It looks like a toss-up for today’s top news story, between the capture of alleged assassin Luigi Mangione and the resignation of Christopher Wray from the helm of the F.B.I. The Mangione story has a somewhat surprising reverberation – the revelation of a shocking level of public sympathy for the man accused of the cold-blooded murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Health Care, the nation’s largest health insurance company. There will be no polls showing majority support for Mangione. But people have made financial contributions totaling more than $30,000 to his defense and many more have shared their anger at private health insurers on social media. Vanessa Friedman reports in the NYT, “Even before a suspect had been named, much was written about the killer’s elevation to folk hero status. He was cast in the role of what the historian Eric Hobsbawm called the “social bandit” — one man seeming to take a stand against an unfair system….what forensic psychologists call the “halo effect.” And there is suddenly more media coverage of the abuses of health insurance companies. Some say it arises from Mangione’s supermodel look. But there has also been an explosion of expressions of contempt for private health insurers, which may or may not morph into a more rational debate over “Medicare for all” and “public option” health care reforms, as well as the G.O.P.’s utter failure to provide any viable health care reform alternatives whatsoever, preferring as always to whine ad nauseum about Obamacare.
Many liberals are bummed by the resignation of F.B. I. director Christopher Wray, who Trump wants to replace with Kath Patel, a right-wing radical who has said he wants to transform the F.B.I. building into a “Museum of the Deep State” and launch a campaign of retribution against Trump’s political opponents. Wray, who was originally appointed by Trump during his first term, but became one of many Trump appointees who fell out of his favor, must have concluded that he would be fired anyway, so why go through an exhausting media circus to no avail. But the storm around Wray’s resignation enhances focus on Patel, who may be a red herring among Trump’s appointees, designed to distract attention from Trump’s other unqualified cabinet picks. It’s not hard to imagine Trump’s inner circle arguing in essence “let’s create a few media storms downstream so we can sneak most of our infected cows across upstream.” It may work to some extent, or it may backfire, if some of the crazier downstream cows get confirmed and make a mess of their assignments.
The most controversial of Trump’s upstream cows, Pete Hegseth, may muddle through the confirmation process and be confirmed to head the Department of Defense, with its 800+ billion dollar budget and 3 million employees. Hegseth’s nomination may be aided by sweeteners in the form of proffered federal contracts, strategically-designed for states repped by senators who have expressed skepticism about Hegseth, as he makes the rounds in the Senate halls. To paraphrase Mencken and P. T. Barnum, nobody ever went broke betting on the lack of integrity of politicians. The Democratic worry about the appointments of RFK Jr. to HHS, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Kristi Noem to head Homeland Security may prove to be needless hand-wringing. Kennedy may quit before long, forced to do so by the urgings of the pharmaceutical industry, or, who knows, he may prove to be a force for more humane health care in a reactionary Administration. He comes from a highly-political family, and may temper some of his more controversial views to accommodate political reality. Gabbard and Noem have been nominated to head agencies that have seen more relevant days, although there is no hope that Musk and Ramaswamy will recommend the termination of these impotent agencies. These two are largely symbolic appointments, and we can hope that seasoned military and intelligence officials will pay them little attention if they get confirmed. The Hegseth, Gabbard and Noem nominations reflect Trump’s obsession with mediagenic appeal and loyalty to Trump over relevant experience and qualifications.
if you are looking for a bit of good news about political appointments, read “Biden to block Trump from appointing dozens of judges as GOP seethes” by Morgan Stephens at Daily Kos. As Stephens writes, “In a move that reflects the ongoing tensions between the White House and Congress in the lame-duck session before the new administration is sworn in, President Joe Biden issued a statement saying he’d veto the bipartisan JUDGES Act. The legislation aims to address a long-standing judicial shortageand has led to a backlog of cases….The act, which had passed through the Senate with overwhelming support and was on its way to the House, would create 63 permanent judicial positions. If enacted, it would have given Donald Trump the authority to appoint 22 of those new judges when he returns to the White House—an outcome that has raised significant concerns among Democrats….“The bill would create new judgeships in states where Senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies,” said the statement from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday. “Those efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.”….The White House also sharply criticized the bill’s rushed timing. While the Senate passed the measure in August, the House didn’t take it up until after the election—giving lawmakers only a few weeks to finalize such a significant piece of legislation before the 118th Congress concluded….The fight over the JUDGES Act isn’t just about the number of judges—it’s a high-stakes battle over the ideological direction of the judiciary.” Well done, President Biden.
