Welcome Back, America!

Oh, and The Boys? They're Back in Town.

Screenshot: C-SPAN

In case you haven't heard, America is back.

Joe Biden @JoeBiden

America is back.

That's right, baby. *Slides on aviators* We're back.

Oh, and The Boys? They're Back in Town.

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman

NEW with ⁦⁦@ErinBanco⁩, ⁦⁦@HCTrudo⁩ & ⁦@samstein⁩: Biden is considering Mike Morell, a defender of CIA torture and drone strikes, for CIA director. Progressive opposition is already building. thedailybeast.com/biden-weighs-m…

David Dayen @ddayen

The Prospect has learned that Brian Deese, an Obama official and now an executive with the asset management giant BlackRock, is the leading contender to direct the National Economic Council.

prospect.orgBlackRock Executive Brian Deese Could Get Major White House PositionDeese’s views on the deficit and climate policy are at odds with national and planetary needs.

Just in case the Boys have been gone for too long, let's revisit. From the Prospect article on Deese:

During his tenure, Deese endorsed the significant rise in fossil fuel production under Obama, and defended continuing oil drilling in Alaska and fracking on public land, something even Biden has ruled out.

But it’s Deese’s work at BlackRock that has raised the most recent concern. Activists have spent years trying to get BlackRock to divest from fossil fuel companies and other climate polluters, and it was Deese’s job to counteract them.  ...

Deese controlled BlackRock’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment strategy, an in-vogue designation that makes financiers feel good about their contributions to the world. In this position, Deese made mostly empty promises to environmentalists about BlackRock’s goals, which withered upon close inspection.

From an AP article on Morell's book about his time at the CIA:

But Morell, who was traveling with President George W. Bush on 9/11 and was involved in the intelligence behind the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, mounts a staunch defense of two controversial CIA programs: brutal interrogations of al Qaida prisoners and targeted killing with drones.

While Morell says he is personally troubled by the harshest technique the CIA used on detainees, water boarding, he makes a case that agency leaders had no choice but to use what many consider torture in the years after the 9/11 attacks. He said such techniques saved American lives.

It is difficult for CIA officers to legally talk about the agency’s drone strikes, because they are technically covert and deniable. Morell therefore omits many details as he vigorously defends what he calls “the single most effective tool in the last five years” for counterterrorism.

Drone strikes result in minimal civilian casualties, he says, and claims to the contrary are “highly exaggerated,” flowing from propaganda.

That's right baby. In America, which is back, there will be "minimal civilian casualties" again.