Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Unsolved Mysteries of Ben Carson

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Ben Carson has pretty much had a free ride from both the right and the left so far, even when they know he has said weird stuff in the past that any other candidate would be grilled about, and even when he debates on national TV with his eyes closed.

All that changed this week, and it's been fabulous. Finally the media is poking around in Carson's past and pulling out these tidbits of insanity.

The Egyptian Pyramids are Grain Silos

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Ben Carson stood by his long-held belief about ancient pyramids in Egypt, that they were used to store grain, rather than to inter pharaohs.
Asked about this Wednesday, Carson told CBS News, "It's still my belief, yes."
The subject came up when Buzzfeed published a 1998 commencement speech delivered by Carson at Andrews University, a college founded by Seventh-day Adventists.
"My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said. "Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don't think it'd just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain."
In the same speech, he went on to say, "[W]hen you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they'd have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, 'Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that's how--' you know, it doesn't require an alien being when God is with you."
























Rand Paul: Nope! Aliens!









Carson Got All Stabby with Something Sharp on Somebody Once (Maybe)



From Salon
In preparation for an interview with Ben Carson on “New Day” Friday, CNN investigated claims the retired neurosurgeon made about his upbringing in his 1990 autobiography “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,” but was unable to find corroboration for the incidents of violence that are at the core of his story of transformation from an angry young man into the calm, collected GOP hopeful he is today.
Carson claims to have punched a seventh-grade classmate in the head while holding a lock, and attempted to stab a classmate named “Bob” in ninth grade, but CNN spoke to nine people who knew him at the time — two of whom lived next door to the Carsons and knew young Ben well — and not a single one of them could corroborate his stories.

Vanity Fair
When CNN interviewed his classmates, some who’d known Carson as early as elementary school, they universally said they never heard any rumors of Carson’s alleged violence. “I don't know nothing about that,” said Gerald Ware, who attended high school with Carson. “It would have been all over the whole school.” CNN also delved into Carson’s shifting recollections of certain pivotal life moments: during one telling of the hammer incident, they reported, he left out the hammer, saying only that he attempted to hit his mother.
In this strange universe we live in, Carson being accused of not having a violent temper is somehow a minus: during press conferences and an appearance on The Kelly File later that day, he adamantly refused to admit that he fabricated his personal history, blaming the media for trying to take him down: “Do you think I’m a pathological liar like CNN does? Or do you think I’m an honest person?”

From Politicus USA
Timothy McDaniel, a friend of Carson’s, told CNN the descriptions Carson gives on the Trump are not the guy he knew. He remembers Carson as an academically driven young man, “… never stooping to the level of the common thug.” His friend suggested that maybe Carson tried to hide this side of himself out of embarrassment. A tenth person said maybe he heard about the attempted stabbing at school.
Yes, that’s right, Dr. Carson might just be an ordinary kid who studied really hard and became a great neurosurgeon, and now he’s a leading contender for the GOP nomination for president.
What’s so bad about that? Well, working hard to rise above your circumstances doesn’t resonate with evangelicals. You have to be a stereotyped version of a sinner first and then be saved. If you’re black, best to be a thug. If you’re a pretty white woman, see Roxie Hart. Etc. You need a good story to be a good con artist, and the good story needs to fit in with the bigotry of your marks, to validate their prejudices and make them feel elevated, chosen, and ultimately, superior. So Carson needs to be a dangerous, violent thug saved by the Bible.

Carson thinks CNN is on a "Witch Hunt"

From The Hill
Carson told host Megyn Kelly on Fox News’s “The Kelly File." "This is simply an attempt to smear and deflect the argument to something else.
“The media is ruthless,” the retired neurosurgeon added. "So, you know, I would say to the people of America — do you think I’m a pathological liar like CNN does? Or do you think I’m an honest person? I’m going to leave that up to the American people to make that decision.”
Carson then argued that CNN is trying to discredit him, given his surging popularity with voters nationwide.
“It’s a smear campaign,” he insisted. "They’re going to go back and try to find anything that I’ve ever said and try to get me on the defensive about it in order to distract away from the things that are important.









Trump loves this story!





And this person - not the real Trump:




















Ben Carson Wasn't Offered a "Scholarship" to West Point Because There are NO Scholarships at West Point

From Washington Post
For years, Carson has said he was offered a “full scholarship” to the U.S. Military Academy when he was a high-achieving high school Army ROTC cadet in the late 1960s. But Carson never applied to West Point, was never accepted and never received a formal scholarship offer. In fact, West Point does not offer scholarships; all cadets attend free.
The story was first reported Friday by Politico. Carson responded to the resulting controversy by saying that when he spoke of an “offer,” he referred to informal, verbal statements of encouragement from military leaders he met through the ROTC, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps .
“I was told that because of my accomplishments, they would be able to manage to get me into West Point and that I wouldn’t have to pay anything,” Carson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network. He said he decided not to apply and went to Yale University instead to pursue medicine. “There was no application process [at West Point]. I never even started down that path,” Carson said.























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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

The Arrest and Mysterious Death of #SandraBland

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Behold the mysterious case of Sandra Bland, a woman driving alone who was pulled over in Waller County, Texas for relatively minor infractions: she blew through a stop sign on what seems to be a deserted highway except for the police car. According to the cop's dashcam, he sped up and did a quick u-turn in order to follow Ms. Bland. When she changed lanes to the right, possibly to allow the speeding officer to pass her, she didn't use her turn signal and the same cop pulled her over.

From there, it just gets worse and worse. Yes, she argued with cop Brian Encinia, asking why she was being pulled over. This apparently outraged Encinia, who kept asking Bland to get out of her car and threatened her with a taser is she didn't comply. When she finally got out of the car, he carefully led her out of camera view and there ensued an altercation in which Ms. Bland was screaming about having her head slammed into the ground. Then she was arrested.

That was last Friday.

By Monday morning she was dead in the Waller County Jail. Of suicide.







From the Texas Tribune
Late Tuesday, DPS released dashboard camera video of the stop, which showed in graphic detail Trooper Brian Encinia losing his temper, threatening to Taser Bland and ultimately arresting her after she refused to put out a cigarette and come out of her vehicle.
"Get out of the car, now!" Encinia is seen yelling. "I will light you up." Bland is combative during much of the encounter, demanding answers from Encinia, calling him names and disobeying his instructions.
Three days later, Bland was found hanged to death inside the Waller County Jail. Her death was ruled a suicide by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences and the autopsy report, which has not been released, was forwarded to Waller County authorities who plan to take Bland's case to a grand jury.








More from the Texas Tribune
According to the mental health questionnaire filled out by the Waller County Sheriff's office during her booking, a deputy marked "yes" to the question: "Have you ever attempted suicide?"
The deputy also wrote "Lost Baby" and "2015" in the boxes next to that answer.
Bland also indicated to the jailers that she had suffered a loss with the death of a godmother, and that she had been diagnosed with epilepsy and was taking an anti-seizure medication.
However, she was not placed on monitoring as a suicide risk during her three days in in jail, according to the sheriff and district attorney's offices. Using a standardized grid of risk factors, jailers classified Bland as a "medium" risk of assault or escape.

Now people are questioning whether Sandra was already deceased in her mugshot photo, pointing out that she looks lifeless and appears to be lying down, plus she is already wearing an orange jumpsuit. However, we know that she spoke to a local friend from her cell this weekend, and possibly family members. So it's unlikely the photo was taken of an already-deceased woman, but so far this case is so strange that anything is actually possible.






















To make matters even worse, when the state of Texas released the video of the arrest and altercation, the video had clearly been edited in a strange way, while the audio is never cut. So far they are just claiming technical "uploading difficulties." Then they released a video that was 3 minutes shorter...

Original Dashcam Video Released
Longer, With Anomalies and Cuts



2nd Version Released the Next Day
Without Cuts, Shorter









~~~~~~~~~~~~

















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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Baltimore Burning Over Death of Freddie Gray

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Here we go again. On April 19, 2015, a group of policemen in Baltimore, Maryland, took custody of a man named Freddie Gray and after he was injured during the scuffle, they dragged him to an ambulance where later he died a mysterious death. Somehow he was killed inside an ambulance, completely severing his spinal cord. You cannot make up a horror story worse than the plight of African Americans in the hands of white cops these days.

From The Atlantic: The Mysterious Death of Freddie Gray
According to the city, an officer made eye contact with Gray, and he took off running, so they pursued him. Though he'd had scrapes with the law before, there's no indication he was wanted at the time. And though he was found with a switchblade, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “We know that having a knife is not necessarily a crime.”

The police say Gray didn't resist arrest and that officers didn't use force, which seems to be mostly corroborated by video shot by bystanders. Gray seems to shout in pain, and his leg seems injured as officers drag him to a police van. (Someone off camera shouts, "His leg broke and y'all dragging him like that!") Gray also had asthma and requested his inhaler, but didn't get it. Yet it's not the leg or the asthma that killed him. Instead, it was a grave injury to his spinal cord. Gray's family said he was treated for three fractured vertebrae and a crushed voice box, the sorts of injuries that doctors say are usually caused by serious car accidents. The van made at least two stops before reaching the police station, but there's no footage to say what happened during the journey or at those stops.

It's a baffling conundrum. "None of the officers describe any use of force," Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said. "None of the officers describe using any force against Mr. Gray." And yet somehow Gray was fatally hurt while in police custody.

Baffling conundrum, indeed.

So what has happened since Gray's death? Protest marches have sometimes turned into riots, with looting and fires, and the Governor called in the National Guard. Hashtag Baltimore is turning into another Ferguson, Missouri. Or maybe EVERYWHERE is Ferguson these days, and the country has got to get this under control! The good news is that recently sworn-in Attorney General Loretta Lynch has already sent a team to Baltimore to investigate the circumstances. Which is fine, but at some point there has to be justice for black Americans who are scared for their lives and for their children.















































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Monday, March 16, 2015

Vladimir Putin Still Missing ~ Update: FOUND!

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Previous Related Post:
Is Vladimir Putin Missing, Dead, or Abducted by Aliens?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE: Putin made an appearance in public today~











~~~ Original Post ~~~

Vladimir Putin has still not surfaced, and the Kremlin is keeping quiet. What is going on in Russia?

With so many conspiracy theories swirling, even if Putin were to show up today, no one would believe it was really him. It's clearly a false-flag actor look-alike or perhaps an alien Reptilian shapeshifter!
























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Saturday, March 14, 2015

Is Vladimir Putin Missing, Dead, or Abducted by Aliens?

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Previous Related Posts:
Putin Shambles on Ukraine
CPAC 2014: Persecution and Putin-Envy
Putin and Snowden Chat About Surveillance
Snowden Finally Leaves Moscow Airport
Snowden in Moscow Limbo
Armchair Chickenhawks Say Obama is "Weak and Trembling" on Russia
Jon Karl of ABC: Obama is Weak Because Putin Does Stuff

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After going through the Snowden saga for months wondering where he was only to see him turn up in Moscow, now we have his bro' and mentor Vladimir Putin who also seems to have become a displaced (or misplaced) person.

For several weeks now Putin has not been seen by the public. He has missed high-level meetings, photo-ops, and all of his usual duties. The Kremlin has released pictures and video without dates attached to confirm that they are recent. There are rumors of a love child being born in Switzerland, but so far no baby - or Daddy - pictures. And there's an animated video of his abduction by aliens. There are cancer rumors, stroke rumors, plastic surgery rumors, death rumors, and lots of Putin jokes and hashtags.

You really cannot make this stuff up, folks. Maybe the 47 Traitors in the U.S. Senate can write him a letter and see if he replies as quickly as Iran did!

From CNN
When Russian officials tried to trick the public by passing off old photos as new appearances, speculation about Putin's whereabouts went viral.
Hashtags such as #Whereisputin and #ПутинУмер -- Russian for #PutinIsDead -- became the tip of a giant social media iceberg, much of it streaked with dark humor.
In Ukraine, the neighboring state besieged by Putin's forces, someone reportedly left a large funeral wreath at the gate of the Russian embassy. A handwritten message addressed Putin with an expletive, telling him, "Thank you for croaking."

From Yahoo
The Kremlin’s attempts to assure the public that Vladimir Putin is alive and well and still running Russia’s government did not go particularly well on Friday. Media outlets were presented with a tape of President Putin meeting with a senior government official – with no evidence of the date of the meeting. The Kremlin had previously issued photographs found to be several days old – causing more suspicion.
Making things even stranger, Russian TV station Rossiya 24 aired a live report of Putin’s meeting with Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev, though the meeting is not scheduled to occur until Monday.
. . . Meanwhile, numerous reports began to surface Friday afternoon that key journalists in Moscow had been told to expect a major announcement from the Kremlin over the weekend. Some reports suggested the announcement would be made by Putin, while others simply said it would come from the Kremlin.

From Daily Beast
In an article titled Es ist ein Mädchen! or “It’s a Girl,” the paper Bilk claims that Putin and his alleged 32-year-old lover, Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, welcomed their daughter at the private Santa Anna di Sorgeno clinic in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino on the Italian border—a favorite playground for wealthy Russians.
. . . The Italian-language Swiss radio channel RSI is reporting that Putin reserved two rooms at the tony clinic—one for the new mother and another for their bodyguards.  According to the Italian-language Swiss website Ticino News, Putin stayed with friends for the birth.  They also point to a Twitter page linked to Kabayeva that seems to announce the birth though the Tweet would suggest the baby is a boy and the Swiss media say instead it is a girl.
. . . Other news outlets floated the idea that Putin’s absence could be the result of a bad plastic surgery. Forbes meanwhile reported that the killing of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov had created a rift within the chiefs of the Russian state security agency and Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechnya region, leaving Putin vulnerable to a coup.



Ukrainian School Children made this Cartoon
Of Putin's Abduction by Aliens:







Or is Putin riding a weasel on a woodpecker?




























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Sunday, November 9, 2014

The Nonsensical Election of 2014

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Many people in the U.S. and around the world are still struggling to understand why a Midterm Election in which only 36% of voters bothered to show up at the polls is being taken as a "Mandate" by the nutty Republicans. If this is just a typical midterm election, then why does it feel as if we've really gone down the rabbit hole this time?

Maybe it's the obvious gloating of the Tea Partiers, who should realize how marginalized they are according to every demographic number, but who thought President Obama should just surrender and impeach himself the day after the election. I guess the fact that Cuckoo-For-Cocoa-Puffs candidates will soon pour into both houses of Congress is giving them the "audacity of hope" that their draconian views are the norm. Why shouldn't they gloat? They turned out the vote, and the Democrats failed miserably.



Maybe we are just outnumbered by the stupids in this country, and we need to accept that.

While cool heads are saying this election was a quirk of red-state geography, gerrymandering, and local elections that pushed hot-button issues, that's no solace to those who voted Blue in a Red State. For instance, in Tennessee it is a fact that a new constitutional amendment to make abortions harder to get failed in the four major cities, thanks to Blue voters. However, it was passed almost as a landslide statewide as if those cities and their Democratic voters didn't even exist. And therein lies a sad truth about why turn-out is so low among Dems in red states - our votes get canceled out, and that leads to voter malaise and low turnout.



We also suffered in Tennessee from a wealthy scandal-proof fence-rider of a Republican governor whose only Democratic opposition was some unknown doofus named, I kid you not, "Charlie Brown." Behold, our state Democratic Party in action. Red state Dems are like orphans in the wilderness these days, and we are outnumbered by crazies.





Same thing in Texas where candidates like Wendy Davis and Letitia Van de Putte couldn't overcome the basic sexism of aging white ranchers, oil men, and the loony misogynist Christians who turned out to vote. What's more astonishing is that women turned out to vote against women candidates too. Another mystery of this election. Where were the "majority" of Dem and Independent women, and why didn't they care?

And then there was Kansas, allegedly a state where the Tea Party had turned their economy upside down, so they were ready to clean house starting with Governor Sam Brownback. Also, Independent Greg Orman was supposed to handily beat the incumbent Senator Pat Roberts, then caucus with the Dems. Except that none of that happened. The polls were all wrong. The people voted for Brownback as if everything was just okey dokey with them. And their absentee Senator, who doesn't even live in Kansas anymore, was re-elected in a landslide. Go figure.

My husband said no one should be suprised that a red state stayed red, but what was all that reporting about? How could everyone be so wrong this time?









Maybe it was delusional on the Dems' part to think states like Georgia or Kentucky - or Texas, a longshot - could be blue in this election, that they would elect a Michelle Nunn or an Alison Lundergan Grimes. But it's just as mysterious that Kentucky re-elected an unpopular guy like Mitch McConnell, while keeping their blue Governor and State Legislature. The popularity of Governors like John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin is a conundrum that cannot be explained easily. Those states had huge "get out the vote" movements, and actually have real Democratic Parties, unlike in Tennessee. Yet it all seemed to make no difference in the end, and I'm sure their Dem voters feel just as puzzled as ever.



Many say that Democratic candidates failed because they "ran away from the President" and from the victory that is Obamacare. But to those of us in Red States who understand swing voters, it seemed logical that the candidates wouldn't want to draw too much attention to Obama or to the unpopular idea of ACA. I think it was a lose-lose situation - damned if they did, damned if they didn't.

Maybe history will explain this election, if we live long enough. Or we can just blame the black President like most of the media. If it really is that simple, and that racist, I just don't want to know.

Maybe we Dems just had too much hope, and got ahead of ourselves, and now we are turning on ourselves and playing the blame game. The fall-out in the Democratic party is already happening. There are calls to throw out Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader, and toss Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as head of the Democratic Party. The head of the DCCC, Steve Israel, resigned a few days after the election.

All this blaming and firing won't really help us understand the Midterm from Hell, but I guess it will seem like progress. Meanwhile, most Dems are taking time off from the internet, watching Netflix, listening to soothing music and wishing this was all a bad dream.
























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Friday, October 10, 2014

Where is Kim Jong Un?

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pic via tumblr

Previous Related Post:
North Korean Missile Threats Are Comedy Gold
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The Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, has not been seen in several weeks, fueling all kinds of rumors. Does he have a dangerous illness, and they fear letting the public know? Or is it true that he has a leg problem and doesn't want to be seen limping around? Has he been deposed by his generals? Is his sister running the country? No one seems able or willing to go on the record except anonymously.

Meanwhile, his top generals took a sudden trip to South Korea. Why? What does it mean?

From News.com.au
Kim, believed to be 30 or 31, has not been seen since September 3 when he attended a music concert with his wife in Pyongyang.
. . . Theories vary wildly, from those who say he is taking an extended rest period, to others who point to a leadership coup. Other explanations include a long list of possible illnesses, including broken ankles, gout and diabetes.
North Korean state media alluded at one point to the leader’s “discomfort” but one member of a top-level North delegation that visited South Korea last week insisted Kim had no health problem at all.


























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