For a little while, anyway, here at the shebeen, we're going to be keeping the ol' weather-eye on the Trumpian hiring hall, because it's already been shown to be a repository of bad ideas and very strange specimens. For example, there is talk that Dr. Ben Carson will be named Secretary of Education, a cabinet department, you may remember, that every Republican presidential candidate for 20 years has said shouldn't exist at all. Dr. Ben, of course, is a creationist with some interesting theories in the field of Egyptology.

More recently, Dr. Ben, crusader against the evils of "political correctness," has proposed that the federal government monitor the nation's universities for evidence of ideas of which Dr. Ben does not approve. From WaPo:

Dr. Ben Carson, currently running in second for the Republican presidential nomination, told NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday that he supports a system under which the government would investigate allegations of "extreme bias" on college campuses. "The way that works," Carson explained, "is you invite the students at the universities to send in their complaints. And then you investigate." He later added, "It's not a violation of the 1st Amendment, because all I'm saying is taxpayer funding should not be used for propaganda. It shouldn't be."

There also is talk that the Department of Homeland Security will be entrusted to Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, who already has said that the outbreak of protests against the election of Donald Trump is overdue to be crushed. It's possible that Clarke has muted his ravin…er…rhetoric because he's preoccupied with finding out how an inmate died of thirst, in 2016, in his jail.

More, I am sure, to follow.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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