via Ed Driscoll
The FAA is headed by a pilot, NASA is headed by an astronaut, the US Marine Corps is headed by a Marine but for the fourth time in a row, and during the worst shipping crisis of the century, the US Department of Transportation, has appointed someone to the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) who is not a captain and has no commercial shipping experience.
Yesterday afternoon, President Biden announced his intention to nominate Rear Admiral Ann Phillips, US Navy (Retired), as the next US Maritime Administrator, a position that has been vacant since Rear Admiral Mark Buzby stepped down following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January.
Phillips is a highly decorated Navy leader with a long list of accomplishments and is highly respected by everyone gCaptain has interviewed. She was head of the Navy’s Climate Change Task Force and is a highly sought after consultant on climate security issues. She holds an MBA. She was chairman of a local government Sea Level Rise Preparedness and Resilience project. She once captained a Navy warship. The appointment looks great on paper except for one kinda big problem. This is not a warship position. It’s a commercial shipping appointment and she has zero experience aboard any commercial ships. She does not even have experience leading navy military sealift ships.
It’s par for the course with this administration. As Karol Markowicz noted yesterday, Pete Buttigieg “was always going to be a lightweight transportation chief. He got the job as a reward for dropping out of the presidential race and throwing his support to Joe Biden — and also because he said he likes trains, having gotten engaged at a train station. My 5-year-old likes trains, too. Yet just because he can say ‘Choo choo!’ with enthusiasm doesn’t mean he can oversee the country’s transportation system. When the country is having supply-chain problems, the transportation secretary’s skills and experience, let alone availability, become rather, uh, indispensable.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is far more obsessed with critical race theory than the debacle in Afghanistan.
As Cheryl Chumley wrote at the beginning of the month in the Washington Times, “The new comptroller of the currency selected by President Joe Biden is fresh off the Marxist bus, having graduated from Moscow State University in 1989 and since, spoken in glowing terms about communism.”
This is some crew that President Klain is assembling:
● Senate Confirms Radical Eco-Terrorist as Chief of the Bureau of Land Management.
● Kamala Harris doing damage control after encouraging student who accused Israel of genocide.
Tanden eventually withdrew her OMB nomination, but: Neera Tanden lands in the White House, after all. “The White House confirmed on Friday that Biden had appointed Tanden to be a senior adviser. She will start on Monday. The move came two months after the veteran Democratic policy adviser, known for her combative Twitter feed and in-your-face politics, withdrew her bid to become Biden’s budget director — Biden’s first, and, to this point, only failed nominee and one of his few political setbacks thus far.”
Flashback: The Mark of Klain. “[A]ll in all, things have worked out pretty darn well for Ron Klain. For America? Not so much.”
THUMB ON THE SCALE: As Joe Biden Drowns, Some Pollsters Are Trying to Pull Him Up.