Report: How Did The Biden Administration Do On Solving "Climate Change"?

January 20, 2025 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

We are now in the last hours of the Biden Administration. Today the Bidenauts complete four full years in office. And as we all know, their number one priority from the day they took office was to address what they called the “climate crisis” (or sometimes, the “profound climate crisis”). Famously, after lavishly promising on the campaign trail to address and solve the crisis, newly-installed President Biden then issued multiple Executive Orders on the subject in his early days in office, most notably this one from January 27, 2021. He promised an “all of government” approach, with every department and agency explicitly tasked to make addressing the climate crisis central to their mission. In the following years, Biden proposed and then pushed through Congress legislation containing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of subsidies and tax benefits for so-called “renewable energy,” said to be the solution to the climate crisis through replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuels with clean and green wind and solar substitutes.

To remind you of the level of the promises that were made, consider the preamble of that January 2021 EO, which had the title “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”:

The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis.  We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.  Domestic action must go hand in hand with United States international leadership, aimed at significantly enhancing global action.  Together, we must listen to science and meet the moment.

With Biden now leaving office, this is an appropriate moment to take a look at exactly what “progress” has been made toward the promised reductions in emissions. The answer is, any emissions reductions have been so tiny as to be almost imperceptible.

In the big picture, whatever emission reduction have been achieved have mostly resulted from substitution of natural gas for coal in electricity generation. This substitution would likely have occurred by natural market processes without any of the government subsidies and credits for wind and solar power.

To help us in our review, the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts out monthly data on energy production and consumption in the U.S. These data have been updated through September 2024. The EIA data on “primary energy” can be found at this link, and the data on electricity generation and consumption at this link.

Primary Energy

The term “primary energy” refers to all energy used in the economy in all sectors — not just electricity, but also transportation (cars, trucks, trains, planes), industry, agriculture, buildings, and everything else. In other words, this is the full picture.

Go to Table 1.1 at the primary energy link for the “Primary Energy Overview.” Here we find that in 2020 — the last year of the prior Trump administration — the U.S. consumed a total of 88,872 Quadrillion Btus of primary energy, of which 73,169 QBtus from fossil fuels, 8,251 QBtus from nuclear, and 7,290 QBtus from “renewable energy.” (Note that the “renewable” category is not just wind and solar, but also includes things like biomass and geothermal.). Anyway, doing some simple division, that would make 82.3% from fossil fuels, 9.3% from nuclear, and 8.3% from renewables.

The last full year of data are for 2023. Total primary energy consumption was 93,691 QBtus, of which 77,271 QBtus came from fossil fuels, 8,099 QBtus from nuclear, and 8,256 from renewables. The percentages are then 82.5% from fossil fuels, 8.6% from nuclear, and 8.8% from renewables. (Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.). The percent from fossil fuels actually increased slightly from 2020.

Only nine months of data are available for 2024, but those show little change in relative shares: 70,345 QBtus total primary energy consumption, of which 57,662 from fossil fuels, 6,168 QBtus from nuclear, and 6,478 QBtus from renewables. Thus 82.0% from fossil fuels, 8.8% from nuclear, and 9.2% from renewables.

With all the endless hype about the climate crisis and the hundreds of billions of dollars of federal largesse going into forcing an “energy transition,” would you ever have believed that these numbers would have moved so negligibly?

Electricity generation

The data on electricity generation by source are found in Table 7.2a at the electricity data link above. This time the data are not so helpfully grouped as in the last table, so some addition is necessary to get useful categories for our purposes. Fossil fuels are broken down into coal, oil, natural gas, and “other fossil fuels.” “Renewables” include not just solar and wind, but also “hydro,” and “wood, waste, and geothermal” (WWG), which are larger categories than you might think.

For 2020, the total generation is 4,009 terawatt hours, of which the fossil fuel categories add to 2,429 TWh, nuclear is 790 TWh, and the renewables total the remaining 790 TWh. But of the renewables, wind is 338 TWh, solar is 89 TWh, hydro is 280 TWh (net of some losses on pumped storage), and the remaining WWG renewables come to 70 TWh. So the percentages are 60.6% fossil fuels, 19.7% nuclear, 7.0% hydro, 1.7% WWG, 8.4% wind, and 2.2% solar.

Fast forward to 2023, and we find 4,183 TWh of total generation, of which 2509 TWh came from fossil fuels, 774 TWh from nuclear, 239 from hydro, 64 TWh from WWG, 166 TWh from solar, and 421 from wind. So now the percentages are 60.0% fossil fuels, 18.5% nuclear, 5.7% hydro, 10.0% from wind, 4.0% from solar, 1.5% from WWG.

Again, could you have imagined that the needle could possibly have moved so insignificantly? With all the vast subsidies and investments thrown at wind and solar, their percentage of the mix has just gone from 10.6% to 14% in three years, while fossil fuels have gone down from 60.6% to 60.0%, less than a 1% change.

For the first nine months of 2024, fossil fuels generated 59.5% of electricity, while wind generated 10.1% and solar generated 5.2%. Despite the billions upon billions of taxpayer subsidies, they creep upwards at an almost imperceptible pace.

Emissions

And has all the money lavished on buildout of wind and solar generators had any noticeable impact on carbon emissions? The two EIA pages linked above don’t have information on emissions, but here is another page with some useful information on that subject, titled “U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2023.” Excerpt:

CO2 emissions from the electric power sector declined by 7% (115 MMmt) in 2023, making up 85% of net energy-related CO2 emissions reductions observed over the year. The reduction was due to both a slight decrease in electricity demand, which fell by around 1% in 2023, and a significant decrease in coal-fired electricity generation caused by reduced coal-fired generating capacity prompted by competition with other generation sources. Electric power generation from coal fell by 19%, or 155 terawatthours (TWh), in 2023. Most of this generation was displaced by natural gas which increased by 7% (113 TWh) and by solar which increased by 14% (21 TWh). Because coal-fired generation emits more CO2 per kilowatthour than natural gas when combusted, replacing coal-fired with natural gas-fired generation reduces CO2 emissions overall.

Thus by far most of the retired coal generation was replaced by natural gas, and a small percentage by solar.

In summary, in four years the Biden administration made almost no progress in reducing “emissions,” other than a small amount of reductions that came from substituting natural gas for coal in the production of electricity. That substitution came about through market forces (i.e., low natural gas prices) and was not even the subject of the vast energy transition subsidies made available by the government. Although renewables made some small inroads in electricity production, the increase in their share in primary energy production over the four Biden years was barely noticeable (less than 1%).

The attempt to transition our energy system via command from central planners has been one of the greatest wastes of taxpayer funds ever perpetrated by the government. It cannot be ended soon enough.

Good Riddance, Joe Biden

January 19, 2025 by Dan Mitchell

This is the last full day of Joe Biden’s dismal presidency, so let’s do what we did with Justin Trudeau and reflect on his pathetic legacy.

I’ve already provided my own economic assessment of Biden’s record, so now let’s review how he is seen by others. We’ll start with the American people. According to a new poll, they think Biden accomplished nothing.

For what it’s worth, I wish Biden accomplished nothing.

It’s true that he accomplished nothing good.

But he’s done several bad things. Lots of spending (the fake stimulus and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act) and lots of cronyism (the infrastructure boondoggle, the semiconductor industry giveaway, and the green energy handouts), along with more intervention (on antitrust).

Now let’s look at some excerpts from George Will’s assessment of Biden in the Washington Post.

Joe Biden’s failed presidency is ending with a blizzard of decisions that validate voters’ rejection of his vice president… Two months into his presidency, the seeds of its ruin were sown with the American Rescue Plan… The predicted result, inflation, was exacerbated by the Inflation Reduction Act’s torrent of subsidies in the service of “industrial policy.” …

No prior president used mass communications more insultingly to more Americans than Biden did with his hyperbolic warnings about the danger of Americans imposing “Jim Crow 2.0” and voting for “semi-fascism.” …

The Biden administration’s extralegal overreaching earned many judicial rebukes. These concerned, inter alia, an eviction moratorium, a vaccine mandate, student loan forgiveness, and pressuring social media companies to intensify censorship (“content moderation”) of speech (“disinformation”) annoying to the administration.

Kevin Williamson, opining for the Dispatch, might be even harsher.

Here’s some of what he wrote.

…one naturally wants to be charitable toward him as his failure as a politician and his failure as a father are fused together in the waning days of his presidency, a period dominated by his dishonest and impolitic pardon of his son Hunter… There is simply no way to tell the truth about Joe Biden’s life and career without kicking him while he is down…

The defining qualities of Joe Biden the political man were arrogance and dishonesty, compounded by stupidity. …Biden will forever be paired with Trump in the history books and will be the smaller figure—Shemp to Trump’s Curly. …One could go through the greatest hits: …his creepy handsiness, …his reality-proof incompetence in the face  of persistent corrosive inflation, his lawlessness on student loans, his stupidity on uranium, allowing the chaos at the border to fester and intensify…

But what sticks in my mind about Biden is his slander of an obscure nobody, truck driver Curtis Dunn, whom he spent years lying about. Dunn was the other driver in the accident in which Biden’s first wife and his infant daughter died, an accident investigators at the time said was almost certainly caused by Mrs. Biden, who apparently pulled into oncoming traffic with the baby in her lap.

Biden repeatedly claimed that Dunn was a drunk driver, a menace “who drank his lunch,” even though there was absolutely no evidence that this was true. It was, politically speaking, a better story, and Biden has always put his own selfish, greasy little interests ahead of those of ordinary people in the real world.

I’ll close with the observation that I’ll be glad when Joe Biden is gone, but that doesn’t mean I’m overly excited that Trump is coming back.

To be sure, there is a higher likelihood that we’ll get some good policies (tax cuts and deregulation) to offset Trump’s bad policies (too much spending and protectionism).

But I worry that Trump will reinvigorate the left and that this will lead to a Democratic Congress in 2026 and the frightening prospect of a President AOC (or someone similarly terrible) in 2028.

It’s not easy being a libertarian!

Joe Biden's Legacy Will Stand the Test of Time

By Rich Kozlovich

Today Mike McDaniel published this piece, TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE rides again!, demonstrating how Biden's lack of mental acuity was obvious for a long time, as he starts out saying: 

When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, I was worried. Not that he’d try to sabotage Donald Trump. Not that he’d do everything he could to spit in the eye of Americans. Not that he’d try to save Hamas and damage Israel. Not that he’d leave the border wide open. Not that he’d try to do as much additional damage to America as he could before January 20. All that was guaranteed. I was worried he wouldn’t provide additional gaffes. Most politicians say and do incredibly stupid things, but Joe has been in a class by himself.

Mike then went on to demonstrate just how bad his gaffes were, even leftists were laughing at him.  Some didn't seem to grasp this was all done facetiously as truth through humor often times can drive a point home more easily than logic and facts.  Joe seems to think because he knows more foreign leaders than anyone else, he's just fine.  Those leaders are laughing at him,  all of whom think he's a clown, except for China and Ukraine.  They think he's an easy mark. 

Remember when Morning Joe, Nancy Pelosi, the Pravda Media as a whole, and the Hollywood nitwits said Joe was "sharp as a tack", and he was at the "peak of his cognitive powers".  Vincent Miles said, "Biden was at his peak...problem is, his "peak" was the Marianas trench in the Pacific".  

Then came debate night, and they were shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out what the rest of the nation already knew, that Joe Biden was lost in an intellectual haze and suffering from severe mental decay, and before that he was just stupid. But, Joe was never the brightest pebble in the brook and as time went by he went from being corrupt and stupid to corrupt, stupid, and demented.  

Truth, time, and history are on the same side.  This is Joe Biden's legacy and it will stand the test of time.

Biden Befouls Everything He Touches

By Rich Kozlovich

As Biden's days as President are coming to a close he continues to befoul the Presidency.  First all these corrupt pardons, then executive orders and regulations without end to prevent the Trump administration from instituting policies that will actually aid the nation versus the insane and inept policies, foreign and domestic, the Biden administration imposed on the nation, and the world.   

Leftists are demanding he impose the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, which has run out of time, but they say he can do it.  the Congress, the courts, and the national Archivist says he can't.  And now he's besmirched the value of the Medal of Freedom. 

Some of those who were given this award by Biden were pretty much from the "political snake class", making this award meaningless.

 

There was a 2002 movie about a Russian submarine, K-19: The Widowmaker with Harrison Ford.  At the end of the movie after discovering the Soviet hierarchy refused to give medals to the crew members who died saving the rest of the crew's lives Ford's character said: 

 

For their courage I nominated these men for the title of hero of the Soviet Union. But the committee ruled that because it was not wartime, and because it was merely an accident, they were not worthy of the title hero. What good are honors from such people? These men sacrificed, not for a medal. But because when the time came, it was their duty. Not to the navy, or to the state, but to us. Their comrades. 

 

Though the course of my life I've seen this pattern playing out so often. Honors bestowed on the unworthy, while ignoring those who actually accomplish something worthwhile.
 

In this article by Eric Utter, Biden awards Hillary and Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the author asks:

 

Is John Hinckley, Jr. next in line for the prestigious award? He came within a half an inch of assassinating Ronald Reagan in 1981 but now lives on his own and has started his own record label! Maybe instead of Biden just granting 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a plea deal, he could award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, too....

 

While Hillary received a standing ovation, that doesn't change the fact she's still a snake, in a room full of vipers.  Things may change for her soon. Monica Showalter says Biden has "soiled" this award stating:

As President Obama used to say: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f--- things up." Or as President Trump put it: "Everything he touches turns to s---." Joe's always promoted that kind of partisan unity.  So now he's handing out another slew of awards, as if his pardons and commutations to heinous criminals, and his civilian award to Liz Cheney were not enough........ 

 

Matt Vespa says now this award means nothing, and Patricia McCarthy, citing examples, calls the Biden administration a bunch of immature spoiled playground bullies, and even calls them treasonous, who would happily destroy the country.

 

The final indignity the Biden regime has inflicted on the American people is to present Hillary Clinton and George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom. HRC and Soros are two of the most corrupt, self-serving creatures ever set loose on our republic.  It was bad enough that he gave the loathsome Liz Cheney and Benny Thompson, her partner in crime on the J6 committee, the Presidential Citizens Medal.  That committee was a fraudulent panel if there ever was one; it was a theatrical production full of lies, and its members destroyed actual evidence. That committee was a purposeful insult to all the people who have been destroyed by the Biden/Garland pursuit and persecution of anyone present in D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

 

"What good are honors from such people?"

Cartoon Roundup: Joe Biden's December

By Rich Kozlovich 

 

This was Biden's December, and it wasn't a happy December, at least if your sane.  As you view these cartoons think about this, Biden actually claims he could've beaten Trump, and I have no doubt he believes it, which further enhances the idea he really has lost his mind.  While the pattern of Joe's life has been one of lies and massive self deception, I think he believes his lies are facts, and then he's shocked when no one believes him.   Scott Jennings, who is an anomaly at CNN, says Biden's leaving in disgrace. Imagine that.

 

 

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Monica Showalter says,  Joe Biden heads out on a low note, more despised than ever, and the media isn't covering for him now.   While they've taken some shots at Ole Joe, that's not universal.   The Pravda media is so full of nitwits, dimwits, halfwits, and dipsticks, there's always someone lying for Ole Joe.

 

George Bush would spend the weekend at his home in Texas and the Pravda Media screamed like insane banshees that he was unfit to be President for not attending to the nation's affairs. 

 

Joe Biden spent most of his four years on vacation, and they never noticed.   But no matter how much they keep covering for Ole Joe, with his corrupt history, he's the gift that just keeps on giving.  

The Pravda media will never stop covering for Joe, and the alternative media will never stop legitimately vilifying Joe, his crime family, and his criminal administration because time and truth are on the same side, and Biden will go down in history as the worst most corrupt President in American history leading the most corrupt, criminal, inept, and incompetent administration in living memory.

Ranking Biden on Economic Policy: A Track Record of Failure

December 27, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Congratulations to Joe Biden, albeit in a negative way.

He has joined Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover in having zero positive economic accomplishments.

Here’s my assessment. Plenty of anti-growth policies over the past four years, but absolutely nothing in the pro-growth column.

This is embarrassing. Even Barack Obama, FDR, George W. Bush, and Woodrow Wilson managed at least one good policy during their tenure (even if it happened in spite of them).

By contrast, there’s nothing positive to say about Biden’s time in office.

Lots of spending (the fake stimulus and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act) and lots of cronyism (the infrastructure boondoggle, the semiconductor industry giveaway, and the green energy handouts), along with more intervention (on antitrust).

If I wanted to make Biden look less worse, I would remove inflation since the bad monetary policy started under Trump. But since it continued under Biden, I think it belongs as one of his anti-accomplishments.

I also could remove Trump’s protectionism from the list since that was, obviously, Trump’s fault. But Biden and his people made a deliberate decision to continue those bad policies, so that counts as an anti-accomplishment.

By the way, I was going to wait until January 20 of next year to write this column, but I couldn’t resist addressing the issue today because I got agitated reading a column in the Washington Post by Eduardo Porter.

He wrote that Biden had good policies and that it’s a mystery how Trump won. I’m not joking. Here are some excerpts.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan at the dawn of Joe Biden’s presidency…looked like exactly the right bet… The burst of industrial policy that followed (the Chips and Science Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act) appeared equally adroit… His administration’s pugilistic approach to antitrust enforcement was a sensible way to build Biden’s credibility as a champion of the working stiff, ready to take on the Man. Even the language about rebuilding the economy, “from the bottom up and the middle out,” had a promising ring, befitting the sense of grievance directed at Washington’s long embrace of the trickle down. …a week before the election, the White House released a report congratulating itself for the economy’s stellar growth…

And yet it all came to naught. Only 18 percent of voters who identified the economy as their most important concern chose Kamala Harris, according to exit polls. More than two-thirds of voters deemed the state of the economy to be not good or poor, and 70 percent of them picked Trump.

Porter wants readers to conclude that Biden delivered good policies, but he conveniently fails to provide compelling evidence.

He claims voters should be happy that inflation came down while ignoring the fact that it went up in the first place.

He claims voters should be happy about the unemployment rate, but he ignores the equally important employment rate.

Most important, he fails to address the elephant in the room, which is the fact that families, at best, were on a treadmill during the Biden years. There was little of no increase in household income after adjusting for inflation.

P.S. There must be mass delusion at the Washington Post. One of the paper’s reporters claimed earlier this year that Biden produced a “booming” economy. And the New York Times isn’t any better.

P.P.S. Regarding presidential rankings on economic policy, only Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had unambiguously good records, while Trump’s first term was an incoherent mix of good and bad. I didn’t do an official ranking of the Bush 41 (George H.W. Bush), but he would have a dismal score (like his son).

Open Borders America: Migrants Flock to ‘The Beast’ Train

Texas’ bold new campaign, Homan’s warning to migrants, and Newsom’s plans to thwart 

Trump. by Kelli Ballard | Dec 27, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Illegal Immigration, Opinion

 

Editor’s note: Join Liberty Nation News each week to stay updated on the nationwide ramifications of an open borders America.

Migrants Boarding ‘The Beast’ Train

There are many transportation methods migrants use to cross illegally into the US, each with its own unique risks, but one of the most dangerous is riding the train called “The Beast.” This locomotive travels throughout Mexico and stops near the border. It does not carry passengers – well, not intentionally – so when migrants choose to ride, they do so by climbing atop the railcars.

“La Bestia” is known as one of the deadliest trains in Mexico. Every year, around 500,000 migrants board these “death trains” from Central America and Venezuela, and many have lost life and limb by falling off freight cars. A security consultant told the New York Post: “It is very dangerous. When they are on top of the trains some of the migrants push each other off because there is so little space. I show a video in my talks of one person being sliced in half after he falls off a train and onto the wheels.”

Now that President-elect Trump is getting ready to take office and bring back his tough-on immigration policies, more migrants are risking their lives aboard the death trains before the inevitable slew of Executive Orders lands on January 20. Claudia Rios, a Durango resident who lives near the train stop, told NewsNation that she has seen more than 200 people attempt to board one of the trains in recent days.

“Lately they come very aggressive, like all the good, all the kind migrants have crossed, because in this group that’s coming, they’re fighting among themselves,” Rios said, adding that she’s seen an alarming number of children and even people in wheelchairs trying to board.

Texas’ Bold New Ad Campaign

The Lonestar State has led the way lately in finding innovative methods to deter illegal migrants from crossing. From razor wire fences to busing illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities and states, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has been actively fighting against the influx of the undocumented. His newest plan involves an ad campaign warning migrants of the dangers they face with startling scripts on billboards such as:

“How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?”

“Many girls are raped by the coyotes you hire.”

“Your wife and daughter will pay for the trip with their bodies.”

“Coyotes lie. Don’t put your family at risk.”

The plan is to put up 40 billboards with these messages in four different languages, which will be posted in Mexico and Central America. In a news conference in Eagle Pass, TX, the governor said, “The message is, ‘Do not risk a dangerous trip just to be arrested and deported.”

WOLA, Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas, noted three “alarming trends,” including the fact that “kidnapping and extortion of migrants has increased notably since late 2023. Many describe this moment as the worst period of violence they have seen, both in numbers and brutality.” The organization also said that “many Mexican authorities tolerate or are actively involved in the migrant kidnapping enterprise.”

Homan Warns Parents Will Be Separated From Their Children

Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan, warned that with the new immigration policies, parents will be separated from their children who were born in the US. He explained, though, that families would be allowed to decide whether to leave together.

“Here’s the issue,” he said, “you knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”

Homan also claimed that the new administration would be reintroducing detention centers for families but that they would be “soft-sided” tent structures. “We need to show the American people we can do this and not be inhumane about it,” he explained. “We can’t lose the faith of the American people.”

Newsom’s Plans to Thwart Trump

California Governor Gavin Newsom and his team are on an urgent hunt to find ways to thwart incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, and not everyone approves.

Kick Back and Ditch the Matrix

As Liberty Nation News reported earlier this month, Newsom held a special legislative meeting to discuss ways to circumvent laws that will see migrants deported from the country. One idea was creating a litigation fund of up to $25 million to help fight against any policies that would “harm the state,” according to a release from the governor’s office.

A draft of the plan obtained by Politico proposes the “creation of an Immigrant Support Network comprised of regional ‘hubs’ to connect at-risk individuals, their families, and communities with community systems – such as legal services, schools, labor unions, local governments, etc.”

An internal memo described some of the suggestions, although there weren’t a lot of details. Ronald Vitiello, former US Border Patrol chief, told Fox & Friends:

“We just had an election on November 5. People voted for secure borders, safe streets and knowing that the president was going to initiate a deportation effort, not just because he wants to, but because we just had about 12 million people enter the country and be encountered by CBP crossing the border illegally. Something must be done about what just happened over the last four years, and now he [Newsom] wants to use the state’s funds and the state infrastructure to flout federal law.”

He continued: “This is a state that has some of the highest income taxes in the country, some of the highest sales tax in the country, and has got a $68 billion deficit… so he’s going to use taxpayer resources to protect who, exactly? People who are in the country illegally, who broke the law to be there and have also broken the law in the jurisdictions in which they live in California.”

What will next week and the new year bring us in Open Borders America?

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Kelli Ballard National Correspondent

Have Yourself a Very Biden Christmas

“We thought that they (MAGA) were idiots. It turned out that we (Democrats and leftwing media) were idiots.” —CNN liberal commentator Van Jones, following Election Day 

By Robin Itzler

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK 

 

In less than one month, Joe Biden FINALLY leaves office. We sincerely hope Joe and Jill attend the inauguration and that Donald Trump’s speech attacks Joey for doing so much to destroy the United States of America. Wouldn’t it be satisfying if the “Big Guy” had to sit in the front row and listen to Trump’s recital of all of Biden’s multiple failings? Joey thinks he did a great job!

Through the end of November 2024, U.S. retailers have announced 7,100+ store closures. That’s a whopping 69 percent increase from the previous year, according to research firm CoreSight. In those 11 months, 45 retailers have filed for bankruptcy compared to 25 for all of 2023.

In November, companies announced 57,727 job cuts. This was a 3.8 percent increase from October. Moreover, it was the fourth-highest number of November job cuts since 2008. As you can see from this sample, layoffs are happening in many industries.

1. 23andMe (ancestry) - Will be laying off 40 percent of its workforce (200 employees). 
2. Airbus (aviation) - Is letting 500 employees go. 
3. Big Lots (retail) - The retail store announced on December 19 that it would going out of business. 
4. Boeing (aviation) - Laying off 700 from its workforce. 
5. General Motors (automotive) - Will be laying off 1,000 employees. 
6. Ingram Micro (IT services and outsourcing) - Laying off 850 people. 
7. KPMG (financial services) - Reducing its workforce by 300. 
8. Meow Wolf (art) - Reduced its staff by 75 positions companywide (about 20 percent of its non-exhibition workers). 
9. Sotheby’s (auction house) - Has laid off 100 employees in another round of layoffs. The last one was in September. Tyson (food) - Announced it would be laying off 800 employees from its Emporia, Kansas facility. 
10. Walmart (retail) - Why would a retail store close just days before Christmas? 
11. The Huntsville, Alabama location was shuttered with 80 people out of work on December 20.

Joe Biden’s Legacy Hits the Wall

A final act of vengeance makes him look smaller than ever.

by Tim Donner | Dec 18, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

In many ways, it seems Joe Biden has all but abdicated the presidency. As Donald Trump seizes the spotlight and takes center stage as the most active president-elect in memory, cutting deals with tech moguls and foreign leaders, Biden is nowhere to be seen or heard. That is, unless it’s to pardon his son – an act roundly condemned by the American people and even many of his allies. Oh, and then there was his appearance at Washington’s Kennedy Center to receive a standing ovation from perhaps the only audience in the nation that would even consider such a tribute in the dying days of his failed presidency.

Until Dec. 17, the 46th president had refused to exercise even minimal leadership on the matter of mysterious drones blanketing New Jersey, sparking all manner of conspiracy theories that cannot be ruled out due to his silence. He has granted a record number of pardons and commutations – starting with Hunter Biden – designed to make himself look merciful, but he has even failed in such virtue-signaling, sparking outrage in commuting the sentence of a flagrantly corrupt judge. However, perhaps most revealing in his somnambulistic final days in power is an order that is effectively a middle finger to his predecessor/successor and the American people.

Spite or Sabotage?

In an act that many would agree is spiteful at best, the enfeebled 46th president has ordered auctions to unload crucial steel components for the wall on our southern border for pennies on the dollar. Some might say it’s an act of personal retribution for first lady Jill Biden making goo-goo eyes at Trump during the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. But in the end, it is a hideous act of sabotage by a man once widely perceived as genial and compassionate but now seen by many or most as mean and petty.

When Biden initially ordered that existing materials for the wall be stockpiled or sold shortly after taking office in 2021, little was made of it since he had won the 2020 election, and his open border policies had yet to make their devastating impact and ultimately enrage the citizenry. But now, with a solid majority of the public favoring mass deportation of the millions of illegal immigrants allowed – or encouraged – to cross the border on his watch, it can only be viewed as undiluted vengeance that stands to attract more illegal immigrants and weaken national security. Of course, if Biden were actually concerned about matters of security, he would never have offered a de facto open invitation to migrants from dozens of countries now spread across the land who have overwhelmed communities far and wide. He did so simply as a one-finger salute to his predecessor, and now he is doubling down as the door prepares to hit him on his way out of the Oval Office.

Since he researched and ordered these components during his first administration, Trump will likely be able to replace them relatively quickly, which actually makes Biden’s order look even more shameful. But what this move accomplishes is to force the incoming president to re-initiate the nasty funding fight over the wall he endured during his first administration. The president-elect, as is his wont, did not mince words in condemning the decision. “We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on building the same wall we already have,” Trump said on Dec. 16. “It’s almost a criminal act … I’m asking today, Joe Biden, to please stop selling the wall,” Trump added, as he considers legal action and works with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to explore the possibility of a restraining order that would halt the auctions.

The Biden Legacy in Tatters

Part of the current Defense Authorization Act (DAA) allows the administration to sell or donate unused components of the border wall, but only if they are used to refurbish existing barriers. The DAA does not authorize an auction. However, as Biden issued the order without a public announcement in an attempt to quietly avenge his vice president’s resounding defeat, he has accomplished little more than add a last-minute act of pure retribution to a legacy already in tatters.

It’s News, Captain – But Different!

The volume of steel being hauled off near Tucson, AZ, a hot spot for illegal border crossings, is breathtaking. In an exclusive report by the Daily Wire, one border agent stated that a half-mile’s worth of parts, which cost taxpayers an estimated $300 million in total, is being hauled away every day in an effort to complete the project by Christmas. Trump originally invested a total of $15 billion in the construction of the wall, completing roughly 450 miles, with another 250 miles in process, before leaving office. One might have thought Biden would do little or nothing in his final days to avoid further scrutiny of his disastrous reversal of Trump’s border policies. Instead, he has done the opposite.

As they prepare to leave office, many presidents concern themselves with their enduring legacies. With his public support plummeting, Jimmy Carter fought for and succeeded in brokering an accord between Israel and Egypt. Bill Clinton went all out in seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Absent such a last grand act, Biden could have simply walked away like other presidents and handed over the keys to the Oval Office. But now the final lines of his legacy will be a pardon of his son – while laughingly and ironically criticizing his own Justice Department for weaponizing the law – and sabotaging a major and popular priority of the incoming administration. Biden has taken his humiliating legacy and made it even more impossible for historians to sugarcoat in the years ahead.

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Read More From Tim Donner Senior Political Analyst