Swamp Watch – 5 December 2016

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Donald Trump has chosen Ben Carson as his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Why? He’s not remotely qualified for the position and he’s publicly (!) stated that he doesn’t have the experience to lead a government agency. Still, Carson is black and the U in HUD stands for Urban, and that’s probably enough for Trump.

Does this sound unbearably smug and elitist? Sure, I’ll cop to that. But as near as I can tell, Trump has already picked a Defense Secretary solely on the strength of the fact that his nickname is “Mad Dog,” and a UN ambassador because she looks kind of foreign. So it fits.

By the way, you’ll notice that in my table below I’ve finally decided to label Mnuchin and Ross as part of the swamp. My original hesitation was because they weren’t part of DC politics. Does Wall Street count as part of the swamp? Upon reflection, of course it does. Hell, Mnuchin even comes from Goldman Sachs. If that’s not part of the swamp, what is?

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