Tag: joe biden

Washington Abandons All Norms To Arm Israel

Despite the U.S. not vetoing a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during the month of Ramadan, the Biden administration continues to prove itself as a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Washington has previously used its veto powers to block three UNSC resolutions on Gaza, staying true to its role as the main political and economic backer of Israel with its steady supply of arms to support the military offensive. However, by abstaining from voting on Resolution 2728 (2024), it was successfully passed with 14 votes in favor. While the U.S. did not strike down the resolution, eyebrows have been raised after numerous U.S. officials described the resolution as “non-binding.”

“Of course, we still have Israels back. As you and I are speaking, we are still providing tools and capabilities, weapon systems, so Israel can defend itself,” said the White House National Security Communications Advisor, John Kirby, in a press interview. “Again, no change by this non-binding resolution on what Israel can and cannot do in terms of defending itself,” he added.

Additionally, both the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and the U.S. State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, have repeatedly referred to the resolution as “non-binding.”

All UN Security Council resolutions are binding, as is made clear under Article 25 of the U.N. Charter: “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.” Additional confirmation can be found in the 1971 advisory opinion on the question of Namibia by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which established that all UNSC resolutions are indeed legally binding.

Despite the indisputability of the resolution being binding, Washington continues its attempts to jump through hoops to discredit this fact. The U.S ambassador to the UN argued that since the resolution does not fall under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and therefore does not authorize the use of force to implement it.

Richard Gowan, a former senior official at the UN who currently works at NGO International Crisis Group, provided his insight on Washington’s interpretation in an interview.

“It is clear that the resolution does not contain any enforcement mechanism of its own, and if other Council members proposed sanctions against Israel for non-compliance, the U.S. would veto them,” he said. “So ultimately the resolution is an important diplomatic sign about the need for a ceasefire, but it has little force.”

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Former ESPN host Sage Steele says her questions for interviewing Joe Biden were ‘scripted to the word’ and she was told not to deviate or ask follow-ups

A former ESPN host who interviewed Joe Biden in 2021 is now saying the entire interview was ‘scripted to the word’ by network executives and that she was forbidden from asking follow-ups. 

Sage Steele, who formerly hosted ESPN’s SportsCenter and worked for the network for 16 years, revealed her bosses at the time of the interview carefully crafted each of her questions. 

She claims she was handed a script by her ESPN boss and was threatened not to drift from what the executives had written for her to say. 

‘I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out, you will not deviate from the script,” she told Fox News. 

‘To the word. Every single question was scripted, gone over dozens of times by many editors and executives,’ she continued. ‘I was on script and was told not to deviate.’

‘It was very much ‘This is what you will ask. This is how you will say it. No follow-ups.”

‘This went up to the fourth floor, as we said, where all the bosses, the top executives, the decision makers are, the president of our company, the CEO, where they all worked,’ she continued. 

Though Steele is unsure whether ESPN sent the scripted questions to the Biden administration in advance, she expressed that she was confident that’s ‘what happened.’

ESPN declined to comment.  

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Biden Administration Made $236 Billion in ‘Improper Payments’ Last Year: GAO Report

An estimated $236 billion in improper or incorrect payments was made under the Biden administration last year, with Medicare and Medicaid accounting for $100 billion of that total, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“For fiscal year 2023, 14 agencies reported a total estimated $236 billion in improper payments across 71 programs,” said a March 26 GAO report. Improper payments refer to payments “that should not have been made or were made in the incorrect amount.” The $236 billion calculation does not include certain government programs that agencies determined were “susceptible to significant improper payments.”

As such, GAO believes the $236 billion estimate “potentially does not represent the full extent of improper payments.”

The group pointed out that improper payments suggest a “material deficiency or weakness in internal controls” at the agencies. “The federal government is unable to determine the full extent of its improper payments or to reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them.”

Medicare accounted for the largest percentage of government incorrect payments, totaling $51.1 billion.

This was followed by Medicaid at $50.3 billion, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance at $43.6 billion, Earned Income Tax Credit at $21.9 billion, and the Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness at $18.7 billion.

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Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rule

A federal judge in Kentucky has struck down a Biden administration rule that required states to measure and report the greenhouse gas emissions from any vehicles traveling on the national highway system.

“With this victory in court, we’re slamming the brakes on the Biden Administration’s politics that make no sense,” said Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, who led a coalition of 21 state attorneys general in suing the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) over the rule that sought to force states to cut carbon dioxide emissions on their roads.

Multiple states that sued over the rule argued that it could dampen job creation and eliminate future economic development.

Judge Benjamin Beaton of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky blocked the FHWA rule in a 26-page order and opinion issued on April 1, calling it “invalid” and “a statutorily unsupported and substantively capricious exercise of the [FHWA] Administrator’s rulemaking authority.”

Judge Beaton only blocked the rule in the 21 plaintiff states, not nationwide. He also asked the parties to file supplemental briefs “on the proper remedy” within three weeks in light of potentially conflicting requirements from other courts.

Asked for comment on the ruling, an FHWA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the agency is reviewing the decision and determining next steps, while remaining committed to supporting the Biden administration’s climate goals.

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Biden administration set to greenlight $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel


The Biden administration is close to approving the sale of as many as 50 American-made F-15 fighter jets to Israel, in a deal expected to be worth more than $18 billion, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The transaction, which would amount to the largest US foreign military sale to Israel since the country went to war with Hamas on October 7, comes as the administration is also expected to notify Congress soon of a large new sale of precision-guided munitions kits to Israel, the people said.

The new sales of some of the US’ most sophisticated weaponry underscore the extent to which the US continues to support Israel militarily, even as Biden administration officials criticize Israel’s operations in Gaza, which have killed more than 32,000 Palestinians since October, according to the Gaza ministry of health.

The sale is likely to be hotly debated in Congress, particularly by members of the president’s own party. US weapons sales to Israel have come under intense scrutiny in recent months and Democratic lawmakers have called for restricting military aid to Israeli until it allows more humanitarian aid into Gaza and does more to protect civilians there.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israel in October, which killed over 1,200 Israelis, the US has made more than 100 foreign military sales to Israel. Most of those have fallen under the specific dollar amount that requires a notification to Congress, an official familiar with the matter previously told CNN.

But an $18 billion F-15 sale is large enough that it requires congressional notification, and the administration informally notified the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees of the F-15 sale in late January, according to two of the people familiar with the matter.

The informal notification gives lawmakers and congressional staff time to review the details and ask questions before the State Department sends a formal notification to all lawmakers.

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Sullivan to meet MBS to push Saudi side of Israel mega-deal

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Thursday about a potential mega-deal that would include Saudi normalization with Israel.

Why it matters: With the war in Gaza ongoing and the U.S. presidential election just seven months away, White House officials admit there’s a slim chance they can pull off the historic peace agreement. Sullivan’s trip shows President Biden is still determined to pursue it.

Behind the scenes: The White House continues to work toward a draft U.S.-Saudi defense treaty and understandings related to U.S. support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program, according to four U.S. and Israeli officials.

  • U.S. officials hope to reach a bilateral agreement with the Saudis and then possibly present it to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose side of the deal would include committing to a path toward a two-state solution.
  • Netanyahu would then face a choice: If he agrees, he could broke a historic peace deal with Saudi Arabia. If he says no, he could be exposed as a rejectionist and lose whatever U.S. support he still has left.
  • The White House declined to comment. The Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

What they’re saying: “There has been lot of progress in the talks between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia about their draft defense treaty. They want to have their side of the deal ready and then put it on our table and say, ‘Take it or leave it,” a senior Israeli official told Axios.

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Ukrainian Drones Hit Russia’s Third-Largest Oil Refinery, Prompting White House Anger

As discussed in our morning wrap, US equity futures are dipping lower as bond yields in the US continue to move higher as crude continues to surge and is up another 2% on growing fears of middle-eastern escalation after a senior Iranian commander was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Syria yesterday, with Iran immediately vowing revenge, and as Ukraine once again struck oil infrastructure targets deep inside Russia, overnight hitting Russia’s 3rd largest refinery, ~800 miles from the front lines.

As OilPrice details, Ukrainian drones hit the primary refining unit of Russia’s third-largest refinery southeast of Moscow more than 800 miles from the front line, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Ukraine keeps striking Russian oil assets despite the Biden admin’s unequivocal demands for a hard stop, suggesting that diplomatic fallout is now imminent.

The Taneco refinery of Russian company Tatneft in Tatarstan, an industrialized region southeast of Moscow, was attacked by Ukrainian drones in the latest such attack from Ukraine on Russian refining infrastructure.

The refinery has a capacity to process 340,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude. Its primary refining unit, with a capacity to process about 155,000 bpd, was hit in Tuesday’s attack, according to pictures seen by Reuters. The unit caught fire, which was swiftly extinguished, Russian media report.

They also quote Ramil Mullin, the mayor of the city of Nizhnekamsk, where the refinery is located, as saying that there have been no injured people in the attack.

“There are no injuries or serious damage,” Mullin wrote on Telegram. “The technological process of the enterprise has not been disrupted,” the mayor added.

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Joe Biden DENIES proclaiming Easter Sunday trans visibility day: ‘I didn’t do that’ — (he did)

“I didn’t do that,” Biden said in response to a question about his signing of the proclamation designating Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. This comes after backlash over the issuance of the designation which angered Christians in the United States.

Biden went on to accuse House Speaker Mike Johnson of essentially lying when the Speaker called the President out over the proclamation, which overshadowed the White House response to Easter, the holiest day on the Christian calendar. Biden said Johnson was “thoroughly uninformed.”

Johnson pointed out the proclamation to the president, asking “This you, Joe Biden?” And indeed it was.

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White House pushed Trans Day messaging on English accounts, but not to Spanish speakers

The Biden White House social media account “La Casa Blanca” did not post anything related to “Transgender Day of Visibility” while the English White House account on X made a post on Easter to declare the LGBTQ recognition day. 

Over the weekend, the Biden administration faced backlash for issuing a proclamation for March 31 as “Transgender Day of Visibility” when the holiest Christian holiday, Easter Sunday, fell on the same day. A proclamation from Biden was issued about March 31 on Good Friday that read, “By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility.” The day was established in 2009 and Biden has proclaimed it repeatedly during his administration.

On Easter Sunday, Biden’s social media accounts made several different posts about both Easter and “Transgender Day of Visibility.” One account, that was lacking any post related to the LGBTQ holiday, however, was the Spanish iteration of the White House account, “La Casa Blanca.” 

The posts that were issued for the Spanish White House account only celebrated Easter and Cesar Chavez.  

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White House Responds to Christian and GOP Backlash Over ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ Proclamation — Does Not Apologize

The White House has responded to the backlash from Christians over the “Transgender Day of Visibility” proclamation issued by Joe Biden.

Biden declared March 31 to be a holiday honoring transgender people — but this March 31, of course, is Easter.

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility,” the White House proclamation declared. “I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.”

Biden, who says he is a “devout” Catholic, has also banned religious artwork from the White House Easter egg competition.

Naturally, the absurd gesture sparked massive outrage from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

The Trump campaign issued a statement saying, “It is appalling and insulting that Joe Biden’s White House prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for their Easter Art Event, and formally proclaimed Easter Sunday as ‘Trans Day of Visibility.’ Sadly, these are just two more examples of the Biden Administration’s years-long assault on the Christian faith. We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign and White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

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