Stand With Israel
Day two of the Christians United for Israel Washington Summit kicked off this morning with briefings from leading members of Congress such as Rep. Michele Bachmann, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Tim Scott. Following their remarks, thousands of pro-Israel Christians canvassed Capitol Hill, urging their elected representatives to stand with Israel.
Our "Night To Honor Israel" celebration yesterday evening was an incredible event. I was especially pleased to see nearly one thousand students in the audience, half of them Christian, half of them Jewish. There is a pitched battle being waged against anti-Semitism on our college campuses, and it won't be lost for a lack of pro-Israel activists!
Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer gave an impassioned speech. Unfortunately, he was interrupted numerous times by pro-Palestinian protestors who infiltrated the event. What happened there, however, was mild compared to the riots in Paris, where anti-Semitic mobs attacked police, sacked Jewish stores and a synagogue.
Websites in France are overwhelmed with raw hatred and calls for a second Holocaust. According to one analysis, 95% of online comments are being deleted for racist and anti-Semitic language.
Jeremie Mani, whose company monitors online content, told a French news agency: "On an article about the Tour de France, after four comments it's about Gaza. On one story about salmon fishing, I saw a comment saying: 'Stop talking about this, the problem is there are too many Jews.'"
By the way, Christians are routinely assaulted, raped and murdered throughout the Muslim world. Christians have been "ethnically cleansed" from Mosul, Iraq. Seven Nigerian parents, whose daughters were abducted by jihadists months ago, have since been murdered by the same thugs and nobody rioted over that.
Remember the Hamas rockets discovered at a U.N.-sponsored school? The logical thing for the U.N. to do would have been to confiscate and destroy them, right? But logic has little to do with this conflict, especially now that the U.N. has gotten involved.
Unbelievably, the U.N. returned the rockets to their owners -- the Fatah/Hamas unity government. Now they will be used against Israeli civilians. I guess we know what side of this conflict the U.N. is on.
Thousands Mourn Lone Soldier
As we reported yesterday, two Israeli soldiers killed in the recent fighting were also U.S. citizens. One of them, First Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli, was known as a "lone soldier," a reference to Israeli soldiers whose family members live outside of Israel. In Sgt. Carmeli's case, his parents live in Texas.
Sgt. Carmeli was laid to rest yesterday. According to one report, Carmeli was a "huge fan" of the Maccabi Haifa soccer team. Realizing Carmeli's status as a lone soldier, the team reportedly posted a message on its Facebook page urging fans to attend his burial "so that his funeral wouldn't be deserted."
What happened next should warm the heart of every American: Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Israelis showed up to pay their last respects to this young Jewish American soldier.
What more do you need to know about the two sides in this conflict?
My friends, after the horrific atrocity of 9/11, Palestinians rushed into the streets of Gaza and the West Bank to celebrate the mass murder of thousands of Americans. Israelis lowered their flag and wept with us.
Israel and the United States are bound together by history and culture. Our nations share a common bond of justice and belief in the virtues of Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian traditions. And we face a common enemy in the evil of radical Islamism, which is today stoking the fires of anti-Semitism and war.
That is why I will always stand with Israel!
Dueling Obamacare Decisions
This morning, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, widely considered the second-most important court in country, issued a decision that many are describing as a "crippling blow" or "major setback" to Obamacare.
In the case of Halbig v. Burwell, the court ruled 2-to-1 that the IRS and the Obama Administration ignored the plain language of the so-called "Affordable Care Act" in granting taxpayer-funded subsidies to enrollees in the federal Obamacare exchange.
The law it clearly states that only enrollees in state-run exchanges are eligible for taxpayer-funded health insurance subsidies. Without the subsidies, Obamacare isn't so affordable.
Members of Congress thought this language would encourage the states to run their own exchanges, lessening the burden of Obamacare on the federal government. But 34 states opted against taking on this additional bureaucracy.
Realizing how this could cripple the president's signature initiative before it ever got started, the administration simply ignored the law as it has done time and time again. Now a panel of judges has essentially declared the subsidies to 5 million people to be illegal.
Not long after this decision was announced, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a contrary ruling upholding Obamacare's federal subsidies. When two appeals courts issue contradictory rulings, that is usually a guaranteed ticket to the Supreme Court. But even some noted liberal law professors are not willing to "bet the family farm" on this case.
Border Security Is National Security
When Governor Rick Perry announced his decision yesterday to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas/Mexico border, he observed: "There can be no national security without border security, and Texans have paid too high a price for the federal government's failure to secure our border." He's right.
According to figures released by Gov. Perry's office, more than 200,000 illegal immigrants have been incarcerated in Texas jails in the past six years. They have committed a combined 640,000 crimes, "including more than 3,000 homicides and nearly 8,000 sexual assaults."
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst stressed yesterday that it's not just children who are streaming across the border. "We've seen estimates that at least a quarter of those apprehended have criminal records," Dewhurst said.
While rhetoric about compassion often dominates this debate, the social costs of illegal immigration are real and they are enormous. They should not be ignored. The primary obligation of government is to defend its citizens and many would argue that begins by securing our borders.
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