President Biden has, for the most part, taken up his Democrat predecessor’s philosophy of “leading from behind” in all that he does as President.
In the area of handling the COVID pandemic, he chose to pause the manufacture of tests in the middle of 2021. Only when Omicron reared its ugly head did he order more test kits. While his people lauded the fact that he would send free test kits to every household in America that wanted them, they arrived after that variant surged had ended and most cases and hospitalizations were on the decline. Likewise, unlike Trump’s forward approach of manufacturing the vaccines before they were approved by the FDA, he did nothing on new therapeutics until the FDA approved them in February. Thankfully there should be an adequate amount of those by June, long after the need has diminished (short of another variant rearing its ugly head).
He has abdicated leadership
In the area of foreign policy, he has taken the approach of trust and then react if something goes wrong. He lifted sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Europe, encouraging their dependence on Russian dirty natural gas. He watched as Russia amassed more than a hundred thousand troops on the border of Ukraine and promised harsh sanctions only if Russian troops moved in. Troops moved in and sanctions were put in place a bit at a time, including re-implementing sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Then he announced that he wanted to give it a month to see how they worked. This while Ukrainian citizens are living in subway tunnels and bomb shelters while every able bodied man fights valiantly to preserve their freedom. Only after significant pressure from the American People and European allies did he add some restrictions to the use of the SWIFT banking system, except where it would be used to allow Russia to sell its oil and natural gas to the United States, Europe and others.
When it comes to China, he has chosen to pursue almost none of the CCP’s violations of international law. He has dropped any pursuit of the actual point of origin of Covid in China. Recently he called off the investigation into China’s extensive intellectual property theft through our universities. Little is said or done as China positions itself for a likely attack on democratic Taiwan. Perhaps we aren’t far enough behind yet to take action. Once again, trust China and we can react if they behave badly.
He has abdicated leadership altogether when it comes to the southern border of the United States. Illegal migrants are flowing through the southern border by the millions while his administration arranges late night flights for these law breakers into interior cities. He seems not to be aware that these people are coming from all over the world, including from enemy countries. He also seems not to notice that hundreds of thousands over our citizens are dying from fentanyl that is flowing through the open border. Most of that fentanyl is being made in China but it is obviously not time to act on that yet either.
He has crippled America’s capability to drill for oil and natural gas, taking us from energy independence to importing 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia
There is one area where Biden can truthfully say that he is taking a strong leadership position. He has crippled America’s capability to drill for oil and natural gas, taking us from energy independence to importing 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia. In February, he also pulled US support for a natural gas pipeline into Europe from the Mediterranean Sea. This killed that project without going through the agreed upon protocols within the project agreement with Israel, Greece and Cypress. These moves leave Europe with no place else to look for oil and natural gas than to Russia. This has given Vladimir Putin significant leverage in the world order and is financing his illegal war. The Biden administration has proudly said that they would rather seek renewable energy solutions for these vulnerabilities. He is way out front on this one as there is currently no economically viable renewable energy solution that could meet the world’s demand for energy.
Most would love to see a viable clean energy source developed however it makes no sense to hurt ourselves economically and have us bowing at the feet of an evil megalomaniac to carry us through in the interim. If climate change enthusiasts spent as much time and money researching to develop improved opportunities for renewable energy as they do trying to punish those who use fossil fuels by artificially inflating prices, we would likely have something viable developed much sooner.
Jack Meyer——Bio and Archives
Jack Meyer spent 43 years in business management, including 23 years in domestic and international operations with FedEx. He has been partner or sole owner in three businesses. He has been politically active, writing in support of national and state candidates, for the past ten years. Most of his writings have been posted in various online publications. He is recently retired and remains involved in writing, both political opinion and fiction.
