IRS SENT $1,200 STIMULUS CHECKS TO RANDOM EUROPEAN CITIZENS, NEW REPORTING SHOWS.

I’m sure things will be much more button-down during the Biden administration: “Joe Biden has picked former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to head the Department of the Treasury for his administration. During her introduction on Tuesday, Yellen promised to use the Treasury Department to address racial inequality, ‘gender disparities,’ and ‘the climate crisis.’”

And then there’s Neera Tanden. As Jim Geraghty asks, “Just what was the Biden team thinking, nominating Neera Tanden, chief executive of the Center for American Progress, to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget?”, rounding up some of the low-lights of her career:

The director of the Office of Management and Budget must be confirmed by Congress. If Biden had wanted to make Tanden a White House staffer — in a job that doesn’t require Senate confirmation — he could easily have done that. But he didn’t.

She’s a glaringly terrible pick from a team that hasn’t had any other glaringly terrible picks. In fact, she’s so bad . . . you have to wonder if she really could be the designated “sacrifice to the nomination gods,” as Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff joked. (Was he joking?) Is it possible Biden or someone on his team is shrewd enough to nominate Tanden as a lightning rod, and to ensure Republican senators focus their attention on an OMB director nominee, instead of other cabinet nominees?

That’s possible, but as Halon’s Law states, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” especially given the other incoming staffers of Biden’s administration, not least of which: Jen Psaki in a Russian hammer and sickle hat goes viral, her defense of the photograph is an odd one.