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Biden’s Foul Language
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a Hanukkah reception at the White House in Washington, US, Dec. 11, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
JNS.org – Poor Joe Biden. The special counsel investigating Biden’s retention of classified documents found at his home and office justified his belief that criminal charges should not be brought by saying a jury wouldn’t convict a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who has “diminished faculties in advancing age.”
We know that the president fumfers frequently and mixes up names, dates and places. I was on the receiving end of one of his “word salads” at a lunch about 20 years ago after I commented on his negative remarks about then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Suffice it to say, he never addressed my comment and ran out the clock on the meeting.
However, comments made by the president over the past few days show he’s not just easily confused but also a mean old man who knows how to cuss.
Evidence of the former abounds whenever Biden goes off-script during a speech. That’s nothing new for a man who has been in politics for most of his adult life and believes he is Lincoln giving his second inaugural address every time he takes the podium. I believe that’s not only true of Joe Biden but of other elderly politicians as well.
I was once on the speaker’s platform at an event with the late New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg. He got up to speak with the text in his hands. But as he approached the microphone, he folded the speech and put it in his pocket. I heard his aide standing next to me audibly sigh because he knew what was coming next: A rambling talk about why Lautenberg was running for office again at the age of 78. (This was a man who, in his first campaign for the Senate in 1982, hinted his opponent was over the hill because she was 72.)
But two recent incidents show that Biden may have, like Fonzi, “jumped the shark” when it comes to U.S. support for Israel during the current war, making some very nasty comments about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Given the president’s snippiness at recent press conferences, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Biden first called Netanyahu “a f***ing guy” and followed up by calling him an “***hole.”
Biden wouldn’t be the first president to have what are now called “hot mic” moments, in which words are said that are not really intended for widespread publication, as they would make the speaker look bad or insult an important person.
Here are three incidents:
In 1984, during a microphone test before a radio address, then-President Ronald Reagan joked, “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
“The Gipper,” a former radio announcer, was just being funny. But in humor there is often truth. Underlying his comment was his belief that the Soviet Union was an evil empire. The Russians didn’t think it was funny, but we have to remember that the USSR’s demise began under Reagan.
In 2006, during the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, George W. Bush was caught on a hot mic addressing then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair with the phrase “Yo, Blair.” All was well, though, because the remark drew attention to the close relationship between the two leaders.
During a summit in South Korea in 2012, Barack Obama was caught telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more flexibility to negotiate on issues like missile defense after his reelection. Obama said, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Medvedev responded positively by saying, “I will transmit this information to Vladimir [Putin],” who was serving as Russian prime minister at the time.
But remember that Israel is an American ally and Biden jumped to its aid following the Oct. 7 massacre. He traveled to Israel and sought to neutralize a possible threat to Israel from the Hezbollah/Iran axis by moving two U.S. Navy carrier task forces to the eastern Mediterranean. As the Israel-Hamas war continues, however, Biden’s support may be wavering. Are these comments from the president an indication of this?
At the end of the day, Biden’s comments are far beyond the red line of acceptable diplomatic talk. His language was crude and severely demeaning to a democratically elected prime minister. The lack of response from major Jewish organizations is a sad commentary on how they view Biden and Netanyahu.
We can only hope that Biden’s public coarseness about Netanyahu was a one-off event and not an indication of imminent American policy changes.
The post Biden’s Foul Language first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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