The curious case of Benjamin Carson

While I was traveling, I read various foreign newspapers and many of them had articles about Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson. While they were generally baffled by the rise of Donald Trump as a leading presidential contender, Carson’s rise to the top seemed to leave them utterly astounded. There is no question that he is the most fascinating candidate in the field because there is something really weird about him, and I am not just talking about the way he speaks, with his eyes often closed and giving the impression of one who is either sedated or stoned.
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Giving criminals a second chance

Take a look at a graph created by Dara Lind using official prison statistics about the number of prisoners in the US per 100,000 adult US residents. The rates now are nearly seven times what they were for nearly an entire century, from 1880 to 1970, when it suddenly shot up when ‘law and order’ and ‘get tough on crime’ became the way to win votes.
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The opportunistic attention given to mental health

Whenever there is a mass shooting of random people, as occurs all too frequently in the US, people immediately seize on the issue of the mental health of the gunman (it is almost always a man). Some use it purely opportunistically, in order to deflect attention away from the easy accessibility of guns in the US that enables individual to obtain an arsenal of lethal weaponry with far less effort and time than it takes to get (say) a driver’s license.
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George Carlin on how our system really works

I found this clip from back in 2009 where the late comedian talked to Tavis Smiley about how the country really works. He points out that by limiting the number of actual choices that people have about the major things that affect their lives, they can be more easily controlled. And they are aided in this by the collusion of the media, the politicians, and the legal system.
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Is it now open season on hospitals?

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is reporting that another one of their hospitals has been bombed. This time it is in Yemen where Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of states that is seeking to restore the government that was toppled by rebels. This follows the bombing of an MSF hospital in Afghanistan by the US and the bombing of a Syrian hospital by the Russians.
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Criminalizing criticisms of Israel

Assaf Gavron, a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces, has written an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled Confessions of an Israeli traitor arguing that the harsh occupation by Israel of the West Bank and its brutal treatment of people there and in Gaza is destroying Israel. He said that things have changed a lot since the days when the IDF soldiers responded with merely tear gas and rubber bullets to angry teenage stone throwers. The use of violence against protestors is much harsher and more lethal now.
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How low will the next Republican debate go?

We have seen that there seems to be no depth of extremism to which the Republican party cannot and will not sink. The other question is how vacuous the Republican presidential primary debates can get and that too seems to have no limits. With the next Republican debate coming up tomorrow, no doubt knives are being sharpened in all the campaign headquarters.
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Ben Carson backpedals on ending Medicare and Medicaid

When he was questioned by Chris Wallace on Fox News about his plan to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid, Carson denies it, surprising Wallace. Carson now says that that report is completely false and that it “is a narrative being out there to scare people”. But when Wallace points out that it was on his website, Carson says that that was his old plan and it has now changed. Now he has some scheme where people supposedly have a choice between Medicare or private health savings accounts and says it won’t cost any more money.
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