The Rice appointment is going to drive conservatives crazy. Popcorn time!
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“Her position at the White House Domestic Policy Council does not require Senate confirmation.”
Oh my, they will just hate that!
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Gahhhh! Noooooo! Not the fucking dude who blew COVID response almost as bad as 45!
Seriously, maybe wait until the GA races are settled and Jan 20 comes around. If 45 hasn’t tried to pardon himself or have himself pardoned, the no-brainer choice for AG is Letitia James. She can hit the ground running in terms of investigation and prosecution of 45 and his cronies.
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Yeah - you go ask DeVos for a job. You made your bed.
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Well - he’s not Rahm. So he has that going for him.
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Great.
The graft, at least, is real on both sides of the aisle. No room for qualified people when there’s supplicants to reward for their support.
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Maybe someday, possibly even in my lifetime, Sec. of Transportation can be helmed by an actual transportation planner or civil engineer.
So much for promises of putting qualified people in Biden’s cabinet.
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But Mayor Pete drove a car once! He’s more qualified than Chao, who has only been driven. /s
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At least it’s not Rahm, I guess? Now instead of a guy who actively covers up the murder of Black kids, we get someone who’s only casually disinterested in their deaths due to systemic failures.
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Progress! /S
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His resume is pretty thin for this position. South Bend only has bus service for mass transit - so his knowledge of major public transportation and the FTA is limited. The local airport authority is relatively tiny - and is run by the County - not the Mayor. So his knowledge of aviation is mostly nonexistent and his knowledge of the FAA is similarly very limited. They do have roads - so he may have moderate familiarity with FHWA projects. I doubt he has much knowledge of maritime or safety agencies.
But he does have the knowledge that these agencies spend many, many billions of dollars to local and state governments to run all of the above.
One of the largest agencies. And those local and state pols might be supportive of someone who made it rain on them.
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I’d LOVE for him to immediately slap some pollution regs on the airlines and manufacturers. Both fuel and noise pollution related. It’s been too damn long that the airlines have “policed” themselves in this country.
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So, frankly, I have no idea how good Pete is as an administrator or as a transportation engineer. I also have no idea how good a transportation secretary needs to be as an administrator or a transportation
engineer. I bet that a good transportation secretary can hire a good administrator as chief of staff, and very likely has his pick of the best transportation engineers in the country as SMEs. I do know that Elaine Chao managed to use this position over the last four years presumably to enrich herself and her zombie-turtle husband, so “not Elaine Chao” is already an improvement.
But Buttigieg demonstrated an ability to demolish bullshit right-wing talking points and a willingness to walk into hostile interviews to do it. It seems plausible to me that transportation infrastructure, including managing a recovery from the COVID-19 tourism slump, will play a big role in the country’s general recovery from the COVID-19 recession. And this will be an area where communication is essential. (Remember the outcome of EVERY “infrastructure week” declared in the Trump regime?)
Pete strikes me, at least, as a smart guy who, though he needs a lot more seasoning, is likely to be a valuable asset to the Democratic Party for years to come, assuming the circular firing squad doesn’t get him first. I’m happy to give him a shot to succeed in this position.
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Say, you dressed that turkey up right good!
It’s still a turkey though.
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When it comes to Transport, I’m sure that there’s going to be some quite heavy input from the next white house. Anyone made transport sec by Biden is going to have to be prepared to field calls from Mr Amtrak himself if their proposals don’t do enough for rail.,
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There’s no pleasing some people!
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