Tag Archives: Ben Carson

Outrage as Ben Carson refers to African slaves as “immigrants”.

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President Donald Trump’s housing secretary provoked a firestorm Monday by saying slaves brought from Africa were “immigrants” who dreamed of success for their families in the United States.

Ben Carson, who is black, made the stunning remarks during an address to employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Washington.

“That’s what America is about: a land of dreams and opportunity,” said Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who grew up poor in a Detroit ghetto.

“But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

The comments provoked an instantaneous backlash.

“Immigrants???” tweeted the NAACP, the nation’s largest civil rights organisation aimed at ending racial discrimination.

The remarks were condemned as “tragic, shocking and unacceptable” by the US office of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a social justice group named after the Jewish girl whose diary, written before she was killed in the Holocaust, became a globally respected account of discrimination and hope.

“No, Secretary Carson. Slaves didn’t immigrate to America,” the group’s executive director Steven Goldstein wrote.

“This is as offensive a remark as it gets.”

The HUD department pushed back, saying on Twitter that the flurry of US media reports on Carson was “the most cynical interpretation” of his remarks.

“No one honestly believes he equates voluntary immigration with involuntary servitude,” the department added.

It was not the first such controversy for Carson, a former Trump rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and someone who routinely blasts political correctness.

He once said Joseph, the Biblical figure, built Egypt’s pyramids in order to store grain, and not as tombs for the pharaohs.

In 2013, he blasted the health care reforms of Trump’s presidential predecessor Barack Obama as “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”

 

Source: The Guardian

Trump Picks Ben Carson For HUD Secretary

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Dr. Ben Carson will be nominated as the next secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Trump transition team announced Monday.

“I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development,” President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement.
“Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities. We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a Presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up.”
The secretary of housing and urban development oversees federal public housing programs and helps formulate policy on homelessness and housing discrimination. As is the case with all cabinet secretaries, Carson needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
Carson had signaled he would be named to the job Wednesday afternoon, posting on Facebook that an announcement about his forthcoming role in the administration was forthcoming.
“After serious discussions with the Trump transition team, I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone,” he wrote. “We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid.”
Trump praised Carson as a “greatly talented person” in a tweet two weeks ago when he announced he was considering Carson for the HUD position.
“I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I’ve gotten to know him well — he’s a greatly talented person who loves people!” Trump tweeted.
Read More: CNN

Ben Carson Cancels Africa Trip, Cites Security Concerns

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Republican U.S. presidential candidate Ben Carson canceled a trip planned for later this month to Africa that would have taken him to Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia due to what his campaign on Thursday called significant security concerns.

Campaign spokesman Doug Watts confirmed that the trip, scheduled for after the Christmas holiday next week, has been canceled. The campaign did not offer details about the nature of the security concerns.

Carson, who has been criticized by rivals for a lack of foreign policy experience, traveled last month to Jordan to visit a camp for Syrian refugees.

Carson’s support among Republican voters has declined in recent weeks, according to opinion polls. The trips abroad were intended to address concerns that he could not handle international diplomacy.

Credit: Reuters

Ben Carson To Visit Nigeria, Other African Countries

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Ben Carson told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday that he’s heading to Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia at the end of the month.

“I have a tendency to like to see things firsthand. … You know, I tend to make a much bigger impression, so by going over to Jordan and actually talking to the Syrians themselves, and really getting their perspective on things, [I saw it was] very different from what we hear in the media. And it makes a difference,” Carson said. “ And I think we need to make decisions based on real information as opposed to filtered information.”

Carson — who has seen his poll numbers drop amid greater scrutiny of his comments about foreign policy — said he’s going to each place for a specific reason.

Credit: Politico

Listen To American Presidential Candidate Ben Carson Become A Rap Lyricist On Campaign Ad

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Ben Carson is feeling himself, and why wouldn’t he? He’s currently number one in the Republican presidential race. In fact, he’s feeling himself so much, he wrote a rap song about it.

In an effort to reach young voters who have been turning up at the polls in droves, Dr. Carson is using his rap “Freedom” promo to “inspire” people to vote for him in 2016.

From ABC News:

 

“Reaching them on a level they appreciate and follow and see if we can attract their consciousness about the election,” Carson campaign spokesman Doug Watts told ABC News. “They need to get involved and express their voice through their vote.”

“This happens to be a group that we feel pretty strongly is ready and prepared to start working for Ben Carson,” Watts said.

Carson spent $150,000 on the ad, which will be played for two weeks in the Atlanta, Birmingham, Detroit, Houston, Little Rock, Memphis, Jackson, and Miami urban radio markets. Listen below.

Listen to The Ben Carson Ad Here

Ben Carson Says Many Americans Are ‘Stupid’

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, whose poll numbers have taken off thanks to enthusiastic populist support, seems to hold a more skeptical view of voters than he usually displays on the campaign trail. In a speech from last year, Carson said in reference to the American people, “Many of them are stupid,” Mother Jones reported Tuesday.

His statement came during a stop on a book tour, when Carson spoke at the Richard Nixon Library on Oct. 19, 2014. Many in the crowd seemed to want Carson to run for president, chanting “run, Ben, run” as he entered the room. When an audience member asked if he would enter the 2016 presidential race as an independent, Carson said he would not do so because it would split the Republican vote.

Carson broadened his speech from specific political parties to vague political enemies, who he said were permeating various aspects of American society in a quest to control the country:

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.

Credit: Yahoo

U.S. Presidential Candidate, Ben Carson, Compares Women Who Get Abortions To Slave Owners

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GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson, a man who wrongly believes the tragedy of the Holocaust might have been “greatly diminished” if the Jews had guns, is now comparing women who receive abortions to slave owners.

Carson, now the Iowa front-runner, made the comparison on NBC’s Meet the Press when he argued that abortion should be made illegal with few exceptions. He would “love” to see Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973, overturned. Carson opposes abortion even in instances of rape or incest, saying that ?there are “many stories of people who have led very useful lives who were the result of rape or incest.”? He’d only be willing to consider exceptions in the “?extraordinarily rare situation?” in which complications with pregnancy put the mother’s life in danger. According to the CDC, about 650 women die due to pregnancy or child-birth related complications annually, a number that would be much higher if women were denied abortions.

Carson believes that an infant’s life begins at conception — a view that has no scientific or factual backing, but has garnered major support on moral grounds among right-wing conservatives and religious groups. When Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked whose rights are more important, the mother’s or the unborn child’s, Carson said the problem is that “the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate her baby.”

Credit: Cosmopolitan

No Muslim Should Be US President – Ben Carson

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Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson said Sunday no Muslim should be president of the United States, adding a new twist to a controversy roiling the party’s White House nominating race.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Carson, a retired brain surgeon who often refers to his own deep Christian faith, was asked whether a president’s religion should matter.

“I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the
constitution, no problem,” he said.

Asked whether he believes Islam is consistent with the US constitution, he responded: “No, I don’t. I do not.”

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that,” he added

The issue abruptly surfaced in recent days when Republican front runner Donald Trump let pass unchallenged a questioner’s assertion that US President Barack Obama was a Muslim.

Trump later said he was not “morally obligated” to defend Obama against the man’s unfounded claim, but his handling of the incident drew fire from Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton, the White House and some Republican rivals of the billionaire real estate mogul.

Carson, who slipped to third among Republican presidential contenders in opinion polls Sunday after running second to Trump for weeks, said he believed Obama was born in the United States and is a Christian.

His remarks predictably sparked ire from Democrats.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a presidential hopeful, said on the campaign trail in New Hampshire that he was “disappointed” in Carson, who is black.

“It took us too long to overcome the prejudice against electing a Catholic or an African-American president. People should be elected to office based on their ideas, not their religion or the color of their skin,” Sanders said.

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida, said it was “hard to understand what’s so difficult about supporting an American citizen’s right to run for president.”

“Of course a Muslim, or any other American citizen, can run for president, end of story. To think otherwise is not only harmful to our political process, but it elevates and validates discrimination in this country,” she said, calling for an apology.