Coincidence? Ben Carson audited by IRS after calling out President Obama at National Prayer Breakfast

It's reported that Ben Carson, world renowned neurosurgeon, was audited by the IRS starting in June, a few months after he challenged some of President Obama's views at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Just months after he gave a speech earlier this year that challenged America's leadership in President Obama's presence, Dr. Ben Carson was targeted by IRS agents who requested to review his real estate holdings and then conducted a full audit without finding any wrongdoing.

"I guess it could be a coincidence, but I never had been audited before and never really had any encounters with the IRS," Dr. Carson said in an interview Thursday with The Washington Times.  "But it certainly would make one suspicious because we know now the IRS has been used for political purposes and therefore actions like this come under suspicion."

Dr. Carson is a world-renown neurosurgeon whose rise from poverty and a single-parent home, and his medical work with pediatric patients was celebrated in a movie called "Gifted Hands."

He has electrified the conservative world with speeches and columns since his February National Prayer Breakfast speech in front of Mr. Obama, in which he decried the "moral decay and fiscal irresponsibility" of America in recent years. He writes a weekly column for The Times.

Dr. Carson first hinted at the problem earlier this week during a speech in Alabama when he made a vague reference to having his first "encounter with the IRS" earlier this year.

Dr. Carson told The Times that IRS agents contacted him in June — less than four months after the speech — and requested to review his real estate holdings. After finding nothing that concerned them, the agents then informed him they were conducting a full audit of his finances, and then asked to go back an additional year to review his records, he said.

They finally ended the review in August after finding no problems, Dr. Carson said.
"They told me everything was in good standing and left," he said.

Asked whether he thought the audit was a retaliation for his speech, Dr. Carson quipped: "I guess I'm surprised it took them that long."

He said the more serious issue is that the IRS has been politicized — "something that should never have happened" — and that leaves all of its activities open to suspicion.

A coincidence?  I doubt it.

What would MLK think about issues facing the black community today? Ben Carson has some thoughts.

With the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous civil rights speech at the Lincoln Memorial, a lot of articles are circulating on that speech, his civil rights efforts, and the state of civil rights today. Ben Carson has written an article discussing issues facing the black community today, specifically black on black violence, family breakdown, and school drop out rates. 

It is hard to believe that 50 years have elapsed since the famous “I have a dream speech” of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Mall in Washington. I was an 11-year-old child in Detroit languishing in the midst of poverty, but very interested in the strides that were being made in the civil rights movement.

I was the only black kid in my seventh-grade class and over the previous two years had risen from the bottom of the class to the top. My mother had forced us to read, which had a profound positive effect on both my brother Curtis and myself. I was quite optimistic that things were getting better for black people in America.

If King could be resurrected and see what was going on in America today, I suspect he would be extraordinarily pleased by many of the things he observed and disappointed by others. He, like almost everyone else, would be thrilled to know that there was a two-term black president of the United States of America and a black attorney general, as well as many other high government officials, business executives and university presidents.

Perhaps just as thrilling would be the sight of black doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, construction foremen, news anchors, school superintendents and almost any other position imaginable in America. The fact that seeing blacks in such positions no longer raises eyebrows is a testimony to the tremendous progress that has been made in America over the last 50 years.

There are some areas, however, where I suspect he might be less than thrilled. The epidemic of black-on-black violent crime indicates that there has been a significant deterioration of values in the black community. Not only are the lives of their fellow blacks and others being devalued by street thugs, but the lives of unborn babies are being destroyed in disproportionate numbers in the black community.

There was a time when blacks were justifiably angry that the larger community discounted their value, but now, ironically, many members of the black community themselves place little or no value on these precious lives that are snuffed out without thought. I think King would be waging a crusade against the marginalization of black lives in America.

Another area of great concern would be the fact that 73 percent of black babies are born out of wedlock. When this occurs, in most cases the educational pursuits of the mothers are terminated and the babies are condemned to a life of poverty and deprivation, which makes them more likely to end up in the penal system or the welfare system. This is a burden not only for the black community but for the nation at large.

Although I believe King would be very concerned for all parties in these tragedies, his energies would be primarily channeled into an attempt to give these young women the kind of self-esteem that would preclude their yielding to the charms of individuals who really don’t care about them and are only interested in their selfish pleasures.

King was a huge advocate of education and would be horrified by the high dropout rates in many inner-city high schools. He, like many others, was vilified, beaten and jailed for trying to open the doors of education to everyone, regardless of their race.

If he were alive today, he would have to witness people turning their backs on those open doors and choosing to pursue lives of crime or dependency. I do not believe he would simply complain about these things, however.

Rather, he would be raising funds to create programs that would show these young people that they do have real choices that can greatly enhance the quality of their lives.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for King would be the wholesale adoption of a victim mentality that makes people feel that they are entitled to being cared for by others rather than working tirelessly to create wealth and opportunities for their progeny...

Ben Carson retiring from neurosurgeon career. Looks like politics is next on horizon.

Pediatric, neurosurgeon Ben Carson recently spoke at the the CPAC conference.  While there he announced he'll be soon retiring and it looks like he'll be pursuing higher office.

He has a powerful personal story, rising from deep poverty, raised by a single mother.  He went on to become a world renowned surgeon who's increasingly concerned with the direction our nation is going.

You can hear his speech here.

Here's a written account of it.

He noted that some of his critics have asked why a medical doctor would have any business weighing in on economic policy.  ”It’s not brain surgery,” he responded with a chuckle, and indeed much of his economic advice is a mixture of common sense (which Carson frequently praises) and the same brand of dispassionate analysis that informs surgical decisions.  For example, he observed there’s an awful lot of money floating around beyond America’s borders, and our government could bring it home by “treating businesses as friends, not as enemies” and recognizing they are private enterprises lawfully seeking profit, not welfare agencies.  He repeated his comments about truly fair taxation from the National Prayer Breakfast, advocating a low and flat tax system that punishes no one and exempts no one.

What horrifies Carson is the assertion that he had no right to voice his opinions at that February prayer breakfast because he has black skin, and stood in the august presence of King Barack I.  He explained that a brain surgeon is well-qualified to give testimony about how people are all the same inside, no matter the color of the skin stretched over their skulls.

As for the propriety of a doctor offering moral and political advice, Carson said this fell under the finest traditions of self-government.  ”This is a country that’s for, of, and by the people – not for, of, and by the government.  And if we turn it over to them, we cannot complain about what they’re doing… because this is the natural course of men, and we have to hold their feet to the fire.”

Angry criticism from the Left has not caused Carson to water down his critique of liberal policies.  If anything, he was even feistier at CPAC.  He explained that if he were an enemy of the United States, he would set about destroying the nation in four simple steps: create division among the people, encourage a culture of ridicule for basic morality, undermine the nation’s financial stability through excessive government debt, and weaken the military.  ”It appears, coincidentally, that those are the very things that are happening right now,” he observed.  ”And the question is, how do we stop it?  Can we stop it, or must we inexorably follow the same kind of path that other pinnacle nations have followed before their destruction?”

A major component of Carson’s plan to avoid doom lies in educational reform, which he and his wife have invested heavily in through their scholarship program.  Beaming with pride, Carson announced that one of his grantees had been accepted into the neurosurgery program at Johns Hopkins, where he has long been the director of pediatric neurosurgery.

“Education is a fundamental principle of what made America a success,” he declared, reviewing the importance of education (and a determined mother) in his own life, and pointing out that well-educated people are better equipped to pursue opportunity and provide for themselves, rather than lapsing into social safety-net dependency.  ”We can’t afford to throw any young people away,” he warned.

Carson sees the modern welfare super-state as an outgrowth of America’s innate generosity, but says it was a mistake to entrust that generosity to inefficient, self-interested bureaucracy over efficient, compassionate private charities.  He has a dim view of the ulterior motives held by some champions of the welfare state.  ”What you’re saying is that ‘I, the superior elite, will take care of you.’  Why?  Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite.  And they can’t be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around.  So you keep them down there by feeding them.”

As he did at the National Prayer Breakfast, Carson warned of the dangers of allowing government to control health care, which represents one-sixth of the economy.  ”If the government can control that, they can control everything,” he said.  Instead, he proposes that 80 percent of the interactions between doctors and patients could be easily handled through health savings accounts, a proposal discussed in more detail in his book, America the Beautiful.

Carson also entreated his CPAC audience to “resist this war on God,” the forced cleansing of religious and moral principles from public life.  He views this as an “absolutely absurd” assault on freedom of speech and religion.  ”Let’s let everybody believe what they want to believe,” he countered.  ”And that means, P.C. police, don’t you be coming down on people who believe in God and who believe in Jesus.”

This would interfere with the manufacture of division and paranoia among the people, which he cited as step 1 in his four-step plan to destroy America.  ”We need to understand that we are not each others’ enemies in this country.  And it is only the political class that derives its power by creating friction.  It is only the media that derives its importance by creating friction… that uses every little thing to create this chasm between people.  This is not who we are.  We have much more in common with other people than we have apart.  And we have to be smart enough to understand that, and we have to live by Godly principles of loving your fellow man, of caring about your neighbor… of developing your God-given talents to the utmost, so you become valuable to the people around you… of having values and principles to guide your life.  And if we do that, not only will we remain a pinnacle nation, but we will truly have one nation – under God – indivisible – with liberty and justice for all.”