President Joe Biden continued a 75-year tradition Monday and pardoned a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys named after his favorite flavor of ice cream while cracking jokes about his political party’s better-than-expected performance in this month’s midterm elections.
“The votes are in, they’ve been counted and verified,” Biden said as he welcomed Chocolate and Chip before hundreds of people gathered on the South Lawn in unseasonably cold weather. “There’s no ballot stuffing. There’s no fowl play. The only red wave this season’s gonna be if German Shepard Commander knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table.“ Commander is his dog.
Chocolate and Chip, each weighing nearly 50 pounds (22.68 kilograms), were driven up from North Carolina on Saturday and were checked into a room at the Willard hotel near the White House to await their visit with the president and his declaration of their freedom.
The combination of chocolate and chip is Biden’s favorite flavor of ice cream. The president joked at the event that “we could have named them Chips and Science,” after the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act that Biden championed and signed into law this year.
“I hereby pardon Chocolate and Chip,” Biden declared. Before the ceremony, Biden’s son Hunter Biden brought his toddler son, Beau, who is almost 3, outside to see the turkeys.
Both gobblers were hatched in July in Monroe, North Carolina, according to the National Turkey Federation, sponsor of the turkey tradition, which dates to 1947 and President Harry Truman.
The burst of holiday activity at the White House followed a busy weekend personally for Biden and his family, along with midterm elections that saw the president’s Democratic Party perform well enough to defy historical trends that forecast huge losses. Democrats will keep control of the Senate and, although Republicans will control the House when a new Congress is seated in January, Democrats did keep GOP gains in that chamber to a minimum.
The official White House Christmas tree also was being delivered on Monday and the Bidens planned to help serve a Thanksgiving-style dinner on a North Carolina Marine Corps base.
Biden and his wife, Jill, were scheduled to leave Washington on Tuesday to continue their family tradition of spending the Thanksgiving holiday on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. They hosted the wedding of their granddaughter, Naomi Biden, at the White House on Saturday, followed by a family brunch on Sunday for the president’s 80th birthday.
Humor aside, the president ended Monday’s event on a serious note, encouraging people to get their COVID-19 vaccines to ensure a healthy holiday season. He also encouraged Americans to reflect and “be grateful for what we have.”
“This is a special time in the greatest nation on Earth so let’s be thankful,” Biden said.
Chocolate, and an alternate turkey, Chip, were set to live the rest of their lives on the campus of North Carolina State University.
Later Monday, the Bidens were heading to Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point near the North Carolina coast for friendsgiving, or to share a Thanksgiving-style meal with members of the military and their families.
The first lady leads a White House initiative named Joining Forces to support and promote the sacrifices and needs of military families. The president has pushed for and has signed several bills to help service members and veterans, including legislation expanding health care for those who were exposed to toxins from the burning of waste in Iraq or Afghanistan, or to chemicals that were used in previous conflicts.
The Bidens’ late son Beau Biden served in the Delaware Army National Guard, including a tour in Iraq, before he died of brain cancer in 2015.
(AP)
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5 Responses
It’s interesting that Roger Stone was in the same hotel on January 5th that the Turkeys were checked into , the Willard hotel, but he got his pardon before his role in plotting January 6th.
These two turkeys got more morals and brains,than this demented zombie taking up space in the WH
If Trump promised to end this stupid ritual of pardoning turkeys, I still wouldn’t vote for him. But if anyone else made that pledge, he or she would have my vote.
Whom are they giving thanks to? Hint, it is not to Biden. Such “thanksgiving” is a well established part of Christian ritual? Are we allowed to even discuss their avodah zarah?
How would YWN have covered an article about Augustus (or Nero, or even Julian, which is one we liked) choosing to spare the life of an animal that was about to be offered to one of the Roman “deities” on the occasion of, as an example, Saturnalia or Lupercalia (both of which are still observed by the goyim today, albeit with some relabeling).
Akuperma, they are giving thanks to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, not to avoda zara. Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday at all; it is an American holiday, deliberately designated from its very beginning in the 1850s as completely non-denominational and non-sectarian, but an occasion for all Americans of all faiths to give thanks to their Creator who, according to the Declaration of Independence, endows us with our rights.
And of course its origins are from the harvest festival that is common to every agricultural nation that believes in a Creator. Our Thanksgiving is Sukkos. The novi says that goyim ought to celebrate Sukkos as well; Americans celebrate it a little late, that’s all.