Sunday School Extra Credit 6/14/20

HUD Secretary and lone African-American on the Trump cabinet Dr. Ben Carson made a couple of classroom visits yesterday, chatting with George Stephanopoulos on This Week, and with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.

I wanted to look at these two discussions together to see if there were any differences between the questions, and the answers. 

Let's start with George, who opened with Trump's claim that he's done more for black Americans than any president since Lincoln, and wondered if Carson stood by his boss's claim. Carson said it was better to talk about what's been done than to argue about who's done the most. The accomplishments he pointed to?

• Opportunity Zones, which he said were designed to bring money to neglected areas;
• Prison reform, which is "just the first step. There are other things that need to be done"
• Making funding for the HBCUs regular, and increasing the amount of funding provided.

George agreed that was a fair point, bust still asked if the president should stop making the comparison, given LBJ passing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Act, Grant sending in troops to take on the KKK, and Eisenhower sending troops to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Carson said all of that "is a significant part of our history" and that it's important to acknowledge it. 

George wondered how Carson has counseled the president about his tweets, his attacking protesters, and his not wanting to rename any confederate bases. Carson said we "should look at things from multiple perspectives" as we're a diverse country with diverse opinions, including the president's. 

So, I - I don't have any problem with him expressing his opinion as long as he's willing to listen to other opinions. 

And, he said, the US is a "destination country" -  a place people want to come to, not a place they want to leave. There's a reason for that, he said.

And we're the only ones who can destroy ourselves. And we have to stop, you know, putting everything into the arena of combat. And let's see if -- if we can find a way to work together because, if we don't, we're doomed.

So, it would seem, Carson hasn't counseled the president? 

George, never one to drop a bone, asked again if Trump's talk of dominating the streets, or saying he'll send in the troops - which admittedly seem 'combative' - were "appropriate right now." Carson dodged again, saying there are lots of ways to express things, and then he did what everyone does - explain what the president meant with his inflammatory remarks. Trump was talking about not submitting to anarchy, see? And we all agree with that, right?

We might not all express it the same way, but we would all agree with it. And so we've got to begin to look at the big picture, what is the thing we're aiming to do, not what someone said this day or that day.

So, what is that? What needs to be done right now, George asked.  Carson said we need to acknowledge why the protests are happening, we need to "open the discussion" and listen to the police and the protesters; we need to look at the communities where the protests are happening. He's all for peaceful protests, but not the destruction of businesses and livelihoods - "that's very, very bad" - and we have to talk about that, too, when we talk about "what makes sense."

Does it make sense to allow rogue police to move from one precinct to another?  Of course it doesn’t. Does it make sense not to use the technology that we have to help us to be able to investigate? No, it doesn’t.

We need to make the good things pervasive through our society, he says. 

And, regarding Trump's rally in Tulsa, site of the largest mass murder of blacks in our country, and it originally being scheduled for Juneteenth,  Carson said

...I did talk to the president about the Juneteenth event. I was pleasantly surprised at how much he knew about it already -- and knew about the Black Wall Street there and the whole history of it. And was thinking about making some remarks to acknowledge what had happened there and why we don’t want that kind of situation to ever occur in this country again. But, you know, it is what it is. And it’s probably good to have moved it.

Medically, he said the rally's being done in conjunction with the public health experts, and so it's acceptable - but, he added,

We do need to always, all of us, need to do what we can to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but it is very important that we utilize what we have learned about the disease so that we can live with it, rather than allow it to dominate us and determine how we’re going to live.

And, what about Trump's nomination acceptance speech, moved to Jacksonville, taking place on the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday? Carso said we're at a point where everything is being dissected and we "try to ascribe some nefarious notion to it."

We really need to move away from that. We need to move away from being offended by everything, of going through history and looking at everything, you know, of renaming everything -- I mean, think about the fact that some of our universities, some of our prestigious universities, have a relationship with the slave trade. Should we go and rename those universities?  It really gets to a point of being ridiculous after a while. And, you know, we’re going to have to grow up as a society. 

 I agree, to a point, with him on that.

In the Fox News Sunday classroom, the conversation started with the police killing of Rayshard Brooks. 

Wallace wondered if deadly force was appropriate, given the original offense of sleeping in the drive-through lane at Wendy's.  Carson said that this situation was not "clear cut, like the murder that occured in Minnesota" and that people who are experts need to review it before making any judgments. 

Wallace pressed on Carson's saying this wasn't clear cut. 

Because we don't know what was in the mind of the officer once somebody turns around and points a weapon at him. Is he absolutely sure that's a non-lethal weapon? You know, this is not a clear-cut circumstance. Could it have been handled better? Certainly in retrospect there probably are other ways to do things.  But again, we don't know.

Interesting. Note that Brooks' death has been ruled a homicide, so I guess someone knows something now. 

Wallace talked about the bigger issue, which is whether there's a racial problem with policing in black neighborhoods. He showed stats from Minneapolis (use of force against blacks 7 times higher than against whites) and nationwide that blacks are shot and killed by police at twice the rate of whites. And he asked Carson, a father of three boys, whether he or his wife had ever had 'the talk' with their children.

I had the same talk with them that my mother had with me and my brother, told them we should always respect the positions of authority like the police. I tell my sons the same thing. I've never had a problem, they've never had a problem. 

He also said that doesn't mean there are no racist cops, and that we have to get the racist cops out of the system. Reforms are needed, and this is "probably a good time to shine a spotlight on them and get it done." He said just like criminal justice reform, people have talked about it for a long time but didn't get it done.  

That's one of the things the president has made very clear, this is an issue, you know, and it will be looked at, it will be dealt with.

Wallace noted that his parents never had that talk with him, and he never had to have it with his kids, and that's part of the problem.  And then he moved to some of the things that the Democrats are talking about in their proposal, including a national misconduct registry and limits on liability for police officers, and asked if Carson thought the administration would support those. 

Carson said he expects the president will gather the appropriate stakeholders and look at everything, 

but obviously we don't want to create a create a situation where the police are under a microscope and that they don't want to do their job because they're afraid. That's not going to be useful... You know, when people make decisions based on anger or emotion, seldom are those good decisions.

So, that would be a non-answer? 

Wallace moved on to the cultural shift happening in the country, pointing to the NASCAR ban on the Confederate flag, and the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee talking about renaming military bases, which Trump opposes.  The question? Is Trump at risk of being left behind? 

Carson said many of the bases were named after the Confederate generals 

as a conciliatory movement after the war and to now change that would be having exactly the opposite effect. We have to recognize that we have a history and to try and hide that history is probably not a smart move. You take the greatest book ever written, the most popular book, the Bible, it doesn't get rid of all the bad things and just talk about roses and flowers. 

He said that "smart people, wise people" use their history to improve, while "other kinds of people" try to bury their history. And he told a story about buying a farm in rural Maryland, with one neighbor putting up a Confederate flag in protest, and all the other neighbors put up American flags. The Confederate flag came down, and the Carsons became friendly with that neighbor.

A lot of this has to do with people getting to know each other and relationships, but you know, we should be proud of our country. The American flag is the appropriate emblem, but we shouldn't impose our will on others.

The last question was on Trump's rally, and he echoed the same sentiment as he did with George - we can let it dominate us, or we can learn to live with it. 

I was hoping for a little more from Carson that his now famous non-confrontational thing, and I also was hoping he would have been asked questions not just because he's the black guy on Trump's cabinet, but maybe something about what HUD might be doing regarding police interaction in their communities, or what's going to happen with foreclosures and evictions at the end of the month, and so on - you know, policy stuff. Or even a direct question about the Black Lives Matter movement, I don't know.

It is what it is, I guess.  If nothing else, I now know about Ax Handle Saturday, which is something I was not familiar with before.  Which just proves the point that we're always learning, if we're open to it. 

See you around campus.

Sunday School 3/8/20

One Dem - That Guy From Vermont - made the rounds this morning, as did a few DC types to talk about the coronavirus. 

Let's start with HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, who visited This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 

George started out by noting that "one expert told the American Hospital Association that close to 100 million Americans could eventually be infected" and asked if Americans should "be braced for these kinds of numbers?"

Carson talked about people being informed "about how we should manage our own lives" and taking precautions, mentioning "people who have underlying medical conditions and the elderly" and anyone who's in both of those categories, but said most people who get the coronavirus will either flu-like symptoms or be asymptomatic.

So, there's a little bit of exaggeration in terms of what happens if you contract the virus.

George said that taking precautions is important, but he really wanted to know whether Carson thought it was an exaggeration, that up to 100M of us could be affected. 

I think it's possible for large numbers of people. There's no question that more people will be detected as we do more testing. But you can look at worst-case scenarios. You can look at best-case scenarios. The thing that needs to be understood is that we are working very hard, looking at all the evidence on a day-by-day basis, making recommendations based on that. And we need to be working together, federal, state and local health officials, and the medical professionals, who are very good in this country, by the way...

It seems clear to me that Carson has no intention of answering the question, and that he doesn't want us contemplating the worst-case scenario, and that's fine, I guess - as long as the government is prepared for the worst case scenario. 

George honed in on the testing issue, and after showing a clip my Sonofa Gov, Andrew Cuomo, talking about the CDC, and the complicated testing process ,he wondered how Carson would respond to Cuomo and what assurances Carson can give "that tests are on their way?"  Carson said over a million test kits were shipped last week, with another 640K moving this week just from the feds.  Others are also creating tests - VA hospitals and academic centers, for example. 

So there are a lot of tests but the key thing is everybody doesn’t need a test. And that should be something that should be determined by the medical professionals who are administering the tests.

Switching gears, George wondered about the plan for the Grand Princess cruise ship (with 3500 people on board and at least 21 who've tested positive).

The cruise ship personnel and -- as you know, the vice president met with the CEOs of the major cruise ship companies yesterday, and they are coming up with a plan within 72 hours of that meeting --

But, George said, "the ship’s docking tomorrow."

The plan will be in place by that time. But I don’t -- I don’t want to preview the plan right now.

But, George asked, "shouldn't you be able to do that?" 

I think -- I think it needs to all come from a solitary source. We shouldn’t have 16 people saying what the plan is - particularly when it hasn’t been fully formulated.

George let this one go, saying "OK. Well you’re the president’s representative this morning..." and then moved on to the recent AIPAC and CPAC conferences, which were attended by Trump, Pence, and others in the administration. He asked Carson if he was concerned that the virus could have spread to our officials. After again talking about precautions, hand wringing washing and stuff, Carson said

Bear in mind that if you go out of the studio today and you shake hands with somebody who has coronavirus that doesn’t mean that you’re going to contract coronavirus. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to get sick. But it does mean that you decrease your chances significantly if you follow those logical guidelines that have been placed out before everyone.

Thank you,Captain Obviously I Have Only One Thing to Say Today.

Next, George asked whether "Is it time for more extensive community wide measures to contain this virus?"  The answer was precautions blah blah blah. George tried, again, to get an answer.

What I’m asking you as a representative of the president, as a member of the Coronavirus Task Force, what should the community be doing? Is it time for more extensive measures? We’ve heard the president say, for example, that he’s going to continue with political rallies in the face of this. Is this sending the right message or is it time for broader community measures to contain this?

 BC: Again going to a rally, if you’re a healthy individual and you’re taking the precautions that have been placed out there, there's no reason that you shouldn't go. However, if you belong to one of those categories of high risk, obviously, you need to think twice about that.

I'm done now, even though George kept trying, after first saying,

I’m confused by the message you're sending right now, Dr. Ben Carson, I have to say. 

Quick Takes (v33): Carson and Katko

Quick Takes

There was an article in my local paper today, about the possibility that Ben Carson, president Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, might pay a visit to Syracuse to see what's going on here.

According to Mark Weiner's article, Carson met with Congressman John Katko recently and talked about the Syracuse Surge and, according to Katko, he

expressed interest in visiting Syracuse to see how the city plans to transform its economy with public and private investment centered on a series of projects on the south end of downtown. 

The plan includes a new STEAM  high school that will be open not just to city students but to kids from all of the school districts in Onondaga County. The school would be dedicated to the more common STEM curriculum - science, technology, engineering and math - and also add focus on the arts, too.

Katko suggested that HUD could play a "leading role" in the Syracuse Surge, which ties in to rebuilding the Pioneer Homes project and redeveloping the whole southeast end of downtown, including whatever happens with the I-81 viaduct project, and said that HUD money could "help jump-start" development efforts.

And, Katko said they also talked about the ongoing issue with lead poisoning here; new funding was approved in December to get our lead paint abatement program back up and running, after funding was cut off due to disagreements between the City and HUD back in 2012.

Whether or not you're a Carson or Katko fan, we'd be nuts to not want a Cabinet member with good intentions coming here; after all, NY historically gets a lot less from the federal government than we pay in. And if there's a chance that HUD will come through with some money and other assistance to help us rebuild the south east side of downtown, and continue their commitment to helping us get rid of the lead that's still causing issues for kids in Syracuse,  I'm all for it.

Wondering on Wednesday (v131)

A little late with tonight's Wondering; entertaining friends and doing some heavy-duty wondering ourselves, about winners and losers and loser winners, and a whole mess of other stuff.

One of the things I'm wondering about is how the president's doctor could be an over-prescribing, drunk-driving, on-the-job-boozing meanie, after all the time he's spent literally wandering around the bodies of presidents. I expect I might get some flack here, but why does this remind me of Anita Hill?

The allegations are extreme, they are bizarre, and they are hard to believe, under the circumstances. Even if you don't like president Trump (as don't I) and even if you think Ronny Jackson might be uniquely unqualified like so many other Trump nominees (as do I), it would seem that there might be a better way to get your point across than accuse the guy of things that should be easy to disprove, right?

Speaking of Trump's choices, are we really going to see the end of EPA paranoiac-in-chief? You know, the guy with the $43,000 secure phone booth; the guy who flies first class because he's afraid the little people in the cheap seats will pick on him... you know, that guy. The GAO has said that the phone booth expenditure was done using an EPA credit card without prior approval, which is wrong, and appropriate punishment should ensue.

But I have to wonder why the issue at the GAO, and at Trey 'Benghazi' Gowdy's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, isn't more about asking why the hell the EPA Administrator needs a secure phone booth in the first place?

I doubt he has many secrets to keep from us - drill baby drill, science = bad, clean air and water are over-rated, yadda yadda yadda - that's been his mantra since he was an industry lackey as Oklahoma Secretary of State, so why the need for the booth?

And not for nothing, but why did his cost $43,000 when you can get a nice one here for under $300?

And, I wonder, will he blame his wife like uniquely unqualified HUD Secretary Ben Carson did when he (I mean she) ordered that fancy dining room set for the conference room?

Finally, tonight, I'm wondering about this version of the Trump hand jive, also referred to as 'Dandruff diplomacy', and this version of the Trump hand jive, also referred to as 'Keep your filthy stinking porn-star fondling hands off me, you disgusting pig.'

That this is not the first time we've seen the latter move in public proves that the First Lady plays the game as well as the president - and I wonder if he enjoys this little turn of the table as much as the rest of us do?

TGIF 3/23/18

Around these parts, we're especially glad it's Friday, as our hometown cardiac kids, the Syracuse University Orange, are playing tonight in the NCAA's Sweet Sixteen!

Last team to get into the tournament, three upsets in a row, close games against high-scoring teams which all either had really, really bad nights or had a really, really hard time with our deadly Boeheim zone defense, which is, according to fans and experts alike, nothing at all like a standard 2-3 zone.

But that's just the first reason we're in TGIF mode.

I was laughing today, trying to follow the president's tweets about how happy he was with the spending bill, that he'd sign it, that he was unhappy and wouldn't sign it, and how happy he was to have a signing ceremony, and in the end, how he signed it anyway. Not that there was ever a chance that he'd really veto the measure -- that would not make for a happy Friday, would it? I mean, Trump taking credit for shutting down the government? Not on your life!

I'll have an OrangeVerse post for you with his full remarks tomorrow, but here's just one piece of it.

But I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It's only hours old. Some people don't even know what's in it - $1.3 trillion - it's the second largest ever. President Obama signed one that was actually larger, which I'm sure he wasn't too happy with either. 

Probably made President Obama's day with that comment, don't you think? And Nancy Pelosi's day, too? Talk about TGIF!

Tomorrow's #MarchforOurLives is another reason to be in a TGIF mood. I know, I know -- they're too young, they don't know what they're talking about, they don't have any experience, and my favorite, they should be nice to people instead of marching and protesting and all that. But the truth is, in order: they're not, they do, they have the worst possible kind, and they are. Lots of people disagree with their message, but their participation, and their effort and their working to make a difference should be recognized and celebrated.

Finally, tonight, I'll close with this delightful comment from Dr. Ben Carson, the fish-out-of-water HUD Secretary who has been all over the map on the $31,000 dining set that was ordered by "career staffers in charge of the building" - except that it wasn't. Seems Mrs. Dr. Carson was very much involved, and Mrs. Dr. Carlson was very much thrown under the bus by her husband. In testimony before a Congressional committee investigating the debacle, which came to light when a complaint was filed by a staffer unhappy about the way-over-the-limit spending.

I left it with my wife. The next thing that I, quite frankly, heard about it was that this $31,000 table had been bought.

The Secretary cancelled the order after it was brought to his attention (by the media, not by anyone at HUD) and presumably is now trying to make amends with his wife. You can watch his statement here.

TGIF, everyone and Let's Go, Orange!

Wondering on Wednesday (v102)

It's Wednesday, again? OK, here comes the wondering.

As thing slowly, oh so very slowly start returning to some semblance of pre-Harvey normal in Texas, the costs to rebuild are simply staggering: $150 to $180 billion, Governor Gregg Abbott has estimated - and that dwarfs the $110B Hurricane Katrina cost. Where does one get $180B in a time of need? That's a great question on which to do some wondering. 

I mean, today a deal was reached in Washington to quickly pass FEMA some $8B - literally chicken feed -- and we had to raise the debt ceiling to do get that done. The agency is spending millions of dollars an hour on Harvey relief; Irma is heading towards Florida, and wild fires are burning in nine states out west. Look at this in the framework of the Trump budget, which has suggested significant cuts to FEMA, as well as to other agencies involved in disasters in some way, shape or form, and we've got a real disaster on our hands if Congress can't figure something out. Are you feeling confident, I wonder?

And speaking of Congress, I wonder how long House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader will be licking their wounds, after president Trump agreed with #ChuckandNancy on that FEMA bankroll and a three month bump for the debt ceiling, instead of the 18 month deal the Rs were looking for, or even the six months they would have settled on.

Here's Jim Newell, writing on Slate.com about the 'deal' Trump made (which included zero negotiation by the dealmaker in chief):

It is, to the letter, the request the Democrats had made and that Ryan and the leadership team had decried as an affront to God immediately after. Trump's move forces congressional Republicans to have to make multiple, painful debt ceiling votes ahead of the midterms and it preserves the Democrats' leverage in the December spending negotiations.

Was it because Trump can't stand a meeting that lasts more than a New York minute? Is it that he finally figured out he's going to need Dems to get anything accomplished, because the Republican leaders have shown they have no control over their own ranks? We may never know, but Trump thinks he made a deal and that's all that matters, I guess.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who has come to terms with the arm-twisting that got him to take a government job after he told us all he didn't want one, was also talking about Harvey, in his usual childlike manner.. In an interview with Rachel Martin on NPR's Morning Edition, Carson told us HUD had people on the ground in Texas, breaking through red tape and trying to help the tens of thousands of families who need help, and figuring out what properties are OK and which need rehab.

Martin asked about the red tape comment and wondered what was different this time compared to Katrina and Sandy and Rita. She asked him for specifics.

Specifically, we sent many agents out into the field with the specific charge of determining how things can be done as opposed to why they can't be done. If you're familiar with bureaucracies, you know that as soon as you come up with a good idea and you're ready to do something, someone says oh, you can't do that because of this. And, you know, I hate that. 

Wonder with me, if you will, what look Rachel Martin had on her face when she heard that answer?
I'm sure she has a fantastic poker face; anyone who does interviews must have one, unless they're a late show host, in which case all bets are off. But that's why they have follow up questions, right?

And so you believe that by putting your agents in the field to just come up with solutions - and then you can just green light them? I mean, there are some real obstacles. there are real reasons that...

Obviously (said Carson), you look at those things. But anybody who's familiar with government bureaucracy knows exactly what I'm talking about.  

Um, OK. Sure, the government moves as fast as molasses in winter, and we all know there are lots of barriers to getting good things done, but those barriers also serve to keep awful things from being done, too.  Especially in the midst of a disaster, where fraud is rampant and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a scam is only a flooded basement or fake charity away.

So where does all of this leave us, this Wednesday?

Let's recap: part of Texas and Louisiana are still under water, and another massive hurricane is threatening Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Parts of the northwest, usually rainy, are bone dry and on fire. Republicans control all three branches of the government and have literally no control over anything.

And the president? Is it any wonder he's left Washington, after the great day he had? Nah. He's off selling his tax plan, his own full basement, if you will, to the folks in North Dakota.

The Update Desk: Did He Really Just Say That?

In Monday's post, I expressed incredulity that HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson would refer to Africans who were brought to America against their will and sold into slavery as immigrants.

Surely, they were people who came to "a country to take up permanent residence" if you can actually call being bought and sold repeatedly a life of permanent residence, but perhaps that's splitting hairs.

Today, we have reports that former President Obama reportedly used similar language, with varying degrees of specificity, on multiple occasions. For example, speaking to recently naturalized citizens in December 2015, Obama noted:

It wasn't always easy for new immigrants. Certainly it wasn't easy for those of African heritage who had not come here voluntarily and yet in their own way were immigrants themselves. There was discrimination and hardship and poverty. But, like you they no doubt found inspiration in all those who had come before them. And they were able to muster faith that, here in America, they might build a better life and give their children something more.

Here's what immediately preceded the remarks above:

Down through the decades, Irish Catholics feeling hunger, Italians fleeing poverty filled up our cities, rolled up their sleeves, built America. Chinese laborers jammed in steerage under the decks of steamships, making their way to California to build the Central Pacific Railroad that would transform the West and our Nation. Wave after wave of men, women, and children - from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from Asia and Africa - poured into Ellis Island or Angel Island, their trunks bursting with their most cherished possessions - maybe a photograph of the family they left behind; a family Bible or a Torah or a Koran; a bag in one hand, maybe a child in the other - standing for hours in long lines. New York and cities across America were transformed into a sort of global fashion show. You had Dutch lace caps and the North African fezzes, stodgy tweed suits, colorful Caribbean dresses. And perhaps, like some of you, these new arrivals might have had some moments of doubt, wondering if they had made a mistake in leaving everything and everyone they knew behind. So life in America was not always easy.

This context may make soften the blow a little; reading this one could make the connection between the people in leading passage being the ones Obama was referring to in the section referencing slaves as 'in their own way, immigrants themselves."

Either way - with or without the context, I find it disturbing to use immigrant and slave glowingly in the same sentence. Had I been aware of the Obama comments, I would have had the same reaction as I did to Carson's remarks: What the hell are we doing?

The other times when Obama is said to have used similar language, he referenced a 'connectedness' and a sense  of  'we're in this together" because, as a nation of immigrants (other than the First Americans), we share the same dreams about America: people come here because they wanted a better life then they had wherever they came from.

I don't think that's the case with the slaves, do you?

Did He Really Just Say That?

I had to double check, even triple check this one to make sure it wasn't fake news. I watched the video a couple of times, just to be sure. And I haven't found a report telling me that this is anything other than what it appears to be.

Below, the words of Dr Ben Carson, former pediatric neurosurgeon and current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, from a message to HUD employees:

That's what America is about. A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slaves ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons granddaughters, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.

When a Cabinet secretary in the United States government says that slaves were 'immigrants' who had a dream, where exactly do we go from here?

No, seriously --  where the hell do we go from here?

Wasn't it bad enough when Texas called slaves 'workers'? Or tried to deny that slavery had anything to do with the Civil War? Or when Virginia tried to sell elementary school children on the thought that thousands of Southern blacks fought for the South in the Civil War?  Or when we try and re-write history at the homes of slave-owning former Presidents, which I saw with my own eyes?

Remember when Carson said that having him as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water?

Is it too late to throw him back?

Sidebar: Trump in Transition (v5)

In my most recent Trump in Transition post, I noted that the wait was still on for an announcement on whether Dr Ben Carson had actually been named the Cabinet Apprentice finalist for HUD.

As of last night, when I wrote the post, we were still biding our time, waiting for an announcement, and remembering the refreshing burst of honesty from Carson's team. You remember, right?

Dr. Carson doesn't feel that's the best way for him to serve the president-elect. Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that would cripple the presidency.

Carson also noted earlier in November

I've said that if it came to a point where he absolutely needs me, I'd reconsider. But I don't think that's the situation with these positions. My view is that if some people and the media are going to hate him, then he's going to need allies on the outside to be there to be there to move the country forward. I don't care about a position.  

Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water, quite frankly. 

All that said, and the visuals notwithstanding, here are a couple of excerpts from the announcement.

I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities...Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a Presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up.

And from Carson's statement:

I am honored to accept the opportunity to serve our country in the Trump administration. I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need. 

All that fish out of water stuff?  Yeah, that must have been just water over the dam, or under the bridge, or drained from the swamp.

Trump in Transition (v4)

Reuters photo

My plan was to do a weekly update on progress with the orderly transition of power to POTUS 45, but with a mere 51 days (as I write this) to go before the inauguration, the pace is picking up, and there is Joe Biden literally no time to waste.

Let's get up to speed:  We are still waiting for an official announcement that Dr Ben Carson will be taking an actual role with the incoming administration, or even if he's officially been offered one. Rumor has it that he's been offered the HUD job, and he may have even accepted it, it's really very hard to tell.

What's not hard to tell, though, is that Carson himself thinks he is unqualified, according to one of his aides. Armstrong Williams, a Carson advisor, told  us

Dr. Carson doesn't feel like that's the best way for him to serve the president-elect. Dr Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that would cripple the presidency.

And if I were the POTUS elect (and there's like, less than a Trumpzillion chance of that ever happening), I would accept at face value when a person I want to reward for their loyalty tells me he's not worthy. But then, that's not how things work on the Cabinet Apprentice, not at all.

Because a week or so after Carson's stunning admission, Trump decided that he needs someone of Carson's caliber at HUD -- and he's well qualified to boot!

And Carson opted to defend himself; here's one example:

Well, I know that I grew up in the inner city and have spent a lot of time there and have dealt with a lot of patients from that area, and recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities, and we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something. And also, the amount of corruption and graft and things that have - shell games that are played, we need to get rid of all that stuff and start operating things in an efficient and effective way.

That's right - this sounds just like some of his answers in the debates!

I can't wait for this one to play out. So far, no news is good news on this front, I think.  But we do have news on another front.

Trump has named Elaine Chao as his choice for Secretary of Transportation. Chao served in the Reagan, HW, and Dubya administrations, with the Peace Corps, at the United Way of America, and in the banking industry. And she's been at the Heritage Foundation and a contributor to Fox News, which is a key Cabinet Apprentice skill set.

She's also the wife of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who happens to be the Senate Majority Leader, and one upon whom attention must be showered if he's to be of use to the President. And there's probably no better way to curry favor with  McConnell than to appoint his wife to a Cabinet position. On which he will be required to provide his personal advice and consent. Unless he recuses himself, because voting on his wife's appointment while serving as Majority Leader could pose a possible conflict of interest.

Speaking at a Senate news conference, he noted

I've heard rumors that it should be an outstanding appointment (ed note: for Transportation Secretary). Someone actually asked Don Stewart if I was going to recuse myself. Let me be quite clear: I will not be recusing myself.

Yeah, right. Silly me. Can a person who has no ethics have a conflict of interest? I may have to check the rules on that.

McConnell, you recall, is the guy who said his highest priority was making sure President Obama was a one-term president.  Not, mind you, representing Kentucky and her citizens, not taking care of the things that ail America - just making sure Obama didn't get re-elected. A priority at which he failed, in case anyone needs reminding.  So is there any surprise that he's not going to recuse himself?

And finally, on the whole matter of the Transition vs. Mitt Romney, the jury's still out. There's still the public flogging being directed by Kellyanne Conway, who is taking advantage of every opportunity to tweet or talk about Romney and how he was the worst of the worst of the non-supporters, more Never Trump than the #NeverTrump movement itself.

But for some unfathomable reason, Romney sat down to dinner with Trump and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus;supposedly there were frog's legs and garlic soup served up, along with some equally healthy, three-Michelin-Stars conversation. Not sure if the Circling Blonde Shark was in attendance, or lurking in a puddle just outside the door.

And, to hedge his bets, Trump also met with Retired (disgraced?) General David Petraeus, another star in the Cabinet Apprentice.  Petraeus, also known as General Betrayus, shared secrets with his mistress for her to use in a book. Which is nothing like what Hillary Clinton did, of course.

Ah yes, a mere 51 days to go.