Ben Carson Goes Vogue, Links Hillary Clinton to Lucifer Vanity Fair

Ben Carson's Tuesday night invocation of Lucifer, as it relates to Hillary Clinton, was a mind-twist for a Hillary lover who nearly wept over having to defend the relentless assertions by the Bernie Bros that Hillary was once and always a conservative Goldwater girl.

The frequently befuddled -- or we're befuddled listening to him, unable to grasp his train of thought -- neurosurgeon wasn't interested in talking about Hillary as a Goldwater girl. Carson spun the bottle in the reverse direction, attacking Hillary as getting in bed intellectually with the devil, when she wrote a senior thesis on the radical activist Saul Alinsky, who acknowledged Lucifer as the original Lucifer.

“Now think about that,” Carson said to the crowd. “This is our nation where our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, talks about certain inalienable rights that come from our creator; a nation where our Pledge of Allegiance says we are one nation under God. This is a nation where every coin in our pockets and every bill in our wallet says ‘In God We Trust.’ So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer?”

It's a sad state of affairs when I actually know the context of these ludicrous accusations. The most fundamentalist of the evangelical fundamentalists believe that Oprah is a Harlot of Babylon. In what I view as a deeply-seeded misogyny rooted in an overt or more discrete view of women's subservience, the most allegedly Christian of the fundamentalists view any hybrid version of feminism as allies of Lucifer. That definitely includes me.

So this week, Hillary is recast from the Goldwater girl to a She Devil. The accusation was so startling that PolitiFact got in the game this morning, clarifying Hillary's relationship with Saul Alinsky.

What Ben Carson said about Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky and Lucifer PolitiFact

Digging into Saul Alinsky, PolitiFact agrees that the activist did include an opening blurb on Lucifer, along with additional quotes from Rabbi Hillel and Thomas Paine. This was the only reference to Lucifer in Alinsky's book, although there is a prescient discussion of how politicos try to paint their opponents as the devil.

The New York Times reviewed the 92-page thesis and summarized her views this way:

"Ms. Rodham endorsed Mr. Alinsky’s central critique of government antipoverty programs — that they tended to be too top-down and removed from the wishes of individuals.

"But the student leader split with Mr. Alinsky over a central point. He vowed to ‘rub raw the sores of discontent’ and compel action through agitation. This, she believed, ran counter to the notion of change within the system."

Clinton herself addressed her relationship to Alinsky in her 2003 memoir 'Living History'.

"Alinsky was a colorful and controversial figure who managed to offend almost everyone during his long career. His prescription for social change required grassroots organizing that taught people to help themselves by confronting government and corporations to obtain the resources and power to improve their lives. I agreed with some of Alinsky's ideas, particularly the value of empowering people to help themselves. But we had a fundamental disagreement. He believed you could change the system only from the outside. I didn't. Later, he offered me the chance to work with him when I graduated from college, and he was disappointed that I decided instead to go to law school. Alinsky said I would be wasting my time, but my decision was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed from within."

Millennials Will Vote To Shake Up Wall Street, Right? Bloomberg Politics

In evaluating presidential candidates, millennials are no different than their parents. A survey of 1,000 Americans aged 18-29 by the Harvard Institute of Politics polled Millennials giving priority to the economy and terrorism, just like the larger voter population.

About a third of those surveyed said Improving the economy was their most critical priority for one-third of those surveyed. In a steep drop to 12 percent, millennials next say focusing on terrorism is a top priority with 20 percent choosing to reduce income inequality. The results are interesting within the context of Bernie Sanders' wildly successful campaign on college campuses. And with all of Bernie's arm waving about money in politics and reforming Wall Street, these issues were at the bottom of the priority list for young people polled.

The Absurd Misstep of Melania Trump Using Quotes From Michelle Obama

Seriously, of all people!! And the media can't get enough of the story. Endless critiques, 24 hrs. about the implications of Melania Trump -- who says she wrote most of her Monday night Republican convention speech with little input from others -- lifting two critical paragraphs from Michelle Obama's own 2007 address to the DNC presidential convention. See for yourself, although the video is in every news feed in America.

Trump's campaign chair Paul Manafort drew blood from Hillary supporters in an early Tuesday CNN interview, who blamed the controversy on Hillary. “There was no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values,” he defended. “This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she tries, seeks out to demean her and take her down.”

The Trump campaign is now blaming Hillary Clinton for Melania's Plagarism Scandal Vox