As a non-American can someone explain why you would appoint someone from outside your party?
I mean, in Parliamentary systems sometimes you would do this if you had a minority or coalition government but I don’t understand it in the US context.
Please don’t tell me it’s in the name of some bullshit norms about being bi-partisan or something.
You usually appoint a few competent moderate people from the other party to show bipartisanship and because lots of times the most competent person isn't from your party.
Defense tends to go to a Republican because most people who would be eligible and qualified tend to lean Republican and Republicans are traditionally seen as better at military stuff.
You can also do strategic picks - if you can get a key Senator from the other party into a cabinet position they are out of the Senate. In this case if you can get Senators with a Democratic governor who appoints their replacement you could flip the Senate with everything being so close. Then they tow the line or get chucked out with nothing since Cabinet is up to the President.
It's unlikely to work in this case but fine for theorycrafting.
Fuck that narrative about DOD though.
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
As a non-American can someone explain why you would appoint someone from outside your party?
I mean, in Parliamentary systems sometimes you would do this if you had a minority or coalition government but I don’t understand it in the US context.
Please don’t tell me it’s in the name of some bullshit norms about being bi-partisan or something.
You usually appoint a few competent moderate people from the other party to show bipartisanship and because lots of times the most competent person isn't from your party.
Defense tends to go to a Republican because most people who would be eligible and qualified tend to lean Republican and Republicans are traditionally seen as better at military stuff.
You can also do strategic picks - if you can get a key Senator from the other party into a cabinet position they are out of the Senate. In this case if you can get Senators with a Democratic governor who appoints their replacement you could flip the Senate with everything being so close. Then they tow the line or get chucked out with nothing since Cabinet is up to the President.
It's unlikely to work in this case but fine for theorycrafting.
Fuck that narrative about DOD though.
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
I don't know enough about the guy to know if it's a good idea or just petty, but I low key want Capt. Crozier as SecNav.
One historical problem with Dem cabinet and lower appointments is that they reserve law enforcement and military positions for Republicans, something that really fucked Obama and Clinton with the FBI director.
It also reinforces the narrative that the GOP is best at the core function of government - protecting the populace - with the Dems serving the auxiliary function of moderating the warriors who keep us safe.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Mitt Romney has been asked to lead Health and Human Services in Biden administration
Sources are telling The Chronicle that Senator Mitt Romney has been asked by the presumptive President-elect Joe Biden to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. He is currently discussing the nomination with his family and is expected to accept the appointment.
Biden advisors expect that Romney — a former management consultant by training and a former CEO of Bain Capital — will be tasked with making the national healthcare system more affordable without legislation that modifies the Affordable Care Act.
That work is expected to focus on a massive transition to tele-health services, expansion of digital appointment scheduling, expanded access to pharmaceuticals online, and the development of artificial intelligence technologies that will automate patient intake processing, make screening recommendations, and seamlessly sync medical record access between multiple providers serving a single patient.
It’s unclear if Romney will be tasked with creating open market pricing systems for a’la carte medical services, which could advance the work that the Trump administration has done to require providers to make pricing for their services public. That strategy is seen as key to creating a price competitive atmosphere between providers.
"That site" is a local paper as far as I can tell.
No, it is very much not. This is the Buffalo local newspaper with any credibility. That site is one of the many, many newspaper looking sites that sprung up to fill the gap in local news and fool people who don't look into their sources very carefully. They're usually also comically right wing, as is this one.
They routinely fabricate things like a Cuomo ban on e-cigs to fight COVID that never materialized. Mostly just print press releases.
And the goal of that article is actually to incite the right against Romney for being a turncoat.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Fuck any "sources say" on cabinet bullshit. The jockeying for power in normal times make all that shit bullshit.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
Unless one got newly elected last week, there is a total of one Democratic member of Congress who made it to E-6: Mike Thompson (CA-5). And he served fifty years ago.
Democratic veterans in Congress are almost exclusively either former officers or Vietnam-era draftees.
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
Unless one got newly elected last week, there is a total of one Democratic member of Congress who made it to E-6: Mike Thompson (CA-5). And he served fifty years ago.
Democratic veterans in Congress are almost exclusively either former officers or Vietnam-era draftees.
Out of curiosity, are the Republican's any better on that front? I guess I could see some of the Tea Party wave pushing forward a former enlisted but usually those candidates were firmly pushing upper class status. Before that I'd suspect just as many former officers as the Democrats.
"That site" is a local paper as far as I can tell.
No, it is very much not. This is the Buffalo local newspaper with any credibility. That site is one of the many, many newspaper looking sites that sprung up to fill the gap in local news and fool people who don't look into their sources very carefully. They're usually also comically right wing, as is this one.
They routinely fabricate things like a Cuomo ban on e-cigs to fight COVID that never materialized. Mostly just print press releases.
And the goal of that article is actually to incite the right against Romney for being a turncoat.
Thanks for checking on that! I recently saw a Media Matters thing about the weird zombie-local stuff and how it tends to feed up to the more mainstream right-wing shit and it's real bad!
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
Unless one got newly elected last week, there is a total of one Democratic member of Congress who made it to E-6: Mike Thompson (CA-5). And he served fifty years ago.
Democratic veterans in Congress are almost exclusively either former officers or Vietnam-era draftees.
Out of curiosity, are the Republican's any better on that front? I guess I could see some of the Tea Party wave pushing forward a former enlisted but usually those candidates were firmly pushing upper class status. Before that I'd suspect just as many former officers as the Democrats.
No, they seem to largely fit the same pattern. Either former officers or people who weren't in the military for all that long.
The Republican veterans do seem to skew younger, but I haven't run the numbers to see if that's actually true.
Well, I would love to tell you it isn't. I really would. The specific discussions in this thread are because one seat could flip the Senate which is obviously extremely valuable. It is also why it wouldn't work for anyone other than a person ready to cash out their career for that specific cabinet spot for some reason.
I see.
I understand the power play part I guess. But the other motivations... ugh.
Also unlike in Parliamentary systems, the Cabinet's policy setting powers are limited. They all "serve at the pleasure of the President" and can be fired unilaterally and except for AG doing so wouldn't even be controversial in case of a policy dispute
I highly doubt Romeny would a)accept a position as he is a firs term senator in a safe seat and b) would give him anything as it isn't strategically useful. Keeping Romney in the Senate is more helpful for Biden as he may actually vote for stuff to give it an air of bipartisanship. Treat all basically not really well sourced information on the cabinet with a mountain of salt. Just because the election is over doesn't mean the bullshit train has stopped.
In thoughts on the cabinet I would be happy to pull in a lot of career folks. Throw in actual policy wonks and nerds.
For Sec of State I would prefer a known hand at it. At least one of the major policy folks. I don't think Susan Rice is as high as people make her to be. Too much of a political lightning rod still because of well bullshit. She is well respected overseas and has good contacts from being ambassador of the UN. I will have to think but there are a lot of folks to pull from. And we lost most of our good State folks 4 years ago in an early purge. So lots of people who we can bring back.
Treasury is an interesting position. Regulation has been non-existent. They will lead any SEC investigations into Trump or his allies. And we are in a shit show. As long as they aren't a Freshwater Economist I am okay. I would prefer more of a researcher or maybe someone from the Fed than anyone from Wall Street. I know folks don't care for the Fed but there are a lot of folks who have the expertise to use this position for good.
HHS has a lot of work to do. I want a public health expert here. Someone younger as they have to do a lot of work. No one from the insurance industry though. But someone who worked in public health, maybe even around IHS, would be good. A focus on the most in need is super important.
SecDef is odd. I wouldn't mind enlisted. Funny enough one person I would love there but don't want to lose her in the Senate is Duckworth. She knows the Dept. Cares for the people in it. I know people are still angry at Mattis but I found him at least protective of the Dept verse the WH. I know my work is super heavily affected by who is in this spot. I expect whoever is in there is going to focus on two things I work on.
I believe during the primary it was said Labor is going to a member of Labor for once. I don't know the movement too well but I would like a person from the service industry or medical industry side of labor over manufacturing. I want a promotion of unions in broader areas. I want them to crack down on the anti-union activities in tech and white color jobs. Push for vertical integration and a revised labor union system to help increase union participation. I am not a fan of a lot of American unions structurally. They need reform. An ally pushing that from DoL would be good.
For Dept of Interior I would like someone on the conservation side but this is hard. This person needs to come in with day one plans to reverse the damage done by Trump's admin. And also with an aggressive plan to enforce to the strictest letter of the law around climate and environmental regulations. We need to aggressively inverse what has happened at this dept. No tolerance policy would be my hope.
Ed I want a teacher or a teacher union rep. But I need someone who can handle one of the biggest tasks for the department and that is around student debt. This is an admin.
VA for me is pulling a major public health system admin. This is a bureaucracy. But I want someone with experience working with limited resources to provide the best care to a hard to reach population here.
I have to think more as I don't have names. But I am not pushing for technocrats but I want actual experts. I want people who have worked with those with the least to be in charge. DoJ is the hardest as I want a heavy duty prosecutor there. But I want them to bring in BLM and other movement voices to help guide stuff on the civil rights side.
DHS needs to be blown up. This is hard. Having a immigration advocate at the top would be my hope.
She is an Obama fed appointee. Strong proponent of regulation. Some of the left will dislike her proponent of free trade. I have less issues with that because I know full well that the world of free trade isn't going to disappear. But we should negotiate so the treaties improve the standing of labor.
As a non-American can someone explain why you would appoint someone from outside your party?
I mean, in Parliamentary systems sometimes you would do this if you had a minority or coalition government but I don’t understand it in the US context.
Please don’t tell me it’s in the name of some bullshit norms about being bi-partisan or something.
You usually appoint a few competent moderate people from the other party to show bipartisanship and because lots of times the most competent person isn't from your party.
Defense tends to go to a Republican because most people who would be eligible and qualified tend to lean Republican and Republicans are traditionally seen as better at military stuff.
You can also do strategic picks - if you can get a key Senator from the other party into a cabinet position they are out of the Senate. In this case if you can get Senators with a Democratic governor who appoints their replacement you could flip the Senate with everything being so close. Then they tow the line or get chucked out with nothing since Cabinet is up to the President.
It's unlikely to work in this case but fine for theorycrafting.
Fuck that narrative about DOD though.
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
I don't know enough about the guy to know if it's a good idea or just petty, but I low key want Capt. Crozier as SecNav.
Similarly, I'd hope for a position commensurate with his skills and expertise (ie, not a charity position), for Lt Col Vindman.
The man was an outstanding patriot, and the government needs more like him.
Can't be a Senate confirmed position, because McConnell would not permit it, and even if he let it come to the floor, it'd be a shit show. But if he wants a job in this Administration, there should be a position made available for him.
As a non-American can someone explain why you would appoint someone from outside your party?
I mean, in Parliamentary systems sometimes you would do this if you had a minority or coalition government but I don’t understand it in the US context.
Please don’t tell me it’s in the name of some bullshit norms about being bi-partisan or something.
You usually appoint a few competent moderate people from the other party to show bipartisanship and because lots of times the most competent person isn't from your party.
Defense tends to go to a Republican because most people who would be eligible and qualified tend to lean Republican and Republicans are traditionally seen as better at military stuff.
You can also do strategic picks - if you can get a key Senator from the other party into a cabinet position they are out of the Senate. In this case if you can get Senators with a Democratic governor who appoints their replacement you could flip the Senate with everything being so close. Then they tow the line or get chucked out with nothing since Cabinet is up to the President.
It's unlikely to work in this case but fine for theorycrafting.
Fuck that narrative about DOD though.
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
I don't know enough about the guy to know if it's a good idea or just petty, but I low key want Capt. Crozier as SecNav.
Similarly, I'd hope for a position commensurate with his skills and expertise (ie, not a charity position), for Lt Col Vindman.
The man was an outstanding patriot, and the government needs more like him.
Can't be a Senate confirmed position, because McConnell would not permit it, and even if he let it come to the floor, it'd be a shit show. But if he wants a job in this Administration, there should be a position made available for him.
I would love to see Marie Yovanovich brought in too, not just because it'd be a great f-you to the pubs, but because she was the smartest person I've ever seen give testimony in a situation like the impeachment and I feel like she'd be fantastic as, say, UN ambassador or similar.
She is an Obama fed appointee. Strong proponent of regulation. Some of the left will dislike her proponent of free trade. I have less issues with that because I know full well that the world of free trade isn't going to disappear. But we should negotiate so the treaties improve the standing of labor.
Yeah rumors at this point are people either selling themselves or bullshit outrage porn. I have faith in the Biden campaign who runs a clean ship to not be bringing on shit burgers like Rahm Emmanuel.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
forget trying to pick off GOP senators, that won't ever happen, either way though we have our own house to clean, someone should offer DiFi something for example
AAAAA!!! PLAAAYGUUU!!!!
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
forget trying to pick off GOP senators, that won't ever happen, either way though we have our own house to clean, someone should offer DiFi something for example
how about a trip to a nice farm upstate, where she can run and play with the other Boomers? :rotate:
I'm pretty sure she's deep enough in the Silent Generation to have been able to be a boomers mom.
She was 14 when the boomers started being a thing so not quite that bad. But yes, a position in the Cabinet that doesn't actually *do* much sounds about right. She can be the tea party and brunch with Republicans person. :P
how about a trip to a nice farm upstate, where she can run and play with the other Boomers? :rotate:
I'm pretty sure she's deep enough in the Silent Generation to have been able to be a boomers mom.
She was 14 when the boomers started being a thing so not quite that bad. But yes, a position in the Cabinet that doesn't actually *do* much sounds about right. She can be the tea party and brunch with Republicans person. :P
As was widely assumed for like a decade, Ron Klain will be Chief of Staff. Biden's Chief of Staff when he was VP, coordinated the Obama Ebola response after that. Boring, competent, fairly liberal. His wife is an environmental activist who has also served under Democratic presidents in roles protecting the environment (especially the oceans).
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Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Posts
On that note, who do we have in a safe House/Senate seat that left the military at, like, E6? I desperately want a former enlisted who is very well acquainted with and low-key hates Military Bullshit as SecDef.
I don't know enough about the guy to know if it's a good idea or just petty, but I low key want Capt. Crozier as SecNav.
Can Biden get rid of the Space Force, or at least roll it back into the Air Force?
Or at the very least rename to something that doesn’t sound like a 5 year old came up with it?
It also reinforces the narrative that the GOP is best at the core function of government - protecting the populace - with the Dems serving the auxiliary function of moderating the warriors who keep us safe.
Edit - Okay citation is under dispute for validity.
https://buffalochronicle.com/2020/11/07/mitt-romney-has-been-asked-to-lead-health-and-human-services-in-biden-administration/
No, it is very much not. This is the Buffalo local newspaper with any credibility. That site is one of the many, many newspaper looking sites that sprung up to fill the gap in local news and fool people who don't look into their sources very carefully. They're usually also comically right wing, as is this one.
They routinely fabricate things like a Cuomo ban on e-cigs to fight COVID that never materialized. Mostly just print press releases.
And the goal of that article is actually to incite the right against Romney for being a turncoat.
Unless one got newly elected last week, there is a total of one Democratic member of Congress who made it to E-6: Mike Thompson (CA-5). And he served fifty years ago.
Democratic veterans in Congress are almost exclusively either former officers or Vietnam-era draftees.
Out of curiosity, are the Republican's any better on that front? I guess I could see some of the Tea Party wave pushing forward a former enlisted but usually those candidates were firmly pushing upper class status. Before that I'd suspect just as many former officers as the Democrats.
Thanks for checking on that! I recently saw a Media Matters thing about the weird zombie-local stuff and how it tends to feed up to the more mainstream right-wing shit and it's real bad!
No, they seem to largely fit the same pattern. Either former officers or people who weren't in the military for all that long.
The Republican veterans do seem to skew younger, but I haven't run the numbers to see if that's actually true.
Also unlike in Parliamentary systems, the Cabinet's policy setting powers are limited. They all "serve at the pleasure of the President" and can be fired unilaterally and except for AG doing so wouldn't even be controversial in case of a policy dispute
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In thoughts on the cabinet I would be happy to pull in a lot of career folks. Throw in actual policy wonks and nerds.
For Sec of State I would prefer a known hand at it. At least one of the major policy folks. I don't think Susan Rice is as high as people make her to be. Too much of a political lightning rod still because of well bullshit. She is well respected overseas and has good contacts from being ambassador of the UN. I will have to think but there are a lot of folks to pull from. And we lost most of our good State folks 4 years ago in an early purge. So lots of people who we can bring back.
Treasury is an interesting position. Regulation has been non-existent. They will lead any SEC investigations into Trump or his allies. And we are in a shit show. As long as they aren't a Freshwater Economist I am okay. I would prefer more of a researcher or maybe someone from the Fed than anyone from Wall Street. I know folks don't care for the Fed but there are a lot of folks who have the expertise to use this position for good.
HHS has a lot of work to do. I want a public health expert here. Someone younger as they have to do a lot of work. No one from the insurance industry though. But someone who worked in public health, maybe even around IHS, would be good. A focus on the most in need is super important.
SecDef is odd. I wouldn't mind enlisted. Funny enough one person I would love there but don't want to lose her in the Senate is Duckworth. She knows the Dept. Cares for the people in it. I know people are still angry at Mattis but I found him at least protective of the Dept verse the WH. I know my work is super heavily affected by who is in this spot. I expect whoever is in there is going to focus on two things I work on.
I believe during the primary it was said Labor is going to a member of Labor for once. I don't know the movement too well but I would like a person from the service industry or medical industry side of labor over manufacturing. I want a promotion of unions in broader areas. I want them to crack down on the anti-union activities in tech and white color jobs. Push for vertical integration and a revised labor union system to help increase union participation. I am not a fan of a lot of American unions structurally. They need reform. An ally pushing that from DoL would be good.
For Dept of Interior I would like someone on the conservation side but this is hard. This person needs to come in with day one plans to reverse the damage done by Trump's admin. And also with an aggressive plan to enforce to the strictest letter of the law around climate and environmental regulations. We need to aggressively inverse what has happened at this dept. No tolerance policy would be my hope.
Ed I want a teacher or a teacher union rep. But I need someone who can handle one of the biggest tasks for the department and that is around student debt. This is an admin.
VA for me is pulling a major public health system admin. This is a bureaucracy. But I want someone with experience working with limited resources to provide the best care to a hard to reach population here.
I have to think more as I don't have names. But I am not pushing for technocrats but I want actual experts. I want people who have worked with those with the least to be in charge. DoJ is the hardest as I want a heavy duty prosecutor there. But I want them to bring in BLM and other movement voices to help guide stuff on the civil rights side.
DHS needs to be blown up. This is hard. Having a immigration advocate at the top would be my hope.
A leading candidate is Fed governor Lael Brainard, a senior Treasury Department official under Obama
She is an Obama fed appointee. Strong proponent of regulation. Some of the left will dislike her proponent of free trade. I have less issues with that because I know full well that the world of free trade isn't going to disappear. But we should negotiate so the treaties improve the standing of labor.
Similarly, I'd hope for a position commensurate with his skills and expertise (ie, not a charity position), for Lt Col Vindman.
The man was an outstanding patriot, and the government needs more like him.
Can't be a Senate confirmed position, because McConnell would not permit it, and even if he let it come to the floor, it'd be a shit show. But if he wants a job in this Administration, there should be a position made available for him.
I would love to see Marie Yovanovich brought in too, not just because it'd be a great f-you to the pubs, but because she was the smartest person I've ever seen give testimony in a situation like the impeachment and I feel like she'd be fantastic as, say, UN ambassador or similar.
At the same time Yellen is supposedly favored to be Treasury Secretary
Safe to say there is a lot of things moving at the same time now and we won't know until they actually make the announcement.
Dude should be kept far away from anything the Democrats want for a future
And its be pretty dumb to wait until Biden picks people to push left
pleasepaypreacher.net
Biden has announced his review teams to start staffing up and evaluating various agencies.
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If only. Young blood, please.
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I'm pretty sure she's deep enough in the Silent Generation to have been able to be a boomers mom.
Grandma
She was 14 when the boomers started being a thing so not quite that bad. But yes, a position in the Cabinet that doesn't actually *do* much sounds about right. She can be the tea party and brunch with Republicans person. :P
Her daughter was born in 1957, so Peak Boomer