Politics

From inflation to jobs to the border, Biden is flailing — when will the media notice?

If the media could take a break from obsessing over the House Republicans choosing a new conference chair, they might have noticed that Joe Biden’s presidency is falling apart.

On every major front, Biden is flailing — even by the depressingly low bar set for him by the Washington press corps.

April just saw the highest rate of inflation in 13 years, according to the Department of Labor. Prices for everything, including food and gasoline, immediately skyrocketed after Biden’s $2 trillion welfare scheme (sometimes referred to as a “stimulus package”) went into effect and flooded the economy with more money than anyone knows what to do with.

Biden’s preoccupation? Spending even more.

The unemployment rate actually went up from March to April, even as Biden bragged that he’s the one responsible for mass vaccinations that are, at least in theory, supposed to be moving people back into the workforce. But no, his extension of the obscene amount of federal unemployment benefits has would-be workers choosing to sit pretty at home cashing government checks. Those benefits don’t end for another four months, assuming they aren’t extended again (you can never assume anything with Nancy Pelosi in charge).

President Joe Biden has struggled in his early months at the top of the executive branch, writes Eddie Scarry. Evan Vucci/AP

Fuel is running out in several states after the US fell under attack from what appears to be a Russia-based cyber-hacking group that locked up one of the East Coast’s major fuel ­pipelines.

The White House response to the crippling of a critical energy supply has been to throw its hands up and say, “Sorry, but the pipeline is a private company.” Whaddaya do?
After acknowledging how “seriously” Biden took the matter, he said Monday at the White House that his administration is “committed to safeguarding our critical infrastructure.” But, he added, “much of [it] is privately owned and managed, like Colonial. Private entities are making their own determination on ­cybersecurity.”

Food prices have gone up with inflation, according to DOL data. Sha Hanting/China News Service via Getty Images

The media expected former President Trump to micromanage every state’s response to the pandemic. Biden is given a complete pass on a devastating attack on a major artery of our energy supply.

Drivers line up to fill their tanks with gas at the Kroger station in Mississippi after after the cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline. Barbara Gauntt/The Clarion-Ledger via AP

Last month saw yet another increase in the number of migrants illegally crossing the wide open border. In February, the first full month of Biden’s presidency, border agents encountered 100,000 migrants at the border. In March, it was another 173,000. In April, 179,000. Those numbers are higher than in any month of Trump’s presidency.

April saw a huge surge in migrants at the southern border. AFP via Getty Images

But it’s not a surprise. Though Biden made a big show about dumping a mess he created into his vice president’s lap to fix, everyone south of Texas knows the real deal. Biden promised an open border and he began to deliver on the promise the moment he came into office, dismantling the highly complex and effective system of rules and actions Trump had put in place.

Of the nearly 180,000 migrants encountered at the border last month, 17,000 of them were unaccompanied minors. All of them are now the responsibility of you, the American taxpayer, as the Biden administration loads them up with free health care, free education and free legal services.

On the domestic front, Biden is pushing divisive racial curriculum when kids in big Democratic cities aren’t even back in classrooms. Crime is up, particularly shootings.

Meanwhile, the Middle East has exploded, Russia has closed portions of the Black Sea and China is harassing fishing vessels. But let’s get back into the failed Iran ­nuclear deal.

Rockets are launched from Gaza City by Hamas toward Israel. AFP via Getty Images

If Biden were a Republican, he’d be taking more heat.

But hey, he’s running a squeaky clean operation, not a scandal in sight, right?
Yet Axios reports that Biden is breaking ethics rules, exempting senior White House officials from restrictions that would normally limit or prohibit the policy work they can do with labor unions that had previously paid their salaries.

So now former union officials are writing legislation to give more money to . . . unions, even as less than 11 percent of the workforce is unionized.

Not that the media need any additional help working hand in glove with the White House to advance Biden’s vision, but Politico reported Tuesday that White House staff requires reporters to submit quotes from officials that they want to use for approval before story publication. That means when reporters talk to White House staff, they must first get approval from Biden’s communications team to use any quotes from officials in their stories.

If the media objects, they would likely have no quotes at all — since Biden is so scarcely available for questions from the press. He takes around three or four after each televised address on the economy or the pandemic but he is otherwise kept cloistered away in the White House.

Data says the US has seen its highest inflation rate in over a decade. Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

An anemic economy, an overrun border and a seedy White House all make for a crumbling presidency. But hey, what do you think Liz Cheney is doing right now?