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Biden ripped for not mentioning Iran by name in speech on Hamas attacks: ‘Utterly irresponsible and weak’
President Biden was heavily criticized by conservatives on social media for not mentioning Iran, a state sponsor of Hamas, in an address Tuesday to the nation reacting to the terrorist group’s attack on Israel that left over 1,000 Israelis dead.
Speaking from the White House flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Biden vowed that the U.S. “has Israel’s back” as it prepares for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip just days after the Hamas terrorist group crossed the border and slaughtered Israeli civilians, including women, children and babies.
“We must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself and respond to this attack,” Biden said.
Conservatives took to X, formerly Twitter, after Biden’s speech and slammed him for not mentioning Iran.
“Biden spoke for 10 minutes and 12 seconds, then turned his back and shuffled away,” a social media account associated with the Republican National Committee posted on X. “He did not even mention Iran.”
After the president’s speech, Fox News contributor Joe Concha posted on X, “14 Americans are dead. An unknown number have been taken hostage. President Biden just spoke for 11 minutes before quickly walking away without taking any questions. No mention of Iran whatsoever. Utterly irresponsible and weak on both fronts.”
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“After a weekend of BBQs & ½ days, Joe Biden has ZERO answers,” Republican Sen. Roger Marshall posted on X. “Shows up over an hour late to his Address to the nation, Confirms 14 Americans are dead & more Americans are being held hostage, Gives ZERO strategy to save them, Makes no mention of Iran, Takes NO questions.”
“Biden gives a speech on attack on Israel and does not even mention Iran!” Marc Thiessen, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a Fox News contributor, posted on X.
“No mention of Iran in Biden’s remarks and restrained verbal response to the murder of Americans,” Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich posted on X. “Weak.”
“Biden forgot to mention the word Iran,” Rich Sementa, producer for the Mark Levin radio show, posted on X.
“ZERO mention of Iran from President Biden,” Fox News contributor and former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany posted on X. “You cannot sever the terrorism against Israel from the actions of Iran.”
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The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Iranian security officials approved Hamas’ plan to attack Israel during a meeting in Beirut Oct. 2. Hamas and Hezbollah leaders said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps worked with Hamas since August on air, land and sea attack plans.
A European official who works as an adviser to the Syrian government corroborated the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders’ claims, according to The Wall Street Journal, though U.S. officials say they have not seen evidence of Iran’s involvement in the attacks.
“We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on CNN Sunday.
During a televised speech Tuesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack.”
Khamenei, who was wearing a Palestinian scarf and delivering his first broadcast remarks since Hamas launched attacks on Israel Saturday, also claimed Tehran was not involved, according to Reuters.
“This destructive earthquake has destroyed some critical structures [in Israel], which will not be repaired easily. … The Zionist regime’s own actions are to blame for this disaster,” Khamenei reportedly said.
Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said during a press conference Tuesday that while Iran is “complicit” in the attack given its financial and material support of Hamas in recent years, there is not yet evidence that it helped organize the attack.
“Now, as to the question of whether Iran knew about this attack in advance or helped plan or direct this attack, we do not as of the moment I’m standing here at the podium have confirmation of that,” Sullivan said.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Greg Norman contributed to this report
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White House calls lawmakers not backing Israel ‘wrong,’ ‘disgraceful’
The White House said Tuesday that statements from members of Congress calling for a ceasefire in Israel instead of issuing their full support for the country, following the surprise attack by Hamas, are “wrong” and “disgraceful.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about President Biden’s message to members of Congress who seem to be equating the Hamas terror attack with actions that were previously taken by Israel. When asked which members, Real Clear Politics reporter Philip Wegmann said that some members have called for a ceasefire and not gone as far as backing the administration’s call for support for Israel.
“So, I’ve seen some of those statements this weekend. And we’re gonna continue to be very clear. We believe they’re wrong. We believe they’re repugnant and we believe they’re disgraceful,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre did not mention any lawmakers by name or specific statements. But at least two Democratic lawmakers — Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) — issued statements calling for a ceasefire and de-escalation of the situation.
Omar and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) are also facing criticism over statements in which they each labeled Israel as an apartheid state and called for the U.S. to end funding to the nation.
“Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped, hundreds, hundreds of Israelis,” Jean-Pierre added. “There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.”
Biden earlier Tuesday harshly condemned the “abhorrent” terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel. He also said that Americans are among those being held hostage by the terrorist group and that the death toll of Americans had risen to 14.
“President Biden has been clear on where he has stood. … You heard from him directly today,” Jean-Pierre said.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is of Palestinian heritage, in her statement called for “dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” Bush said she condemned the targeting of civilians and called for the end of U.S. support for Israel.
Their comments were quickly met with pushback, including from fellow Democrats in the House, Reps. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.) and Josh Gottheimer (N.J.).
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Small Iowa city to vote on how much say council has over explicit library books
Voters in a small Iowa city will decide in November whether to give their City Council more say over what books the public library can and can’t offer.
A ballot proposition in Pella, a community of about 10,500 residents in central Iowa, asks voters if they support changing the structure of the Pella Public Library Board of Trustees. The change would limit the board’s authority over the library and give the City Council more control over library policies and decisions, the Des Moines Register reported Tuesday.
The effort follows attempts by some community members two years ago to ban or restrict access to Maia Kobabe’s LGBTQ+ memoir “Gender Queer” at the library. The library board eventually voted to keep the book.
Like many Iowa communities, Pella’s board holds independent control over how money is spent, who is hired as director and other key issues. It also decides whether to keep books if community members challenge them. The City Council appoints the board’s members and approves the library’s budget.
The referendum would make the library board an advisory committee that makes recommendations to the City Council, with no formal authority. Even with voter approval, the council could still decide not to change the current system and to allow the board to maintain direct control over library decisions.
The referendum comes amid a push in conservative-led states and communities to ban books, the American Library Association said last month. Such efforts have largely focused on keeping certain types of books out of school libraries, but the ALA said they now extend just as much to public libraries.
Through the first eight months of 2023, the ALA tracked 695 challenges to library materials and services, compared to 681 during the same time period last year, and a 20% jump in the number of “unique titles” involved, to 1,915.
Opponents of the Pella referendum say the changes would erode a necessary independence that ensures libraries can offer diverse materials, free from political interference. They say the changes would amount to censorship and erase stories about underrepresented groups.
“There isn’t pornography in the library,” said Anne McCullough Kelly of Vote No to Save Our Library. “There are books that people might personally object to because it’s not aligned with their values, books whose content might make them uncomfortable for different reasons. But there isn’t any actual pornography in the library.”
Referendum supporters say the changes would give taxpayers more say in how public money is spent. They frame the proposal as a way to keep material they view as pornographic and harmful away from children.
“None of this prevents parents from getting ahold of what they want,” said state Rep. Helena Hayes, a Republican who chairs Protect My Innocence, a group that supports the referendum. “All they have to do is go on Amazon and click buy.”
In late 2021, the library board heard concerns from residents who believed “Gender Queer” — an illustrated memoir of the author’s real-life journey with sexuality and gender that includes frank sexual images — should be removed or placed behind the checkout counter.
A Register review has found that parents have challenged the book eight times in Iowa school districts since August 2020.
When a Virginia school system removed “Gender Queer” in 2021, publisher Oni Press issued a statement saying that limiting the book’s availability was “short-sighted and reactionary.”
“The fact is, GENDER QUEER is an important, timely piece of work that serves as an invaluable resource for not only those that identity as nonbinary or genderqueer, but for people looking to understand what that means,” the publisher said in a statement.
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Kansas Gov. Kelly announces Juneteenth will become state holiday
Kansas will designate Juneteenth as a state holiday, joining 28 other states and the District of Columbia, Gov. Laura Kelly said Tuesday.
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Kelly, a Democrat, said in a news release that establishing the state holiday “provides Kansans an opportunity to celebrate our state’s diversity and honor the ongoing struggles for racial equality.”
Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free. For generations, Black Americans have recognized the end of one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history with joy, in the form of parades, street festivals, musical performances or cookouts.
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday.
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Republicans urge Biden admin to stop delaying major gas pipeline project
FIRST ON FOX: A group of House and Senate Republicans penned a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the nation’s top energy regulator, asking it to stop slow-walking approval for a key natural gas project in the Pacific Northwest.
In the letter sent Friday, the eight lawmakers — led by Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., and joined by fellow Oregon GOP Rep. Cliff Bentz, four other House Republicans and Idaho GOP Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch — called for the immediate approval of the Gas Transmission Northwest XPress Project (GTNXP). The project would upgrade three existing compressor stations, increasing capacity on an existing system that has transported natural gas for decades.
“This delay has created significant uncertainty for energy users in the states and districts we represent and will likely subject them to higher priced energy alternatives,” the group wrote in the letter first obtained by Fox News Digital. “It is unreasonable for a project like GTN XPress, which meets all the Commission’s criteria and impacts no landowners, to be subject to such lengthy delays. It is time for FERC to act.”
“Further, according to FERC’s FEIS (final environmental impact statement) the project would not have significant environmental impacts,” they continued. “Regarding GHG (greenhouse gases) emissions more generally, increasing natural gas use in electricity generation has already helped the nation achieve significant reductions in GHG emissions, with electric sector emissions dropping 32% between 2005 and 2019 largely driven by the transition from coal to natural gas.”
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The letter added that an increase in natural gas power generation would help states like Oregon meet carbon reduction goals, since it relies on coal for about 25% of its electricity generation. Coal produces greater emissions than natural gas.
GTNXP’s developer TC Energy first proposed the project in October 2021. According to its application filed with FERC at the time, the project would leverage existing infrastructure to increase GTN’s incremental mainline capacity by 150,000 dekatherms per day, enough to power thousands of additional homes in the region. The GTN pipeline travels through Idaho, Washington and Oregon and serves California customers.
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However, FERC — which is chaired by Willie Phillips, a President Biden appointee and Democrat — has inexplicably delayed granting final approval for TC Energy to move ahead with construction in the project despite greenlighting in its environmental impact statement published in October 2022. Democrats and environmental groups have urged FERC to reject the project, potentially causing the delays.
In July, FERC removed the project from its open meeting agenda without explanation. One day before the meeting, though, Democratic Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden wrote to the regulator, imploring it to reject the project. The commission again opted against discussing it during its following meeting on Sept. 21, which earned a pointed rebuke from TC Energy.
“This unprecedented delay is adding undue uncertainty for our constituents’ energy certainty and diverging from FERC precedent as well as the intent of the Natural Gas Act,” the lawmakers concluded in their letter Friday. “The Commission should provide certainty to providers and consumers across the Northwest, and issue their decision on this important project as soon as possible.”
A FERC spokesperson previously declined to comment to Fox News Digital on the repeated delays, citing the agency’s policy of not discussing internal pending matters. The next FERC meeting where GTNXP may be discussed is slated for Oct. 19.
In addition to GOP lawmakers, local labor unions, electric utility companies and energy groups have rallied in favor of GTNXP, arguing it will produce jobs and solidify energy supplies.
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