Top drawer cabinet picks

Here’s a headline to warm anyone’s heart (well, mine, anyway): According to the Wall Street Journal, “Interior secretary nominee on collision course with oil industry”.  

The nominee in question is Deb Haaland. In 2018 she and Sharice Davids became the first two Native American women ever elected to the House of Representatives.

If confirmed she will be the first Native American to serve in a cabinet. I say “if” confirmed, because this is going to be one of the hardest fights. All those oil and gas companies whose applications to frack on federal land have been rubber stamped for years are not happy at the thought of the avowedly anti-fracking New Mexico congresswoman being in charge of what they consider to be their government agency. And you can bet that all the Republican senators who’ve benefited from oil and gas campaign donations are getting an earful.

The idea of this woman, a veteran of the Standing Rock protests, being in charge at Interior has oil and gas execs shitting their pants. Looks good on them. Haaland’s appointment may come down to Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote, but who knows? Maybe Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, the only two Republicans who voted against the appointment of vile Betsy Devos as the Wankmaggot’s education secretary – forcing Mike Pence to cast the deciding vote – will vote for Haaland. (That said, I suspect Murkowski, from Alaska, where oil and gas is huge is getting more of an earful than other Republicans. She could, of course, as I suggested the other day, just cross the floor. I’m not holding my breath.)

Biden went with a lot of firsts in his cabinet picks: first Native American woman for Interior; first openly gay man in the cabinet with Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary (no idea what, if anything Buttigieg knows about transportation, but with the agency’s new priority of improving infrastructure, good luck to him – I’m sure he’s a fast learner); and Janet Yellen’s confirmation as the first female treasury secretary. (Of course the first woman I wanted to see as treasury secretary was Elizabeth Warren, whose appointment would have loosened the bowels of pretty much everyone on Wall Street, but, with a 50/50 split in the senate and a Republican governor in Massachusetts who would not be obliged to replace her with a Democrat, Warren is needed where she is.)

I began with Haaland’s nomination, because it is my favourite – a bold statement to the oil and gas sector that business is very much not going to be as usual. But there were two other nominations that made me clap my hands with glee.

The first of these is, of course, Biden’s nomination of Merrick Garland as attorney general. Pure bloody genius. Now that the majority of lily-livered Republican senators have cast their votes to let the Wankmaggot off, the senate can get back to confirmation hearings. I would so love Garland to say (although I know he won’t), “Senator McConnell, by the time the justice department is finished with the former president and the rest of you, you’re going to wish you’d put me on the supreme court.” I’m sure it’s what many Republicans are already thinking.

The second one is the new secretary of state. I know almost nothing about the guy other than the fact that he’s already talked tougher on Russia and China’s human rights abuses than either Tillerson or Pompeo ever did. I just love his name. It cracks me up that when you reduce it to his first initial and his last name you get A. Blinken. Get it? Say it out loud. Hadn’t struck you before? You’re welcome.