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Cabinet members are very influential but also tend to be somewhat obscure. It can be hard to get much information about them, depending on who they are. This is not really a thread on whether they're "good" or "bad" per se. This is more like a boring index of information from reputable sources about what kind of people they are and what their past positions suggest about them, as well as what their decisions (moving forward) communicate to us. Anyone on this list is fair game. Maybe some of the others like Press Secretary or whatever. THE POINT OF THIS THREAD IS TO COLLECT PRIMARY RESOURCES ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE SIGNIFICANT IN AMERICAN GOVERNANCE Again, not really to "stan" or to rag or to debate. Obviously some articles will cover people more or less favorably. There is also a Cabinet Appointment Tracker here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2020/biden-appointee-tracker/ This is also, conceivably, where users can post excerpts of articles for academic purposes. As of Jan 22, 2021: --- An example is, today Lloyd Austin was confirmed. He did not have a Twitter before Dec 2020. Here's a Tweet. https://twitter.com/LloydAustin/status/1349010055094562818?s=20 He has like, eight tweets total or something. Washington Post was originally pretty against him, and then ran some more nuanced articles later. The fact that he was previously a general was contentious. Eventually, he was confirmed 93-2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...dd28_story.html quote:Austin faces the task of accelerating and expanding the Defense Department’s involvement in the distribution of coronavirus vaccines. He also must restore alliances that frayed during President Donald Trump’s tenure, make hard choices in the Pentagon budget to compete with a rising Chinese military and deal with questions about possible internal threats. quote:He has been described as an "intensely private" man[57] who loathed talking to the news media when he was in Iraq and has a habit of "referring to himself in the third person".[3] However, the Foreign Policy article is seen as suggestive. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/16/lloyd-austin-isnt-who-you-think-he-is/ quote:It was in 2010, when General Lloyd Austin was head of U.S. Forces in Iraq, that he got to know then-Vice President Biden. Austin had already become friendly with Biden’s son Beau (they regularly attended Catholic services together in Iraq, where Beau Biden was also deployed, according to the Washington Post), but it was his unflappability in person that most impressed the vice president, according to a senior Pentagon official with contacts in the Biden transition team. It's been strongly suggested that he was chosen in part because he does not try to sway public opinion by going in front of the press like Petraeus did. Biden himself has a complicated relationship with the press. Pick fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Jan 23, 2021 |
# ? Jan 23, 2021 06:42 |
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# ? May 8, 2024 03:55 |
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Pete Buttegieg is being put forth for Department of Transportation. He would be the first openly LGBT+ member of a presidential Cabinet if confirmed. Here are some of his hearings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUBJ9MOPlAM ++++ Janet Yellen is seen as essentially a shoo-in. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/23/biden-picks-janet-yellen-treasury-439760 quote:President-elect Joe Biden has picked former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to be his Treasury secretary, according to people familiar with the decision, in a historic move intended to satisfy competing factions within the Democratic Party. Wyden is an Oregon senator from the progressive wing. ++++ [reserved] Pick fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jan 23, 2021 |
# ? Jan 23, 2021 06:42 |
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Katherine Tai would be trade rep. She's well-regarded from the Ways and Means Committee. https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-trade-policy-to-center-on-workers-ustr-nominee-says-11610471141 quote:Biden Trade Policy to Center on Workers, USTR Nominee Says https://asiatimes.com/2021/01/bidens-trade-rep-knows-china-inside-and-out/ quote:Katherine Tai, with her Asian appearance and family name, is being watched intently and with curiosity in China after Joe Biden nominated the 47-year-old trade lawyer to be his cabinet’s principal trade advisor and negotiator.
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# ? Jan 23, 2021 06:50 |
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Marty Walsh was the AFL-CIO pick for Department of Labor. He is the current mayor of Boston. https://twitter.com/marty_walsh/status/1351948604399898637?s=20 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/biden-chooses-boston-mayor-walsh-as-labor-secretary-455899 He is considered an aggressively pro-union selection, and his Cabinet announcement was not made until the results of the Georgia senate outcome were known. ++++ Avril Haines fact-seeking confirmation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f4P-AuR4mM +++ Please help me beef up this thread with credible information, either in favor of, against, or neutral towards Cabinet selections. Pick fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Jan 23, 2021 |
# ? Jan 23, 2021 06:55 |
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The poo poo Avril Haines has done that should land her in the dock for crimes against humanity could fill a book. Let's start with this. She didn't just co-author the Obama-era drone assassination policy, she personally made the call to put people on the kill list, including at least one American citizen who was then assassinated via a missile strike without ever facing charges. quote:We know that Avril Haines, at the NSC, was in charge of determining whether it was legal or illegal to place people on John Brennan’s kill list. We know that in almost all cases that she said it was legal to put these names on the kill list, and people were subsequently killed by drone, including American citizens, like Anwar al-Awlaki and his son. They were American citizens who had never been charged with a crime. They had never faced their accusers in a court of law. There was no due process for them. She’s never had to answer for that. Newsweek had some reporting at the time that on a few occasions, she personally provided the legal justification for drone strikes in the middle of the night against people who weren't already on the pre-approved assassination list: https://www.newsweek.com/2013/06/26/avril-haines-least-likely-spy-237616.html Perhaps the most damning detail is the reporting at the time of how key her personal involvement was in pushing forward the drone killing program as a whole, which illustrates that she was a chief architect of this program and not simply a functionary cog in the machine carrying them out: quote:At one point, the entire initiative came close to foundering over one disagreement. It concerned the personal involvement of Obama (and potentially future presidents) in targeted-killing decisions. Since the beginning of his administration, Obama had made the extraordinary choice to personally sign off on lethal operations, known as "direct actions," away from conventional battlefields. But over time, the CIA and the military began to chafe at the close White House involvement in their operations. Meanwhile, some of Obama's aides sought to insulate him from the specter of the president having his finger on the trigger, particularly after stories emerged about presidential "kill lists." In one of the drafts of the presidential guidance approved for circulation by the White House, the president was taken out of the decision chain for individual strikes—and kill authority was shifted to the CIA director or secretary of Defense. (note that the outcome of this "success" was that she personally became the authorizing authority for many drone killings, including the later killing of American citizens) In 2015, the Senate was investigating Bush-era torture by the CIA and CIA-supervised allies at black sites around the world. The CIA responded to the investigation by gaining illegal access to Senate computers to see what they were up to. The CIA inspector general recommended disciplinary action against those responsible, but they were overruled by an adhoc "accountability board" led by Avril Haines who was CIA deputy director at the time. She then proceeded to black out 94% of the torture report. (https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/01/15/what-senators-need-ask-avril-haines-her-confirmation-hearing-today) She also endorsed Gina Haspel, a woman who was site director for a CIA torture prison in Thailand under George W Bush and who personally destroyed video evidence of those and other torture crimes, to become CIA Director under Trump. Some of those videos reportedly contained victims vomiting and screaming for mercy while being tortured by their American captors. Most recently, she's been working as a consultant with WestExec, the ghouls-for-hire shop co-founded by Anthony Blinken, Biden's Secretary of State-to-be. Those contracts included advising Palantir, which has been selling technology solutions to ICE to facilitate deportation raids, then attempting to sanitize mentions of that relationship from her official biographical details. quote:“Palantir’s information technology systems have given the Trump administration the ability to carry out mass deportations that have been tearing apart and terrorizing our immigrant communities,” said Yasmine Taeb, senior policy counsel at Demand Progress, a group that marshals support for causes ranging from human rights to transparency.
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# ? Jan 23, 2021 08:43 |
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You immediately did exactly what was banned in this thread with little siren emojis. Again, as was repeatedly stated in the OP, this is for linking information and not at all for talking about our personal perspective on these people. That is why the title is also titled fact an article repository with the addendum that this is a thread that is a boring index. e: Articles that point out why someone sucks are 100% in the purview of the thread, but "Cabinet member sucks" is for USPOL etc. Questions about a Cabinet member's history and why they're viewed x/y/z way is also under the purview of the thread but should focus on direct excerpts from primary resources. Pick fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jan 23, 2021 |
# ? Jan 23, 2021 19:04 |
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Here's a long Education Week article about Miguel Cardona, the choice for Department of Education.quote:Miguel Cardona remembers how overwhelmed he felt when he walked into school for the first time as a student.
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# ? Jan 23, 2021 19:42 |
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Here's another article about Cardona. I think it will be interesting to see an ESL person in charge of an institution that takes such a central role in teaching English as a second language to young persons. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/upshot/cardona-education-secretary.html quote:When Miguel Cardona was 5, he started kindergarten in public school. His parents had moved from Puerto Rico to Meriden, Conn., where he was born. His father worked as a city police officer, and his family lived in public housing. They spoke Spanish at home. When Miguel began school, English was something of a mystery. He was, in the term educators use today, an English learner. Pick fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jan 23, 2021 |
# ? Jan 23, 2021 19:43 |
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A general comment on the Biden cabinet: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/religion-biden-cabinet/2021/01/22/ddee9e72-5c10-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html quote:Two faiths dominate Biden’s Cabinet picks
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# ? Jan 23, 2021 19:45 |
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Pick posted:You immediately did exactly what was banned in this thread with little siren emojis. Would you like me to get this thread moved to a more appropriate forum such as Ask/Tell?
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# ? Jan 24, 2021 00:32 |
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Helsing posted:Would you like me to get this thread moved to a more appropriate forum such as Ask/Tell? This is exactly like the thread about historical presidents which is already in this subforum. A thread of "who are these obscure people" as a compendium is useful, especially since many of these articles with useful information for other threads and discussions are paywalled but can be provided here. Most people aren't very familiar with people like Cecelia Rouse. This gives us a targeted environment to answer that question. https://africanamericanvoice.net/2021/01/02/charlene-crowell-column/ Posts like this are actually often out of step with the tone and content of their primary threads. This gives them a place to go. Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Former aide for Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders and member of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Institute gets Deputy position at OMB. Pick fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Jan 24, 2021 |
# ? Jan 24, 2021 00:38 |
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You're more than welcome to have a thread about effort driven discussion of the new Biden cabinet, but you don't get to declare that debate and discussion are not allowed in a D&D thread.
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# ? Jan 24, 2021 00:52 |
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# ? May 8, 2024 03:55 |
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If informational threads aren't allowed, I have a better idea. Don't forget to close the Presidents thread as well.
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# ? Jan 24, 2021 01:02 |