After their failed effort to include a "citizenship" question on the 2020 Census, something that was designed to undercount and intimidate immigrants, it's been widely reported that Commerce Secretary and sleepy octogenarian Wilbur "Zzzz" Ross will be canned by an angry and vindictive Trump. The Census gambit was a Rethuglican priority to reset Congressional boundaries, starve Dem districts of Federal resources, and generally tilt the playing field in their favor.
Staff at the Commerce Department are also on pink slip watch for the inept Ross, and have provided Politico with a look at his somnolent habits:
“He’s sort of seen as kind of irrelevant. The morale is very low there because there’s not a lot of confidence in the secretary,” said a former outside adviser to Commerce who is still in touch with many employees inside the department. “He’s not respected in the building.”The Commerce Department isn't the State Department, Defense Department or Treasury Department in terms of a weighty mission, but it does handle everything from oceanic and atmospheric research and export licenses, to collecting national business data and conducting the Census. Ross is just another Trump appointee who is far below the quality of a Cabinet secretary, but someone who will do Trump's bidding in his government vandalism project.
Ross doesn’t hold routine meetings with senior staffers, according to a person familiar with the department’s inner workings and a former outside adviser -- a departure from past practice that one source attributed to the secretary’s lack of stamina.
“Because he tends to fall asleep in meetings, they try not to put him in a position where that could happen so they’re very careful and conscious about how they schedule certain meetings,” said the former outside adviser. “There’s a small window where he’s able to focus and pay attention and not fall asleep.”
BONUS:
To be fair, I’m sure every department is a disaster in their own way. That’s the goal. https://t.co/a7X1OP9aVf— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 22, 2019
(photo: Ross, left, getting his beauty rest on trip to Saudi Arabia. On Demand News)
