Seattle 6th Graders Can’t Get a Coke at School, But Can Get an IUD

(CNSNews.com) --  Middle and high school students can’t get a Coca-Cola or a candy bar at 13 Seattle public schools, but they can get a taxpayer-funded intrauterine device (IUD) implanted without their parents’ consent.

School-based health clinics in at least 13 Seattle-area public high schools and middle schools offer long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), including IUDs and hormonal implants, to students in sixth-grade and above at no cost, according to Washington State officials.

LARCs are associated with serious side effects, such as uterine perforation and infection. IUDs, specifically, can also act as abortifacients by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg.

The state and federally funded contraceptive services are made possible by Take Charge, a Washington State Medicaid program which provides free birth control to adults who are uninsured, lack contraceptive coverage, have an income at or below 260 percent of the Federal Poverty Level -- or, in this case, to teens who don’t want their parents to know they’re on birth control.

In an email exchange with the Washington State Health Care Authority and CNSNews.com, a Take Charge spokesperson acknowledged that underage students are eligible for a “full array of covered family planning services” at school-based clinics if their parents meet the program’s requirements.

Take Charge added that “a student who does not want their parents to know they are seeking reproductive health services is allowed to apply for Take Charge using their own income, and if they are insured under their parents’ plan, the insurance would not be billed.”

Via: CNS News

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Baltimore: Blame Rises With Body Count in Baltimore

Police say the riots after Freddie Gray’s death emboldened criminals. The mayor blames the police. Residents are fed up with it all.

It’s been two months since violent protests burned a path of destruction through some of Baltimore’s worst neighborhoods. While some sense of normalcy has returned to the streets, the legacy of Freddie Gray—whose death in police custody sparked the unrest—remains a defining feature of the landscape.

On walls and marquees across West Baltimore, Gray’s name shares space with signs calling for an end to the rash of violence that has plagued the city since May. A large mural depicting Gray’s likeness at the corner of Fulton & Presbury in his neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester calls on police to “Stop Killing Us” while making a plea to the community for peace and love in 2015.

In June, all six Baltimore Police Department officers who were indicted in Gray’s death pleaded not guilty to multiple charges and were ordered by a judge to stand trial on October 13 for crimes ranging from second-degree murder to misconduct in office. A leaked autopsy report obtained this week by The Baltimore Sun shows that Gray died from a “high intensity” injury likely sustained as he was driven around unrestrained in the back of a police van.

In the areas hardest hit by the rioting, dozens of looted stores remain boarded up. Some may never reopen. When asked for their thoughts on what happened, many residents respond angrily, recounting how police stood by and watched their neighborhood burn.

Some black Baltimoreans who are old enough to remember the last time the city erupted into flames—in 1968 after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.—say it’s time to turn those emotions toward reconciliation.

Via: Daily Beast

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As Donald Trump surges in polls, Democrats cheer

Donald Trump criticized Mexican immigrants in his June 16 presidential announcement speech. (Richard Drew/AP)

By Philip Rucker July 1 at 4:17 PM  

For Democrats, Donald Trump amounts to a kind of divine intervention.

With the Republican Party on an urgent mission to woo Latino voters, one of its leading presidential candidates has been enmeshed for two weeks in anasty feud over his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants.

“They’re bringing drugs,” Trump said in his campaign announcement speech. “They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

The comments — and many more since — have prompted an uproar among Latino groups and a series of acrimonious break-ups between Trump and various corporate partners. His outlandish rhetoric and skill at occupying the national spotlight is also proving to be dangerously toxic for the GOP brand, which remains in the rehabilitation stage after losing the 2012 presidential race.

Univision said it would not air his Miss Universe and Miss USA beauty pageants; Trump sued the Spanish-language television network for $500 million. NBC Universal severed all ties to him this week, including his “Apprentice” reality series; he called the network “so weak and so foolish.”

Trump: Immigrants bring 'drugs ... crime' to U.S. from Mexico

Real estate mogul Donald Trump said during his presidential announcement that Mexican migrants to the U.S. are drug traffickers and rapists, as well as "some ... good people." (AP)

And on Wednesday, the Macy’s department store chain dumped him, saying it would no longer sell his menswear line. Trump said the retail chain had “totally caved.”

Via: Washington Post

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East Tennessee hardware store puts up 'No Gays Allowed' sign

New sign at Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies (Photo: WBIR)

UPDATE: WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015: A new sign has been posted at Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies in Grainger County.

The sign reads, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech & freedom of religion."

The sign bears the signature of the store's owner Jeff Amyx.

We'll have more on this story later today on 10News and WBIR.com.

ORIGINAL STORY: (WBIR) An East Tennessee store owner is using what some call a controversial sign to express his beliefs following the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage.

Several WBIR 10News viewers brought this story to our attention on Facebook.

Jeff Amyx, who owns Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies in Grainger County, added the 'No Gays Allowed' sign because gay and lesbian couples are against his religion.

Amyx, who is also a baptist minister, said he realized Monday morning that homosexual people are not afraid to stand for what they believe in. He said it showed him that Christian people should be brave enough to stand for what they believe in.

"They gladly stand for what they believe in, why can't I? They believe their way is right, I believe it's wrong. But yet I'm going to take more persecution than them because I'm standing for what I believe in," Amyx said.

He said he has no plans to take the sign down.

Via: WBIR.com

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Shapiro: Obama Millennials Want To Leave The America They Created

A new poll from TransferWise shows that 35 percent of those born in the United States would consider ditching their home country to live elsewhere; that number skyrockets among those aged 18-34, the so-called millennials, 55 percent of whom said they would think of taking off if given the chance.

Most of those millennials cite economics as a chief factor in their desire to leave: 43 percent of men and 38 percent of women said they’d leave if they could get paid more in another country.

The rationales for staying in America, articulated by Americans, are particularly weak: 59 percent say they would stay because “it is home,” another 58 percent say they would stay thanks to romantic and family ties – and then the stats drop precipitously, with just 22 percent stating they would stay for the democratic society, 17 percent for the culture, 10 percent for the good future for children, 5 percent for wealth, 3 percent for low crime, and 2 percent for low taxes.

Via: Fox News

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Chicago Fires 1400 Teachers To Fund Extravagant Pensions

About 1,400 Chicago public school teachers and staff are expected to lose their jobs in order to finance a pension debt of $634 million, the city announced Wednesday.

The layoffs are part of an aggressive $200 million budget cut to help finance the pension payment, which is required of Chicago Public Schools by Illinois law. The rest of the pension payment is coming from heavy borrowing, as the district already has a massive $1.1 billion budget deficit.

In announcing the layoffs, Mayor Rahm Emanuel blamed the rest of the state for not picking up the slack, saying the rest of Illinois doesn’t pay its fair share for pensions.

“You negotiate with your teachers in Aurora… Then we get to pay for it,”Emanuel said at a press conference. He said the state should change its funding formula so “You… come to the table and start paying your share for what you negotiated.”

But lawmakers in Springfield failed to act, leaving “unconscionable” cuts as the only option, he said.

Chicago’s public schools have seen repeated mass layoffs in recent years thanks to a budget situation that is in perpetual crisis. In 2014, about 1,100 employees were laid off, and over 3,000 lost their jobs in 2013. (RELATED: Chicago Public Schools Whack 1000 Employees)

Still, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) released a statement saying it was totally “blindsided” by the mass firing, and accusing city officials of trying to “retaliate” against them for a recent breakdown in contract negotiations.

“These layoffs prove that the Board never intended to make the pension payment in good faith and that they are using this to justify more attacks on our classrooms,” said CTU president Karen Lewis. “Putting 1,400 people out of work is no way to balance a budget and resource our schools. This is going to hurt our students and the most vulnerable children in our district.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Is Iran luring Obama into a trap in Iraq?

Bloomberg View’s Eli Lake and Josh Rogin recently reported that U.S. troops are sharing a base with Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, where Tehran’s notorious proxies are spying on U.S. operations and personnel at their leisure to prepare the ground for future crimes. This worrying revelation is the latest manifestation of a misconception about the Iranian regime’s nature and its intentions in Iraq -- an error that can prove to be fatal if not corrected.

In his interviews with different media outlets, U.S. President Barack Obama has made assertions about the Iranian regime being able to become a successful regional power and help stabilize the Middle East. Also, in his secret missives to the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Obama has promised that in the event of a final accord on Iran’s contested nuclear program, the U.S. is willing to cooperate with Iran in the fight against the Islamic State, an extremist group that is rampaging through the Middle East and has cut itself a caliphate out of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.

The assumption that Tehran can help in the fight to counter the advances of the IS stems from the shortsighted thinking that as a Shiite extremist powerhouse, the Iranian regime is the archenemy of the Sunni extremist Islamic State.

But a quick review of Iran’s actions in recent years proves that Tehran’s foreign policy in the region is not based on ideological tenets, but rather on setting up short-term -- and sometimes contradictory -- alliances to further its ultimate end: keeping the Middle East in a state of instability in order to remain the main power broker and hegemon of the region.

Via: American Thinker

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OBAMA ADMIN. STILL HAS NOT RECOVERED ILLEGAL AMNESTIES, IN VIOLATION OF JUDGE’S ORDERS

The Obama administration still has not fully recovered all the three-year work permits it issued in violation of a federal court injunction on executive amnesty, according to the Washington Times.

The three-year work permits are an aspect of the executive amnesty programs U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen halted in February, when he ruled in favor of 26 states challenging actions.

With his injunction the administration was supposed to stop implementation of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The extension of DACA also included extending work permits from two to three years.

Despite the injunction the Obama administration issued 2,000 three-year work permits, on top of another 108,000 three-year work permits it issued before the expanded DACA’s scheduled start date and the February injunction. The Washington Times notes that while there are disagreements over how to deal with the 108,000 permits, the 2,000 all sides concur were illegal and must be rescinded.

According to the Times’ report, however U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not been able to get all of them back promptly.

Via: Breitbart

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EPA Predicts: Workers Will Lose $170B in Wages By 2100 Without Global Action on Climate Change

(CNSNews.com) - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has projected that by 2100, without global greenhouse gas mitigation, labor hours in the U.S. are projected to decrease, costing an estimated $170 billion in lost wages, according to a new EPA report.  

The EPA report, released on June 22, 2015, is titled “Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action,” and was created to estimate the physical and monetary benefits of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, otherwise referred to in the report as GHG mitigation.

“Without global GHG mitigation, labor hours in the U.S. are projected to decrease due to increases in extreme temperatures,” states the report. “Over 1.8 billion labor hours are projected to be lost in 2100, costing an estimated $170 billion in lost wages.”

The EPA claims that labor hours are lost when the “extreme summer heat” causes workers to take more breaks, get ill, or stop working altogether.

“Extreme summer heat is increasing in the U.S. and will be more frequent and intense in the future,” states the EPA. “Heat exposure can affect workers’ health, safety and productivity. When exposed to high temperatures, workers are at risk for heat-related illnesses and therefore may take more frequent breaks, or have to stop work entirely, resulting in lower overall labor capacity.

Via: CNS News

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After 'gratifying' week, Obama sees long to-do list in time left

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It did not match the week of his wedding or the weeks his daughters were born, but President Barack Obama acknowledged on Tuesday that last week was a particularly momentous one for him.

The Supreme Court legalized gay marriage and upheld his signature healthcare law, and Congress passed legislation critical to a Pacific trade pact Obama wants to finalize before leaving office in January 2017.

"I might see if we can make next week even better," quipped Obama, who has about 18 months left in his presidency.

What's next? Obama told reporters he hopes to next work with Congress on an infrastructure funding package and on reforming the criminal justice system.

"The list is long and my instructions to my team and my instructions to myself have always been that we are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make ... as long as I have the privilege of holding this office," Obama said at a news conference.

Obama began work on his to-do list on Tuesday, unveiling a plan to make more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay.

He also tried to marshal business and labor to pressure Congress to renew the charter for the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

Via: Yahoo News

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John Kasich to announce presidential bid July 21

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will jump into the crowded Republican presidential field on July 21 at the student union at his alma mater, The Ohio State University, in Columbus, advisers tell POLITICO.

Kasich, 63, who was overwhelmingly reelected in November, will aim to appear less scripted and guarded than the leading candidates. Advisers say he combines establishment appeal with a conservative record going back to his stint as House Budget Committee chairman, during his 18 years as a congressman from Ohio.

Despite his late start, Kasich will be one of the most closely watched candidates — partly because Ohio is such a crucial presidential state, putting Kasich on many short lists for vice president.

Kasich briefly pursued a presidential bid in the 2000 cycle, but got no traction and dropped out in July 1999, endorsing then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

For Kasich’s announcement on July 21, doors will open at 9:30 a.m. at The Ohio Union at Ohio State.

The announcement date puts Kasich a week behind the other Midwestern governor in the race, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who plans to announce the week of July 13.

The July launch gives Kasich a shot at raising his national profile enough to qualify for the first GOP debate, on Aug. 6 in his home state. But participation in the Cleveland debate will be based on national polling, and Kasich advisers admit that qualifying will be tough, even with his announcement bump.

Kasich, who graduated from Ohio State in 1974, can expect an excited crowd in the Buckeye capital. He’ll follow his kickoff rally with an announcement tour that includes Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan.

The GOP talent pool is getting shallow, with so many credible candidates vying for the nomination. But Kasich landed two of the best-known names in Republican politics:

His chief strategist will be John Weaver, mastermind of John McCain’s insurgent campaigns of 2000 and 2008. And the lead consultant for Kasich’s super PAC, New Day for America, will be ad maker Fred Davis, based in the Hollywood Hills, who worked on McCain ’08 and has had several viral hits. Both worked on Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign in 2012.

Via: Politico

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Federal Judge Orders Brady Center to Pay Ammo Dealer’s Legal Fees After Dismissing Lawsuit

A federal judge has ordered that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence pay the legal fees of an online ammunition dealer it sued for the Aurora movie theater shooting.

The order, which was issued last week, comes after Judge Richard P. Matsch dismissed the gun control group’s suit that sought to hold Lucky Gunner legally responsible for the 2012 shooting. The Brady Center had argued in their suit that the way Lucky Gunner sells ammunition is “unreasonably dangerous and create a public nuisance.”

“A crazed, homicidal killer should not be able to amass a military arsenal, without showing his face or answering a single question, with the simple click of a mouse,” Brady Center’s Legal Action Project Director Jonathan Lowy said at the time. “If businesses choose to sell military-grade equipment online, they must screen purchasers to prevent arming people like James Holmes.”

Judge Matsch disagreed with the Brady Center’s argument. He said the suit was filed for propaganda purposes. “It is apparent that this case was filed to pursue the political purposes of the Brady Center and, given the failure to present any cognizable legal claim, bringing these defendants into the Colorado court where the prosecution of James Holmes was proceeding appears to be more of an opportunity to propagandize the public and stigmatize the defendants than to obtain a court order,” hesaid in his order.

Lucky Gunner praised the court’s decision and vowed to do everything in its power to recover the money awarded to it by the ruling.

“The federal judge on the case ruled it was apparent that this suit was filed to pursue the Brady Center’s ‘political purposes’ and was used as an ‘opportunity to propagandize the public,’” Lucky Gunner spokesman Anthony Welsch said. “Lucky Gunner agrees with the court’s assessment and continues to do all it can to hold the Brady Center accountable for legal fees awarded in the case.”

The company said it would donate that money to a number of gun rights groups and has set up a website to allow its customers to vote on how to distribute the funds.

“Any legal fees Lucky Gunner recovers will be given to 2nd Amendment supporting organizations as voted on by the shooting community,” Welsch said.

The case is now pending appeal.

The Brady Center did not respond to a request for comment.

Via: WFB

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What Actually Comes Next

Less than forty-eight hours after King Anthony sovereignly provided new theology for our secular, civil religion, the left is now publicly calling for the abolition of tax-exempt status for religious non-profits and churches.

It will come. It has to come. If gay marriage is a fundamental right under the equal protection clause, it is going to trump a lot of the first amendment. As Chief Justice Roberts noted, King Anthony’s theology precludes “free exercise” of religion.

But all of this is down the road a few years. Let me tell you what is going to happen first.

Silence.

A newspaper in Pennsylvania has declared it will no longer allow letters to the editor opposed to gay marriage because it is a fundamental right.

BuzzFeed declared that, in its editorial position, there is no position other than support for gay marriage.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, banned all apps from its store that display the Confederate flag. That had to be walked back a bit, but there you have it.

The Los Angeles Times refuses to run letters pointing out that global warming is a scam.

And now, Apple and Facebook are set to develop news platforms that will have a human curator, instead of a computer algorithm. Twitter, likewise, is engaging humans on trending news topics, etc. It is only a matter of time because Google works its algorithm magic to drive down links to those who oppose the new cultural agenda.

So we will see orthodox Christian voices disappear from most news channels. The left are master propagandists. One of the chief tricks of the propagandist is to convince you that you are all alone. Everyone else thinks otherwise. So an Apple that celebrates gay rights and bans what it thinks is hate is only one step from prohibiting a Russell Moore piece through its news service.

Facebook can devalue conservatives and shut them down.

Twitter can declare support for traditional marriage to be hate and turn off accounts, mine included.

Newspapers, radio stations, and television networks who long ago embraced the idea that people are born gay despite ample evidence to the contrary in most (but not all) cases, will reach further. If you are a talk radio show host who supports traditional marriage, get ready for your parent company to tell you that is no longer allowed. After all, it is a fundamental right.

A CNN that was celebratory on its twitter feed after the gay marriage ruling can hardly be expected to allow on any pundit who dissents without treating that person as a contemptible bigot. MSNBC will run news stories on the rise in hate groups that, no doubt, the Southern Poverty Law Center will list. That list will include all orthodox Christian churches.

The left has worked very hard to control information. They will now work extra hard to push conservatives forcibly into a ghetto of thought. The overarching goal will be to convince you that no one agrees with you and there are no voices echoing you.

Just remember, you are not alone.

Via: Red State

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Ending Tax Exemptions Means Ending Churches

Mark Oppenheimer of The New York Times is now calling for the government to remove tax-exempt status from churches. After I posted a link to his article on Facebook, a pastor friend commented: “I’m not sure our small church could survive.” That, my friends, is the point. And Oppenheimer knows it.

Legal gay marriage is not the endgame for the gay-rights movement. It never was. Moral approval is the endgame. The agenda is not tolerance for different beliefs and lifestyles. The agenda is a demand that everyone get on board with the moral revolution or be punished. That means if you or your church won’t get with the program, then the revolutionaries will endeavor to close you down.

But they aren’t going to say,”We’ll close you down,” in so many words. They will cover it in propaganda that conceals their real aim. They’ll say, as Oppenheimer does, that taxpayers are “subsidizing” churches, that ministers make fat-cat six-figure salaries, and that government should get those rich priests and preachers off the government dole.

Never mind that the average base salary of a full-time senior pastor ranges from $33,000 to $70,000 (source). Never mind that ministers do pay income taxes. Never mind that it is absurd to suggest not paying taxes is a subsidy. Never mind that exemptions do function to keep church and state out of one another’s business. That doesn’t fit the fictional narrative activists wish to advance—that these churches don’t deserve to have their “subsidy” continued in light of their intolerable views on sexuality.

The real intent of removing tax-exempt status is to cripple the institutions that continue their dissent from the sexual revolution.

No, the real intent of removing tax-exempt status is to cripple the institutions that continue their dissent from the sexual revolution. When tax exemptions are removed, donors will give far less than they are giving now. Churches will become liable to property taxes. That means that many churches will have to forfeit their property to the government because they won’t be able to afford the taxes they have to pay on it. Many of them wouldn’t be able to pay them now. If donations went down, they would be that much further from being able to pay them. As a result, churches that reside on valuable properties in urban locations would be immediately vulnerable. Eventually, so would everyone else.

Via: The Federalist

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Obama To Unveil Plan To Bring Overtime Pay To 5 Million More Workers

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama this week will propose a plan to extend overtime pay to 5 million American workers who are currently excluded under federal law, according to sources.

The president will recommend updating overtime rules so that salaried workers who earn less than roughly $50,400 per year would be guaranteed time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Under the current rules implemented by former President George W. Bush, salaried workers must earn less than $23,660 per year in order to be automatically eligible for overtime pay.

The president announced his intention to make overtime reforms last year, but the details of the plan have been kept secret until this week. The president is expected to discuss the proposal later this week during a visit to Wisconsin. Details of the proposal were first reported by Bloomberg.

In a blog post on The Huffington Post Monday night, Obama said that "too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve," and that his proposal would help assure that "hard work is rewarded."

"That’s how America should do business," the president wrote. "In this country, a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. That’s at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America."

With heavy lobbying by business groups, many progressives feared the White House would recommend only modest changes, thereby impacting relatively few workers and employers. Instead, the White House has proposed a substantial reform that has the potential to change pay and scheduling for millions of people.

Employers whose workers become newly eligible for overtime will now face a choice: Either pay a premium for those extra hours worked, or get the employee's hours below 40 per week, likely by shifting the labor to other workers. The proposal would be robust enough to cut across industries, bringing many workers either more pay or more time off, and forcing many employers to grapple with overtime costs that they never had to before.

The proposal must still undergo a public-comment period before it can be finalized and go into effect, but the release of a concrete proposal will mark a major step in what's likely to be one of the president's most far-reaching reforms undertaken without congressional approval. The changes are expected to go into effect in 2016.

Via: Huffington Post

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[COMMENTARY] Ben Carson Gains As Non-establishment Candidate

Former pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson continues to rise in the polls, despite having never held political office, and political commentator Byron York says that part of the reason is because he is a very appealing candidate. 

Carson is in fourth place in the Real Clear Politics average of polls with support from 9.4 percent of Republican voters, and that number has slowly risen since he first announced his candidacy in early May, when he was at 4.8 percent. 

Special: Can Ted Cruz Take On the GOP Establishment?

In addition, the former neurosurgeon won the straw poll at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver over the weekend, the Washington Examiner reported. 

York, who writes for the Washington Examiner, gives five reasons why Carson is so popular among conservative audiences: First, "Carson is really appealing." 

He appears to stand apart from the categories that other candidates fit in, whether it's old vs. new, governor vs. senator, populist vs. establishment, and the like. 

Second, as a candidate who has never held office before, "he speaks to the throw-'em-out strain among conservatives." 

Carson told the conservative group in Denver that "the professional pundits say, 'You can't do it because you're not a politician.' I would say I can do it because I'm not a politician."

York says that this appeals to conservatives who are fed up with politicians, even Republican politicians. 

Third, there are a group of Republicans who like Carson's "it's-really-very-simple commonsense approach to complex issues." 

A fourth reason for his appeal is partly because he is the only black candidate running for the Republican nomination, and "he might appeal to that part of the Republican mind that has been scarred by years of accusations of racism." 

Lastly, "Carson projects a serenity and faith" that is also attractive to some. 

Whatever the reason, York says that "Carson's rise and unorthodox campaign style ... has left some of his rivals baffled." 

Via: Newsmax

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