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Goodbye to Joe Biden, and Whoever Was President the Last Four Years

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6 minute read

From Racket News

By Matt Taibbi

The “Invisible Presidency” is an all-time criminal, and must not be allowed to flee

I saw His Majesty myself about half past twelve o’clock. His conversation was so hurried, and, though not unconnected or irrational, so unlike his ordinary manner that I certainly should not have thought it proper to have taken his signature or his pleasure to any Act.

— Spencer Perceval, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an 1810 letter about King George III

King George III went mad as a March hare, talking until he foamed at the mouth, writing 400-word sentences, threatening to “befoul himself,” holding conversations with imaginary people, and insisting he had power to reanimate the dead. Contemporary notes often describe him “in restraint” and “lost in reverie.” His last, worst phase began in 1810, his 50th in power, a jubilee year requiring constant public appearances. The Last King of America by Andrew Roberts shows it can be done:

No fewer than 650 public events — parades, receptions, luncheons, bonfires, firework displays, illuminations and the like — took place in England alone; there were many more across the rest of the United Kingdom and in the empire beyond.

Joe Biden said goodbye to America Wednesday night. The most controversial part of an otherwise weirdly half-assed address (maybe his writers have stopped caring?) was a warning. “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence,” he said, a “tech industrial complex” that “literally threatens our entire democracy.”

Biden always loved the word “literally.” He’s been misusing it for decades, from “we literally can’t survive” four more years of Bush policy, to the 2008 election winner having an opportunity “literally to change the direction of the world,” to Barack Obama’s story being “literally incredible,” to saying he’s “literally rebuilding our entire nation,” and on and on. With Bidenterms like look, here’s the deal, let me tell you, I promise you, and C’mon, Biden says “literally” often enough to make “Word Crimes” singer Weird Al Yankovic want to “literally smack a crowbar upside your stupid head.” Here, it’s at least a sign that Biden might have added to the speech on his own.

Most all Biden speeches are acknowledged (LincolnObama) or unacknowledged (Neil KinnockJohn Kennedy) homages to other politicians. This last one Biden attempt at an Eisenhower impersonation is backward. We’re warned about an “oligarchy,” which Webster’s defines as “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.” He tries to tag disobedient billionaires like Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg (as opposed to Reid Hoffman, Bill and Melinda Gates, Steven Schwartzman, etc.) as this new oligarchy, but there’s one even closer to home, which Biden later in the speech referenced:

In the years ahead… it is going to be up to the president, the presidency, the congress, the courts, the free press and the American people… I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands… Now it’s your turn to stand guard.

Biden’s possibly ad-libbed distinction between “president” and “presidency” was the most inspired line of his political career. America just went through four years in which the public was conned into viewing two stories as one. The first was about Joe Biden the human being, a disintegrating flesh-and-blood patsy, conscripted to such a miserably slapstick public regimen that it was impossible not to feel sorry for him. The second was about the presidency, which for years now has been like the eponymous Claude Rains villain in The Invisible Man: an unseen monster.

For four years, while Buster Keatonesque videos of stumblingtumbling Biden filled social media, just a handful of clues leaked about the ethereal “Presidency” running the American superpower. The latter existed separate from Biden and is scheduled to slither aside Monday. It exits on a bitter note, blaming an “avalanche of misinformation and disinformation” (not enough censorship) for its inability to be re-elected while strapped to a corpse. It hopes to get away unseen and probably will, as reporters prepare to chase the great baited hook that is Donald Trump. It’s too bad James Whale is dead, since this monster’s story will make a great horror movie someday.

Here are two sincere notes of farewell, to the hapless shrinking man Joe Biden, and to his more powerful partner, the “Presidency” :

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Business

Trump signs order forcing agencies to work with DOGE

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From The Center Square

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Billionaire Elon Musk joined President Donald Trump in the oval office Tuesday as the president signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to work with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

The order will require federal agencies to work with DOGE to significantly reduce their labor force.

A White House fact sheet, first reported by Semafor, says the order requires agencies hire “no more than one employee for every four employees” that are fired, with some exceptions, including for public safety and law enforcement.

DOGE and Musk have dominated the news cycle since Trump took office by exposing an onslaught of controversial federal spending, most notably as USAID, an agency that has been all but destroyed since Trump took office.

While with his young son Lil X, Musk spoke to reporters about DOGE’s efforts to instill what he calls “common sense controls” on federal spending.

“If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives, by the form of the President, the Senate, and the House, then we don’t live in a democracy,” Musk said. “We live in a bureaucracy.”

The national debt is on track to hit $37 trillion this year, and interest payments on the debt are now one of the largest federal expenses.

Trump touted the cuts to corruption and “kickbacks” in the government when speaking to reporters.

“The public gets it,” Trump said.

Musk responded to criticisms that the agency cuts are a “hostile takeover.”

“The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get,” Musk said. “That’s what democracy is all about.”

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Energy

Bipartisan groups in Congress introduce bill to protect strategic petroleum reserve

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A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a bill to limit, not prohibit, the sale of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

The Banning SPR Oil Exports to Foreign Adversaries Act was filed in the U.S. Senate by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, John Fetterman, D-Penn., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. U.S. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn, Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, and Jay Obernolte, R-Calif. filed the bill in the U.S. House.

Instead of repealing provisions of a 10-year-old law to ban the sale or export of SPR oil, the bill seeks to amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to prohibit the sale or export of SPR oil to certain countries and entities. It would ban SPR oil from being sold or exported to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, Russian Federation, Islamic Republic of Iran, any entity owned or controlled by these countries or the Chinese Communist Party.

The SPR is the largest publicly stored emergency supply of petroleum in the world – solely supplied by the U.S. oil industry, led by Texas. The SPR was created after a U.S. energy crisis erupted from a 1973 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo and Carter administration inflationary policies.

Underground tanks in Texas and Louisiana have the capacity to hold more than 700 million barrels of petroleum. Instead of passing balanced budgets, in 2015, Congress mandated that the U.S. Department of Energy sell SPR oil to fund its deficit spending.

Since then, the DOE has sold SPR reserves to the highest bidder through competitive public auctions to anyone in the world. During the Biden and Trump administrations, foreign companies with direct ties to American adversaries purchased SPR oil for anti-democratic regimes.

In 2022, in response to energy policies he implemented that directly contributed to high energy costs and inflation, President Joe Biden instructed the DOE to release 1 million barrels of SPR oil a day for 180 days. Chinese companies benefited from the sale, purchasing large quantities. The 2022 release was the largest SPR sale in U.S. history, according to US Energy Information Administration data.

Biden left the SPR with less than 395 million barrels of crude oil. Under the first Trump administration, the SPR exceeded 695 million barrels. Under the Obama administration, it exceeded 726 million barrels.

“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is meant to protect the U.S. during crises, not supply our adversaries,” Cruz said. “Under President Biden, part of this reserve was sold, benefiting China’s strategic interests. There is strong bipartisan consensus around preventing such a sale from being repeated.”

“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve protects America’s energy, economic, and national security,” Fetterman said. “We must prioritize the safety of America and our allies – we cannot allow our adversaries to purchase oil from our critical energy reserves. This is a commonsense bill with strong bipartisan support.”

Their efforts follow a bipartisan initiative to protect the SPR that was incorporated in the Fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Cruz and Houlahan introduced amendments to their respective chamber’s version of the NDAA, which included similar provisions to this bill. Cruz’s amendment received bipartisan support in the Senate. Houlahan’s amendment unanimously passed in the House.

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