Biden - his time

[ursus arctos]

It is incredibly rich to see the likes of Rand Paul and Karl Rove express outrage at the suggestion that the US has a problem with race

[Hot Pepsi]

The angry right have decided that one of the first things to be really angry about is - surprise, surprise - the actions of the trans woman who Biden's picked as assistant health secretary.

Rachel Levine, from Pennsylvania. Not sure what her new job is.

[ursus arctos]

Assistant Secretary of Health

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, but I don’t known what that job entails.

[ursus arctos]

It is quite a senior role, though I would expect it not to be as "public-facing" as she has been in PA

Serving under Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Levine would oversee key health offices and programs across the department, 10 regional health offices nationwide, the Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

[San Bernardhinault]

Rachel Levine, from Pennsylvania. Not sure what her new job is.

From a quick read-up, it seems like the "scandal" is completely fabricated. That she moved recovered covid patients back into nursing homes. But you probably have more information and insight.

Is there anything more to it?

[San Bernardhinault]

This is great. As a friend says "For someone supposedly so opposed to socialism, Ted Cruz spends a lot of his time being publicly owned":

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1352128118035722240

[Nocturnal Submission]

The "citizens of Paris" part of Cruz's Tweet was just so jaw-droppingly dumb that I wondered briefly if it was a parody.

It wasn't.

[Bruno]

He was smart enough to get into Princeton!

[Amor de Cosmos]

He's likely playing 'faux dumb.' It's the conceit of assuming his Twitter readers aren't very bright.

[San Bernardhinault]

He was smart enough to get into Princeton!

Either Princeton's admission standards are dogshit; or he's got much, much stupider since then; or he's performing as an idiot for his audience. None of them is a very good look.

[Hot Pepsi]

From a quick read-up, it seems like the "scandal" is completely fabricated. That she moved recovered covid patients back into nursing homes. But you probably have more information and insight.

Is there anything more to it?

I haven’t heard about that. I’m sure it’s a non-issue. Where else were those people going to go?

[Hot Pepsi]

Either Princeton's admission standards are dogshit; or he's got much, much stupider since then; or he's performing as an idiot for his audience. None of them is a very good look.

He also seems to imagine coal is Pittsburgh’s main employer. It is not. UPMC is the biggest employer.

[anton pulisov]

He missed a trick there. Could have done "more interested in Paris, France than Paris, Texas". At least, that's what I'd have done if I was a scumbag senator like him.

[Bruno]

Either Princeton's admission standards are dogshit; or he's got much, much stupider since then; or he's performing as an idiot for his audience. None of them is a very good look.

It's choice 3, the worst one.

[ursus arctos]

1 has some promise, but he was neither a legacy nor a lacrosse player

[jason voorhees]

1 has some promise, but he was neither a legacy nor a lacrosse player

Good enough admission standards to have students that know 63 is a greater number than 62.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkmR7tbR06w

[anton pulisov]

What's the deal with Anthony Fauci. He's 80 years old and is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Is that an elected position, i.e. does it not have a mandated civil service retirement age?

[Wouter D]

C'mon AP, you and I both know that he's a celebrity. Wasn't it article 3 or 4 or somesuch of the constitution that stipulated that celebrities can get away with ignoring all laws?

[ooh aah]

Either Princeton's admission standards are dogshit; or he's got much, much stupider since then; or he's performing as an idiot for his audience. None of them is a very good look.

Given how extensively this problem exists in British politics, I think it's a combination of all 3. Politicians learn quite quickly that nuanced positions are often easier to attack than simplistic ones, and therefore they dumb down. But also they get lazy, and overtime they just say the first thing they can think of. Rees Mogg's recent comment about British fish being a classic example. If he'd said that in front of loads of fawning sycophants at a constituency party event I could understand. But he said it in the HOC. The extent to which his stock has fallen over the last year or so (at a time when every other member of the Tory lunatic fringe is riding higher than ever) suggests he really is not that bright. Like most of them I suspect he has a good memory, came through at a time when education was based on rote learning, and was therefore able to simply regurgitate everything in exams and uni finals * back in an era where coursework was non existent. I'd be interested to see how many of our political elite would manage to get a 2.1 or equivalent these days.

* In fact in one of the numerous editions of his autobiography, Stephen Fry admitted that this was pretty much all he did in his time at Cambridge.

[Hot Pepsi]

What's the deal with Anthony Fauci. He's 80 years old and is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Is that an elected position, i.e. does it not have a mandated civil service retirement age?

No. In fact, the director of all of NIH is appointed by the president and Trump kept the guy Obama picked, Francis Collins, because he has broad appeal. Indeed, it’s one of the few big appointments where Trump didn’t pick a total shitshow dumpster fire of a human. He did ok with the FDA too.

I do wonder about people who stay in a hard job late in life. It suggests they just want to stay “relevant” and that’s dangerous. But I think Fauci just really loves his work and wanted to see this pandemic through. He wasn’t remotely famous until the pandemic hit.

[Guy Profumo]

He was smart enough to get into Princeton!

And then postgrad at Harvard

[laverte]

Fauci was, of course, very well known in LGB circles for his work on HIV/AIDS. He is portrayed by Randy Shilts in And the band played on as the key figure in persuading the Reagan government to take HIV seriously, and in Larry Kramer's autobiog as a very decent man caught between serving the administration and supporting ACT UP and other organisations critical of its slow and reluctant response.

[Incandenza]

No. In fact, the director of all of NIH is appointed by the president and Trump kept the guy Obama picked, Francis Collins, because he has broad appeal. Indeed, it’s one of the few big appointments where Trump didn’t pick a total shitshow dumpster fire of a human. He did ok with the FDA too.

I do wonder about people who stay in a hard job late in life. It suggests they just want to stay “relevant” and that’s dangerous. But I think Fauci just really loves his work and wanted to see this pandemic through. He wasn’t remotely famous until the pandemic hit.

I work with a lot of people who are well past retirement age, and considering that they've worked at the university for a very long time (someone I know for more than 45 years) and earn a high salary, their retirement plan must be in great shape even before taking the pension into consideration. But they want to just keep working.

[WOM]

If you do meaningful work that you enjoy, retirement will quite literally be the death of you.