Welcome folks, to the Biden administration!

[Handyman]

Well since no one is complaining...they need to find a reason to complain. They re more controversy or they have to fill the void.

 

[Slap Shot]

I didn't read it yet but why is that not a legit observation?

 

[dxmnkd316]

Yeah that’s a somewhat legit criticism.

 

[Handyman]

Unless they have leaders from other countries saying it I disagree. I doubt anyone cares.

 

[bronconick]

Given that it's not Hunter Biden in charge of "fixing the Middle East" after the last four years with Jared, it's so far down the list of concerns that I can't be bothered. We have thousands of things to fix in our government.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Excellent point

 

[Kepler]

Seems like two more good picks.

President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.

Separately, Biden picked a Harvard infectious disease expert, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.

...

The post of CDC director does not require Senate confirmation.

Becerra, as the state of California’s top lawyer, has led the coalition of Democratic states defending “Obamacare” from the Trump administration’s latest effort to overturn it, a legal case awaiting a Supreme Court decision next year.

A former senior House Democrat, Becerra was involved in steering the Obama health law through Congress in 2009 and 2010. At the time he would tell reporters that one of his primary motivations was having tens of thousands of uninsured people in his Southern California district.

Becerra has a lawyer’s precise approach to analyzing problems and a calm demeanor.

But overseeing the coronavirus response will be the most complicated task he has ever contemplated. By next year, the U.S. will be engaged in a mass vaccination campaign, the groundwork for which has been laid under the Trump administration. Although the vaccines appear very promising, and no effort has been spared to plan for their distribution, it’s impossible to tell yet how well things will go when it’s time to get shots in the arms of millions of Americans.

Becerra won’t be going it alone. Biden, who is expected to announce key health care picks as early as Tuesday, is taking a team approach to his administration’s virus response.

...

But the core components of HHS are the boots on the ground of the government’s coronavirus response. The Food and Drug Administration oversees vaccines and treatments, while much of the underlying scientific and medical research comes from NIH. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes the lead in detecting and containing the spread of diseases. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides insurance coverage for more than 1 in 3 Americans, including vulnerable seniors, as well as many children and low-income people.

...

As CDC director, Walensky would replace Dr. Robert Redfield, who accurately told the public coronavirus vaccines would not be available for most people until next year, only to be disparaged by Trump as “confused.” Walensky is a leading infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and has devoted her career to combatting HIV/AIDS.

Becerra’s experience running the bureaucratic apparatus of the California attorney general’s office, as well as his success working with Republicans, helped seal the pick for Biden, said a person familiar with the process but not authorized to comment publicly. Becerra had worked with Louisiana’s Republican attorney general to increase the availability of the COVID-19 drug treatment Remdesivir in their states. He’s also worked closely with other Republican attorneys general on legal challenges against opioid manufacturers.

Early in California’s coronavirus response, Becerra defended broad shutdowns Gov. Gavin Newsom had put in place to curtail the pandemic, including limits on religious gatherings.

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

On the surface, the basic competence of every person Biden has picked that I have read about is startling when compared to the utter lack of qualifications nearly every one of trump's picks suffered from. And the handful he did pick that had something on the ball ran afoul of trump within a few months and were shown the door. Americans who enabled this piece of 5h!t for the last 4 years can go fvck themselves.

 

[Kepler]

Dump is not the comparison, since he's a piece of garbage elevated to the Presidency by swine.

I think Biden's team compares favorably with recent teams of our legitimate presidents. They have to repair the damage done by the arson squad even as a third of the country squats in the public square defecating their conservative "principles."

This is the hardest job any administration has had since Lincoln. How to govern America when a full third of the population are its enemies, inside the gates.

We have lived among these idiots all our lives and up to now they have been nothing but an inconvenience of hypocrites, deadweight, and fools. Now they are traitors and terrorists.

 

[French Rage]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...ecretary-defense-frontrunner-contender-443479

"And why not? It worked in Blazing Saddles."

 

[Kepler]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...ecretary-defense-frontrunner-contender-443479

"And why not? It worked in Blazing Saddles."

Dude looks exactly like House's shrink.

 

[Slap Shot]

Dude looks exactly like House's shrink.

Guy on the right looks an awful like Andre Braugher but I don't think he was on House?

 

[Handyman]

Yes he was. Andre Braugher ran the psych ward House ended up in when he got psychosis from Vicodin Addiction. Also shows up again in the last episode.

 

[Kepler]

Guy on the right looks an awful like Andre Braugher but I don't think he was on House?

That shot is literally from House.

 

[Kepler]

Yes he was. Andre Braugher ran the psych ward House ended up in when he got psychosis from Vicodin Addiction. Also shows up again in the last episode.

Had a very good role, although he got a little too touchy feely when the show in general started to creak and gape.

Fun fact: House's hyper roomate at the loony bin was Lin-Manuel Miranda.

 

[Handyman]

Yeah I always think of that character when I see Miranda. He was awesome!

 

[dxmnkd316]

Yeah, House had a TON of guest actors I recognize in other shows. We've been rewatching ST Voyager recently and there have been a couple of times I point at the screen and say "HOly crap, he was so and so in House!"

The season w/ LMM and Andre Braugher was very good. Surprising given how late it was in the run. Some day I'll finish House. I just can't bring myself to finish it because it's probably my favorite show of all time. Just keep stretching it out with new episodes

 

[psych]

Yeah, House had a TON of guest actors I recognize in other shows. We've been rewatching ST Voyager recently and there have been a couple of times I point at the screen and say "HOly crap, he was so and so in House!"

The season w/ LMM and Andre Braugher was very good. Surprising given how late it was in the run. Some day I'll finish House. I just can't bring myself to finish it because it's probably my favorite show of all time. Just keep stretching it out with new episodes

House is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. I loved the natural chemistry between House, Wilson, and Cuddy. Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy) was the prostitute going to law school who Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) slept with on the first episode of The West Wing. I loved her in that too. The West Wing is another one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

For the topic at hand, Politico has written an article about Biden picking too many former military members for some of the top positions. I generally dismiss the accusations that Politico, or any other mainstream news source, sucks, but the article seemed like it was hastily written by a high school student. I just want the best people. I won’t claim to know who they are, but Andre Braugher’s doppelgänger seems fairly qualified to me.

Edit: I’m sure it’ll eventually come out, but why wasn’t Flournoy picked as Secretary of Defense? Did Clyburn’s open accusation that Biden isn’t picking enough Black people resonate with the transition team? Or was it something deeper and more complex than that?

 

[Kepler]

Some day I'll finish House. I just can't bring myself to finish it because it's probably my favorite show of all time. Just keep stretching it out with new episodes

You can binge the last 2 seasons -- they are neither dramatically nor intellectually demanding. They aren't the quality drop off of other shows late in their runs (MASH, HIMYM, Cheers, Buffy) but they're still terrible.

I like to pretend House ended after S5. S6 is okay mainly for Alvie and Norton. The last two seasons are embarrassing and nothing important or interesting happens. They accentuate the weakest aspects of the show. IIRC there was either a contract dispute or a writer strike/change that helps explain why they are so much dumber and more maudlin.

The second the bus accident happens in the penultimate episode of S4 is the highwater mark. That episode in particular is a work of art, and that is the hinge the whole series turned on. There was plenty afterwards that was great -- Amber's haunting was brilliant and one of the best things on the show, and that was early S5. The final episode of S5 was outstanding -- maybe the best episode of the whole series -- and I'd have ended the show right there.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

House is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. I loved the natural chemistry between House, Wilson, and Cuddy. Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy) was the prostitute going to law school who Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) slept with on the first episode of The West Wing. I loved her in that too. The West Wing is another one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

For the topic at hand, Politico has written an article about Biden picking too many former military members for some of the top positions. I generally dismiss the accusations that Politico, or any other mainstream news source, sucks, but the article seemed like it was hastily written by a high school student. I just want the best people. I won’t claim to know who they are, but Andre Braugher’s doppelgänger seems fairly qualified to me.

Edit: I’m sure it’ll eventually come out, but why wasn’t Flournoy picked as Secretary of Defense? Did Clyburn’s open accusation that Biden isn’t picking enough Black people resonate with the transition team? Or was it something deeper and more complex than that?

Wait. Someone in the media is actually complaining about Biden's picks? Really? Have they looked at what Trump did?