You Can’t Make This Shit Up, Folks

Some bizarre stories out there today, my friends. Right wingers are weird.
First up, the ongoing laugh riot that is #Y’AllQaeda. I’ve generally been staying away from the coverage of the Oregon hootenanny (save for invoking their battle flag, of course) but this is just too good to pass up. Drinking up the donations! Hahahahahaha.

Joe Oshaugnessy, an Arizona militiaman, has been actively seeking volunteers through social media to join the occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

But his friends tearfully announced that Oshaugnessy, who is known as “Capt. O,” had left the refuge Wednesday and was instead staying at a motel nearby — as some others associated with the militants have apparently been doing, according to sources.

Some of the militants have reportedly been spotted eating at area restaurants during the standoff, as well.
A Y’all Qaeda spokesperson said he drank away the donations:

Peltier said Ritzheimer had confirmed that Oshaugnessy had kept the money he had raised through social media for himself and had spent at least some of it on a drinking binge.

On a more national level, Ben Carson continued his free fall into irrelevance by shaming a kid at a Cedar Rapids school. Why am I not surprised?

There is at least one fifth-grader who will not soon forget Ben Carson’s visit Thursday to Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The one whom Carson helped single out as his class’s “worst student” before a crowd of hundreds.

It happened when the Republican presidential candidate was trying to make a self-deprecating joke about his own academic ineptitude in grade school.

“As a fifth-grade student, I was a horrible student,” Carson said, according to video captured by CBS News. “Anybody here in fifth grade? Who’s the worst student?”

More than a half dozen students turned and pointed at one particular classmate, according to the Des Moines Register, and the room erupted in laughter.

Carson tried to recover: “If you had asked that question in my classroom, there would have been no doubt about who it was.”
But the candidate took heat on Twitter for the unforced error.

 Following the rally, Carson met with the student and told him that he hopes the child will become a neurosurgeon, the Register reported.

Your right wing noise machine at work, boys and girls. God bless them. And somebody needs to explain to Karen Tumulty that she’s supposed to laugh at these stupid morons, not act as their stenographer.

Carson Descending

Is Ben Carson in decline? According to the polls, the answer appears to be yes, thankfully. Politico:

Weeks of tough scrutiny are beginning to take a toll: Ben Carson appears to be fading in Iowa, and there are signs he may be hitting the wall in other early states.

A CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday showed Carson slipping below 20 percent in Iowa and to third place behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — the first time he’s had a rating of less than 20 percent in a major poll there since September. Since his late October Iowa high point, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Carson has dropped 8 percentage points in Iowa and 5 points in New Hampshire.

In South Carolina, which isn’t polled nearly as much as the other two early states, there aren’t as many data points. But after leading the GOP field there with 28 percent in an early November Monmouth University poll, Carson now finds himself a distant second. According to the latest CBS/YouGov poll of South Carolina Republicans, Carson has 19 percent to Trump’s 35 percent.

All of that suggests a challenging road ahead for the retired pediatric neurosurgeon, said Patrick Murray, the director of polling at Monmouth University, which surveys in the early states.

Conservative voters “really want an outsider candidate, [but] they want somebody who appears presidential … with a clear fire in the belly, and I think that’s where Carson has been letting them down,” Murray said. He went on to add, ”Carson is a natural fit for conservative voters, but he seems to have faded as recent national security issues highlighted some doubts conservative voters were already having about him.”

“Some doubts.” As in, doubts about his connection to reality, to veracity, to rational thinking? There’s something very, very wrong with that guy, and the idea of him as president is terrifying. Fortunately, it appears increasingly likely that his next trip to the White House will be as a tourist.

Things You Won’t See In The American Media

One of the more interesting developments of the past few years is the increasing presence of foreign media reporting in the United States. As the range of “acceptable” coverage by the American media shrinks further and further, British and other media outlets have stepped up to fill the gaps.

For example, as we sit here today thinking about Ben Carson, it’s very clear that, whatever the particular issue being debated, the man has issues – with the truth, with his overblown rhetoric, with his messianic sense of self-pity and persecution, with his policies, with his very view of the world. There are times when – all politics aside – I really question his sanity.

There is now an increasing level of scrutiny on Ben Carson, and he’s not handling it well at all. But the American media scrutiny is all “gotcha” based – you lied, we can’t find any proof, etc. – that allows him to fall back on his “I’m being persecuted” lament. It would be nice if the media could find some better way to show Ben Carson in concrete fashion, something more revealing and interesting. But the gotcha frenzy is on, and all we’re going to hear about is stabbings and psychology exams and scholarships – all ultimately nonsense. We need something better.

Like this Guardian piece about the decor of Carson’s house. It’s a shrine, an ego overload, and it puts his weirdness and eccentricities in a context that we can understand. I’m no psychologist, but there is something fundamentally wrong about a guy who has a huge painting of himself with Jesus. I believe the term is narcissistic personality disorder.

  
I’m not a Christian, but my wife was raised in a very religious Southern Baptist family, so I know a little something about the issue, and that photo offends me, separate and apart from the politics. It reeks of idolatry and pride and superiority.

Now if a church leader has that picture, or an ordinary person, I’d say that’s between the church leader and his or her congregation, or between a religious person and his or her conscience. But Ben Carson wants to be President, and as a sign of his personality, his character and his worldview, his house being an overstuffed shrine to vanity, ego, and smugness is telling. And frightening.

No American media outlet would put this out because the religious right goon squad would be all over them like flying monkeys. Good for the Guardian for getting these photos and for having the guts to publish them. And heaven help us if Ben Carson ever gets within a mile of the Oval Office without an engraved invitation. 

Trump Goes Off On Carson

Not about being untruthful but about being violent. And presumably black. Oof. Badly played, dude.

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump says primary rival Ben Carson’s violent childhood indicates that he has a “pathological disease” that has still not been treated.

 “When you suffer from pathological disease, you’re not really getting better unless you start taking pills and things,” Trump said on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” on Friday.

Watch the video at the link.

Keeping Track Of All The Ben Carson Lies

If you’re struggling to keep up with all of the stories of Ben Carson’s life that now appear to be completely fabricated, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones is here to help. He has a nice summary of all the different problematic Carson stories. My personal favorite is the Yale psychology class hoax.

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.”

This guy is either mentally ill or a serial liar. Or both. But whatever he is, he has no business being in any elected office, much less president.

“Ben Carson Is A Complete And Total Loser”

The SNL promo video NBC doesn’t want you to see.

Today’s Sign Of The Apocalypse

The New York Times reports today that for the first time since it began polling in July, Donald Trump is no longer leading a national GOP primary poll. Ben Carson leads, and if ever three words could heighten my interest in New Zealand real estate, those are the ones.

Ben Carson has taken a narrow lead nationally in the Republican presidential campaign, dislodging Donald J. Trump from the top spot for the first time in months, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey released on Tuesday.

Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is the choice of 26 percent of Republican primary voters, the poll found, while Mr. Trump now wins support from 22 percent, although the difference lies within the margin of sampling error.
The survey is the first time that Mr. Trump has not led all candidates since The Times and CBS News began measuring presidential preferences at the end of July.
No other candidate comes close to Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida received 8 percent while former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, are each the choice of 7 percent of Republican primary voters.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio each received support from 4 percent of those surveyed.

These numbers are astounding. We’re not talking Iowa here, but the whole country. It’s like a Zombie movie where the military is worried about keeping the infection in check, but it’s already too late – it’s spread EVERYWHERE. Bush and Rubio and Fiorina and Kasich combined total 26%. The other 74% are already goners – they’re longing for brains to eat.

Tomorrow night’s debate is now looming even larger. How will Trump react to not being the front runner? Will he attack Carson? How will Carson handle what are likely to be more pointed questions regarding his sanity? What will Rubio and Bush do to get any attention at all? Why are the rest of the candidates even bothering to show up?

And most important: when’s the last flight to Auckland before the zombies overrun the airport? 

Dear Ben: Enough With The Slavery And Holocaust References

I bet you didn’t know that everything Ben Carson doesn’t like is either just like or worse than slavery. And when given the chance to walk them back, Carson instead doubles down. I’ve concluded that he is a bigger buffoon than Trump. At least the Donald has enough self-awareness to recognize, deep down, that he’s playing the role of carnival barker and huckster. Ben Carson actually believes that he’s a deep thinker instead of the complete idiot that he actually is.

The Post has the gory details of Carson’s appearance on Meet the Press. First up: women who have abortions are equivalent to slave owners.

Ben Carson argued Sunday that abortion should be outlawed in almost all cases, and he likened women who terminate their pregnancies to “slave owners.”

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether a woman should have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, Carson, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, acknowledged upfront that the choice of words would be controversial.

“During slavery — and I know that’s one of those words you’re not supposed to say, but I’m saying it — during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said: ‘You know, I don’t believe in slavery. I think it’s wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do’? Where would we be?”

Carson went on to say that he wants to see Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, overturned, with little room for exceptions.

“I’m a reasonable person, and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen,” Carson told host Chuck Todd.

Carson said that an abortion to save a woman’s life is “an extraordinarily rare situation,” but one where “there’s room to discuss” terminating pregnancy. But he would give no leeway to a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest.

“Rape and incest I would not be in favor of killing a baby because the baby came about in that way,” he said, adding that there were “many stories of people who have led very useful lives who were the result of rape or incest.

Funny, but I would say that men who try to tell women what decisions they can and cannot make about their bodies and their health care are much more analogous to slave owners. Go figure.
Moving on, I’ll take inappropriate Nazi analogies for $500, Alex.

In Sunday’s interview, when Todd asked Carson why he uses Nazi metaphors, the candidate again raised the controversy from earlier this month over his contention that if Jews in Nazi Germany had been armed, Hitler’s Holocaust campaign would have been “greatly diminished.” The comments were denounced by Jewish groups and scholars, but Carson stood by the argument, frequently used by some Second Amendment advocates in arguing against gun control.

“Interestingly enough, in the last several weeks, I’ve heard from many people in the Jewish community, including rabbis, who’ve said you’re spot on. You are exactly right. and I think it’s — you know, some of the people in your business, quite frankly, who like to try to stir things up and try to make this into a big horrible thing,” he said. “And, of course, for people who aren’t really thinking deeply, you know, that resonates. But the fortunate thing is a lot of people really do think for themselves, as you can see from the poll numbers here.”

Personally, I think anyone who so much as nods his or her head in agreement with Ben Carson on this issue should have their citizenship revoked for stupidity. And relying on Republican polls as to whether a ridiculous and offensive historical analogy is, well, ridiculous and offensive, is a fool’s errand of the highest order.

I’d like to think the prion disease affecting the GOP is reaching maximum potency, but there seems to be no bottom here, just an endless abyss of stupid. Which is as good an explanation of the current ascendancy of Ben Carson as I’ve heard yet. I’m hoping the next sound we hear is the splat of the bottom being reached. But I’m not optimistic. 

Trump And Carson Get Down And Dirty

With the two of them smothering the rest of the field, it was bound to happen. The Post reports on the emerging kerfuffle:

The relationship between Carson, 64, and Trump, 69, has zigzagged from cordial to chummy to cool. They see themselves as kindred spirits, so much so that Trump has said he would consider Carson as his vice president.

Each has resisted bludgeoning the other, but with tensions rising as the kickoff Iowa caucuses draw near, they are starting to take each other on. After fresh polls last week showed Carson leapfrogging Trump for the lead in Iowa, Trump went on the attack.

“We have a breaking story: Donald Trump has fallen to second place behind Ben Carson,” Trump announced Friday night at a rowdy Miami rally. Pausing for dramatic effect, he added, “We informed Ben, but he was sleeping.”

Carson is “super low energy. We need tremendous energy,” Trump thundered, prompting his supporters to break into chants of “USA! USA!” He also said Carson could not create jobs and negotiate trade deals.

Carson shot back, saying at a Saturday event in Iowa: “My energy levels are perfectly fine. . . . There have been many times where I’ve operated 12, 15, 20 hours, and that requires a lot of energy. Doesn’t require a lot of jumping up and down and screaming, but it does require a lot of concentration.”

Good lord, what passes for trash talk among these Republicans? I’ve heard nastier taunts on a preschool playground. But it’s fun to see the slap fight commence.

Explaining Ben Carson

For many years now, there have been complaints that Iowa and New Hampshire are terrible places to start the presidential nominating process. There’s virtually no minority population in either state, and neither is particularly representative of, well, anything about the country as a whole.

Well, we’re still stuck with Iowa and New Hampshire, and as to Iowa, there’s a new reason to disqualify the Republicans of that state from any prominent role: they’re absolutely nuts.

It’s not just that Ben Carson is leading in the polls. It’s that the Iowa Poll folks asked some questions about some of the more outrageous things Carson has been saying, and it turns out Iowa Republicans like him BECAUSE of the stupid things he says, not in spite of them.

There is before us now yet more evidence that, especially on the Republican side, giving pride of place to Iowa in our nominating process is a truly terrible idea since, especially on the Republican side, the Iowa caucuses are a ridiculous system weighted toward increasingly ridiculous people. The most recent Iowa Poll, the gold standard in such matters, bears this out to a frightening extent.

​The headline is that Dr. Ben Carson has surged past Donald Trump among likely caucus-goers. But it is more than worth your while to scroll down a bit. You may have noticed that Dr. Ben, despite having a voice that could anesthetize small rodents, has ideas that fairly scream, “Bananas Crazy!” The Iowa Poll people decided to run some numbers on that very question. Here are the results.

I’m going to mention some things people have said about Ben Carson. Regardless of whether you support him for president, please tell me for each if this is something that you find very attractive about him, mostly attractive, mostly unattractive, or very unattractive.
​And we’re off.

Ben Carson has said that the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing to happen to America since slavery, and 55 percent of Iowans polled think this opinion makes him “very attractive.” If you add in the “mostly attractive” results, then 81 percent of the people polled think he’s right on the money there.
Ben Carson has said that the Holocaust would have turned out differently had every Jewish person in Europe been armed, and 51 percent of Iowans polled think this opinion makes him “very attractive.” If you add in the “mostly attractive” results, then 77 percent of the people polled like what he said.
And the cherry on top is the fact that an aggregate 96 percent of Iowans polled think Ben Carson “approaches issues with common sense.”

These folks will be picking one of the two candidates who will vie for the position of what used to be called leader of the free world. As Pierce concludes: “Theoretically, democracy is a hell of an idea, isn’t it? Can we just let the cows vote now?”

We could do worse.