Marcia Fudge confirmed as first Black woman to lead HUD in more than 40 years

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post




The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm President Biden's nomination of Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio) as secretary of housing and urban development, making her the first Black woman to lead the agency in more than four decades. Fudge, who entered Congress in 2008, won bipartisan approval to lead the embattled agency where the morale among civil servants had plummeted under the leadership of Ben Carson, who eviscerated fair housing enforcement and other civil rights protections during the Trump administration.

Fudge, 68, said during her January confirmation hearing that her priorities include ending discriminatory housing practices as part of Biden's focus on dismantling systemic racial injustice and boosting Black homeownership, a critical component in narrowing the racial wealth gap. Biden, in executive orders pertaining to racial equity in January, sought to strengthen anti-discrimination housing policies that were rolled back under President Donald Trump.

As HUD secretary, Fudge is expected to reinstate a 2013 rule aimed at barring the housing industry from enacting policies that, although seemingly race-neutral, have an adverse effect on Black and Latino Americans. The agency also is expected to reinstate another Obama-era regulation requiring communities to identify and address barriers to racial integration and disparities in access to transportation, jobs and good schools -- or risk losing federal funding.

One year into the coronavirus pandemic, which has left a disproportionate number of Black and Latino Americans jobless, Fudge said her immediate focus will be on providing rental assistance to households at risk of eviction. More than 11 million households are behind on rent, census data show. Almost 3 million homeowners are in forbearance, Fudge said; an additional 800,000 borrowers are delinquent. Families struggling to pay rent continue to be served with eviction notices despite the government's extension of the eviction moratorium.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/10/hud-secretary-marcia-fudge-confirmation/

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(the voting is still going on at the moment but she already has over 50 votes)

ETA - they just finished the vote - 66-34.

[soothsayer]

1. Woohoo!

[ladym55]

2. I will miss having her as my representative in Congress

But I think Marcia Fudge will do an excellent job at HUD.

[Cha]

6. I hope you get another good one..

I've read Martha Fudge is supporting..

Cuyahoga County Councilwoman and County Democratic Party Chair Shontel Brown.

[hkp11]

3. wonderful

[Deminpenn]

4. Yet another lopsided bi-partisan confirmation

nt

[Cha]

5. Martha Fudge for HUD.. a

180 degrees difference than the last one!

TY!

[sandensea]

7. To think HUD has always been near the top of the GOP hit list, as departments they'd like to ax

Most Repug voters believe HUD "only deals with public housing" and that (of course) only "blacks and browns" live in public housing.

Goebbels 101: dehumanize your target in the public eye, before you go after them.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. The other they wanted to get rid of

was Commerce (a Gingrich goal) - particularly when Ron Brown was in charge under Clinton... But as we saw more recently over the past 4 years, when they set out to destroy those agencies under its jurisdiction -

NOAA (and its child agency, the NWS) because "climate change is a hoax"

Census Bureau (because only certain people should count as a "resident population" )

And of course they went a long way towards attempting to destroy Carter's legacy Department of Education.

[sandensea]

11. Sure. Pretty much everything but Defense.

Which under GOP presidents usually turns into the War Department.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Well they embrace "original intent" so much

and DOD used to be called that in the past anyway until well after WW2...

[sandensea]

13. But then, 'Defense' works so much better for PR purposes

Nobody double-speaks like our Repug friends.

This reminds me of an op-ed I read back in the '90s from self-described "centrist" writer P.J. O'Rourke.

He described how he would "balance the budget - and even send every American a check" by eliminating certain cabinet departments and federal agencies.

For instance: "State? Tell me what the hell they do again?"

"Postal Service? That's what phones are for!"

"Justice? Fry'em!"

"Education? The hell with the little bastards!"

"Transportation? Let'em walk!"

It was a hoot, in that low-brow way, and of course it was presented as satire.

But no, no - he meant it, and they mean it.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. It was all Newt Gingrich

Gingrich’s highly influential Contract With America, which vaulted Republicans to control of the House in 1994. During that time, Gingrich focused much of his attention on government reform. He pledged that Republicans would eliminate as many as four cabinet departments and “zero out” funding for a series of major programs.

https://www.govexec.com/federal-news/2016/12/gingrich-commission-reorganize-government/133605/

Basically what we call his "Contract on America" (as a penultimate hit job to kill government). And of course he was very much behind the scenes pulling strings the past 4 years and basically helped in the attempts to destroy department after department.

(of course the odd thing about 45 was his anti-military stance, calling them "losers", and that didn't fit the GOP agenda... so... )

[sandensea]

15. True. Gingrich almost single-handedly turned the GOP into an outright fascist party

In fact the only major party in the developed world (and much of the developing) that meets all 14 criteria for fascism.

As for Needy Amin, I really do believe his assassination of Soleimani was a deliberate - even desperate - attempt to goad Iran into a war.

As you know, the fat bastard always wanted to be a war president - as he understood that it was the best and fastest way to consolidate power (as well as salvaging his re-election).

And I think our military, as a group, are beginning to understand that: that to the GOP, they are nothing but props - to be used, abused, and discarded whenever politics (or geo-politics) calls for it.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Well oddly

what happened over the past 4 years, that I never thought I'd ever see happen after the past 40 years, was that the neocon war machine was summarily shunted aside.

It was so bad that this guy had a temper tantrum -



(or as Forbes wrote - "Flames out" )

Everyone wanted to use 45 as their "useful idiot" and they ALL got more than they bargained for. There were no "principles" (i.e., no "Spreading Democracy Everywhere® or PNAC stuff, although the "Space Force" sounded "cool" ) that could ever make him a "war-time President". But only his eyeing and cherry-picking access to the means to execute a completely different, spur-of-the-moment agenda.

So, IMHO, with 45 sortof out of the picture, the GOP may try to get back to the " (war) business as usual", however at this point, their party has been taken over by the wedge-issue loons, and it will be a difficult road for them to extract them. And by then, I agree that whoever is left in the military may finally "get the message".

[sandensea]

18. Absolutely. Republicans are addicted to war.

It's the only thing that, in recent decades, gets them re-elected (since they have nothing else to show for themselves).

And above all, their bankrollers count on them to bring home that bacon.

Endless war = endless money (for them).

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Yup

Erik Prince knows!

[sandensea]

20. As does Dubya!

And the gang.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. "... and the gang"

Ain't that the damn truth!

[KG]

8. ' leadership of Ben Carson'

[BumRushDaShow]

10. I agree with the

[sandensea]

16. That's PHAROAH Carson to you!