The beginning of a new president’s tenure is often rough and tumble. Former-President Donald Trump’s certainly was. And President Joe Biden’s is also following that well-worn path.
In 2019, for the first time in 62 years the US achieved energy independence, or higher energy production than its energy consumption. But this good energy project, the Keystone XL pipeline, had been targeted by candidate Biden, and was ended by executive order, almost before Biden’s hand came down after taking the oath of office.
The pipeline would have transported 830,000 barrels of crude oil each day from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska. We haven’t lost access to that oil, but it will now be transported overland by trucks and trains instead of underground by pipe.
When you consider that about 70 percent of US petroleum products are already transported through roughly 200,000 miles of pipelines, why was canceling the XL pipeline project of such importance? Though used to move far less petroleum product, truck and train transportation are where a majority of mishaps occur. Trucks and trains also produce more CO2 than a pipeline.
The initial effect of this foolish move was to immediately end a thousand good-paying jobs. Roughly 10,000 more good jobs will not be created. And, $3.4 billion will never be added to the gross domestic product.
Another self-inflicted wound is the senseless change in attitude and policy addressing the security of our southern border and the constant entry of illegal aliens.
“Statistics released Wednesday by US border officials reveal that the surge of children at the US-Mexico border is worse than previously reported,” according to a story in the New York Post last week, “with nearly 30,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the border in a single month.”
The Post continued: “The one-month total in February is nearly as high as the count of unaccompanied minors in the entire year of 2020 and is five times higher than the 5,871 unaccompanied minors in January, which itself was an increase from 4,995” in the month following the Presidential Election.
More than 100,000 illegal aliens entered the country in Biden’s first full month, compared to 36,000 for the same period in 2020, an increase of 170 percent since Biden suspended the border security system. Most are not being tested for COVID, and of those who were tested, 10 percent were positive.
For tweeting the truth that illegals were bringing the virus with them into the US, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had his Twitter account suspended. Yet another blunder for Twitter owner Jack Dorsey and company.
To make a bad situation worse, most of these illegals are being released into the country, and sometimes are taken by bus to areas far away from the border, as far as New York.
Does anybody know who these people really are? Are 100 percent of them good people merely looking for a better life? No. How many are drug users or dealers, gang members, child traffickers or pedophiles, other types of sex offenders, or are infected with the virus. I don’t know. You don’t know. And Joe Biden doesn’t know.
The Epoch Times reported that 22 wanted felons were captured recently at the border in Texas, and that the Biden administration has proposed a plan to legalize an estimated 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States.
If anyone thinks Biden’s border policy is foolish, this information certainly does nothing to contradict that idea. And, more than a few of those wishing to enter the US illegally were wearing tee shirts proclaiming “Biden please let us in.”
Yet, the administration continues to call this crisis a mere “challenge.”
Biden seems dedicated to the idea of overturning every action taken by his predecessor, even the good things. Of course, the Democrats do not acknowledge, or admit, that Donald Trump’s administration did anything good. It is a fool’s errand to try to compare the border situation under Biden with the much-better results under Trump.
During the Biden administration’s first two months of existence, the wall on the southern border has been halted, and a border wall around the US Capitol, and the National Guard security there have been maintained. This has the effect of making it easier for people -- some of whom are violent criminals -- to waltz into the country, and harder for citizens to access the people’s house.
Of those two conditions we know that the threat of illegal entry along the southern border is real; we don’t know that the alleged threat of illegal activities at the Capitol is real.
Biden seems content to rule by executive orders, sometimes circumventing the proper lawmaking process through Congress. And he gives public statements, occasionally answers a question shouted by reporters, but does not hold actual news conferences.
This behavior gives some the idea that the Biden administration will be more of an authoritarian one than it will be the administration of a democratic republic. And his behavior with the press gives credence to the idea that he is unable to speak to the press and the public without a teleprompter.
The Biden administration may ultimately be as bad as many expect.
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