Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Biden's Pick for Secretary of State Has a Band, So We Reviewed His Music — Josh Terry

President-elect Joe Biden has been teasing his cabinet picks lately like he's a mid-tier indie rock band beginning a press campaign for a new album. This week, he hinted at a news conference last week that "all elements of the Democratic Party" would like his choice for Treasury Secretary. Now, he's set to unveil all of his official cabinet selections on Tuesday with the New York Times already reporting that Biden is picking Antony Blinken for Secretary of State. Now, I know you're probably thinking: "Wait, is this the Anthony Blinken who's behind the dad-rock project ABlinken on Spotify? The singer behind the sub-1000 streamed songs "Lip Service" and "Patience"?" And the answer is yes, that's him.…
This raised several questions: first, what's "wonk rock"? Is it rock music about Modern Monetary Theory or ballads on global geopolitics? Is it a ska band called Better Than Ezra Klein? Or is it just rock music made by Washington D.C. nerds? It turns out, it's the latter. But as far as this definition of "wonk rock" goes, it's less derivative than Joe Scarborough's music and much better dressed than Mike Huckabee's band. It's actually not awful!...

Fun article. Check it out.

Vice
Biden's Pick for Secretary of State Has a Band, So We Reviewed His Music
Josh Terry

On a more serious note.

I don't think the policy really changed under Donald Trump, for two reasons. First, he was constrained by the policy establishment and secondly, his differences with the establishment were more over strategy than policy. The goal was always US global hegemony. Donald Trump simply preferred economic warfare to kinetic, while also promising to increase US military capability to dominate through increased spending.

Biden will simply revive the traditional strategy, which implies more liberal interventionism and greater reliance on the military in pursuing policy goals.

MintPressNews
How Joe Biden Plans to Make The American Empire Great Again
Dan Cohen

See also

Before you celebrate the departure of Mike Pompeo.

Warmonger.

CaitlinJohnstone.com
Surprise! America Is Getting Another Psycho For Secretary Of State
Caitlin Johnstone 

Defend Democarcy Press
Joe Biden’s Interventionist Secretary of State Pick

MiddleEastEye
'Business as usual': Biden's cabinet picks signal return to Obama-era foreign policy
Sheren Khalel

Zero Hedge
'The Machines Did The Killing': Obama Awkwardly Defends Drone Kill List In New Memoir
Tyler Durden

See also

Another corporatist warmonger.

Counterpunch
Should Michèle Flournoy be Secretary of Defense?
Winslow T. Wheeler has spent 40 years working on national security, defense budgets and military reform for both political parties in the US Senate and in the Government Accountability Office and the Center for Defense Information. Pierre Sprey worked for 30 years as a systems analyst, aircraft and weapons designer and consultant in the Pentagon and in industry and, overlapping that period, has worked on military reform for 40 years.

2 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Biden/Harris is the first administration for whom their supporters have zero expectations.

Orange Man gone... when's brunch?

Matt Franko said...

“But the math won’t work. All the available data shows that the newer (more complex by design) systems are more expensive to operate than older ones. Air Force data show the F-22 to be twice as costly to operate as the elderly F-15C and D; the B-2 is twice the cost to maintain as the ancient B-52. The new, ultra-complex B-21 bomber, which Clinton and others strongly support, promises to be yet another step up in operating cost.“

So what? Loaded F-250 listing for $70k these days too...

These guys are “out of money!” morons...