“Dr. Carson is a brother to me. I’ve known Dr. Carson for 25 years. For the last 20-some years, I was his business manager, managing his money and his financial portfolios. When someone trusts you with their money and their finances, that is truly a bond of trust. All three of his sons have worked for me as producers. They’ve at least stayed with me in my home at least for a year, and they all have been a part of a growing media organization.

As Dr. Carson’s business manager, you get to know someone pretty well, and I say this often, I’ve known many people in my life. I’ve worked with people who have contributed greatly and mightily to this nation, but Dr. Carson, I always say this to people who ask me about him, if Jesus, if he were among us today, Dr. Carson without any doubt would be one of his disciples. There is just no question about that. It shocks me just how good, how moral, how ethical, and what a good man he is.

Why does it shock me? Because it makes me better. It’s because of my association with Dr. Carson that I become a better human being. He knows all my flaws, all my shortcomings, and he accepts me. No matter what he may preach, Dr. Carson is just a very good person. And when he was seeking the presidency as a presidential candidate, I was involved. I was probably called the invisible hand, but it was always present. I will admit that.

We trust each other. There’s a bond. There’s loyalty. What’s amazing is a testimony to the brotherhood is that we’ve never had conflict, because you know what? I’ve always been transparent with him. …

It’s sad that we live in a society today where people feel they cannot be themselves. They have to lie. They have to perpetrate something, perpetrate something that they’re not, but with Dr. Carson, you have the freedom to be who you are. He’s very forgiving, and at HUD, he’s doing some remarkable things there.

In fact, we were joking at the White House this week during President Trump’s celebrating Black American Achievement Month that [Office of Management and Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney and others are trying to cut his budget. I believe that if they cut his budget, Dr. Carson would literally resign. There’s no question. I believe that, but I was talking to him, and he said they kept his budget levels. I said, “Well, thank goodness, because I’m glad we’re not losing you, because I need you in the president’s ear, talking about morality, talking about goodness,” because he and the president have a very good relationship. I think that whether people see it or not, Dr. Carson has a very calming effect on the president. I think it’s very impactful.

I think of all the things that will be said when Trump is no longer in the White House, I think the story will be told about the impact Dr. Carson’s relationship had on the president’s character, on his morality. Even the president jokes about it now. Even you saw it a few weeks ago when Trump asked Dr. Carson to lead the Cabinet in prayer. Yes, that’s impact. Maybe subtle, but it’s important to have that kind of a good man, a moral man, because listen, the president’s not going to change Dr. Carson, but Dr. Carson can certainly impact the president.”

Ben carson said that pyramids were used as grain silos. If ever there was a structure that would be the LEAST efficient way to store grain? It would be a pyramid. Listening to Ben Carson talk is like taking 4 ambien and a pint of vodka. 

Ah, Mr. Negativity has come to shower darkness on a positive story about people and events in the news. What a non surprise.  

Did I say anything that wasn't true? No. Deal with it. 

Just get off my seed. 

It's a public seed on a public site. I think i'll stay. 

He’s also a passionate supporter of President Donald Trump

How shocking that you would post an article about him too. LOL

Columnist axed after taking cash to promote Bush plan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Tribune Media Services will stop distributing columns written by conservative commentator Armstrong Williams because he received money to promote President Bush's education programs, the company said.

Meanwhile, the nation's largest African-American journalists' organization has asked other media outlets that use Williams' work to do the same.

Williams confirmed Friday that he received $240,000 from the Department of Education in exchange for promoting No Child Left Behind, the centerpiece of Bush's education agenda. Williams said the payment was merely for advertising time.

The department defended the deal, claiming its public-relations contractor "sought avenues to reach minority parents."

"The contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department's mission on No Child Left Behind, a permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures," according to a department statement.

The National Association of Black Journalists also called on the White House to rebuke the department's employees.

In a statement, the group of 4,000 members called on all broadcast and print media that carry Williams' work or use him as a commentator -- a group that includes CNN -- to "drop him immediately."

"I thought we in the media were supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs," said Bryan Monroe, a vice president of the association. "I thought we had an administration headed by a president who took an oath to uphold the First Amendment, not try to rent it."

Williams is African-American, but NABJ said he is not a member of the organization.

Tribune Media Services, which distributes Williams' column, released a statement saying it was dropping him.

"Accepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest," the company said. "Under these circumstances, readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party."

Williams' failure to notify TMS of his receipt of the payments violates his syndication agreement, the company said.

Williams told CNN Friday that some might feel his actions were unethical, but "it was advertising."

Still, he acknowledged the appearance of impropriety.

Williams said his company taped a one-minute commercial with Education Secretary Rod Paige, and he had two one-minute commercial spots in Williams' shows. He said many of his affiliates do not use paid advertising, instead airing only public service announcements.

"He's lost his credibility," said Barbara Ciara, another vice president of the NABJ. "He's tainted fruit. And he's unfairly indicted all commentators who have their own independent opinion, don't need a script from the administration and don't need to be paid off."

cnn

And had you read the seeded article you would have read all about that event and how he handled it.  

In court filing, Armstrong Williams admits to lurid sexual comments

Armstrong Williams, the longtime conservative media entrepreneur and adviser to failed GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson, attracted a round of publicity over the summer for precisely the wrong reasons. He was named in a sexual harassment suit filed in a D.C. federal court by Charlton Woodyard, a former employee of Jos. A. Bank whom Williams had befriended in spring 2013 — and, according to the suit, went on to mentor, manipulate and harass over the next couple of years. The low point of the complaint describes a November 2015 incident at Williams’s house. As the suit tells it, Williams made some unconventional sexual advances toward Woodyard. Specifically: The complaint says that Williams grabbed Woodyard’s penis through his pants and said, “You got small feet, small hands … and an oversized weapon. How does that work? How is that possible?”

There is far more to the scene. Williams allegedly asked Woodyard why he was “wearing so many layers.” When Woodyard replied that he was “freezing,” Williams said that his own “heat” was better than clothes. He also ordered Woodyard to “massage my butt cheeks,” according to the complaint, and demanded that Woodyard put his arms around him and that he wasn’t “gonna bite.” And other such alleged stuff that rolls out over approximately seven paragraphs of Woodyard’s complaint.

In a Sept. 12 filing, Williams denied all of these allegations, among others in the complaint.

In a Sept. 30 filing, however, Williams reversed course, admitting to the quotes attributed to him in the lawsuit — with a caveat or two, that is. Here’s how the language reads: “Defendants admit that the quoted statements … were spoken, but deny the context and characterization of the allegations as editorialized in the [complaint] and on that basis deny them.” That very formulation is repeated several times in Williams’s rebuttal. It’s a familiar refrain for any journalist who has engaged in adversarial reporting. Those who’ve been nailed to the wall via solid reporting always cry “ Context! ” It’s generally a baseless objection, too; is there any way to misinterpret “massage my butt cheeks”?

The Erik Wemple Blog asked Williams what accounted for the reversal but hasn’t gotten a response.

The 180-degree turnabout in Williams’s filing marks quite an embarrassment for the SiriusXM radio host and owner of seven television stations across the country. In addition to his media work, Williams spoke frequently on behalf of Carson during his presidential bid, though not as a campaign official; he represented Carson in his capacity as his “business manager.” At times Williams and the campaign were working off different strategy memos,   to glorious effect .

As for Williams’s interactions with Woodyard, his response to the suit acknowledges that he took Woodyard under his wing and attempted to assist him professionally. It denies the parts about sexual harassment and the like. As   explained here , Williams helped Woodyard leave the world of   low-priced, highly derided suits   and secure a job at the Washington Times and, then, starting in November 2015, with a television station —WSES-TV in Birmingham, Ala. — owned by Williams’s Howard Stirk Holdings II LLC. Earlier this year, Woodyard signed a termination agreement with the company, and he later attempted to revoke it.

Woodyard’s case against Williams contains an official reference to the Erik Wemple Blog as well as to the New York Times, each of which interviewed Williams after the suit was filed. In comments to both outlets, Williams suggested a profit motive: “He’s trying to get paid,” Williams told this blog, adding that he’d rebuffed attempts by Woodyard’s counsel to dispose of the claims quietly. “Something like this was filed against me before. … He’s trying to follow the same script.” Indeed, Williams   settled   a 1997 sexual harassment claim by one of his former radio producers.

Once Woodyard’s lawyer, Debra Katz, saw such dismissive remarks, she filed an amended complaint that added a new count against the radio host: “This is also an action against Defendant Armstrong Williams for defamation per se in violation of District of Columbia common law,” reads the complaint. “At the time Mr. Williams made these statements, he knew they were false,” says the amended complaint, continuing, “he knew that Mr. Woodyard had not made any form of request for payment of funds from him and, moreover, that the allegations in the complaint were true and Mr. Woodyard had irrefutable proof of the allegations concerning the assault that took place at Mr. Williams’ home on November 1, 2015. Mr. Williams has refused to retract the defamatory statements.”

washingtonpost

“It’s just like 

the Bible and God. God forgives us for our sin. He forgive us our adultery, our lying, and cheating, but there’s still a price we must pay, and it can be forever. What I learned from No Child Left Behind, even though I found myself in the valley for eight years, even though it was a struggle, we lost 95 percent of our business, we never laid off one employee, they never missed a paycheck, I learned something about my character. I learned about what my mother and father taught me, that you should always be moral, ethical, and legal in whatever you do, because sometimes, when the sun is so bright, you cannot necessarily see your flaws, because everything looks great around you.

But in the darkness, in the stillness of the night, when you think about your life and the struggles, and you think that you no longer have no friends, and then someone tells you that you’ll only be a footnote in life, you really test your faith. But in this struggle, there’s a piece that came over me, and if I just could hang in there, go back to the value system which I grew up on, learn my integrity, not be a shill for some party, be honorable, and even if none of us are going to ever be perfect, when we rise out of those storms, we will find the character and the leadership and the criticism that is necessary for us to move forward.

Because the problem is we lie to ourselves more than we lie to anybody else. It’s so easy for me to look at Rob and criticize him and look at you and criticize you, because that’s easier than looking at myself.

What I’ve learned in all my struggles is that when I work on myself 24 hours a day, which is the hardest work in the world, the world around me automatically improves. What I find myself, instead of trying to dig into someone else’s problem and their issues, while I do that as a journalist and broadcast on it, the most important work I have to do is work on myself. Since those days, I’ve never looked back.”

Time for a do over for the seed since it was so polluted with off topic crap above.  

“Bluey: Well, let’s talk about the president. You raised a couple of issues earlier like Charlottesville and when Trump made some derogatory comments about some foreign countries. At the same time, the president said African-Americans are much better off under him. Unemployment hit its lowest rate for African-Americans. It seems like a complicated relationship, Armstrong. How do you best describe Trump’s relationship with the African-American community?”

“Williams: It’s not even really about his relationship with the African-American community, and it’s not even complicated. It’s very simple. Trump is an equal opportunity offender. He does not discriminate. It doesn’t matter.

For people to try to call Trump a racist and a bigot, it’s ridiculous. I mean, it doesn’t matter. He offended 17 candidates, including Dr. Carson. … Are you kidding me? This is who he is. He can’t help himself, and that’s what you have to accept. But Dr. Carson forgave him, put that aside, because he felt the country was first, because Dr. Carson is not petty. Dr. Carson is not like many of these Cabinet secretaries or the other people working for President Trump trying to establish a legacy.

Dr. Carson is an icon. He’s an iconic figure, and with his pediatric neurosurgery, where he had performed over 18,000 surgeries, in his entire surgical career only lost about 18 lives, and I don’t think he lost any in the last seven years of surgery. I mean, he’s the first to separate conjoining twins. That is something that the president respects.

The president likes compassion for the poor. The president has an issue with the weak. When the president perceives you as weak, he pounces. I mean, it’s the most amazing thing that you can think of. Even with the African countries—and he was not talking about African countries. He talked about El Salvador. He talked about Haiti. It’s just people that are perceived as weak, and the countries are in dire straits. They’re in dire straits.

I think what he was saying, “Why bring those poor people here? We got problems of our own. Let them stay there, and let the country take care of them. We can send them money, but don’t bring them here,” but sometimes it’s how you say it. It’s the optics, but that’s why people like him, because most people would say that among their friends.

The president is just so transparent. He’s so authentic. He’s so real until it gets him in trouble with the media elite and their establishment. They find him embarrassing. They’re haughty in their ways, and they just cannot believe that this guy can get away with this. Why? Because the American people get up in the morning and can’t wait to see the president take them on, put them in their place. It’s just another form of entertainment, and he does it so well.”

How is posting about the subject of the article off topic? 

Williams is not the topic of the seed.  The content of his interview are the topics.  Ben Carson, black history month, President Trump, the NFL.  All were covered and you talked about none of it, launching personal attacks on the interviewee instead.  So stay on topic or stay away.  Moderators called.  

Moderators called.

Whooooooo   Mr. Frost   START THE CAR,  START THE CAR,   START THE CARRRRRRR  !!!!!!!!

So much for another positive seed here from me for awhile....

So much for another positive seed here from me for awhile....

Don't let the backdoor hit ya where the good Lord split ya !!!!

All were covered and you talked about none of it, launching personal attacks on the interviewee instead.Williams is not the topic of the seed. The content of his interview are the topics. ...So stay on topic or stay away. Moderators called.

Sorry sugar, but Williams opened the door for discussion on his own lack of moral fiber, as well as the specifics of his disgusting conduct that seem to have permeated every segment of his life.  Mr. Frost is well within his right to bring what Mr. Williams mentions into sharper focus.

Also, someone might  want to ask Mr. Williams how he was able to graduate from high school in 1980, and then graduate from college with a double major in 1981.  Wake up and smell the baloney sandwich, because this guy is full of it.

Williams is not the topic of the seed.

Wait, he did the interview, how is he not part of the seed? Really?

Ah, the arrogance of Blue America. 

I wonder if all Trump supporters are as nutty and unethical as Armstrong Williams?     Trump sure does seem to attract people like that.

“Bluey: Armstrong, we’re celebrating Black History Month, and you’ve had a busy week. You’ve been to the White House. You were at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture with the vice president. You’ve been on Twitter sharing examples of black achievement. Can you tell us what it means to you?

Williams: It’s what it means to all of us. We all, sometimes we define success. Somebody could get a pair of tickets to a Wizards basketball game and they have courtside seats. Somebody could get an autograph of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas or Michael Jordan, or we could land tickets at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. You get an invitation to sit in the president’s box while he’s speaking at the State of the Union, or you could be worth a billion dollars. Are you going to beat the lottery?

Success is defined in so many ways, but there’s something I think that we all can agree about and that is that from human slavery to segregation to civil rights, when we look back and realize how our brethren were treated in this country, it literally goes against everything that we as Christians and decent, God-fearing people have ever believed. They were packaged and then manufactured and raped and disregarded and dehumanized, and it’s just not who we are as Americans and never will be who we are as Americans.

As a result of, I think, the greatest sin against our country, we still have these vestiges of segregation and bigotry and poverty, and people are so willingly to use the excuse that the reason why they have not progressed is because of slavery. I don’t think there’s any American that is alive today that can ever use slavery as an excuse as of why they have not been able to progress.

We live in a society today where we will always have the poor and the struggling among us, but anybody who’s willing to work hard, have discipline, and my friend Dr. [Ben] Carson says this often, and I agree with him, being married, not having babies before you’re married, and getting a high school and college diploma, 92 percent of those people never end up in poverty.

It all goes back to morality. It really does, but we’ve sort of abandoned morality. We like to call racism, racism, and all of these things, but what we’re dealing with of the world that is broken, there is a spiritual illness that’s in this country, and so yes, while I know many people see me as an American who happens to be black, my race and your race has nothing to do with your achievement. Now, some people will say, “Well, people look at you and you get an opportunity.” Yes, there are a lot of people who get looked at but don’t get the opportunity.

Your race is not a passport to success or failure. It’s your character. It’s the choices that you make and how hard you work, and then time and chance happens to us all. My achievement, yes, I’ve been blessed. It actually surprises me, I guess, more than it does anybody else, because I don’t take it for granted that when I wake up every morning that I expect these things to continue.

I still have to work hard, and I have to still live in a certain way. When people are not looking at me, there’s a certain way. There are certain choices that I must make, because I’ve realized the choices I made before, and I find the better moral choices I make, the more I respect myself, the more I reinforce values and virtues, the better I become.

We employ hundreds of people across the country with our television stations and our media platform, and we create opportunities. Fifty-five percent of our workforce just happens to be Americans who are black. They’re not our employees and our executives because they’re black. They just have to be the best qualified. It’s just that we seek to find the best and the brightest, like Shermichael [Singletary], who you see on TV. We want to empower them … because at some point, we’re going to step off the stage.

That is the future, and so yes, I know it’s important that for blacks to feel that they see other blacks. It gives them encouragement that they can achieve and they can be, and that’s a good thing. But Black History Month, black history, black achievement, is a tribute to America, not to a race, not to a culture, is a tribute to the ideals and the freedom as to why people come here sacrificing their lives, leaving their families, because they realize this is a place of opportunity.

If people can come here, strangers who cannot speak the language at all, and in two or three years they’re speaking the language and are thriving, there is no excuse why most Americans cannot find at least at some point, at some seasons, realize the American dream.”