Ben Carson’s New Manager Is An Anti-Gay Religious Warrior Fighting To Build A More Christian America
Ret. Major General Robert Dees Says Gays In The Military Are ‘Degrading’ America’s Physical And Moral Readiness
Dees: Greatest Threat To America Isn’t Terrorism But Decline Of ‘Spiritual Infrastructure’
Hours before the new year, three of Ben Carson‘s top advisors resigned. Another twenty staffers followed in their footsteps, leaving the sinking campaign in even greater trouble.
So the former pediatric neurosurgeon sent in the infantry – literally, almost.
The new Chairman for the Ben Carson for President 2016 campaign is retired Army Major Gen. Robert F. Dees, former commander of Second Infantry Division, a Texas native, and currently a vice president at Jerry Falwell’s Christian Evangelical Liberty University.
Dees, 65, has been working with the campaign after meeting Carson while attending services at the Second Baptist Church in Houston. The pair hit it off quickly and Dees began drafting policy positions for the candidate.
At the far-right Values Voter Summit, hosted by the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council, Dees told the audience last year that the American military is being “degraded by social experimentation.â€
“Not only are we losing physical readiness to fight, we have to fix the problem of moral readiness,†Dees said of allowing open service by LGBT military members.
“I think the moral readiness of our forces is even more important than the physical readiness, which is very low,†Dees told CNS News in September. “The moral readiness is degraded by social experimentation within our military.â€
Allowing gay people in the military “is not enhancing our readiness,” Dees said, insisting, “it declines our readiness. We’re spending more time on some of these social engineering projects than we are on developing and maintaining readiness in our force.”
The author of three books with a forward by Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, Resilient Nations, Dees further makes clear his extremist religious beliefs.
“In his 2014 book,” Nahal Toosi at Politico writes, “Dees argues that the biggest threat to the United States isn’t terrorism or China or Russia but the decline of its ‘spiritual infrastructure.’ Exhibit A in the argument is the Roman Empire:”Â
“At the height of Roman decadence, good became evil and evil became good,” Dees writes in the introduction. “One can rightly argue that the United States is frightfully close to a similar fate. Prayerfully, it is not too late.”
“Resilient Nations,” part of a trilogy, contains a litany of grievances against President Barack Obama, including accusations that he provides “the Muslim religion ‘most favored status'” even as he pursues “anti-Israeli rhetoric and policies.” Obama, Dees writes, “has consistently denied ‘American exceptionalism’ and portrayed weakness.”
But Dees’ religious beliefs, and how he see the role of Christianity and the military go far, far deeper.
In a November profile in Foreign Policy, James Bamford writes Dees “told a gathering at Wildfire Weekend, an all-male religious retreat, ‘My greatest pleasure has been being a private in the Lord’s army.’ He also recounted being introduced to Jesus Christ by a math instructor at West Point not long after he enrolled there as a student in 1968. ‘Then I went off in the military,’ he said, ‘as an ambassador for the Lord Jesus Christ.'”
RELATED:Â Ben Carson’s Campaign Has Imploded
Indeed, Dees believes it is the job of the U.S. military to evangelize the words of Jesus Christ, spreading Christianity throughout the world – making every war a religious one. Bamford adds, “Dees described his group’s goal of converting foreign countries to Christianity by evangelizing their militaries.”
Dees’ belief in evangelizing works universally – he also believes service members should spread Christianity and convert within the U.S.
For nearly six years, beginning in March 2005, Dees served as executive director of Military Ministry, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ, now called Cru, a Christian evangelical organization with an annual budget of almost half a billion dollars. His Military Ministry was dedicated to converting members of the military to Christian evangelicalism. Under Dees, the organization oriented its mission around “six pillars,†the first of which was: “Evangelize and disciple enlisted U.S. military members throughout their military careers.†According to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which worked closely with the organization on a conference, “retired Maj. Gen. Bob Dees, U.S. Army, outlined goals that [included] evangelizing all enlisted personnel in the U.S. military.
Dees has also described the military as a vehicle to eventually “indoctrinate†the American public at large to evangelical Christianity. “We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation — through the military,†he noted in a 2005 newsletter published by Military Ministry. “And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens.â€
In addition to his work at Liberty University, Dees lectures at military bases around the country. In 2014, he delivered a PowerPoint presentation at West Point, his alma mater, entitled, “Resilient Life & Leadership ‘God Style.’†The presentation was filled with quotes from the Bible and Christian messages, including “JESUS was the ultimate Resilient Warrior & Leader,†“You are faithful, God, You are faithful,†and “Consider JESUS.â€
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Image:Â U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Lim Hong-seo
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
