CARSON CONFIRMED – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:  You would think that a celebrated physician like Dr. Ben Carson, who grew up in the ghetto, would have been confirmed earlier and by acclimation.  But 41 Democrats voted against him.  He is an African-American who won't follow the party line, and that is a sin within the Democratic Party.  From Fox:

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was confirmed by the Senate Thursday to become housing secretary in the Trump administration.

Carson, a former Republican presidential candidate who battled Trump for the GOP nomination, was confirmed for the Cabinet position by a 58 to 41 vote.

In his role as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, Carson will lead more than 8,300 employees and handle an annual budget of nearly $47 billion.

The vote comes more than a month after Carson earned the bipartisan backing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, even gaining the support of two of the panel’s most liberal members -- Democrats Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Warren, however, switched her position and voted against Carson on Thursday. The vote change comes after she faced pressure from liberal activists and wrote a long Facebook post defending her support of Carson.

Answering critics who questioned his qualifications to run HUD, Carson said during his January nomination hearing that he would go on a “listening tour” so he could gain feedback on how to reform the massive and complex department.

During his Senate hearing, Carson said he wanted to focus on solutions to combat the lack of available low-income housing and to forge new partnerships between government and the private sector.

COMMENT:  Carson brings a unique perspective, having grown up under the very conditions he'll try to change.  But the knives will be out because he'll be confronting the huge welfare/public assistance establishment, which is an industry itself.

Carson is a gentle man who became one of the world's great pediatric surgeons.  He can make a substantial contribution if he's allowed to.

March 2, 2017