https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbxWRavwvhA
Take a look at this video.
It’s from a November 2015 campaign rally in Iowa. Donald J. Trump is talking about the man he’s just picked to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson.
I’ll let the video speak for itself.
You are welcome to draw your own conclusions about why the president-elect would choose someone he said has an incurable “pathological disorder” to help run a major federal agency.
Go figure.
Mike Huckabee has joined the tweeter in chief in communicating with Americans about public policy.
Here’s a fascinating Twitter message from the one-time presidential candidate/Arkansas governor/Baptist preacher: “Ben Carson is first HUD Sec to have actually lived in gov’t housing. Fancy Nancy Pelosi says he’s not qualified; is she racist or just dumb?”
There you have it. Ben Carson is qualified to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because he once lived in a public housing project.
Is that what Huck has said?
I am absolutely certain that Gov. Huckabee would expand on Dr. Carson’s alleged qualifications when asked.
However, I cannot get past the statement that Dr. Carson made a week after the election, that he didn’t want to serve in Donald Trump’s Cabinet. A close Carson associate said the doctor — one of the world’s renowned pediatric neurosurgeons — isn’t qualified to run a federal agency.
If Huckabee’s logic holds up, I guess I’m qualified to pilot a jet airliner because I’ve flown several hundred thousand miles on them; I’m also qualified to practice dentistry because I’ve had root canals done on my teeth.
Don’t misread me here. I admire Dr. Carson’s skill as a brain surgeon. He has performed great work on young patients in need of medical miracles.
However, living in a public housing development does not give one the qualifications needed to manage a massive federal agency. Beyond that, he has zero government experience. Of course, neither does the man who has nominated him to become HUD secretary.
I will await with eager anticipation the grilling that Dr. Carson is going to get from the U.S. Senate committee that will recommend whether he gets the job he once said he didn’t want.
Was I hearing things a week after the presidential election?
I could swear I heard — and read — something from Dr. Ben Carson and his closest associates in which he declared he didn’t want a job in Donald J. Trump’s Cabinet because, in Carson’s view, he wasn’t qualified to run a federal agency.
That’s not his skill set … supposedly.
https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/11/carson-opts-out-of-cabinet-post-but-why/
Carson ran for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and was one of 16 pretenders to get crushed by the Trump juggernaut.
So, what precisely is Dr. Carson’s skill? He’s a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon. He has performed what amount to medical miracles on children in need of them. His brilliance as an MD is beyond reproach.
Now, though, he’s being tossed into a brand new arena. Trump has nominated him to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
I don’t understand this choice.
As The Associated Press reported: “In a statement, Trump says he’s ‘thrilled to nominate’ Carson, saying he “has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.” Great! Does the passion qualify him to manage a massive federal agency? Time will reveal that in due course.
If the president-elect were to ask me, I’d say Carson would be a better fit as secretary of health and human services or as surgeon general. Trump seek my advice.
As for his ability to run HUD, I’ll just suggest that managing a massive federal bureaucracy ain’t exactly brain surgery … if you get my drift.
Dr. Ben Carson has decided he doesn’t want to be considered for a spot in Donald J. Trump’s Cabinet.
His reason, as stated by a close associate, is quite stunning.
Carson, remember, ran for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump and 15 others. He dropped out about midway through the process.
He was considered a possible candidate for secretary of health and human services or education.
Carson doesn’t want it, he said.
Then came this: “Carson’s business manager, Armstrong Williams, said Carson has made clear he has no experience in running a federal bureaucracy.
“‘Dr. Carson doesn’t feel like that’s the best way for him to serve the president-elect,’ Williams told Reuters.
“He said Carson would remain a close adviser of Trump and a friend. ‘His life has not prepared him to be a Cabinet secretary,’ Williams said.”
But it prepared him to become president of the United States of America?
Ben Carson knows what bigotry looks like.
He also knows that using the term “bigot” in a battle between candidates for the highest public office in the land is counterproductive in the extreme.
The former Republican candidate for president has advised his party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, to cease calling Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton a bigot.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/ben-carson-trump-clinton-bigot-227453
Dr. Carson said this about Trump’s name-calling:
“I kind of left that behind in the third grade. I certainly don’t encourage it because the issues that we’re facing are incredibly important—for us and for the future generations.”
Do you think Dr. Carson, the surgeon who’s also African-American, will be able to persuade Trump to cool it with the bigot talk?
Probably not.
As Trump’s campaign continues its flailing ways, the candidate is left to say things about Clinton that have nothing at all to do with policy differences he might have with her. Oh, but wait! Trump doesn’t have any policies of his own, which leaves him to rely on the insult machine he oils daily.
Carson, of course, isn’t going to let Clinton off the hook, either. “That’s what people do who don’t have anything to talk about,” he said while referring as well to Clinton’s use of the term “racist” to describe Trump’s statements.
While the Democratic nominee attacks the words that come from her opponent’s mouth, Trump has decided to define his foe’s character by accusing her of being an outright bigot.
This campaign should proceed on a much higher plain.
I fear that it won’t.
I’ve had my laugh-out-loud moment for today while reading about the presidential campaign.
It came from the DailyKos, a lefty website where the editors take pleasure in making fun of conservatives.
The site contained a quote from Dr. Ben Carson, the former Republican presidential candidate-turned Donald Trump supporter.
According to Dr. Carson, Trump doesn’t like to talk about all the good things he’s done for people because — hold on with both hands! — he is “uncomfortable with self-praise.”
So help me, my head is about to do a 360 spin!
I understand Dr. Carson’s endorsement of Trump. I believe he is angling for a job in a Trump Cabinet in the event hell freezes over on Election Day.
Of all the things the good doctor could have said about Trump, though, this one might be the most astonishing thing anyone — ever! — has said about the Paragon of Egomania.
Man, you have to hand it to Dr. Ben Carson.
When politicians switch their allegiance and make surprise endorsements, they usually waffle, wiggle and weasel their way out of answering direction questions as to, “Why?”
Not the doc.
He said he endorsed fellow Republican Donald J. Trump because he couldn’t find another candidate to back, meaning another candidate who (a) could win and (b) fit his own political world view.
There’s another reason: Trump has offered him a spot in a possible (gulp!) Trump administration.
Yep, Carson said so. Out loud. For the record.
Don’t you just love it? I surely do.
Carson’s candor seems to have caught the attention of some legal experts as well. Some have suggested that Trump might have broken federal election law by flat-out “buying” an endorsement by offering a paid position within his administration in the even hell freezes over and Trump is actually elected in November.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the only other former GOP presidential primary foe to endorse Trump. His own explanation for his switch was so standard. He sought to tap dance all around the fact that he once declared Trump “unfit” to be commander in chief. Now, according to Christie, Trump is, um, “fit.”
Dr. Carson’s candor is refreshing in its way. Politicians are schooled on evasiveness. If you ask a trained pol a direct question about, say, a statement they or someone they support has made, they’re going to revert immediately to a rote response.
It’s as though they’re under some sort of post-hypnotic spell: Ask them a tough question and you trigger a telepathic switch that makes them say what they’re programmed to say.
The good doctor isn’t like that.
I appreciate that he answered so directly: Trump isn’t really my guy. I would have preferred to back someone else. But heck, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Awesome!
Dr. Ben Carson, barely two weeks gone from the Republican Party presidential primary trail, has endorsed Donald J. Trump to be his party’s nominee.
The man who Trump called a “pathological liar” now says Trump has another side. The public sees the bombastic Trump, the one who declares Mexican immigrants are rapists, who says John McCain isn’t a “real” war hero, who says Islam “hates America.”
There’s another Trump lurking under the public man’s skin, Dr. Carson said. It’s more nuanced, more thoughtful, that he’s “malleable.”
Can you believe that?
Well, I can’t.
Now he’s on board. He’s all in.
Christie must be angling for a spot somewhere — I shudder to say this out loud — in a Trump Cabinet.
And Carson? There might be a vice-presidential spot in the good doctor’s immediate political future.
As for his assertion that the “other” Donald Trump is much more likable and implicitly electable, I’ll just add this: If he’s out there, my hunch is that the bombastic and boorish Trump would have given way long ago.
Five men are set to stand on a debate stage tonight in Houston.
Two of them are likely to unsheathe the long knives to use on each other.
A third man, the frontrunner, also is going to be a target.
Candidates No. 4 and 5? I just hope they get to get a word in edge-wise.
Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio want to elbow each other out of the way to become the Republican Party “establishment” alternative to Donald J. Trump. For Cruz, the Houston debate has been called his “last stand,” or kind of an Alamo reference.
Rubio faces other obstacles, with polls showing him trailing Trump in his home state of Florida.
I continue to root for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who’s the fourth-place candidate — but the one who exhibits the most executive and legislative government experience. He’s a grownup, but in this election cycle, political adulthood isn’t seen as a plus. Too bad.
The fifth man on the stage? I sense that this likely will be Dr. Ben Carson’s last bow on the national political stage.
So, let’s watch the debate tonight and see how much “blood” gets spilled.
My sense is that it’s going to be a serious spectator-friendly event.
Nevada has weighed in.
Donald J. Trump scored big. Yuuuuge! He won the state’s Republican caucus last night. He’s now being touted by some in the media as the “presumptive” GOP presidential nominee.
Not so fast.
We’ve got a big election date coming up. I won’t predict how it all shakes out, but this could turn out to be the “last stand” of the party’s brass that seeks to derail the Trump Express.
Twelve states are going to the polls. Republicans are taking part in all the primaries. They’re going to award a huge trove of delegates to this summer’s GOP convention in Cleveland.
Oh yeah. Texas is one of them.
The states are mostly scattered through the south and east. Alaska’s voting, too.
So, what happens if Trump runs the table on March 1?
Game over. That’s what the “experts” say.
An interesting debate occurred this morning on one of the cable news shows. It involved discussion over why U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — one of the three leading contenders for the nomination — won’t unload on Trump. He instead aims his political fire at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The question being kicked around was whether Rubio is either afraid of how Trump would respond or if he’s angling for a vice-presidential spot in the event that Trump actually wins the presidential nomination.
I cannot pretend to get into the mind of the young man from Florida.
It’s do or die for two other candidates: Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. That’s a given and hardly qualifies as a huge scoop here.
As an interested observer of these things, though, I am going to await the GOP result with decidedly mixed feelings.
I told a friend of mine this morning in an e-mail message that I shudder to think that Republican primary voters have devalued the “essence of the presidency” so much that they actually would nominate a crass, callow, foul-mouthed blowhard to represent their party in an election to elect our head of state.
I won’t predict what they’ll do next Tuesday. Whatever it is, we’d better prepare ourselves for a major political eruption.