New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) and former Obama-era surgeon general Vivek Murthy have emerged as top picks for Health and Human Services Secretary in the incoming Biden administration, Politico reported late Tuesday.
Quality matters.
Sounds good to me.
Both of them are great picks…isn’t it nice to live in the world of competent ADULTS again?
Well apparently the CDC needs a lot of help. They’re using a website to justify school openings, run by an Econ professor who admits she only has a very partial data set:
What’s the political outlook for holding that governorship in New Mexico? Like it or not, Biden needs to prioritize such thinking, rather than simply opting for the best candidate possible. Plucking elected Democratic office-holders out of their current positions makes me nervous in general.
Let’s be clear. Having experience in Obama’s administration is a good thing. Experience is a good thing. We need folks who can come in & hit the ground running. Our institutions must be resuscitated not just managed. That takes skill & experience.
The media needs to stop harping on “Obama” administration experience. Trump brought in neophytes with ideologies that were the antithesis of agencies mission & destroyed half century of progress.
Experience is a good thing. But if every person you hire is from the Obama administration, it becomes a pattern and people notice. Especially when Joe insists this isn’t a 3rd Obama administration. That’s the only reason it’s an issue. Personally, I hope a lot of the junior staffers from that admin get promotions to more senior levels this time around. There were a lot of young go getters in that administration. And while they LOVE Obama and Joe, they privately were always a little disappointed they didn’t get to fight more.
As for the media, forget the ridiculously pathetic standards they didn’t even bother holding Trump to. A Dem is back in office. The bar for competence and honesty has been ramped back up to 11.
It’s just such a relief that all of the individuals already chosen and the potential candidates for the new administration are being considered because they have appropriate knowledge, background, skills and experience to bring to their positions. They are all individuals who will be committed to supporting the missions of their departments/agencies with the goal of doing what’s best for the US as a whole, not working for the benefit of an individual, a corporation, ideology… or unsupported conspiracy theory. Huge sigh of relief!
Some of us remember the overwrought media brew ha ha over some of the very qualified Clinton picks which are quaint compared to the awful Trump nominees. The nanny tax return issues with the AG pick. Race baiting a deputy AG selection “Quota Queen” because she advocated for ranked choice voting. Another nominee, Ms. Cole who is now the president of Spellman was rejected because she once went on a junket to Cuba.
Thankfully the bar is raised when it comes to these nominees but the media need not go down some rabbit hole.
Very OT, but relevant in terms of the electoral news.
Atrios, over at ecschaton.com, has a righteous rant about the faux-heroism of the GA SOS Raffensperger:
And I, being the irate, foul-mouthed little pisher that I am, had a few choice words to add to their comments section since this gripes my Milano cookies to no end:
"Thank you, Atrios! Well said, and something that pisses off me and countless others. He did the job he was elected to do and the media and many people think we should be discussing his canonization for it. Hey, motherfuckers - how about all of those people who are risking their lives working at WalMart and groceries stores while these MAGAt assholes that Raffensperger enabled won’t wear a fucking mask? What about all of those healthcare workers being stretched to the edge and also risking their lives and their sanity? Any medals and hosannas for them?
It’s exactly like Rudy Giuliani in NYC after 9/11. He was there on that day because he probably decided he couldn’t jet off to a bed and breakfast in Connecticut to fuck his mistress, and the media and the gullible public proclaimed him a fucking savior. Rudy now shows himself to be the person he always was, and the person most New Yorkers knew he was. And Raffensperger is no different. I wonder how many years is it going to take for the sheen to wear off of this polished road apple?"
Two AG selections: Both Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood! (And it’s worth noting that what Wood did was legal at the time she did it.)
Lani Guinier.
That would work for me.
I am waiting for the most important nomination: Attorney General.
Also, I am HOPING for Pete Buttigeig as Director of the V.A.
I just read that post a few minutes ago. Atrios was dead on:
Which is to say that your family supported the guy because you were quite happy for him to fuck everybody else over
If she resigns, the Lt. Governor becomes Governor. Howie Morales is also a Democrat. Not sure when or if they would hold a special election. The next scheduled election would be in 2022. New Mexico is a pretty reliable Blue state, though they do flip back and forth on Governor, historically. Right now though, most if not all state wide office holders are Democrats.
Good question, but here you don’t need to worry much. NM is solid D except for the 2nd CD in the south which is culturally and economically more Texas oilpatch and parasitic dirt-ranching than El Norte. But it’s even becoming a swingy CD due to urban voters (Las Cruces, mainly) starting to outvote the old-guard extractive industries set. All statewide offices are held by D’s since '18, D’s just increased their majorities in both houses, most leadership posts are now held by women, and we’ll be looking at D governors for quite awhile. The state R party is in disarray, like the nat’l R’s, they really don’t know which way they’re going to go, all they have is Anglo culture war bullshit which doesn’t play at all in the Latino-majority 1st and 3rd CD’s.
In the near term, if MLG moved back to DC, her Lt. Gov. Howie Morales would succeed her. He’d run for reelection, presumably, in 2022, but he’s kind of a political lightweight from downstate so he would be primary-challenged by one or several statewide elected D’s like Hector Balderas, the AG. But nonetheless, the top job has D written all over it at this point.
MLG is a 5-foot firecracker, only a fool would get in her way, and she would be an excellent pick for HHS. Problem is we want her here, she’s been strong on the pandemic response, standing up to silly reactionary court challenges to public health orders, giving informative weekly public briefings, and letting the experts do a lot of the talking when the subject is science, the way it should be. She’s popular, shows some heart and connects well with the public.
Boring. Just the way I like it.