The Benghazi attack had nothing to do with the American Embassy.
The fighting took place at a CIA station, not at the embassy nor at a consulate.
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I’d love to see Alexander Vindman on the team, but he has signed on to the Lawfare team as a Pritzker Military Fellow. It’s a 2 year fellowship that involves writing a book, public speaking, writing, and teaching. Nice interview on their podcast.
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There are dozens of highly-qualified people who don’t hold elective office.
It’s time to stop going to that particular well so often to slake political thirst.
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Something with Defense or Foreign policy.
Interestingly, Indiana Senate comes up in 2022 and 2024.
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Biden never took my advice to make “Snapback” his campaign slogan, but it seems to be the main feature of his picks. I doubt Merrick Garland actually gets the AG nod (Sally Yates is a better choice) but kudos for putting it out there, Joe.
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I think Buttigieg would make an awesome SoS. He’s brilliant and incredibly articulate.
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There’s some truth in that.
On the other hand, a transition team has very little time – this one even less than usual, for obvious reasons. One way to save time is to look at people in elective office, because, to some degree, they have already been “vetted by the process.”
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But Indiana is not a state that Buttigieg can win a Senate seat in. I doubt he can even win the House seat that encompasses South Bend. And he doesn’t need a loss on his resume, he needs to run and win a seat in Congress (or a Governor’s seat, but again, Indiana ain’t the place he is going to find that).
But at his age, taking a fairly high level position in the Biden administration would also be helpful to bolster his resume for future runs. Its just, not many people go on to being President with only Cabinet level experience on their resume. Voters like to nominate people who have won prior elections, not just appointed to office.
So if he does take a position, he is most likely going to have to postpone his career path by at least 4 years. Which he probably is doing anyway, as Harris will most likely be the presumptive nominee in 2024.
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If I may humbly differ with various hair-on-fire Democrats, who gives a shit if Biden’s transition team gets some kind of turnover from all the acting hacks, grifters, Trump family members, assorted incompetent boobs and tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists that Trump installed in his chaos administration? Sure, he needs the transition authority to reach into the permanent department staffs. All in due time.
ETA: (Spoiler alert, if you haven’t been paying attention) Seriously, what is Steve Mnuchin going to be able to tell Jared Bernstein, who will be announced as SecTreas nom next week, that he doesn’t already know? Best solar eclipse viewing spot at Ft. Knox?
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They could also pick Udall, but considering the Navajo Dine carried Arizona it would be nice to have the first Native American Secretary of the Interior. There are myriad NA issues that Interior could help with.
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I just want to say how freakin’ excited I am to hear about Biden’s cabinet picks. I keep thinking back to four years ago and the utter dread, betrayal, fear, and despair I felt. Here we are four years later and I’m like a kid on Christmas Eve just waiting to find out what Santa’s gonna bring me in the morning. I may not agree with all of his choices, I may think there are better candidates than the ones he picks, but I can rest my head knowing that whomever it is will be a competent, overqualified adult with the wisdom and experience to do their job well. And that’s just an amazing feeling.
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The big political question isn’t just rewarding the base with visible representatives in the cabinet–which is very important. It’s avoiding the perception that McConnell will be the one who decides who’s on the cabinet. The non-ideological demand of the base–the people who stood in line to vote for him in a pandemic, who organized and donated and lost their minds for the last 4 years–is that Biden takes no shit from the GOP and appoints as many acting secretaries as is required to ensure that the will of the people is not subverted AGAIN by the GOP and that the Democrats finally start acting as if they believe in their own (superior) legitimacy and are ready to DO something with their power. It just so happens that the progressive element of the party is more dedicated to the assertion of power than the traditional wing, which has been paralyzed by misguided and anachronistic notions of bipartisanship. But the left will be happy with compromises so long as Biden arrives at compromise AFTER he has fought to win.
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To have a Native American as Secretary of the Interior – wouldn’t that be something?
Her name is high on the list, with considerable support from elected Democrats.
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Secretary of Self Promotion?
Might be time to think about giving the Black Hills back to the Great Sioux Nation (“Oceti Sakowin” which translates to “Seven Council Fires”). Then statehood for PR and DC. Could also help the Senate turn over to the Blues, too. 
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Here’s my fantasy football pics:
Kerry would be an interesting choice, but I agree with some others here that Pete could be an interesting choice.
Duckworth would be choice for SecDef.
AG Yates or Bharaha - would send a nice spine-chilling signal to Team Trump.
Agree about Schiff for DNI or Homeland. Another spine chill for Trump.
Rice would be too much of a fight, and not sure what the upside would be. Plenty of less contentious talent to choose from.
Abrams should focus on GA Gov. I’d bring Dean back for 50-state-strategy V2.
Oh, and maybe Yang for Treasury.
And, all kidding aside, I’d find something for Marianne Williamson. She’s a kook, but my kinda kook. Maybe not ALL kidding aside - but why the hell not?
Worst public health crisis in more than a century.
For some interesting context, here’s what the peak of the AIDS crisis in the United States looked like.
By Food and Drug Administration - <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/499_aids.html">http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/499_aids.html</a>, Public Domain, Link
So this year’s COVID deaths are already about six times (and counting) the worst year of the AIDS epidemic. And the mode of transmission is, well, much less controllable.
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From what I’ve heard it’s more than that. I can’t quote exactly, and I’m not going to re-listen to the episode, but one of the recent podcasts from Pod Save AmericaThe World, they talked about this. The transition is about more than just the heads giving each other advice. There’s an entire team (Biden already released those names, it’s like over 50 people) who should right now be allowed to basically embed themselves in the various departments they’ve been assigned to work on, so they can see what’s going on and get whatever incoming Biden Admin people up to speed by the day they take office. It’s not about advice, it’s about access to what is happening right now, so they can prepare for what to do next.
I’m fairly sure the main reason to screw over the transition team is that the Trump Admin absolutely positively does not want anyone to have access to what they are doing.
ETA: I found it, it’s on this episode of Pod Save The World, the relevant part starts around 7:40 or so:
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If Jared is nominated, that would be a good thing. His experience is valuable, his relationship with Biden is healthy, and his instincts are Progressive.
But whoever is nominated, it’s not a matter of their getting tips from Mnuchin. The latter is fast becoming irrelevant.
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Trump is lighting as many fires as he can before leaving office. This one is interesting, however. Jus soli is an increasingly rare doctrine. It is most common in the western hemisphere, except Colombia and Greenland, and largely reflects settlement policies of the 19th century. Australia abolished jus soli, which has raised the question of designating citizenship as the “right to have rights”.