 So, we are continuing to learn more and more about who Joe Biden will be putting in his administration, and unsurprisingly, most of his picks, with a few exceptions, are completely terrible people. Yeah. Ronald Klain is someone who we found out about last week. He will be Joe Biden's chief of staff, and this individual has had a long career at a venture capital firm. Oh, goodie. But this week, he announced more picks for key roles, including Tony Blinken as Secretary of State, Alejandro Mayorkas as DHS Secretary, Linda Thomas Greenfield as UN Ambassador, John Kerry as Climate Envoy with NSC seat, Avril Haynes as Director of National Intelligence, and Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor. Now not all of these names are terrible. I think that Linda Thomas Greenfield as UN Ambassador, that doesn't necessarily concern me. I think that Alejandro Mayorkas, he is the individual who basically is the architect of DACA during the Obama era. So I don't have any problems with him being DHS Secretary. However, what I do have a problem with is Tony Blinken, and to a lesser extent, Jake Sullivan, who is basically the same type of person. Tony Blinken is an individual who has repeatedly defended the atrocities of the apartheid state of Israel, and he bragged about defending them. He bragged about the United States being the only country to defend Israel when everyone else in the world condemned their behavior. Take a look. That unprecedented support is true in terms of our vigilance to protect Israel's legitimacy on the world stage and fight for its full and equal participation in UN institutions. We help secure Israel's permanent membership in the Western European and others group, as well as its membership in the like-minded Human Rights Caucus, from which it had long been excluded in New York. Last year, the United States opposed 18 resolutions in the UN General Assembly that were biased against Israel. On five occasions last year, the U.S. cast the only no vote against unfair, anti-Israel measures in the UN's Human Rights Council. We will continue to stand with Israel and against one-sided biased resolutions, even if we are the only country on earth to do so. So someone who is pro-apartheid, who's literally racist against Palestinians and Muslims in the Middle East, that individual I don't think is qualified to be Secretary of State. But when it comes to his foreign policy, he is arguably to the right of Joe Biden on foreign policy. So as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams reports, Blinken served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, and as the Washington Post reported Sunday, has been described as having a centrist view of the world and has also supported interventionist positions. Oh, goodie. He once broke with Biden and supported military action in Libya, for example, the Post noted, referring to the Obama White House's catastrophic decision to join with NATO to bomb that country, an armed intervention that helped unleash a violent civil war that is still ongoing. When it came to Syria policy under Obama, Blinken is also reported to have supported aggressive military measures against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and more recently has indicated that the Biden administration would opt for leaving U.S. troops in the war-torn country. When Biden, then a Senator and Chairman of the Powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voted in 2002 to authorize the Bush administration's disastrous invasion of Iraq, a decision he has since described as a mistake, Blinken was the Democratic staff director of the committee. President intercepts Ryan Grimm reported last July that Blinken helped craft Biden's own support for the Iraq War. Speaking to the New York Times earlier this year, Blinken characterized the vote to invade Iraq as a vote for tough diplomacy. That's not diplomacy, that's the lack of diplomacy. So we will have a president who supported the invasion of Iraq and a Secretary of State Tony Blinken who supported the invasion of Iraq, tweeted Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war group Code Pink. In the U.S., there is no accountability for supporting the worst foreign policy disaster in modern history, only rewards. So this is the individual who will be Secretary of State. Now speaking of ghouls who are hawkish, John Kerry will also play a key part in Biden's administration as the climate envoy. And as Andrea Germanos of Common Dreams explains, food and water action called the choice in alarming red flag and the group's executive director, Winona Hodder, accused Kerry of being a longtime apologist for fossil fuel fracking and a reliable promoter of false climate solutions like market-based carbon trading schemes. Kerry's proposals are tired ideas from years past that will do little or nothing to address our climate crisis and will actually continue to place a disproportionate unjust burden on vulnerable communities that have borne the brunt of fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts for decades now, she said. As such, we have our work cut out for us, added Hodder. Now I will say that even though food and water action are speaking out against John Kerry, there isn't universal condemnation within progressive circles because Greenpeace USA as well as Sunrise, they are actually coming out and saying we're not too angry about this decision here to make John Kerry the climate envoy. In fact, the co-founder and executive director of the Sunrise movement, Varshini Prokash tweeted out support for Kerry saying, I served with Secretary Kerry this summer on the Biden-Sanders Task Force and one thing is clear, he really does care about stopping climate change. That's something we can work with and encouraging move from the Biden team. Now I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a domestic equivalent. Now on top of that, John Kerry did say that the United States has to do more than just getting back into the Paris Climate Accord, which is encouraging. However, I'm not as optimistic as my fellow progressives here because John Kerry is someone who has been in government forever, and he is a centrist, arguably a moderate Republican. And if he truly believed that climate change was the national emergency that he said it was when this position was announced, then don't you think he would have opted to endorse someone other than Joe Biden? He endorsed Joe Biden in the Democratic Party primaries when there were other options available with more solid climate change policies, Bernie Sanders. He could have even endorsed Elizabeth Warren or Jay Inslee. I mean, the bar is super low. But he endorsed Joe Biden, someone with a bad plan when it comes to climate change. I mean, better than Donald Trump, of course, but in comparison with Bernie Sanders, climate organizations rated him, what was it, a D, D minus. So if you truly cared about climate change and say it is as big of an emergency as it is, then why wouldn't you endorse someone and put politics aside who actually cares? John Kerry knows that if he endorsed Bernie Sanders, he wouldn't get a spot in Bernie's administration and endorsing Joe Biden would secure him another job. But if you truly care about climate change, don't you put politics aside? So that's why I'm not optimistic. But here's what I say to John Kerry. Prove me wrong. Prove to me that my cynicism is unwarranted. Don't think I'm going to be proven wrong, but I would love to stand corrected here. Now, when it comes to Avril Haines, she's going to be appointed as director of national intelligence and there's some red flags, to say the least. I think I'm being incredibly charitable to describe my concerns about her as red flags because as Alex Koch pointed out, Avril Haines helped create the legal justification for Obama's drone wars, helped cover up the CIA's torture program and then supported Gina Haspel to lead the agency and consulted for Palantir. Haines is credited with moderating the drone policy. People say without her there would have been even more drone bombings. She also worked to make sure the drone bombings they did were legal. Sounds kind of like being a proponent of clean coal, but people die instantly. And he's exactly right. It's not just immoral, but illegal. Not only under domestic law, but international law as well. This individual should be nowhere near power. But yet she's going to get a spot in Biden's administration. And what has the mainstream media said about this? Well, that we should be happy because a woman is serving in this position. And this is historic. I mean, I'm sure that the people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, who are having bombs dropped on their heads by Bannon's administration will take comfort knowing that it's a woman who's bombing them instead of a man. So there's that despicable. Now, on top of that, Janet Yellen will be Treasury Secretary. Let me just take a moment to laugh at Elizabeth Warren, who sold out Bernie Sanders to get a spot in Biden's administration, only to be shunned. But Janet Yellen is not someone who I am enthusiastic about. Wall Street is excited about her. That tells you everything you need to know. And additionally, someone who is being considered by Joe Biden is someone who should be nowhere near power. We're talking about Rahm Emanuel for Transportation Secretary. And the fact that Joe Biden would even consider someone this morally bankrupt. I mean, it speaks to how shitty Joe Biden is as a human being. And I think that AOC put it best. What is so hard to understand about this? Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership. Now, there's good news and bad news with regard to Rahm Emanuel. The good news is that Biden hears our complaints and concerns and he's trying to respond to that. The bad news is that his response is to placate us. And rather than making Rahm Emanuel Transportation Secretary, now he wants to put Rahm Emanuel in a less visible position. Why do you have to have Rahm Emanuel in your administration? Are we not going to draw the line anywhere? He covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Does that not mean anything to you? Does that not like strike a chord? I don't get it. Why do you have to put him in your administration? And the thing about Joe Biden that you're going to see is that there's this ongoing theme that the people who he is appointing to his administration, it's all Obama era alone. So I mean, this is this is really concerning and it should be concerning to people. It's not surprising. None of this is surprising to me, but here's why you should be concerned about this. If Joe Biden conducts business as usual and we just basically see a continuation of Obama's administration, a third Obama term, if you will, what's going to happen? Well, Obama's failures is part of the reason why we got a Donald Trump presidency. So if Joe Biden doesn't actually make meaningful changes and materially improve people's lives in 2024, do you honestly expect him to win again? I think he probably would have lost had it not been for Joe for Donald Trump's bungling of COVID-19. So do we honestly believe that if Joe Biden just gets in there and occupies the Oval Office for four years and does fuck all to help Americans that he's going to be rewarded with a second term or Democrats will be rewarded with a second term? I mean, if you are worried about right wing extremism in this country, then you shouldn't be worried about the fact or angry about the fact that I'm criticizing Joe Biden. You should join me in criticizing Joe Biden, because if you are afraid of Republicans taking power again, then understand that if Joe Biden changes nothing, they will be emboldened and more powerful than ever in 2024. And I get that that's a ways away. We can't necessarily think that far ahead. Sure. But do you honestly think that just having someone who's not Trump in power will suffice, that that's enough? If so, then you are in an incredibly privileged position. So it's frustrating because if you tune into mainstream media, they talk about how diverse all of these picks are and how historic it is that, you know, Biden is appointing a woman to this position and that position. But at the end of the day, Americans are going to lose faith in your party and give Republicans the keys to power again if you fuck this up. Joe Biden has a unique opportunity. We are we're at a crossroads in American history. He can actually make change. And all of this tells us right now, the people who he's choosing to surround him during this presidency. It tells us that he's not up to the challenge. This is what progressives had warned you about.