March 11, 2016

Ben Carson Had No Choice But To Endorse Donald Trump

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Quinn Hillyer is not pleased with Ben Carson’s endorsement of “moral monster” Donald Trump:

Carson has spent an entire campaign pleading for honor and decency and decorum, only to endorse a man who is the crassest, most vulgar, most deceitful person in the race — a man who has repeatedly attacked in the most vicious ways, and lied about, every other candidate in the race. Trump is a man who has repeatedly incited violence at his rallies, saying that protesters should be punched out and carried away on a stretcher, and promising to pay the legal bills of those who throw the punches.

….Carson has talked about the need for a president to understand poverty, yet has endorsed a multi-million dollar inheritor who has spent his entire career leaving others impoverished by walking out on his debts, but refusing to pay full bills, and by trying to use to power of the state to seize their land. Worse, Carson is endorsing a man who has mocked his religion and who quite literally likened him to a child molester. In doing so, Dr. Carson has disgraced himself.

Fair points! But Carson deserves a defense. Here it is:

  • Rubio is going to lose. Endorsing him wouldn’t benefit Carson in any way.
  • Carson hates Cruz’s guts.
  • Trump looks like he’s going to win.

Oh, did you think I was going to defend Carson on moral grounds? So silly. Ben Carson has been grifting the conservative movement for years. He knows the main chance when he sees it, and right now Trump offers him the best prospect of staying in the spotlight and selling more books. I wonder if Trump will make him stand obediently behind him during his next rally, like he did with Chris Christie?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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