that a large number of Americans were forming a movement demanding strength of character over policy know-how. Here’s how Carson put it:

Many in the political class don’t seem to understand it, but something historic is happening across America. We’ve been told that only politicians can fix our problems, but I believe that traditional “political experience” is much less important than faith, honesty, courage, and an unshakable belief in the principles that made America the greatest nation in the world.

And Carson does tend to depict himself as a teller of truths. In one of his books, he pointed out that he was always advising youngsters to be honest:

When I talk to young people, I urge them, “Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don’t have to worry threemonths down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won’t have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”

So what will it mean for Carson that he has been dishonest about an important element in his from-rags-to-riches-via-neursurgery narrative, which is a bedrock of his political appeal? Pundits rushed to Twitter to declare that this would—or could—be a fatal blow for Carson, who recently has been mocked for having once said the pyramids of Egypt were built not to house the remains of the Pharaohs but to store grain. But Carson is no conventional candidate, and the support he has drawn has defied political norms. So there’s no predicting how Carsonites will absorb this news. They might start to question Carson’s character. Then again, they might see him as a victim of persecution waged by the godless liberal media and embrace him even more.

God only knows what they will do if forced to choose between facts and faith.

Here’s the full Carson email:

—–

I’m not running for President to build my resume, and the last thing I want to be is a politician.

I’m doing this for our children and grandchildren. Our Constitution was written for them — to empower them and to ensure that they’d have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential.

My jump to first place in the critical early-voting state of Iowa is humbling, and I’m encouraged that so many of my fellow Americans are open to embracing a true outsider.

October has been a month of real momentum, but before it ends I ask you to join me by making a donation to my campaign of any amount.

Better yet, if you donate before midnight on October 30th you’ll be automatically entered for the chance to join me on the campaign trail for a private, one-on-one lunch.

This will be a great opportunity to get to know one another and talk about our shared desire to heal and revive America — and my campaign will be handling all accommodations.

Many in the political class don’t seem to understand it, but something historic is happening across America. We’ve been told that only politicians can fix our problems, but I believe that traditional “political experience” is much less important than faith, honesty, courage, and an unshakable belief in the principles that made America the greatest nation in the world.

Thank you, and I hope I can count on your support before the end of October.

Sincerely,

Ben Carson

Update: Carson’s campaign tells the Daily Caller that “the campaign never admitted to anything” and called the Politico story “an outright lie.”

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Ben Carson Says Honesty Is More Important Than Political Experience

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Is Ben Carson a Liar? Or Does He Just Not Care?

by KashaBenoit8790 Posted on November 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here is Ben Carson, wandering off topic when the Miami Herald asks him about abuses of our Cuba policy:

“I think the way to fix that is not so much to abolish the act, but dealing with the specific area where the abuse is,” Carson said, noting that Medicare and Medicaid fraud is “huge — half a trillion dollars.”

“We definitely need to focus on that,” he said.

Well, hell, why not say it’s a hundred trillion dollars? Or a gazillion? I mean, if you’re just going to make stuff up, why not go whole hog?

For the record, total Medicare and Medicaid spending last year—state, federal, everything—was $980 billion. So Carson is suggesting that literally half of all spending on these programs is fraudulent.

So where did Carson come up with this figure? Beats me. There are a few possibilities:

It comes from some kind of kooky right-wing conspiracy theory that circulates in newsletters and email lists that the rest of us never see.
Carson read somewhere that Medicare fraud totaled $60 billion out of half a trillion dollars, and the only parts that stuck in his brain were “fraud” and “half a trillion dollars.”
He just made it up.

This stuff is weird. Carson didn’t have to say anything about Medicare fraud. The question was about Cuba policy. He wanted to mention it. Fine. He could have just said that Medicare fraud was a huge problem. Sorry: not good enough. He wanted to toss out a scary number, but he couldn’t be bothered to know what it actually was—or even know enough about Medicare and Medicaid spending to realize that half a trillion dollars couldn’t possibly be right. He just doesn’t care. What kind of person running for president just doesn’t care?

POSTSCRIPT: Couldn’t Carson have just made a mistake? Sure. But here’s the thing: some mistakes are so big they give away the fact that you’re entirely ignorant of the subject at hand. If I told you that Babe Ruth hit 800 home runs in his career, it might just be a brain fart. But if I told you he hit 5,000 home runs, it’s a giveaway that I’m faking. I don’t know the first thing about baseball.

That’s what Carson did here. He’s smart and good with numbers, so if he knew even the basics of Medicare and Medicaid he’d also know intuitively that half a trillion dollars couldn’t be right. But he didn’t. He’s running for president, and hasn’t bothered to learn even the kindergarten basics about two programs that make up nearly a third of the federal budget.

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Is Ben Carson a Liar? Or Does He Just Not Care?

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Ben Carson on Americans: "Many of Them Are Stupid."

by KristianNeff Posted on November 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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When retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, the current GOP 2016 front-runner, campaigns, he routinely pitches “common sense solutions from We the People.” But it seems the candidate who celebrates a cheerful and straightforward populism has a fair bit of disdain for many of his fellow citizens, for at a videotaped event last year, while discussing the American people, he declared, “Many of them are stupid.”

Carson made this observation while speaking at the Richard Nixon library on October 19, 2014, as part of a book tour. After a fifteen-minute talk—prior to a book-signing—Carson was asked if he might run for president as an independent. He vowed not to do so, noting this would fracture the Republican vote. He then pivoted to another topic: unnamed political foes—presumably liberals, progressives, secularists, Marxists, or whatever—penetrating key elements of American society to gain control of the nation:

They can twist and turn things as much as they want. But what they don’t understand—and they miscalculated. They were doing a great job in terms of fundamentally changing this nation. In terms of infiltrating the school systems. In terms of infiltrating the media. All of this—they’ve done a great job. Everything was perfect. Except they underestimated the intelligence of the American people. The people are not as stupid as they think they are. Many of them are stupid. Okay. But I’m talking about overall.

The crowd laughed when Carson made that crack about dumb Americans, and Carson let out a loud guffaw.

In answering the same question, Carson also noted that he could escape the corruptions of conventional politics by deftly using social media, and, with no apparent sense of hyperbole, he suggested that Fox News was preventing America from becoming a totalitarian state:

Even if all the media tries to shut you down—which they have tried very much to do with me. But they can’t because the good Lord has provided me with mechanisms like my syndicated column and like Fox News. We’d be Cuba if there were no Fox News.

This was another applause line for the crowd of Carson fans, who had greeted Carson’s arrival with shouts of “run, Ben, run.” According to the financial disclosure form Carson filed in June that covered the preceding 12 months, he made $492,115 as a Fox News commentator and $137,148 as a columnist for the Washington Times.

Carson’s remarks about stupid Americans and the insidious plotting of unidentified elements to sneakily seize key American institutions were in sync with previous statements from this political novice who recently vaulted to the front of the Republican pack. Carson has long noted that he’s a fan of W. Cleon Skousen, who in 1958 wrote a book called The Naked Communist, a dark and paranoid screed that maintained that commies had “penetrated every echelon of American society”—from PTAs, art salons, media entities, social program offices, and entertainment companies to the “highest offices of the United States Government.” Skousen believed that the civil rights movement, acceptance of homosexuality, the rise of abstract art and modernism, and the advent of Medicare and Social Security were all part of a clandestine scheme mounted by communists and others to destroy the United States. Twelve years later, Skousen expanded his conspiracy theorizing to claim that a global cabal of bankers controlled the world from behind the scenes.

Carson has repeatedly—including last year on Fox News—cited Skousen, who died in 2006, as the key to understanding what has happened in the United States over the past half-century. The most recent edition of Skousen’s book trumpets Carson’s endorsement on the front cover: “The Naked Communist lays out the whole progressive plan. It is unbelievable how fast it has been achieved.” In 2007, the conservative National Review called Skousen an “all-around nutjob.”

Asked if Carson thinks that many Americans are stupid, a Carson spokesman said, “Sounds like he forgot to insert his usual ‘in Washington.'”

Carson does seemingly believe that for decades the American public has been slyly manipulated by an enemy from within. And he often decries political elites for adopting a condescending approach toward the citizenry and imposing their own views and positions upon the rest of the nation. On the campaign trail, he dismisses political experience as a qualification for office and contends that a candidate who demonstrates faith, honesty, and character can effectively govern by relying upon the wisdom of the American people. Yet at the Nixon library, Carson indicated he holds a significant number of voters in low regard. Presumably, they don’t count in his We the People.

Here’s Carson’s full talk at the Nixon library.

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Ben Carson on Americans: "Many of Them Are Stupid."

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