ICE Arrests Skyrocket After New Quota to Keep Trump Happy
Naturally, the reasons why, given the high stakes, are both indescribably stupid and yet very typical of the way Washington works. As Marshall reports:
I’m told that there appear to be two reasons: One is that Whitehouse and Kennedy are personal friends. They were law school roommates at UVA and that seems to have been the beginning of a lifelong friendship. There are also specific issues with Rhode Island’s health care system that apparently need regulatory flexibility from HHS. That seems to be a real issue. But it hasn’t been enough of an issue to shift the state’s senior senator, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who remains firmly opposed to Kennedy’s nomination.
Why would it matter if Whitehouse bucks common sense and votes to install RFK in Trump’s Cabinet? As Marshall points out, support for Kennedy among Republican senators is fluid for all the reasons you might expect (not everyone wants to see long-conquered childhood diseases make a comeback in this, the twenty-first century). But Whitehouse’s support may go a long way toward providing some of the fence-sitters some political cover to back Trump’s man.
While there is something so quintessentially American about millions of ordinary people potentially suffering from myriad public health crises because one rich old boy wanted to do a solid for his University of Virginia Law School roommate, it is to be hoped that someone in Democratic leadership sorts this matter out tout de suite.
