Showing posts with label Antony Blinken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antony Blinken. Show all posts

Thursday, August 4, 2022

PM Orban's Hungarian Associates: The Anti-Semitic Type And Jewish Hungarian, George Soros, Part II

 Nadene Goldfoot

George Soros, billionaire,  is antagonistic towards Israel.  Is it just a pretense to protect Israel from more hatred?  It doesn't seem to be.  The list of organizations is a veritable who’s who of hostile, anti-Israel actors.  One of the leaked documents shows that between 2001 and 2015, Soros funneled over $9.5 million into a range of groups including Adalah-A leading Palestinian Arab non-partisan, community-wide, non-governmental organisation located in Israel, which was established by four healthcare ..., the Al-Tufula Center-that supports Arab women in Nazareth, Israel and empowers them the Arab Association for Human Rights, Baladna-a Qatari agricultural company that raises livestock and produces dairy products;  The Galilee Society-A leading Palestinian Arab non-partisan, community-wide, non-governmental organization located in Israel, which was established by four healthcare ..., Molad,-promoting ending all Jewish settlements in West Bank;   the New Israel Fund-NIF is a tool for people who want to pool resources to help build a better Israel. SUPPORT JUSTICE AND EQUALITY. Take a Stand for a Better Israel, probably in Soros's view; and others.    Billionaire George Soros generally does not hide the fact that he uses the considerable funds at his disposal to support his extremist, leftist ideals.     

Admiral Miklos Horthy, b: 1868,  with Hitler:  Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya, was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who served as the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between the two World Wars and throughout most of World War II – from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. 

 Orban is denouncing Hungary's role in the Holocaust of which  Horthy was involved.  Orbán’s statement came days after Hungary’s government received major blowback for launching an anti-migrant campaign with posters depicting the face of Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire George Soros and praising Hungary’s controversial World War II leader, Miklós Horthy​.
Miklós Horthy at the annexation of south-east Czechoslovakia, Kassa (present-day Košice), 11 November 1938 CC BY-SA 3.0

 What about the attacks against billionaire Jewish philanthropist George Soros? I ask.  I don't like Soros, either, but for far different reasons that Orban, I'm sure. Soros was a teen during the Holocaust, a victim who was as emotionally damaged as many other survivors.  How he turned his life into luxury and money is beyond my understanding.  The New Israel Fund he donates to describes itself as active on the issues of civil and human rights, women's rights, religious status, human rights for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories, the rights of Israel's Arab minority, and freedom of speech. The New Israel Fund is the largest foreign donor to progressive causes in IsraelIts financial support for Breaking the Silence, Adalah, B’Tselem, Yesh Din, and other groups allegedly hostile to Zionist values has drawn criticism.  He helps the Palestinians, not the Jews.  It isn't making the Palestinians ending their firing rockets from Gaza or flying kites of fire into the forests or ending the terrorism.

 It's obvious to me Soros is anti-Zionistic, and to me that's anti-Semitism in itself; pretty bad for a man who suffered in the Holocaust.    Even if no antisemitic insinuation is intended, casting a Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates national events for malign purposes has the effect of mainstreaming antisemitic tropes and giving support, however unwitting, to bona fide antisemites and extremists who disseminate these ideas knowingly and with malice.                        

Born in Budapest in 1930, George Soros is chair of Soros Fund Management LLC. As one of history’s most successful financiers, his views on investing and economic issues are widely followed.  (He's 92 years old).  This is the official site for information about George Soros.  Born in Hungary , he lived through the Nazi occupation of 1944–1945, which resulted in the murder of over 500,000 Hungarian Jews. His own Jewish family survived by securing false identity papers, concealing their backgrounds, and helping others do the same. Soros later recalled that “instead of submitting to our fate, we resisted an evil force that was much stronger than we were—yet we prevailed. Not only did we survive, but we managed to help others.” 

George Soros HonFBA is a Hungarian-born American businessman and philanthropist. As of March 2021, he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations, of which $15 billion have already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune.

A poster showing George Soros, saying "Let's not allow Soros to have the last laugh!". Someone has written "dirty Jew" on his forehead

 In the 2017 parliamentary election, Orbán promoted anti-Semitic imagery of powerful Jewish financiers scheming to control the world. Thousands of posters of a grinning Soros with the slogan “Let’s not allow Soros to have the last laugh!” were posted around the country on billboards, on the metro, and on the floors of Budapest’s trams. Israel’s ambassador to Hungary issued a statement denouncing the campaign, saying it “evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear”, an apparent reference to Hungary’s part in the deportation of 500,000 Jews during the Holocaust.                   

Zsolt Bayer, Hungarian journalist who called Jews ‘stinking excrement’ addresses CPAC conference.   Zsolt Bayer, who has history of antisemitic and racist comments, among speakers at event held by US conservative group in Budapest that included speeches from Trump and Tucker Carlson.

The New York Times ran an article announcing Orban was a friend to Israel and to Bigots.  He plays a double game on anti-Semitism.  One of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s close political allies, journalist Zsolt Bayer, published a vicious rant this month denigrating, among others, the United States and President Joe Biden.  Then he picked on the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.

             Young Antony Blinken b: 16 April 1962  in Yonkers, New York, to Jewish parents, Judith (Frehm) and Donald M. Blinken, who later served as U.S. ambassador to Hungary.His maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews. Blinken's uncle, Alan Blinken, served as the U.S. ambassador to Belgium.His paternal grandfather, Maurice Henry Blinken, was an early backer of Israel who studied its economic viability, and his great-grandfather was Meir Blinken, a Yiddish writer.

The most disturbing element of Bayer’s column, however, is that at a time when Secretary of State Antony Blinken is taking a lead in decrying the recent explosion of worldwide antisemitism, Orban’s friend wrapped up his argument by using a time-honored antisemitic slur to characterize Blinken, who is Jewish.  Bayer ridiculed the assertion that Blinken had “Hungarian roots” even though his mother’s family were Jewish Hungarians who immigrated to the United States. Bayer rudely addressed the new secretary of state and exclaimed “You are completely a ROOTLESS! Hungarian as you are a rootless American.”

Remember, Hitler maligned Jews as a “rootless international clique that incites nations against each other”; Stalin employed the “rootless cosmopolitan” charge to question the patriotism of Soviet Jews and as a prelude to begin purges against prominent Soviet Jews in the 1940s and ’50s.


Zsolt Bayer, a founding member of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, received the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross this weekend for his “exemplary journalistic work,” according to the official gazette Magyar Közlöny, Bloomberg reported.  His anti-Semitism passed with colors and was exemplary!  If that's how Orban sees it, it makes him all the more of an anti-Semite.  

In a 2013 article, Bayer wrote that “a significant portion of the Gypsies are unfit for coexistence;  not fit to live among human beings. These people are animals and behave like animals.” The article was deemed racist, and the state media authority fined the Magyar Hírlap daily where it appeared, according to the Hungarian Spectrum website.

It seems that PM Viktor Orban, telling the world that Hungary had no part in the Holocaust,  has forgotten that Miklos Horthy, past government official who cozied up to Hitler, had a lot to do with the Holocaust.  He seems to ignore the fact that Zsolt Bayer, of his own party,  is a real anti-Semite. 

On an early page of Night, Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical account of the Holocaust, he recalls the Hungarian police’s orders as they echoed throughout his small Jewish ghetto. “Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!,” they screamed.

“That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today,” he writes. “They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.”

The Hungarian police were almost as bad as the Nazis.  

In a country where anti-Semitism is alarmingly commonplace, it’s irresponsible for the government to use taxpayers’ money to run a campaign that plays into anti-Semitic tropes and encourages hateful views. Hungary’s government should aim to tamp down intolerance, not stir it up.  And why are the American Republican Party listening to Orban?  


Resource:

span.org/video/?c5026588/hungarian-leader-viktor-orban-addresses-cpac

https://na.eventscloud.com/website/34479/

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2022/08/04/at-cpac-viktor-orban-paints-bleak-picture-of-war-between-progressives-western-culture/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikl%C3%B3s_Horthy#:~:text=For%20Horthy%2C%20Hitler%20served%20as,discounted%20it%20as%20a%20phobia%22.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Political_Action_Conference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5026588/hungarian-leader-viktor-orban-addresses-cpac

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-orban-netanyahu/hungarys-orban-tells-israel-that-jews-in-his-country-can-feel-safe-idUSKBN1K919F

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/04/viktor-orban-cpac-00049935

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/04/viktor-orban-cpac-00049935

https://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-anti-semitism-problem-hungary-jews/

https://www.jns.org/unmasking-george-soros-and-his-antagonism-toward-israel/?gclid=CjwKCAjw3K2XBhAzEiwAmmgrAh2A1Zqyp_BkHSt1xrNHqK5IQT6gFIWrm-HrOHOyJ5Dcw9zyLgUd4xoCpa8QAvD_BwE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/03/alex-jones-trial-hoax-sandy-hook/

https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/antisemitism-lurking-behind-george-soros-conspiracy-theories

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/hungarian-journalist-leveled-an-antisemitic-attack-on-antony-blinken-669452

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hungarian-journalist-who-called-jews-stinking-excrement-addresses-cpac-conference/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40554844

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2021-06-16/ty-article-magazine/why-do-so-many-hate-george-soros/0000017f-f00c-d8a1-a5ff-f08e13830000

Friday, March 25, 2022

Three Big Meetings: Israel's Historic Summit Meeting With Arab Accords States and USA, Jordan and Egypt Also Hosting Others

 Nadene Goldfoot                               

The Trump Administration got Abraham Accords going with the help of Donald Trump's son- in- law, Jared Kushner.  Biden hasn't done much to add to it.    Big meetings are planned for today-Friday by Jordan, Sunday by Israel in the Negev and Tuesday by Egypt.                                                               
The Kedma Isrotel in Sde Boker, site of the historic Negev Summit, March 27, 2022. / YouTube screenshot

Update: 3/27/22:
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the start of Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting: “This is a very festive day. We are hosting the ‘Negev Summit’ here in Israel. The foreign ministers of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, and Bahrain will arrive in Sde Boker for a meeting with Minister Lapid and Secretary of State Blinken.”  Sde Boker is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ramat HaNegev Regional Council. In 2019 it had a population of 479.
     Knesset in Jerusalem, Israel 
     Tel Aviv, Israel  where the fun is

1. The Abraham Accords States are meeting in Israel on Sunday, March 27, 2022 in Israel at the invitation of Foreign Minister Yair Lapid,  in an historic summit,  who is the host.  US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, will also attend.  This is happening because the states became normalized with Israel in August 2020. The Arab states arriving will be from UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco "Bahrain and Morocco followed suit, while Sudan also agreed to normalize ties with Israel, although it has yet to finalize a deal".While in Morocco, Blinken is also due to meet Crown Prince Mohammed, the Department of State said.                               

The talks are being organized to coincide with a regional tour by Blinken due to begin on Saturday.

Antony John Blinken, b: April 6, 1962, US Sec. of State, 60 years old.  

Blinken is to visit Israel including the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), Morocco and Algeria in this trip.  Blinken is also due to visit Algeria and Morocco at a time when the region is reeling from the backlash of Russia’s war on Ukraine.  Blinken’s visit also comes amid Israeli efforts to mediate a solution to the war in Ukraine, which has left both sides with heavy losses, and shows no signs of abating.  

It also comes as the US is close to reaching an agreement with Iran, not appreciated by Israel's needs,  to restore the 2015 accord limiting Tehran’s nuclear development program, in return for removing sanctions on the country. The 2015 agreement was so bad that Trump excused himself from the group and left it.  Now, It may be even worse.

“We know this pain is keenly felt in the Middle East and North Africa, where most countries import at least half of their wheat,” much of it from Ukraine, Department of State Acting Assistant Secretary Yael Lempert told reporters in Washington, in reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

2. Before this meeting takes place, Jordan is hosting one of their own today in Aqaba,  Friday the 25th of March with Egypt and Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE.  Jordanian state media said King Abdullah II would host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, in the southern Jordanian city of Aqaba on Friday. 

The Arab countries which have normalized ties said they were motivated by the economic benefits of establishing official relations with Israel, despite opposition from the Palestinians.

Jordan and Egypt were one of the very first states to normalize relations with Israel.

Egypt The Camp David Accords, signed by President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in September 1978, established a framework for a historic peace treaty concluded between Israel and Egypt in March 1979.

  Jordan had a population of over 2 million of whom 85% were Moslem Arabs by 1992.  Today it is 10.2 million!  The king married a Palestinian woman.  On 26 October 1994, Jordan and Israel signed the peace treaty in a ceremony held in the Arava valley of Israel, north of Eilat and near the Jordanian border. Prime Minister Rabin and Prime Minister Abdelsalam al-Majali signed the treaty and the President of Israel Ezer Weizman shook hands with King Hussein.

3. It also follows a three-way summit hosted by Egypt on Tuesday, March 29, 2022  at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh between Egypt's el-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and Saudi Arabia's 

                             Crown Prince Mohammed.

The upcoming talks come against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that has sparked wider security concerns, and sent oil and food prices soaring.



Resource:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/25/israel-to-host-historic-summit-of-us-arab-diplomats

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/abraham-accords-one-year-missed-opportunity-biden



Saturday, December 11, 2021

Palestine Authority Still Paying to Kill Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   


 An Israeli prison pamphlet from 2007 says that 70 percent of Palestinian security prisoners were “sentenced for offenses that involve blood on their hands,” meaning they killed Israelis.



   Convicted murderers - 78 of them already released from prison by Israel as part of the negotiating process with the Palestinians - are receiving grants of up to $50,000 and monthly stipends of up to nearly $4,000. 

                                                                


 I have a message for President Abbas. Stop paying terrorists! Because what message does this send to Palestinian children? It says murder Jews and get rich!”
— Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, March 6, 2018

                                                            

                Megyn Kelly, being a little snippy.  Is it because it was Netanyahu who said it and he's now out?  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Palestinians pay $350 million a year to terrorists. But that's a very fuzzy number. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

That was her concern.  A fuzzy number.  He rounded it out, Meg.  Sometimes people do that.  Your concern should have been that they were paid murderers. 

Itai Bar-Dov, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said the government considers all payments to prisoners to be for acts of terrorism. “The PA only pays those who have been convicted in an Israeli court for causing or attempting to cause harm against Israelis,” he said. He acknowledged, however, that the martyr payments are more complex. “There are also payments to families of Palestinians who were killed (shuhada),” he said. “In this case, we don’t deem everyone to be terrorists, and that of course depends on the circumstances of their death.

Somebody who has killed is in prison.  It doesn't matter if the victim was in the West Bank or Israel proper, murder is murder and a Jew is a Jew.  The murderer would be in prison even if he murdered another Palestinian.  The fact is that the PA  is rewarding their people to kill Jews.  This is a religious war.   

The Palestinians thus say the prison payments are an effort to rebalance a deeply unfair system under occupation, with the military court considered a conveyor belt for convictions.  To many Palestinians, all of Israel is land under occupation.  They're swayed by such ideas from what UNRA puts out, keeping about 4 generations of the original Palestinians as refugees until now the refugee problem is way out of proportion.  

Israeli military courts have been trying Palestinians in the Territories since Israel's birth began.  In these courts, the judges and prosecutors are always Israeli soldiers in uniform. The Palestinians are always either suspects or defendants, and are almost always convicted for violating orders issued by the state of Israel.  By now, it's common knowledge that to do such a crime will be heard in the military court.  

 Israel is a registered legal state and living in it is not being under any occupation.  The truth is that the Palestinians consider all of Israel being occupied land.  These murderers are in prison because they broke the law, the most important law of all, taking a life.  Palestinians have ruined the name of "Palestinian" by attacking Jewish citizens at any time of day or night in any unexpected manner, purely out of hatred.  It is a rebellion and they are suffering the consequences of their actions, only their families are not, at least not monetarily.  They are being rewarded.  

I can just see it now.  "Son, I'm a little short of grocery money this week.  Go out and kill a few Jews, and then I'll get a check from the PA.  Hurry now, do you have your knife in your pocket?"  "Don't worry, the prison guards will feed you.  You'll get to see your friends there."  Maybe it isn't this bad, but mothers are being conditioned by their leaders to want martyrs in their families.  It's all the bally-hoo they get, pictures all around the town, etc.                                                                 

Sec. of State  Antony John Blinken is an American government official and diplomat serving as the 71st United States secretary of state since January 26, 2021. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under President Barack Obama.

The State Department, in its human rights report, noted that Israeli forces in 2016 killed 91 Palestinians, “some of whom were attempting or allegedly attempting to attack Israelis.” But violence by settlers against Palestinians “rarely led to indictments.” 

That's because the settlers were defending themselves.  No one is indicted when they are being attacked.  They are the victims!  

Since 2000, Israel has also made it more difficult for Palestinians to pursue lawsuits and receive compensation from Israel for injuries or death.  Finally, Israel got wise to this shakedown.  

Blinken said, "Before talking about the report, I want to just take a minute to discuss what is happening in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.  We’re deeply concerned about what we’re seeing there.  Images that came out overnight are harrowing and the loss of any civilian life is a tragedy.

                                                                   

       Hady Amr, born in Beirut, Lebanon, In May 2021, he was sent to the Middle East to help in trying to defuse tensions between Israel and Palestine.

  I’ve asked Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hady Amr to go to the region immediately to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.  He will bring to bear his decades of experience and, in particular, he will urge on my behalf and on behalf of President Biden a de-escalation of violence.  We are very focused on this.

The United States remains committed to a two-state solution.  This violence takes us further away from that goal.  We fully support Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself.  We’ve condemned and I condemn again the rocket attacks in the strongest possible terms.  We believe Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live with safety and security and we’ll continue to engage with Israelis, Palestinians, and other regional partners to urge de-escalation and to bring calm."


Resource:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/03/14/does-the-palestinian-authority-pay-350-million-a-year-to-terrorists-and-their-families/

https://www.newsmax.com/zivadahl/jerusalem-embassy/2021/12/09/id/1048027/?fbclid=IwAR3qt8czO2mdyFwIUUlnr23cM1DuelD5YrHVGR5PblHq1IgPC-zNjNyzucA

https://www.btselem.org/topic/military_courts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken

https://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Issues/Pages/Behind-the-Headlines-PA-grants-and-salaries-to-Palestinian-terrorists-4-Dec-2013.aspx

https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-on-release-of-the-2020-international-religious-freedom-report/

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1962-israel-hangs-eichmann-1.5367872

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Joseph Biden's New Selections For His Government; Blinken, Mayorkas, and Yellen

Nadene Goldfoot                                           

 
  Born April 16, 1962, Antony, called Tony,  Blinken, now 58 years old in New York City, is a lawyer who graduated from Columbia Law School.  Blinken was born to Jewish parents, Donald M. Blinken and Judith Frehm,  so being his mother was Jewish entitles him to also be a Jew by Jewish law.  Donald Mayer Blinken is a leader in the fields of investment banking, education, and arts patronage.  

                             Donald Mayer Blinken:  The future top diplomat, Donald's son,  moved to Paris as a child after his parents divorced and his mother, Judith Blinken nee Frehm, married Bialystok born Polish-American Holocaust survivor and powerhouse lawyer Samuel Pisar.  

 His late stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was a Holocaust survivor who wrote a memoir, “Of Blood and Hope,” about how he survived the Nazis, including time at the death camps of Majdanek, Auschwitz and Dachau.  Pisar was sent to Majdanek, Bliżyn, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, Dachau and ultimately to the Engelberg Tunnel near Leonberg. At the end of the war, he escaped during a death march.

After the liberation, Pisar spent a year and a half in the American occupation zone of Germany, engaging in black marketeering with fellow survivors. He was rescued by an aunt living in Paris. An uncle sent him to MelbourneAustralia, where he resumed his studies.

"Tony" John Blinken is an American government official who served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017 and Deputy National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2015 under President Barack Obama. when our new President elect, Joseph Biden, served as Vice President.  Biden just selected Blinken to serve as his Secretary of State.  

He's married to Evan Ryan who had been a scheduler for Hillary Clinton.  Blinken speaks impeccable French, with just the slightest hint of an accent.  Blinken attended École Jeannine Manuel, a bilingual school in Paris — the same one attended by another Obama administration alumnus, Robert Malley.  Blinken’s half-sister, Leah Pisar, now living in New York, also has a home in France, and heads the board of the Aladdin Project, a Paris-based nonprofit organization promoting multicultural understanding. 

What sort of ideas will prevail with his work?  His ties are close with Europe.  " On every major foreign policy issue — terrorism, climate, pandemics, trade, China, the Iran nuclear deal — he has a recurring mantra:  the U.S. should work with its allies and within international treaties and organizations. Blinken also views U.S. leadership in multilateral institutions as essential. “There is a premium still, and in some ways even more than before, on American engagement, on American leadership,” Blinken said earlier this year.

Blinken spent 6 years in the Senate as Biden's top aide.  He went to work for Biden in 2002 as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden was the senior Democrat on the committee from 1997 until he became vice president in 2009.

Blinken’s uncle, meanwhile, served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium, at the same time that Blinken’s father was ambassador to Hungary. And Blinken’s stepfather was an adviser to President John F. Kennedy as well as French presidents.

In his roles in the NSC under Obama and as deputy secretary of state, Blinken advocated for more robust U.S. involvement in the Syria conflict, and notably broke with his boss, Biden, to support the armed intervention in Libya. He was also a close aide to Biden when the then-senator supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He continues to believe that diplomacy needs to be “supplemented by deterrence” and “force can be a necessary adjunct to effective diplomacy. In Syria, we rightly sought to avoid another Iraq by not doing too much, but we made the opposite error of doing too little.”

He's musical.  He plays the guitar, mostly blues and rock.      He played sports.  Years ago, Blinken used to play football — the European kind — every Sunday in Washington with some of his closest friends in foreign policy, including now Congressman Tom Malinowski, Robert Malley, former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Philip Gordon, and others.                                      

  Today, November 24, 1959 is Alejandro's birthday, and is 61. Alejandro Mayorkas was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1959. His parents arrived with him and his sister to the United States in late 1960 as refugees, following the Cuban Revolution. He lived in Miami, Florida, before his family moved to Los Angeles, California, where he was raised for the remainder of his youth.

His father was a Cuban Jew of Sephardic background and his mother a Romanian Jew whose family escaped the Holocaust and fled to Cuba in the 1940s where his father owned and operated a steel wool factory.  Mayorkas earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1981. He received his Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles in 1985.  He lives with his wife and two of his three daughters in Washington, D.C.

Alejandro N. Mayorkas is a Cuban-American lawyer who served as the Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security from December 23, 2013 to October 31, 2016. He is a partner in the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, joining the firm on November 1, 2016.  He was selected by Biden  to be the Secretary of Homeland Security.                                   

Born August 13, 1946 in New York City, New York, Dr. Janet Yellen is 74.  Yellen was born in a Polish Jewish family in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of New York City's Brooklyn borough, where she also grew up. Her mother was Anna Ruth (née Blumenthal; 1907–1986), an elementary school teacher, and her father Julius Yellen (1906–1975), a family physician, who worked from the ground floor of their home. Her mother quit her job to take care of Janet and her older brother, John. She graduated from local Fort Hamilton High School as a valedictorian.  She received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1971. Her dissertation was titled "Employment, Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy.  

Janet Yellen is to serve as Secretary of Treasury.  Janet Louise Yellen is an American economist at the Brookings Institution who graduated from Yale and  served as the Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, and as Vice Chair from 2010 to 2014. She was the first woman to head the Federal Reserve.  In 2014, Yellen was nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the United States Federal Reserve. She served one four-year term as Federal Reserve Chair from 2014 to 2018 and was not reappointed by President Donald Trump.  

Biden has chosen these 3 people who he worked with before under Obama's administration.  We can be proud that Jewish people have the skills needed to make our government run well.  These were tried an true friends of Biden.  May they steer him on the right paths to peace,  harmony and well being for all.

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