Trump's last superspreader event claims another

Brian Jack, White House political director, reportedly tested positive over the weekend [after attending the election night celebration held at the White House].

[...]

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and adviser David Bossie have all tested positive, as well.

Another unnamed White House aide has apparently tested positive for COVID-19, though it was unclear whether they attended the election night event.

[...]

Hundreds of people attended the event on Tuesday night and many were observed not wearing masks or practicing social distancing.

[...]

Trump's use of the White House for campaign events was seen as going against presidential norms. His campaign originally planned to host an election night event at Trump International Hotel in D.C., but attributed the change of plans to the city's strict COVID-19 safety guidelines.

  The Hill

So spread your life-threatening disease at the people's house. Nice.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ben Carson has Covid

Another White House superspreader event.

He IS fortunate.

Is everybody who was there quarantining? I think we know the answer to that.  They're out spreading it around.

I thought we weren't going to hear anything more about Covid after November 3 because it was just a Democrats' hoax.  You know what we're not hearing anything more about after November 3?  Hunter Biden's laptop.

UPDATE:   Add campaign aide David Bossie.

UPDATE 11/21:

Carson said his initial symptoms were light, but then he became "desperately ill," and noted that he has "several co-morbidities" that played a role.

"President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life," Carson wrote. He said he is now "out of the woods."

[...]

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody therapy Bamlanivimab for emergency use authorization. Regeneron is still awaiting emergency use authorization.

  NPR

YOU won't be getting that treatment.

I wonder what Herman Cain's family thinks.

Next up on the Trump Snake Oil menu

To the alarm of some government health officials, President Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be marketed as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.

  Axios

A dietary supplement or a virus cure. 

The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. It's embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product.

[...]

Lindell, who is a major advertiser on Fox News and a personal friend of Carson and Trump, helped Whitney get an Oval Office meeting with the president in July to discuss oleandrin as a potential COVID-19 cure.

[...]

[Andrew Whitney of Phoenix Biotechnology] has claimed to administration officials that oleandrin cures COVID-19 in two days, according to a source familiar with his private comments.

[...]

"Now, there are all sorts of lawyers who would tell me I can't say things like that, because you know you need to have years of studies, and you need to have this, that, and the other, and so forth," Whitney said. "But as an American with a right of free expression, I'm telling you, I've seen it with my own eyes."

[...]

Asked what human clinical evidence he has provided to the FDA to support his claim that oleandrin cures COVID-19, Whitney did not provide any additional evidence, saying, "At this stage it's probably best left at that. The data is compelling."

I'm just sadly shaking my head.

It's part of a pattern in which entrepreneurs, often without rigorous vetting, push unproven products to Trump — knowing their sales pitches might catch his eye. Trump will then urge FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to "look at" or speed up approval.

[...]

There is no public data showing oleandrin has ever been tested in animals or humans for its efficacy against COVID-19, but the extract has shown some evidence of inhibiting the virus in a non-peer reviewed laboratory study.

Good enough for neurosurgeon Ben Carson. And the My Pillow guy.

Lindell said that he, Carson, at least one lawyer and, briefly, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, joined Trump and Whitney for the meeting. Notably absent was Hahn, the head of the agency that studies and approves medical treatments.

[...]

The first path is as a COVID-19 drug, which would involve a rigorous process that includes clinical trials.

But to hedge his bets, Whitney said he is also pushing the FDA to allow oleandrin to be sold off the shelf as a dietary supplement — a move that could be made immediately, Whitney has told administration officials.

[...]

Professor Sharon Lewin, the director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, is an international authority on antiviral drugs and has a laboratory working on COVID-19.

[...]

"Oleandrin looks to have antiviral activity at high doses in a test tube model. You'd certainly want to see more work done on this before even contemplating a human trial."

[...]

Caree Vander Linden, a spokesperson for the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, emailed the following statement to Axios: "In May 2020, USAMRIID performed some preliminary testing of oleandrin against SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes COVID-19]. Our results were inconclusive."

"Additionally, USAMRIID was contacted by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, indicating that they were also testing it," Vander Linden added. "Given our inconclusive results, and having other high priority therapeutics to assess, we did not continue with this line of research."

[...]

A July 2020 study from the University of Texas at Galveston shows, in a laboratory setting, that oleandrin can inhibit the coronavirus in monkey kidney cells. This study has not been peer reviewed and one of the authors of the study, Robert Newman, is chairman of Phoenix Biotechnology's scientific advisory board — the company developing the oleandrin product.

[...]

When Axios checked the website on Friday night, Newman was still listed as president. But on Saturday evening, after Axios had emailed questions to Whitney, Newman was no longer listed as president of the company; the website listed him only as a scientific adviser.

Asked why the company made this change on Saturday, Whitney texted, "He recently stepped down as president to focus purely on science. This is a small company that has relatively few personnel and is going through acceleration and reorganization."

[...]

Told about the alarm inside the administration regarding his promotion of oleandrin, Lindell said, "This is the most amazing miracle thing I've ever seen in my life, so I went all in.... If you want to know what I think, I think it's being suppressed because somebody doesn't want this out there because it works."

Tell it to QAnon.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

THERE SHOULD BE NO FUCKING BIBLE TEACHER IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CABINET!

Impeach them all.

This administration is putting Darwin to the test

Trump, who has been exposed to the deadliest coronavirus to date, was shaking hands with everybody he called on to speak while declaring we should be "socially distancing" ourselves at a Rose Garden press conference packed with journalists seated shoulder to shoulder.

Now this...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Also...

That Democrat hoax is a doozey.

President Trump told reporters he was tested for the novel coronavirus Friday night, but did not reveal the results.

The chairwoman of the Republican National Committee also got tested after reporting symptoms and is self-quarantining.

  WaPo

Also, Spain is on national lockdown now, too.

No worries; everything under control

Please tell me Ben Carson is not the person in charge.

Also, there may well be a plan, but nobody wants to say what it is on TV, because the president might be watching, and he has said he wants everybody to stay on the boat.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Well, since Scavino is your digital communications guru, maybe you could ask him what it means.

UPDATE:

Jesus wept

background

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ben Carson is still an arrogant asshole idiot

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:







He's oblivious.  Very much like Trump himself, Carson seems to believe he's the one making the points.  He's a narcissist.

UPDATE:



UPDATE:

Proving my point:



UPDATE:



Smug, ignorant bastard.

UPDATE:



His house is a monument to himself.

UPDATE:







Jesus wept.

Sure gonna miss him

Housing and Urban Development [HUD] Secretary Ben Carson said in an interview on Newsmax TV Monday that he will "likely" leave his role at the end of President Trump's first term in office.

“I will certainly finish out this term,” Carson told the conservative outlet. “I would be interested in returning to the private sector because I think you have just as much influence, maybe more, there.”

  The Hill

The important thing for Ben is, you get more money and less scrutiny.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The best people

So..how's Ben Carson doing?

https://t.co/DVDFoWH58Z?amp=1

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Smoothly running machine

Interior Department officials said Thursday that they did not approve the hiring of a political appointee as the agency’s acting watchdog, calling the announcement of her move by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson “100 percent false information.”

[...]

In an email Friday with the subject line “A Fond Farewell,” Carson wrote staff, “It is with mixed emotions that I announce that Suzanne Israel Tufts, our Assistant Secretary for Administration, has decided to leave HUD to become Acting Inspector General at the Department of Interior.”

[...]

The backtracking on Suzanne Israel Tufts’s move two days after it drew widespread scrutiny deepened questions about how and why she was supposedly chosen to lead Interior’s inspector general’s office, which is currently conducting at least four investigations into Secretary Ryan Zinke.

[...]

Top White House officials said Thursday they had not been made aware of the plan to move Tufts, a lawyer from Queens who worked on President Trump’s campaign and has served as HUD’s assistant secretary for administration since December.

“Ms. Tufts is not employed by the Department and no decision was ever made to move her to Interior,” the agency’s press secretary, Heather Swift, said in a statement Thursday.

And in a striking public rebuke of another Cabinet agency led by a close friend of Zinke’s, Swift wrote that HUD “sent out an email that had 100 percent false information in it.” She affirmed that Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall, who has led the office for nine years, is still in the job.

[...]

The about-face came after mounting criticism by lawmakers on Capitol Hill and watchdog groups of what appeared to be an un­or­tho­dox arrangement between the agencies to bring in a political appointee to oversee Kendall.

[...]

Swift said Tufts was referred to Interior officials by the White House “as a potential candidate” for a position in the inspector general’s office. Swift did not say what position. “At the end of the day, she was not offered a job at Interior.”

[...]

[Tufts] is a former consultant who has no experience as an investigator and would have been leading one of the government’s most active inspector general offices.

[...]

“It’s a real breach of protocol to put someone who’s only qualification is political allegiance to the Trump administration.”

[...]

White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss personnel matters, said the move came as a surprise to them.

[...]

HUD officials did not respond to a request for comment. Tufts could not be reached.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10/20:

Tufts has resigned.

What the hell went on here?

Reality has taken a detour

Exactly.

UPDATE 9/22:



Not only that, but it appears obvious that Grassley is not interested in conducting any kind of serious investigation/hearing into whether Kavanaugh should be on the bench.  Rather, he's simply acting as Kavanaugh's advocate.

Ben Carson is evil

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson on Wednesday unveiled a plan that would triple the rent for Americans on housing assistance, as well as impose work requirements for the program.

[...]

A release from HUD sought to emphasize that the increases will not apply to households “comprised of elderly persons or persons with disabilities.”

[...]

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in March that Carson was looking for more "responsible" spending options going forward as HUD secretary.

  The Hill

Too bad that didn't apply to office furniture.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He's not done firing

Of coures, he'll never be done firing, but this round with McMaster was supposedly to have more names.

President Trump’s announcement Thursday afternoon that he was replacing national security adviser H.R. McMaster with former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton reportedly ruined White House aides' plans to announce multiple administration departures at once.

Politico reported that White House chief of staff John Kelly and other senior aides were waiting for potentially bruising inspector general reports on Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

The White House planned to then announce the departure of McMaster and other top aides at once, Politico reported.

  The Hill

That would explain why it was reported that Bolton ruined the surprise by entering through the wrong gate where reporters could see him, and his subsequent statement that he didn't think the change was going to be announced that day.

As for Shulkin and Carson, they've been getting too much bad publicity, and that should put Zinke in the hot seat, as well. And Mnuchin. Perhaps Shulkin and Carson didn't kiss His Lordship's ass enough.

John Kelly has been repeatedly reported to be on the chopping block, and I won't be surprised to see that happen before too long.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Ben Carson needs to be put out to pasture

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson said some women have said they aren't comfortable being in a homeless shelter with "somebody who had a very different anatomy" when discussing access transgender people have to shelters.

  The Hill

"Some women."

Number one, I doubt that Ben Carson has ever talked to a homeless person, and number two, I doubt that homeless people are as prejudiced against alternate lifestyles as Ben Carson surely is.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) [asked] about a move to take away training materials meant to prevent LGBT discrimination in homeless shelters, CNN reported.

"Remember it is complex," Carson said responding to Quigley.

"We obviously believe in equal rights for everybody, including the LGBT community. But we also believe in equal rights for the women in the shelters, and shelters where there are men, and their equal rights. So, we want to look at things that really provide for everybody and doesn't impede the rights of one for the sake of the other."

Sure, that's the concern.

He was further asked how implementing protections for transgender people would impede on peoples' rights.

"There are some women who said they were not comfortable with the idea of being in a shelter, being in a shower, and somebody who had a very different anatomy," he said.

[...]

"It is because of derogatory myths like this, which have been debunked time and time again, that the transgender community faces disproportionate levels of discrimination and homelessness." GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

"Today's blatant and factually inaccurate anti-transgender rhetoric is the latest in a long line of uninformed and biased statements about LGBTQ people that make Dr. Carson unfit to be the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development."

In any other administration he would be. Things have changed.

Information about LGBT health was removed from a Department of Health and Human Services website last fall, according to new reports from a watchdog group.

The HHS Office of Women’s Health (OWH) removed a webpage with extensive information about lesbian and bisexual health, and links that correspond to that webpage, according to reports the Sunlight Foundation released Wednesday.

The group found that some resources have gone missing and that other similar remaining content relating to lesbian and bisexual health, which was last updated in 2009, has been rendered difficult to access.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Pot, meet Kettle

Four Cabinet-level officials were reportedly scolded in private meetings at the White House last month for news stories detailing questionable ethical behavior.

  The Hill

That's pretty nervy. The head snake knew they were snakes when he brought them in.

CNN reported Friday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt were among those called to the White House.

[...]

The agencies were also reportedly given guidelines, titled "creating a culture of compliance." The advice outlined in that document highlighted the importance of "optics," saying that officials should refrain from behavior that could appear outside their agency's mission.

[...]

The meetings were held at the request of White House chief of staff John Kelly, and stressed the importance of avoiding even so much as the appearance of unethical behavior, according to CNN.

And they went out smirking, knowing they'd be there long after Kelly gets ditched.

And, speaking of Shulkin, WTF?

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin has reportedly cut off contact with top agency officials and now operates out of an office with an armed guard at the door amid ongoing tensions with top staff.

Shulkin, a VA holdover from the Obama administration promoted to the head job by President Trump, has canceled morning meetings with top Trump appointees in the department and hasn't spoken to his public affairs chief in weeks. He fears that his aides in the nation's second-largest bureaucracy, behind only the Pentagon, are actively lobbying the White House for his ouster, The Washington Post reports.

  The Hill

Somehow his choice of approaches to the problem doesn't seem likely to make it better.

“Things have come to a grinding halt,” one senior manager told the Post. “It’s killing the agency. Nobody trusts each other.”

Among those allegedly seeking Shulkin's ouster are public affairs chief John Ullyot, legislative affairs head Brooks Tucker and top aide Jake Leinenkugel, who all clashed with Shulkin over policies seen to be out of step with the Trump administration, as well as hires for the agency.

The friction led to the three regularly meeting to plot Shulkin's firing, the Post reports, while also overruling the Cabinet secretary on policy decisions.

[...]

Shulkin is the only Trump Cabinet secretary who also worked under the Obama White House, and he has battled scandal during his time under Trump. Last week it was revealed that Shulkin was the target of an inspector general investigation into the use of his personal security detail to perform errands.

In February, a separate inspector general investigation found that Shulkin improperly accepted tickets to the Wimbledon tennis tournament and used taxpayer dollars to take a trip to Europe that cost $122,000 in total. The report alleged that government emails were doctored so that taxpayer funding covered travel expenses racked up by Shulkin's wife.

Perhaps he thought he should perform his duties in the image of his boss and so many of his fellow cabinet members.

Trump must not be paying any attention to the VA, even though reforming it for the benefit of vetrans was one of his major campaign hooks. But why did he put an Obama appointee at the helm in the first place? Curious.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"You can't even buy a decent chair for $5,000"

That story on Helen Foster's lawsuit sparked some investigative journalism.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will reportedly spend $165,000 on “lounge furniture” for its D.C. office, according to The Guardian.

This comes on the heels of President Trump proposing a $6.8 billion budget cut for the department, cuts that would leave fewer resources for programs that help the poor and homeless.

  The Hill

If they're going to be following suit on Trump's deconstruction of America and underfunding of programs, they won't need to work.  And if they aren't working, they're going to need some good lounge furniture.

On Tuesday it was also reported that HUD Secretary Ben Carson spent $31,000 late in 2017 on a dining set for his office.

A dining set for his office??

HUD officials are also reviewing Carson’s family involvement in the department after officials reportedly expressed concerns about Carson’s oldest son inviting potential business partners to HUD an event.

What's good for the Trumps is good for the Carsons.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 3/1:





FURTHER UPDATE:

Is he saying his wife doesn't tell hiim what she buys?

And, to answer Chris' question:  because we left planet reality in November 2016, and we're not going back any time soon.

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE:




😁

UPDATE 3/14:  He was as surprised as anyone.

An email [...] sent to Carson's assistant last August reportedly cites "printouts of the furniture the Secretary and Mrs. Carson picked out" and has a subject line that says: "Secretary's dining room set needed."

  The Hill

They didn't take these positions to be pinching pennies

Trump's administration is full of incompetents who are there for the bling. They fly royalty class, or not at all. They're not peasants, after all.

A senior career official in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has alleged that she was demoted and replaced with a Donald Trump appointee after refusing to break the law by funding an expensive redecoration of Ben Carson’s office.

[...]

[Helen] Foster, 47, claimed that she also faced retaliation for exposing a $10m budget shortfall, and for protesting when she was barred from handling a pair of sensitive freedom of information act (FOIA) requests relating to Trump apparently because she was perceived to be a Democrat.

[...]

Foster said she was told “$5,000 will not even buy a decent chair” after informing her bosses this was the legal price limit for improvements to the HUD secretary’s suite at the department’s Washington headquarters.

  The Guardian

By that measure, not a person reading this has a decent chair.

The complaint letter said that the day before Trump’s inauguration in January last year, Foster was asked by acting HUD director Craig Clemmensen to help Carson’s wife, Candy, obtain funds for the redecoration of her husband’s office suite. When Foster replied that there was a statutory limit of $5,000, Clemmensen allegedly told her that administrations had “always found ways around that in the past”.

Maybe why there was a $10 million shortfall.

When she had not relented by 10 February, Foster was repeatedly told by Clemmensen “to ‘find money’ for Mrs Carson.”

[...]

A copy of a complaint letter filed by Foster to a watchdog for federal employees was obtained by the Guardian. It alleges that HUD violated laws protecting whistleblowers from reprisals. Foster is seeking a public apology, compensatory damages and reinstatement as HUD’s chief administrative officer.

Not in this administration.

Jesus wept

On the heels of his bullshit performance before Senate committee, here's Ben Carson again showing he knows absolutely jack shit but is very much in the running for most arrogant asshole in the administration.

Vying with The Most Notable Loser for the title of World's Biggest Ass.  And, really, I think Ben has a shot at it.  He just needs more public air time.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Sadly, it won't make a damned bit of difference to the poor

Satisfying, if disgusting, to watch, but it won't house the poor.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.