Pearl River        For the record, Joe Biden didn’t lose the election in November.  Sadly, at least in my book, that was Vice-President Harris.  Biden stepped down.  Reportedly, he still believes he could have beaten Trump.  Who cares at this point?  Biden could have slinked off into a corner, and some of the press seems to be thinking that he has become the odd man out between November and the late January inauguration.  The avalanche of actions from Biden on one issue after another, put the lie to that.  The media is addicted to Trump’s madness; if he itches, they scratch.  Meanwhile Biden is locking as many doors as he can and shovelling money out the door like a bank robber.  This isn’t a master class in revenge; it’s a master class in competency and efficiency.  We’re going to miss this over the next four years.

Let’s look at just some of what’s been happening, away from the headlines:

• Stymied by the courts on one student loan forgiveness program after another, he pulled the plans to prevent more bad court decisions and allowed students to apply for forgiveness under the two remaining plans, rather than being stuck in limbo or plummeted by Trump.
• With an anti-vaxxer on the horizon, he pushed out over $300 million to prepare and prevent another pandemic with bird flu knocking on the door, and promised to get the money out the door before Trump takes office.
• Biden drops a some billions to trigger more work on an experimental program to use hydrogen to produce critical energy supplies that would replace greenhouse gas producers with a process that emits water vapors and mist.
• In a master stroke that is hard, if not impossible, to undo, Biden took all of the US coastal waters in the Gulf, Pacific, and Atlantic that had not been subject to oil and gas lease off the table permanently as protected.
• He dropped another bunch of billions to Ukraine before they get stranded and desperate for cover.
• He pardoned a record number of federal prisoners in one day who had been on release during COVID, and then takes 37 federal prisoners who were on death row and converts their time to life in prison without the possibility for parole.
• My bet is that he’s not through yet, and there’s something coming around migrants and immigration as well. Meanwhile the federal agencies have been on fire with decisions, lawsuits, and more, one after another, in trying to “get ‘r done.”

Outside the policy arena, Biden has maximized the symbolic opportunities to show what the office is capable of doing to provide leadership.

• After the tragic New Orleans shooting, Joe and Jill Biden are coming to New Orleans, just as they earlier had visited North Carolina in the wake of the storm destruction.
• Biden correctly ordered flags at half-staff on federal facilities and elsewhere for Jimmy Carter and will be giving his eulogy at a state funeral. Amazingly, Trump on social media complained about the mourning period for Carter in a totally no class move.
• Biden sent messages with his distribution of Medals of Freedom, the highest civilian awards, and in a poignant move, that I appreciated, gave one in an earlier ceremony to Cecile Richards, the former head of Planned Parenthood, and a friend, comrade, and former Local 100 organizer.

Biden is going out a winner.