From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

I’ve written frequently here in recent years about the financial fiasco that has hit Ford Motor Company and other big U.S. carmakers who made the fateful decision to go in whole hog in 2021 to feed at the federal subsidy trough wrought on the U.S. economy by the Joe Biden autopen presidency. It was crony capitalism writ large, federal rent seeking on the grandest scale in U.S. history, and only now are the chickens coming home to roost.

Ford announced on Monday that it will be forced to take $19.5 billion in special charges as its management team embarks on a corporate reorganization in a desperate attempt to unwind the financial carnage caused by its failed strategies and investments in the electric vehicles space since 2022.

Cancelled is the Ford F-150 Lightning, the full-size electric pickup that few could afford and fewer wanted to buy, along with planned introductions of a second pricey pickup and fully electric vans and commercial vehicles. Ford will apparently keep making its costly Mustang Mach-E EV while adjusting the car’s features and price to try to make it more competitive. There will be a shift to making more hybrid models and introducing new lines of cheaper EVs and what the company calls “extended range electric vehicles,” or EREVs, which attach a gas-fueled generator to recharge the EV batteries while the car is being driven.

“The $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren’t selling; We’re following customers to where the market is,” Farley said. “We’re going to build up our whole lineup of hybrids. It’s gonna be better for the company’s profitability, shareholders and a lot of new American jobs. These really expensive $70k electric trucks, as much as I love the product, they didn’t make sense. But an EREV that goes 700 miles on a tank of gas, for 90% of the time is all-electric, that EREV is a better solution for a Lightning than the current all-electric Lightning.”

It all makes sense to Mr. Farley, but one wonders how much longer the company’s investors will tolerate his presence atop the corporate management pyramid if the company’s financial fortunes don’t turn around fast.

To Ford’s and Farley’s credit, the company has, unlike some of its competitors (GM, for example), been quite transparent in publicly revealing the massive losses it has accumulated in its EV projects since 2022. The company has reported its EV enterprise as a separate business unit called Model-E on its financial filings, enabling everyone to witness its somewhat amazing escalating EV-related losses since 2022:

• 2022 – Net loss of $2.2 billion

• 2023 – Net loss of $4.7 billion

• 2024 – Net loss of $5.1 billion

Add in the company’s $3.6 billion in losses recorded across the first three quarters of 2025, and you arrive at a total of $15.6 billion net losses on EV-related projects and processes in less than four calendar years. Add to that the financial carnage detailed in Monday’s announcement and the damage from the company’s financial electric boogaloo escalates to well above $30 billion with Q4 2025’s damage still to be added to the total.

Ford and Farley have benefited from the fact that the company’s lineup of gas-and-diesel powered cars have remained strongly profitable, resulting in overall corporate profits each year despite the huge EV-related losses. It is also fair to point out that all car companies were under heavy pressure from the Biden government to either produce battery electric vehicles or be penalized by onerous federal regulations.

Now, with the Trump administration rescinding Biden’s harsh mandates and canceling the absurdly unattainable fleet mileage requirements, Ford and other companies will be free to make cars Americans actually want to buy. Better late than never, as they say, but the financial fallout from it all is likely just beginning to be made public.

• David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

  MxM News

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced a wave of public anger Sunday when he appeared at a memorial vigil at Bondi Beach honoring the victims of last week’s brutal terrorist attack on a Hanukkah celebration. The Labor leader was met with loud boos, cries of “shame,” and jeers of “you are not welcome” from furious attendees who blame his government for failing to confront a rise in antisemitism.

Albanese, accompanied by his wife and security detail, appeared visibly rattled as shouts of “blood on your hands” rang out while he walked through the crowd. The hostility didn’t let up during the vigil itself—when the prime minister’s name was mentioned by a speaker, fresh boos erupted.

“Shame on You”

“You are NOT welcome”

Bondi, Australia – Australian Prime Minister @AlboMP heckled by mourners of Bondi Chanukah Massacre@theage @theheraldsun @australian @abcnews @SBSNews @cnnbrk @Jerusalem_Post @nytimes @BBCBreaking @9NewsAUS @10NewsAU @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/C2xusWFDxQ

— Menachem Vorchheimer (@MenachemV) December 21, 2025

Critics are now intensifying their attacks on Albanese’s left-wing administration, accusing it of turning a blind eye to Jewish concerns in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 rampage in Israel. Among them is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last week publicly condemned Albanese in an interview with Sky News Australia, saying the terrorist violence in Bondi was “preventable” and that his government had ignored clear warnings about a brewing antisemitic threat.

Footage unearthed by Sky News has only added fuel to the fire. In the video, a younger Albanese is seen at a pro-Palestinian rally standing beside signs declaring “Stop the Israeli Slaughter: Free Palestine Now.” During that demonstration, the future prime minister took aim at Israel’s military, aligning himself with anti-Israel activists. Reports also resurfaced showing that Albanese traveled to meet with the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1998—on a trip reportedly funded by the Palestinian Authority.

Despite the growing discontent, Jewish leaders urged the community not to lose hope. David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, opened the Bondi vigil by acknowledging the deep pain felt across the country, calling last week’s massacre a turning point. “We have lost our innocence… our nation has been stained,” Ossip said. But he pointed to the message of Hanukkah as a source of strength: “A single act of courage, a single flame of hope, can give us direction and point the path forward.”

That message stood in stark contrast to the political reality facing Albanese, whose approval ratings have been shaken by his perceived indifference and growing ties to far-left factions that demonize Israel. The backlash now confronting him is not just about a vigil—it’s about years of silence, a pattern of political posturing, and a government many feel has abandoned the people it claims to represent.