Tag Archives: HUD

national news, political news

Dr. Carson approved for HUD post; more OJT for key Trumpster

OK, let’s review for a moment the nature of some of Donald J. Trump’s key Cabinet appointments.

Betsy DeVos, who has zero exposure to public education is now head of the U.S. Department of (Public) Education. She didn’t attend public schools, her children didn’t attend them, she favors vouchers that would spend public money to allow parents to send their kids to private schools.

Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who has sued the Environmental Protection Agency repeatedly, is now head of the EPA. He wants to dismantle the rules and regulations designed to, oh, allow for a clean environment.

Ben Carson, whose spokesman once said is not qualified to run a federal agency, today has been confirmed to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Carson is a renowned retired neurosurgeon and is a former Republican primary opponent of the president of the United States.

Rex Tillerson, the former head of ExxonMobil, has not a lick of experience in international diplomacy. But there he is, serving as secretary of state.

These folks all have something in common with the person who picked them for their high-profile government jobs. The president doesn’t any experience, either, in the job to which he was elected.

Trump is holding the first public office he ever sought. He has zero public service experience. He has focused his entire adult life on one thing: personal enrichment. He doesn’t know how the government works. He doesn’t seem to grasp the complexities of governance and legislating.

Hey, that’s OK in the minds of millions of Americans who voted for him. He told it “like it is” during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Can all of these individuals learn how to do their jobs? I damn sure hope so … for the sake of the nation they are leading.

medical news, national news, political news

Dr. Carson’s HUD nomination: most puzzling of all Trump’s picks

Of all the people nominated by Donald J. Trump to join the new president’s administration, the one that continues to puzzle me the most is his pick for secretary of housing and urban development.

Ben Carson ran against Trump and 15 others for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016. He ended up in the campaign-trail ditch right along with the rest of them.

Here are two elements that trouble me greatly.

Trump said some amazingly harsh things about Dr. Carson, a noted pediatric neurosurgeon who retired from his medical practice to become a politician. Carson returned the fire to the eventual GOP nominee. They went at each other with rhetorical brass knuckles.

Second — and this came from Carson’s own mouth — was that he declared himself unqualified to lead a Cabinet agency. His spokesmen said managing a massive federal bureaucracy didn’t fit into his skill set. After the election, Carson in effect took himself out of the Trump administration mix for the most straightforward reason possible: He admitted to being unable to do the job.

But then … ?

Trump picks him to run HUD! The nomination raised eyebrows all across the nation. Didn’t this fellow just say he couldn’t do the job? Didn’t the good doctor admit to being — essentially — unfit to become a Cabinet secretary?

Now he’s going to lead an agency that, among other things, tends to the needs of poor Americans who need government-subsidized public housing.

The brilliant doctor has no knowledge of how to oversee such a massive operation.

Dr. Carson is a brilliant man. I do not intend to disparage his intelligence. But holy cow, man! His learning curve is going to be steep, as in monstrously steep.

Is the doctor up to the task of learning how this agency works? I have to wonder.

national news, political news

Trump trashes Carson, then selects him for HUD post

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.

medical news, national news, political news

Huck weighs in on HUD pick

06carsoncity-master768

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.

medical news, national news, political news

Dr. Carson changes his mind; he is ‘qualified’ after all

dr-carson

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.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-taps-former-campaign-rival-carson-as-housing-secretary/ar-AAl9QAE?li=BBnb7Kz

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.

national news, political news

Running mate selection? Way too early for that

The blog post attached to this short note is meant, I believe, to illustrate the absurdity of handicapping the major parties’ presidential tickets.

http://bell-book-candle.com/2015/04/12/running-mates/

But it’s happening in some quarters.

Who would the candidates, Democrat or Republican, want to run with them?

It’s all a sort of parlor game played by people I believe have too much time on their hands or who see themselves as experts on something about which they know nothing.

I remain somewhat — although less so than before — that the Democrats will nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton at their convention next year. One name being kicked around is Julian Castro, the Texas Democrat who once served as mayor of San Antonio; he’s now the nation’s housing secretary.

Sure thing. Let’s talk about it. Maybe later.

The Republican field is as wide open as it can possibly get.

Besides, I don’t like handicapping these things. No one’s going to ask my opinion, although I might be prone to give it the closer we get to the days of decision.

 

political news, State news

Has the '18 governor's race begun … already?

Erica Greider, writing for Texas Monthly, may be onto something.

She thinks it’s possible that the 2018 race for Texas governor might formulating not quite a month into the current governor’s first term.

Her clue? Two aspects relating to Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

One is that Gov. Abbott has a lot of campaign cash stashed away. Indeed, he kept raising boatloads of money long after it was understood by everyone in Texas that he would be elected in a landslide over Democratic challenger Wendy Davis.

Two is that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick isn’t shy — as he demonstrated by challenging incumbent David Dewhurst in 2014 — about poking the establishment in the eye.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/brace-yourselves

She also believes Land Commissioner George P. Bush isn’t going to languish forever in his office and he might want to run for governor as well.

All three of them are Republicans. Abbott, of course, is in the driver’s seat. However, by my way of thinking, Patrick is going to pressure him to the right to ensure that he follows the TEA party agenda that Patrick is formulating as he runs the state Senate. I was intrigued, for example, by the team of ad hoc citizen advisers he formed, several of whom have TEA party connections.

Greider also notes one more potential rising political star. Too bad he’s a Democrat. That would be U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio. Texas Democrats get all hot and bothered when his name comes up as a possible candidate for governor.

Well, Wendy Davis had the same impact on Democrats when she announced her candidacy for the 2014 race. She flamed out.

The political tide continues to pull Texas politicians hard to the right. Politicians such as Patrick are preaching the state’s electoral choir. Greg Abbott hears it, too.

If the governor doesn’t mind his P’s and Q’s during the next, oh, three-plus years, he is going to get a challenge from within his party. And as Texas Republicans have shown they are able to do — e.g., Ted Cruz beating Dewhurst for the U.S. Senate, and Patrick knocking Dewhurst out of his lieutenant governor’s office — I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see another GOP knockdown battle in 2018.