{"id":47098,"date":"2021-03-18T17:20:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T17:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=47098"},"modified":"2021-03-18T17:20:51","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T17:20:51","slug":"welcome-secretary-becerra-now-get-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=47098","title":{"rendered":"Welcome, Secretary Becerra … now, get to work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By JOHN KANELIS<\/strong> \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Xavier Becerra is going to do just fine as the nation’s newest secretary of health and human services.<\/p>\n

He takes an otherwise obscure Cabinet post in a time of a national medical crisis. The pandemic is still around.<\/p>\n

The 50-49 U.S. Senate vote to confirm came after some Senate Republicans bitched that the former California congressman and state attorney general lacks medical training. He isn’t a doctor, some of them said, which makes him “unqualified” for the HHS job.<\/p>\n

What an utter crock of dookey!<\/p>\n

Alex Azar was a drug company executive who preceded Becerra in this job. Was he qualified for the job?<\/p>\n

GOP lawmakers are getting pretty damn clumsy in hoisting up these straw man arguments. Ben Carson became head of housing and urban development after spending a career as a renowned brain surgeon. Betsy DeVos led the education department despite having no hands-on experience with public education. Rex Tillerson served as secretary of state even though he earned his millions running a giant oil company. These are just four examples of Cabinet picks endorsed by Republicans during the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

So now they’re holding President Biden’s HHS pick to a higher standard?<\/p>\n

I want to reiterate something about Becerra: He served in Congress when the Obama administration sought to approve the Affordable Care Act. Then-Rep. Becerra played a key role in writing that legislation.<\/p>\n

So, spare me the “he ain’t a doc” argument.<\/p>\n

The man is qualified. He will do well in his new role leading the Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n

Let’s get busy, Mr. Secretary.<\/p>\n\n

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By JOHN KANELIS \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com Xavier Becerra is going to do just fine as the nation’s newest secretary of health and human services. He takes an otherwise obscure Cabinet post in a time of a national medical crisis. The pandemic is still around. The 50-49 U.S. Senate vote to confirm came after some Senate Republicans … Continue reading Welcome, Secretary Becerra … now, get to work<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2118,2505,9261],"class_list":["post-47098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical-news","tag-hhs","tag-joe-biden","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47099,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47098\/revisions\/47099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}