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January 19, 2015 7:00 pm - NewsBehavingBadly.com

[su_right_ad]This means Ben Carson can be the first real black president.

Carson argued on Monday that President Barack Obama might not have ruined the opportunity to elect future black presidents because Americans knew that he was “half white.”

To mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal invited Carson to talk about the legacy of the Civil Rights movement.

One of the callers said that he had seen Carson on Fox News, and had decided that the former neurosurgeon “should have been the first black president.”…

After thanking the caller, Carson explained that Obama had not spoiled a chance at the presidency for future black candidates.

“People say there probably won’t be another black president in our lifetime because of all the things that have happened under the first one,” he noted. “But my answer to that is, isn’t he half white?”

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D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

73 responses to Ben Carson Wants To Remind You On Martin Luther King Day That Obama Is Half White

  1. arc99 January 19th, 2015 at 7:02 pm

    Almost every black person in this country has some percentage of European heritage.

    How can a neurosurgeon be so supremely ignorant?

    • tracey marie January 19th, 2015 at 7:05 pm

      teabagger, that is why

      • arc99 January 19th, 2015 at 7:12 pm

        we heard a lot of nonsense from right wingers in 2008 and 2012 about black folks supporting the President simply because of race. they conveniently ignored Al Gore’s 91% of the black vote and John Kerry’s 88%. I make no conclusions about Mr. Gore, but I am certain that John Kerry is not black.

        in any event, in 2016 if Dr. Carson is the Republican nominee, I would wager his support in the black community would be at best in the low to mid teens 15 – 20% tops.

        maybe that will make right wingers feel better.

        • whatthe46 January 19th, 2015 at 8:06 pm

          and that’s a piss fire percentage. he deserves nothing.

        • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 1:00 am

          I want to see Kerry come down the Soul Train dance line….

    • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 12:58 am

      He cheated in genetics class and didn’t really learn the material, is my guess……

  2. Carla Akins January 19th, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Ruined? This is how he chooses to approach the subject – ruined? FFS.

  3. tracey marie January 19th, 2015 at 7:05 pm

    Nothing like the whiff of racism from the right preachy black guy

    • allison1050 January 19th, 2015 at 8:41 pm

      Hi Tracey! “from the right preachy well paid and well used that will eventually be tossed out like so much newspaper wrapped garbage only to be tossed out in the end Black guy” but that’s just my personal opinion.

      • tracey marie January 19th, 2015 at 8:58 pm

        And a good opinion it is

        • allison1050 January 19th, 2015 at 9:21 pm

          Why thank you much.

    • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 12:04 am

      He has to. Otherwise Hannity wouldn’t have him on his show….

      • tracey marie January 20th, 2015 at 5:22 am

        so very true

        • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 11:51 pm

          Yep.
          That kind of TV time is pretty tempting. Some people would do almost anything to get a nice slice in prime time, with no one but themselves on camera and a couple million viewers…..might do anything for that kind of exposure…..

  4. jasperjava January 19th, 2015 at 7:26 pm

    A gracious person might have said, “despite our political differences, President Obama has been an inspiration for the African-American community. ”

    Ben Carson isn’t a gracious person. He is a disgrace.

    • StoneyCurtisll January 19th, 2015 at 8:20 pm

      Right On~!

  5. Larry Schmitt January 19th, 2015 at 7:33 pm

    As long as people like this have a soapbox, the so-called post-racial society has no chance.

    • granpa.usthai January 20th, 2015 at 12:55 am

      who better to deal the race card? -it’s all the RepubliKlans have left – not like any of the little line cutters are gonna be bringing up Texas BBQ is it?

  6. labman57 January 19th, 2015 at 7:50 pm

    Obama is 50% white, and Carson is 90% slimeball.

  7. Ron Jackson January 19th, 2015 at 7:52 pm

    He is no different than any other self hating right wing house ….
    He is a disgrace to the black community

    • whatthe46 January 19th, 2015 at 10:37 pm

      so on point.

  8. Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 8:09 pm

    Birther Ben’s creepy voice best illustrates his psychosis and denial that we were all black 2 million years ago. Republiklan’s keep saying POTUS Obama should be lynched because he’s black.

    • bpollen January 19th, 2015 at 8:56 pm

      “…we were all black up until 130,000 years ago…”

      Just how damn old do you think I am?

    • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 10:47 pm

      I posted that earlier and found from PolitiFact that it was in error. A second poster was released afterward correcting it.

      • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:05 pm

        Since the revised numbers actually increase the accuracy of Reid’s underlying point — that blockages under Obama have accounted for a disproportionate share of those undertaken in United States history — we rate the claim Mostly True.“-PolitiFact proves you have no idea what a “Block” is, including Cloture, Senate Holds, or the Flilibuster (My graphic correctly says “Blocked”.)

        • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:07 pm

          As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was about to execute the “nuclear option” — changing the chamber’s rules to eliminate a 60-vote supermajority for executive nominations — his office released a graphic designed to show how Senate Republicans had used filibusters to target a disproportionate number of President Barack Obama’s nominees.

          The graphic — which quickly went viral among Democrats using social media — showed a pie chart with the following caption. “In the history of the United States, 168 presidential nominees have been filibustered, 82 blocked under President Obama, 86 blocked under all the other presidents.”

          We received numerous requests from readers to take a look at the numbers. So we did.

          First, some background. Senators can filibuster, or delay, action either by talking as long as they can on the floor, or by making an objection to party leaders. Such a blockage can be overcome by passing a “cloture” motion with a supermajority of votes. Currently, 60 votes are needed to pass a cloture motion and proceed to a final vote on the matter at hand. (Before 1975, it was 67.)

          Reid pursued the “nuclear option” — called that because it represents a significant break with Senate tradition — on Nov. 21, 2013. Using a parliamentary maneuver, Reid secured approval to end the minority’s filibuster right in all but extraordinary circumstances for executive-branch nominations and judicial nominations short of the Supreme Court. It passed with 52 Democrats voting in support.

          When we asked Reid’s office for their supporting evidence for the graphic, they pointed us to two documents from the Congressional Research Service, the independent research arm of Congress. Collectively, the two documents list every instance in which a presidential nominee was blocked and cloture was attempted.

          Looking over the documents, we found that the numbers were essentially right, but that the way the graphic described them was wrong.

          The most recent of the two documents, a CRS memo, said, “In brief, out of the 168 cloture motions ever filed (or reconsidered) on nominations, 82 (49 percent) were cloture motions on nominations made since 2009.”

          This means that the numbers in the graphic — 82 presidential nominees blocked under Obama and 86 nominees blocked previously — were described incorrectly. The figures actually represent the number of cloture attempts that had been made, not the people who were nominated .

          This matters because some of the nominations resulted in multiple cloture efforts. By our calculation, there were actually 68 individual nominees blocked prior to Obama taking office and 79 (so far) during Obama’s term, for a total of 147.

          Reid’s point is actually a bit stronger using these these revised numbers. Using these figures, blockages under Obama actually accounted for more than half of the total, not less then half. Either way, it’s disproportionate by historical standards.

          Indeed, when we presented this finding to Reid’s office, they agreed and released an updated version of the graphic. It now reads, “In the history of the United States, there have been 168 filibusters of presidential nominees, 82 filibusters under President Obama, 86 filibusters under all other presidents.”

          “Point well taken on the number,” Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson told PolitiFact. “We have actually been careful to specify that 168 is the number of times a nominee was blocked in our materials. The miswording was unintentional. I don’t think the point is any less strong when it is worded as ‘times’ versus ‘nominees.’”

          We found another bit of questionable wording in the graphic.

          The report’s count of cloture motions started in 1949, when the Senate first allowed cloture to be sought on nominations. That means that only 11 pre-Obama presidents were included in the count, not the 43 whose thumbnail portraits are included in the graphic.

          On this one, however, Jentleson said the office was sticking with its wording.

          “I see your point there, but still feel comfortable,” he said. “The record suggests that filibusters against nominees were rare prior to 1949. If there were data suggesting that there were enough filibusters against nominees prior to 1949 to make the ‘half in the history of the U.S.’ statistic misleading, we would consider incorporating that into our wording going forward. But as it stands, we believe that the record suggests the opposite.”

          To support the notion that blocked nominations were rare prior to 1949, Reid’s office provided us with the names of just seven nominations that were rejected before 1949, some of whom were nominated more than once. They are: Roger B. Taney, nominated by Andrew Jackson to be Treasury Secretary; Caleb Cushing, nominated by John Tyler to be Treasury Secretary; David Henshaw, nominated by Tyler to be Navy Secretary; James M. Porter nominated by Tyler to be Secretary of War; James S. Green, nominated by Tyler to be Treasury Secretary; Henry Stanbery nominated by Andrew Johnson to be Attorney General; and Charles B. Warren, nominated by Calvin Coolidge to be Attorney General.

          None of these appear to have been filibustered, Jentleson said, judging by the relatively short periods between their nomination and their rejection, as well as the fact that each did ultimately get votes.

          Our ruling

          Reid’s graphic said that “in the history of the United States, 168 presidential nominees have been filibustered, 82 blocked under President Obama, 86 blocked under all the other presidents.”

          The figures are solidly sourced to the Congressional Research Service, but the graphic’s wording was wrong — an error that Reid’s office acknowledged after we contacted them, and for which they released a corrected version of the graphic. Meanwhile, the question of how many pre-Obama presidents should be included is a bit murkier. The CRS report doesn’t incorporate data prior to 1949, but there’s evidence that blocked nominations were rare to nonexistent before that.

          Since the revised numbers actually increase the accuracy of Reid’s underlying point — that blockages under Obama have accounted for a disproportionate share of those undertaken in United States history — we rate the claim Mostly True.

          • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:09 pm

            Do you think Birther Ben knows anything accurate about politics?

            You and Ben Carson should both prove that either of you, know WTF you’re balking about.

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:14 pm

            Deflection and straw-man. Reid admitted the mistake and changed the graphic. I changed my posting of the graphic when I found the error.

          • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:17 pm

            I correctly posted “Blocked.” Don’t blame me or PolitiFact for proving your foolish ineptitude via your own posted link. LMAO!

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:21 pm

            Ignoring the truth…Harry Reid’s office changed the graphic,,,not reading the polifact article explaining why…shows that your personal pride prevents you from seeing the truth.

          • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:23 pm

            I only posted the correct graphic dated Nov 2013. Are you a creationist & birther like Ben Carson too??? OMFG!

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:31 pm

            It was subsequently revised by the Harry Reid’s office. You could have read that above in the article.

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:53 pm

            “UPDATE 23 Nov 2013: Sen. Reid’s office, informed that its count was simply incorrect, has issued a corrected graphic, clarifying that they intended to count not nominees, but cloture motions.”

          • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 12:02 am

            The kid thinks he’s scoring debate points.

            LOL!

          • Obewon January 20th, 2015 at 12:12 am

            He clings to “blocked” thinking it’s gotta be wrong. LOL!

            Who thinks GOP are the Job creators? “Bush on Jobs: Worst Track Record On Record”-WSJ! 1/09/2009.

          • whatthe46 January 20th, 2015 at 12:31 am

            and that just bites their a&&es!

          • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 12:51 am

            He’s hot stuff at the 7th grade lunch table.
            Give the kid some slack, of COURSE he doesn’t know what “Blocked” means. it’s a couple more years before he has a class in government.
            Shoot, I’ll be finishing off my perfect game against the lad in my spare time because he hasn’t yet had a class in world history where they teach the Reformation, Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason.

            This is why we need a jayvee board, because it’s just not fair to pit high school graduates and college degree holders against 7th graders.

          • Apocalypse January 20th, 2015 at 2:35 am

            That graphic is accurate.

          • Apocalypse January 22nd, 2015 at 1:30 pm

            Up to date.

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:43 pm

            “Indeed, when we presented this finding to Reid’s office, they agreed and released an updated version of the graphic. It now reads, “In the history of the United States, there have been 168 filibusters of presidential nominees, 82 filibusters under President Obama, 86 filibusters under all other presidents.”

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:47 pm

            The graphic dated 2013 was in error and has been replaced by Harry Reid’s office.

        • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:10 pm

          Why did Reid’s office correct the graphic then?

          • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:12 pm

            You can’t decipher what the word “Blocked” means. That’s the trouble with you FNC devotees. You never seem to know anything accurate.

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:17 pm

            Sp you think Harry Reid is stupid too, He changed the graphic. I know you didn’t read all that polifact reported.

          • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:19 pm

            So you think (Apocalypse) is stupid too, Yes & you keep proving it.

          • Obewon January 19th, 2015 at 11:25 pm

            Apocalypse is trying so hard to be banned!

          • Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:28 pm

            If being banned for pointing out the truth and presenting evidence is what happens here…then I will probably get banned.

          • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 12:00 am

            Yeah, but you gotta remember we’re dealing with an adolescent at the onset of puberty.

            Really, MastermindObewon, we need to talk to Alan about getting a jayvee board where kids like Apocalypse can be among their own kind.

            It’s like back in the day when you were 15 and were hanging out with the guys and one of them’s mother insisted he take along his smart-alecky 9 year old brother, who can’t stop chirping, y’know?
            It’s too easy at times.

            Here I made a point and he’s had 21 chances to rebut it and has failed each time. Kinda cool to pitch 21 innings of perfect baseball. This one is so easy I’m pitching from second base and am telling him which pitch is coming, yet he can’t get his bat off his shoulder.

            http://www.alan.com/2015/01/14/take-our-poll-should-we-call-terrorism-islamic/#comment-1803615832

      • Apocalypse January 20th, 2015 at 12:00 am

        Reid’s claim is that Republicans “blocked” 82 nominees (really 77 nominees, as we have seen). The problem with that claim is that almost none of these supposed filibusters (which may or may not be filibusters, as we have seen) actually went anywhere. Let’s return to Table 6.

        Here, we see that many attempted filibusters were supported only by small minorities of the Republican caucus. When cloture was invoked to end debate, those minorities were pummeled, with cloture usually winning overwhelming majorities of 70 senators or more (including at least one-third of Republicans). That’s not exactly obstructionism. In many other cases, once cloture was invoked, Republicans simply allowed Democrats to go to a floor vote without forcing cloture, so the cloture motion was withdrawn without a vote. It is impossible to argue that Republicans “blocked” nominations where they voluntarily closed debate and moved to an up-or-down vote.

        Of the 77 cases Reid cites as attempted “filibusters,” those two situations cover fully 65 of them! Only 12 developed into genuine filibusters, where the Republican minority actually blocked progress on a nominee. Those nominees were: Hagel, Cordray, Millett, Watt, Wilkins, Pillard, Halligan, Bacharach, Aponte, Liu, Becker, and Hayes. Of these 12, 4 were confirmed anyway, after negotiations (Hagel, Aponte, Cole, and Hayes).

        That leaves a grand total of 8 blocked Obama nominees, during five years of Democratic control of the Senate, or about 1.5 per year. This is the real lie in Sen. Reid’s infographic: not his abuse of cloture vote counts to measure filibusters, not his incomprehensibly bad counting, but his decision to change the meaning of the word “blocked” so that it means something completely different from what the English language says it means.

  9. StoneyCurtisll January 19th, 2015 at 8:19 pm

    As if Ben Carson doesn’t have a little white in him…
    Give me a break Ben..(Ben Carson thinks before he speaks?)

    • burqa January 19th, 2015 at 11:47 pm

      Apparently percentages are important.
      At least to Carson.

      It is saddening to read such blather on this, of all days.
      Earlier I dealt with someone here who was looking for ways to discriminate against minorities in hiring.
      Right now I’m listening to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Meet the Press in 1965.
      Here we are, 60 years later dealing with this crap.
      We have come a long way, but I can only look down and shake my head ruefully when I regard the fact that we have a long way to go.

  10. allison1050 January 19th, 2015 at 8:27 pm

    And in the USA, even though the President is half white, he’s considered Black so Carson’s point is what…. nothing at all really.

    • Dwendt44 January 20th, 2015 at 12:19 am

      Several rabid right wingers have pointed out that Obama was ‘half white’, implying that the ‘white half’ was elected president, not the black half. Or that the ‘white’ half did the good and the ‘black’ half did the stuff they didn’t like. OR some such crapola.

    • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 1:41 am

      Sometimes he’s black, sometimes the same people say he’s half white.
      It depends on what they’re bitching about.

      • allison1050 January 20th, 2015 at 4:12 am

        Very true burqa.

        • burqa January 20th, 2015 at 11:45 pm

          Thank you, Miss allison.
          And may I say that I have recently noticed you posting here and enjoy the things you post. Please post more often, I like the things you have to say!

          • allison1050 January 21st, 2015 at 5:43 am

            I’ve been dropping in almost daily for a year now but have recently noticed you also and have enjoyed reading what’s on your mind.

          • burqa January 21st, 2015 at 6:18 am

            You are too kind.
            I prefer just having a visit, swapping stories and finding agreement more than just arguing. That’s a drag and ultimately pointless. I much prefer discussing things in a convivial manner, even when our views are not the same.
            This business of just hurling accusations at various public figures and clubbing other people isn’t useful. I’m trying to g toet away from all that talking past people, getting one’s points in and ignoring what the other person has to say. I’d rather engage the way I would in person.
            Some times it can be difficult to change one’s opinion, but all growth must necessarily involve change of one sort or another. I like when someone else posts information I was unaware of or an opinion from a different perspective I have not considered. Then the challenge is to alter my opinion and ego can get in the way. I’m trying to get better at this.

          • allison1050 January 21st, 2015 at 11:22 am

            When I was at HuffPoo, I spent a day talking with a gun nut and finally admitted to him that I had sold my gunz in 2000, talk about shocked! I was able to convince him that in his area he could open an open air gun range and boom have a effin business. He got excited rather than continue with the usual gun nut crap about protecting 1’s self and blah, blah blah. On occasion I drop in at Braitbart if there’s an article about gunz. It’s been awhile since I was there but the boys were blaming the Prez. of the shortage of ammo..puh leez. A woman mentioned that if she needs to she goes early so I had to share if info with the dumbassed “men”. They’re so stoopid,

          • burqa January 22nd, 2015 at 12:29 am

            Because of some things I do in the community, I come into contact with people who are, for example, bipolar and not taking their medication or have some other mental problems. Sometimes following what they are saying can be a challenge, but there are other times when presumably sane people exhibit greater insanity.
            I am never bored.

  11. bpollen January 19th, 2015 at 8:55 pm

    American is a wonderful place. You can be highly educated, you can be highly skilled in a very exacting profession, you can be paid entirely too much to offer your opinion on the TV machine, and still be a stone idiot.

  12. fancypants January 19th, 2015 at 9:02 pm

    its not a stupid argument ben just a stupid statement that didn’t need to be said

    • whatthe46 January 19th, 2015 at 10:35 pm

      but stupid can’t help but to be stupid and say stupid sh’t.

  13. pszymeczek January 19th, 2015 at 9:37 pm

    Apparently, Ben has forgotten about the old “one drop” rule…

    • whatthe46 January 19th, 2015 at 10:34 pm

      apparently he neglected to realize that the right and the racist hasn’t. nor do they care that his mother is white. to them, the one drop and the complection of his skin is all that matters.

  14. Apocalypse January 19th, 2015 at 11:39 pm

  15. Dwendt44 January 20th, 2015 at 12:27 am

    If Carson thinks he has a snowball’s chance in Hell of becoming President, he’s living in a fantasy land.

  16. granpa.usthai January 20th, 2015 at 12:45 am

    It’s POTUS Obama’s POLICIES! = not the color of His most excellent Hawaiian Maui tan.

  17. granpa.usthai January 20th, 2015 at 1:03 am

    BTW – is Michelle planning on dropping gas below 1 dollar a gallon?

  18. rg9rts January 20th, 2015 at 1:36 am

    Which half ?????

  19. No way out January 20th, 2015 at 8:31 am

    Carson is one of our terrific buffoons

  20. labman57 January 20th, 2015 at 9:33 am

    Here we go again — Republicans love their “purity tests”.

  21. Bunya January 20th, 2015 at 2:05 pm

    I didn’t know we elected presidents based on skin color. If that’s the case, I’m sure Carson would probably govern like Dubya – but at least he’d be the first ALL BLACK president.