"Wild Beasts"
Israel is weeping today. The bodies of three kidnapped Israeli boys were found yesterday in a shallow grave. Gilad Shaar, 16 years-old, Naftali Frenkel, 16 and an American citizen, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were apparently shot by their captors. A mob stoned the ambulance that drove the boys' lifeless bodies away from the scene of their murder. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accurately called their murderers "wild beasts."
While the families of the murdered boys mourned them and prepared to bury them today, the mother of one of the Hamas suspects told reporters, "If he did the kidnapping, I'll be proud of him." These are the people to whom the Obama Administration wants to give a new state. These are the people the Presbyterian Church USA voted, in the name of Christ, to support at their recent convention. A people whose mothers are proud when their sons slaughter unarmed boys, simply because they are Jews, are not worthy of a state.
President Obama condemned the killings, expressed his condolences and then promptly lectured Israel on its need to show restraint. What we should be doing is standing with our ally, Israel, and ending all taxpayer funding of the Fatah/Hamas coalition government.
Obama Prepares Border Actions
Yesterday a frustrated President Barack Obama addressed the nation from the White House lawn. Angered that House Republicans have not yet acted on immigration reform, the president vowed to do whatever he could through executive orders. But his rhetoric did not match reality. Allow me to translate for you.
OBAMA: "Our country and our economy would be stronger today if House Republicans had allowed a simple yes-or-no vote on this bill or, for that matter, any bill."
REALITY: With those words -- "any bill" -- the president exposed the parlor tricks liberals are playing on Capitol Hill. Anything the House passes has to be reconciled with the Senate. The House could pass the best border security bill imaginable. But that would only enable Senate liberals to go into what is called a "conference committee" with their amnesty legislation and gut the House bill. That is one reason why House conservatives have refused to vote on any immigration bill.
OBAMA: "We now have an actual humanitarian crisis on the border… In recent weeks, we've seen a surge of unaccompanied children arrive at the border… I've sent a clear message to parents in these countries not to put their kids through this."
REALITY: This isn't a crisis -- it is a scandal caused by the president's refusal to enforce existing laws. Everything he has said and done has undermined enforcement of our immigration laws.
"The Dreamers, the Dreamers, the Dreamers." "We won't punish children. Let the children stay." Obama invited this chaos when he took executive action to let so-called "Dreamers" stay in the country. Lo and behold, thousands of children are streaming across the border.
Who could have predicted that? Well, critics warned this would be the logical result, and his administration actually prepared for it. Back in January, it sought a vendor to escort 65,000 unaccompanied children from the border to shelters throughout the country. Now Obama is exploiting this manufactured crisis to justify his next round of extra-constitutional actions.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the president was going to "borrow the power … needed to solve the problems of immigration." Exactly where is the "power borrowing" clause in the Constitution that allows the executive branch to take power from the legislative branch? This president has borrowed us into fiscal bankruptcy, now he can borrow us into constitutional bankruptcy.
The Day After
The left is in full spin mode after the Supreme Court struck down Obamacare's abortion mandate. Please tell the women in your life that nothing happened yesterday that will deny them access to contraception.
The issue in this case was not contraception. Let me remind folks once again that Hobby Lobby's insurance policy covered 16 out of 20 forms of contraception. But the owners of Hobby Lobby drew the line at the last four methods, which they believed could cause abortions. And during oral arguments, the Obama Administration actually claimed that it could force companies to pay for abortions.
The issue in this case was individual religious liberty. Consider this statement from Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion:
"A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby … protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies."
Yesterday's ruling was a major victory won by a disturbingly slim margin of one vote. Now comes the hard part of winning the debate, which will be difficult in no small measure because of the cowardice of some politicians.
For example, without ever mentioning the words "Muslims" or "Islam," Hillary Clinton managed to compare free contraception to honor killings and genital mutilation. Asked about the court's Hobby Lobby ruling, Clinton said yesterday:
"It is a disturbing trend that you see in a lot of societies that are unstable, anti-democratic and, frankly, prone to extremism, where women's bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people -- men -- to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers."
Contrast Clinton's combative response to the pitiful performance of New Jersey's Chris Christie. On CNBC this morning, the supposedly pro-life governor said, "Why should I give an opinion as to whether they were right or wrong? At the end of the day, they did what they did. That's now the law of the land."
That's no way to win hearts and minds. And it's a good example of why pro-life conservatives often lose, even when we win.
If you are interested in receiving Mr. Bauer's daily report by e-mail, please call 703-671-9700, visit SIGN UP FOR GARY BAUER'S "END OF DAY REPORT" or simply send a reply e-mail titled "Subscribe" and include your name and address.
Visit End of Day archives to share reports on Facebook. Follow Gary On Facebook And Twitter.