President Biden’s key to a lasting and happy marriage is ‘good sex,’ according to a new book detailing Jill Biden’s role as first lady. 

‘Joe may have tamped down on his public bedroom declarations winning the presidency, but he has joked to aides that ‘good sex’ is the key to a lasting and happy marriage, much to his wife’s chagrin,’ Katie Rogers writes in an upcoming book obtained by Fox News Digital.

The book describes that ahead of the 2008 presidential election, in 2006, ‘Joe still seemed more interested in staying home with Jill than in running for the presidency.’

‘I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep,’ Biden said in public remarks that year when asked about a potential 2008 presidential run. 

‘The remark might’ve surprised some in the audience, but it drew little more than a shrug from a spokesman, who explained that the senator was ‘frankly totally in love with his wife,’’ the book continued. 

‘American Woman,’ authored by New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers, will be released Tuesday and documents how the role of first lady has evolved in the 21st century, focusing on Jill Biden’s tenure in the White House. 

Excerpts of the book, including the president’s comments regarding ‘good sex’ as the key to a happy marriage, have since been mocked and panned by critics on social media.

‘Joe Biden, a man who can barely walk up a set of stairs, says the key to his marriage is ‘’good sex,’’ X account Not The Bee tweeted. 

‘Joe Biden who can’t climb the stairs without falling, says the secret to his marriage is ‘good sex.’ Really,’ Outkick founder Clay Travis tweeted. 

 ‘I don’t even know what to say about this post. Why?’ Bo Snerdley, of ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show’ fame, tweeted. 

The president and first lady met in 1975 after Joe Biden’s first wife Neilia Hunter Biden died in a car accident in 1972, alongside the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Naomi. The couple’s other two children, Beau and Hunter, survived the car crash. Joe Biden was sworn in as a Delaware senator just two weeks after the tragedy.  

‘According to both Bidens, Jill first met the boys in early 1975, months after she began dating Joe. He had lost his first wife, Neilia, and his infant daughter, Naomi, in a car crash in December 1972, just weeks after winning his first Senate race,’ the book details. 

Jill Biden, however, was hesitant about the relationship, the book argues, as she was freshly divorced at 23 after a ‘counterfeit love’ with her first husband. 

‘The idea of marrying Joe, a thirty-two-year-old widower still knitting his family back together, was daunting. Which is why it took Joe five marriage proposals before she finally said yes,’ the book continues. 

Beau Biden also reportedly encouraged the relationship, saying, ‘Dad, we think we should marry Jill,’ when he was 7 years old. 

Joe and Jill Biden married in 1977, and Beau and Hunter began calling the future first lady ‘Mom,’ while referring to their deceased mother as ‘Mommy.’

‘When Jill married Joe in June 1977, the boys came with them on a mini honeymoon, taking their own room in a hotel suite,’ the book continues. 

Joe and Jill Biden will mark their 47th wedding anniversary in June. 

JERUSALEM — Reports the Biden administration and a small group of Middle East states will soon begin pushing a new peace initiative with the aim of creating a Palestinian state have drawn pushback from the Israeli government, which declared this week it will not accept ‘international diktats.’  

Regional experts also say such efforts are doomed to fail as they have in the past.   

Last week, the Israeli government, including more moderate members of what is considered to be the most right-wing cabinet Israel ever, unanimously declared its opposition to any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, saying such a move would only reward terrorism and prevent a future peace settlement.

‘If a settlement is to be reached, it will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions,’ a statement issued by the government said.

An Israeli media report over the weekend suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, however, presented his security cabinet members with a discussion paper about Gaza, stating clearly that Israel plans to maintain security control over all land west of Jordan, including Gaza and other parts of the territories where Palestinians hope to establish an independent state.

Israel has been battling the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 when thousands of its terrorists crossed the border, murdering 1,200 people and taking some 240 people hostage. Even as Israeli troops gear up for what could be the final phase of the war, Netanyahu and his defense chief Yoav Gallant remain reluctant to discuss any broader future arrangements for the war-torn enclave.

Prof. Efraim Inbar, President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told Fox News Digital efforts by the U.S. administration to find a solution to the decades-old intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict were nothing new and, as in the past, efforts to bring about a Palestinian state, particularly under the current conditions, were unlikely to succeed. 

‘What the Americans want, a revitalized Palestinian Authority, is nothing new. … We saw a similar attempt during the Bush era,’ Inbar said. ‘I think the question we should be asking is why would a Palestinian state look any different to the Palestinian entities we’ve seen so far?’

Inbar said any future Palestinian state would need to be ready to ‘make some real compromises,’ including recognizing the Zionist movement, accepting Israel as a Jewish state and Jerusalem as its capital and relinquishing some of its territorial dreams. 

A Palestinian state would also have to exclude terror entities like Hamas, who Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh recently referred to as being ‘part of the Palestinian people’ and ‘a partner in any future political entity.’ 

‘These attempts are noble, but they did not succeed in the past, and I do not see that the current Palestinian leadership is ready to change the situation,’ said Inbar. 

Even Fatah, the Palestinian political faction led by the current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, ‘are not the nicest of neighbors,’ he said, noting that, in the past few months ‘dozens’ of members of the Authority’s official security forces have carried out terror attacks against Israelis and that after 30 years of PA rule, the population had been indoctrinated to ‘hate Jews and Israel.’ 

‘I’m not optimistic about what a Palestinian state would look like at this stage,’ Inbar said. He added the Palestinian people had also given up hope with their own leadership due to corruption and that any future Palestinian state would most likely carry the same political culture as others in the Arab world, namely dictatorships and tribalism. 

Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist and political analyst, also expressed doubts about the success of a future Palestinian state based on past attempts to create a self-governing entity. 

‘In my opinion, those leaders who are calling for a Palestinian state have forgotten one important thing – that a state must be built before it is recognized,’ he said. 

Eid said there is no suitable infrastructure for a Palestinian state — no real economy and a society where the majority of the population still lived in refugee camps. 

‘What kind of state would that be?’ he wondered. ‘I don’t think that is the kind of state the Palestinians are hoping for.’

‘My conclusion is that the Palestinians are not really qualified for a state,’ he said, describing how the last attempt to create a Palestinian state was when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon disengaged from Gaza. 

‘He wanted to give the Palestinians Gaza so they could start building their own state, but look at what they did there. They turned Gaza from Singapore into ISIS,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that calling for a Palestinian state right now is a legitimate demand.’ 

Eid said he believed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ‘set the Israeli-Palestinian conflict backward 50 years’ and that instead of calling for the creation of a Palestinian state, there should be international efforts to ‘build bridges to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together’ after the trauma. 

He also said the focus now should move away from the Palestinian Authority, and from Hamas, who are both ‘specialists in destroying states,’ and should be put instead on local Palestinian tribes. 

‘Let’s call the tribes and give them a chance to rule,’ said Eid. ‘I believe they will succeed in ruling the Palestinians much better than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. At least let them try for the next five years, then probably a charismatic Palestinian leader will emerge, we can hold elections and then negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can start.’ 

Khaled Hassan, a political risk and intelligence analyst with over 13 years of experience working in the Middle East, also said that prospects for the creation of a Palestinian state under the current conditions were dim. 

‘The establishment of a state requires tremendous efforts and international support, including a unified nationalist movement, similar to the Zionist Movement in the early 20th century,’ he told Fox News Digital. 

‘A Palestinian state would, most importantly, need Palestinian unity and Israeli recognition,’ he said, adding that any discussion over who might lead this potential state would ‘most likely spark a civil war among Palestinians’ and that ‘Israel was highly unlikely to recognize a Palestinian state.’

‘A Palestinian state can’t be imposed on Israel,’ Hassan said. ‘Arab states have for decades recognized a Palestinian state, but this has led to little to nothing in reality. Although, if there was American and British unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, that could result in unprecedented political, and legal, repercussions for Israel.’ 

‘It might not lead to a Palestinian state coming to life, but it would greatly diminish Israel’s standing within the international community,’ he said. 

If such a state did successfully emerge, Hassan added, the Palestinians would grapple with finding suitable leadership. 

‘Hamas is demanding not only to be part of a future state, but to lead it,’ he said. He said the creation of a state as a result of the Oct. 7 terror attacks would be ‘an explicit recognition of Hamas as a resistance movement whose attacks led to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

‘For Palestinians, the legitimacy of a political leader is largely based on their involvement in anti-Israel terror, so any Palestinian leaders who condemn terrorism are perceived as traitors and agents of Israel.’ 

He noted that previous U.S. attempts to install a more moderate Palestinian leader, one that rejected terrorism, had ‘been met with staggering frustration.’ 

‘Public statements by the late Egyptian presidents Sadat and Mubarak, as well as U.S. President Bill Clinton have illustrated this,’ said Hassan, recalling the widespread condemnation and boycott of Egypt due to its peace treaty with Israel. 

‘Sadat described Arabs, including Palestinians, who boycotted Egypt over the talks as reckless ‘children and teenagers’ who should not be entrusted with the fate of Egyptians, Arabs and Palestinians,’ he said. ‘His words still ring true 40 years later as the world watches what the recklessness of Palestinian leaders have brought upon their people and upon millions of Israelis who did not want this war.’ 

While the challenges to creating a Palestinian state appear insurmountable, Omer Zanany, head of the joint unit for peace and security at the Mitvim Institute and the Berl Katznelson Center in Israel, said Israelis under the current government were also likely to thwart the efforts. 

He said Israel faces two choices – continuing the war in Gaza at the risk of the conflict escalating to other fronts or seizing what might be a ‘historic opportunity to end the war, bring home the hostages and defeat Hamas by entering into negotiations for a two-state solution.’ 

Zanany, who heads a joint Israeli-Palestinian task force exploring the options, said there needed to be a gradual process that would bring enduring security for both Israelis and Palestinians. Such a process, he said, would put ‘hope’ on the political horizon that would help to bring about crucial changes in both societies. 

‘If we know there’s something that we can change, we have to begin with a process,’ he said.’I am not talking about having peace tomorrow but about getting into a new track. And I think that’s exactly what Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and the Saudis are saying.’ 

Ah… Watch out!

You might get what you’re after.

Cool babies.

Strange. But I’m not a stranger.

I’m an ordinary guy.

Burning down the house. —Talking Heads. ‘Burning Down the House.’ 1983

David Byrne’s hypnotic, octave plunge between the lyrics ‘watch’ and ‘out’ is a sonic caveat.

Those are the very first lines of the Talking Heads ‘80s anthem ‘Burning Down the House.’ The listener is forewarned. A tumultuous musical adventure lies ahead. The pending libretto is gnarly gibberish. Words which fit together — but don’t make any sense. A near homage to ‘I Am the Walrus’ by the Beatles.

Like Byrne’s lyrics, what’s going on these days in the U.S. House of Representatives, doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Watch out. The House is seemingly out of control right now. Political arsonists are striking matches and pouring gasoline all over the place.

Republicans hold the majority. But they’ve been burning down their own House.

‘Things have not been functioning well at all and that needs to change,’ beseeched Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn.

Chaos grips the House.

That’s saying something, considering this is an institution which practically mastered dysfunction.

‘We can’t get anything done,’ lamented Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.

Lawmakers are exasperated.

‘My Republican friends are barely hanging onto this majority by their fingernails,’ said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee.

My house…

Is out of the ordinary.

That’s right.

Don’t want to hurt nobody.

House Republicans have blocked their own bills — drawn up with the blessing of GOP leaders — from hitting the House floor a staggering six times in the past eight months. The House usually requires the lawmakers approve a ‘rule’ to allocate debate time and dictate whether amendments are in order. Only then can legislation come to the floor. 

The majority usually votes yes, greenlighting the debate. The minority customarily opposes the rule. But Republicans have torched their own rule six times. That’s a startling figure. Previous majorities only defeated two rules in the previous 23 years.

Republicans have struggled for 13 months now with their narrow majority. It started with the 15-round Speaker’s race in January of last year — an exercise not witnessed since 1858.

‘We only had a two-vote margin at the end (of our majority),’ said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

But Pelosi could empathize with the contemporary struggles of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

‘I don’t think people understand how hard it is,’ said Pelosi ‘Respect members on both sides of the aisle. Build consensus. Prioritize your issues. Don’t put people out on a limb on things that aren’t important.’

T. S. Eliot wrote that ‘April is the cruelest month’ in his seminal poem, ‘The Waste Land.’

Back on Capitol Hill, Johnson, might argue with Elliot about the brutality of April.

February has been an unmitigated disaster for House Republicans. More things have gone wrong for the GOP than points scored in the NBA All-Star Game.

To wit:

Republicans torched two of their own ‘rules.’ They failed during their first attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — before impeaching him by just a solitary vote after the GOP took a mulligan. Johnson even put a bill on the floor to aid Israel — which promptly failed. That was an unforced error. Conventional wisdom is that Johnson shouldn’t have pressed on the Israel bill — especially since the defeat came moments after the failed impeachment vote. And Republicans even saw their meager majority dwindle even further. 

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y. won a special election in New York to succeed expelled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. The GOP majority will shrink from 219 Republicans to 213 Democrats when the House swears-in Suozzi on Wednesday. That means Johnson can only lose two votes on any given roll call and still pass a measure — sans Democratic assistance.

On the morning after Suozzi’s victory, Ryan Schmelz of Fox News Radio asked Johnson how he’d ‘handle a narrow majority.’

‘Just as we do every day. We just do a lot of member discussion,’ replied Johnson.

It’s about the math. But how they’ve done things ‘every day’ hasn’t provided a victory.

This is why some Republicans are taking aim at Johnson. They’ve regretted the House ditching former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. That’s why McCarthy allies are particularly infuriated at how bad things have been in the House of late.

‘Whatever the cards were for McCarthy are the same cards that are being dealt to Speaker Johnson,’ said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. ‘All it did was take a crowbar to it and make it worse.’

Some Republicans criticized the leadership for indecision and making late play calls.

‘They’ve got to start thinking strategically over the long-term. Not just what’s in front of us,’ said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.

Some lawmakers are certainly making long-term strategic decisions. They’re getting out.

So far, five committee chairs have announced their retirements: Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Tex., Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., special China committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn.

Green said he wouldn’t seek re-election shortly after the House impeached Mayorkas. Green will serve as the lead impeachment manager (or prosecutor) as the House presents its case to the Senate. Green saw that as an opportunity to go out on top.

‘My point being, you go out for the win, right? And I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do,’ said Green.

A recent poll by Monmouth University found that only 17 percent of people surveyed approve of the job Congress is doing. But not everyone believes political paralysis is bad.

‘Let me just tell you something about the people I represent,’ said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Tex. ‘They don’t want this body to keep passing more laws and spending more money for the sake of it.’

This is the ‘burning down the House’ problem which bedevils lawmakers. Especially as two government funding deadlines loom.

We talked about February and April earlier. So expect March to enter like a lion.

So not only burning down the House. But perhaps shutting down the government, too.

Former President Donald Trump claims that his wife Melania is expected to make more regular public appearances on the campaign trail.

Trump made the remarks during his interview at a Fox News townhall earlier this week with host Laura Ingraham. 

‘It’s funny, she was a very successful model, very, very successful, and yet she was a private person. She’s going to be out a lot. Not because she likes doing it, but she likes the results,’ he said Tuesday. ‘She wants to see this country really succeed. She loves the country.’

‘You know, a lot of first ladies would go out — they want to be everywhere. They get angry at their husband because he’s not introducing them,’ Trump continued. ‘If I didn’t introduce Melania, she’d be very happy about it. She’s just a different kind of a person.’

Melania has been largely absent from her husband’s 2024 presidential bid thus far, making few public appearances and staying out of the media.

Her absence, until recently, has been explained by the passing of her mother, Amalija Knavs, earlier this year. But as the campaign season becomes more intense, political commentators have questioned whether she will step back into efforts supporting Trump.

Trump also expressed appreciation that Melania has been dedicated to raising their son, Barron Trump.

‘Her life revolves around that boy. It’s so important to her,’ Trump said. ‘At the same time, it also revolves around our country and the success of our country. She’s raised a lot of money for charity. She’s a private person.’

‘And she loves the country,’ Trump added. ‘She’s going to be out a lot, but she does it for the good of the country, not for her. She’s somebody with a lot of confidence. She doesn’t need that.’

Trump’s Fox News town hall came four days before South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, which commences Saturday. 

The latest public opinion polls indicate that he maintains a very large double-digit lead over former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, his last major rival for the GOP nomination.