Biden's Cabinet

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is much better than I would have hoped.

The Senate has confirmed 17 out of 23 of President Joe Biden's Cabinet members so far. Some highlights ...

Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior -- first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history. She is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, and also has Jemez Pueblo heritage. Aho ahey! This is so exciting! :D (I imagine the Navajos aren't so happy: they don't get along with the Pueblos. Me, I'm not that picky. They may not be attached to my territories but I'm confident they'll protect the water.)

Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development -- also former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Presumably a black woman will grasp the concept "the rent is too damn high!"

Michael S. Regan, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency -- another black person, he's known for pushing action on climate change. Good luck getting that truck out of the ditch, bro.

Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation -- first openly gay Cabinet secretary.  I wonder if he'll notice the massive maintenance backlog and wrecked budget.

Comments

One more highlight

[ng_moonmoth]

All those are good, but I am especially pleased with Merrick Garland as Attorney General. Upon his confirmation, I uttered the curse that the Republicans in general, and McConnell and the Trumpists specifically, would come to recognize and regret their error in denying him his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2016 -- multiple times. There is undoubtedly plenty of activity in the previous administration that is inimical to the survival of our form of government, and therefore worthy of investigation by a Department of Justice that takes the last word of its name seriously. And that Department is a very powerful weapon -- not to be wielded lightly, but a mighty force that is generally opposed to attempts to manipulate it for political ends.

The vindictive part of me that wants to improve the odds that nothing like this will happen again soon wonders how many of the defendants-to-be will employ the Nuremberg Defense. Which will no doubt lead to investigation and prosecution of exactly who gave those orders, and toward what ends.

Re: One more highlight

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I uttered the curse that the Republicans in general, and McConnell and the Trumpists specifically, would come to recognize and regret their error in denying him his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2016 -- multiple times. <<

I second that curse. The Supreme Court is no longer legitimate.

>>The vindictive part of me that wants to improve the odds that nothing like this will happen again soon wonders how many of the defendants-to-be will employ the Nuremberg Defense.<<

This country runs on "just following orders" now, and has for some time. It trains people to be pleasing, not thinking. A lot of jobs are robotic, with people forced to read from scripts instead of actually solving problems. *shrug* They'll learn the same lesson as the Byzantines, eventually: that bureaucracy is a drag on civilization, and the more cruft it builds up, the less well it functions, until it falls apart.