President Of Hypocrisy?

I couldn’t help but notice President Obama’s remarks [Wednesday] at the White House. With Pope Francis seated just a few feet behind him, Obama had the audacity to claim, “You remind us that people are only truly free when they can practice their faith freely. Here in the United States, we cherish religious liberty.”

This president brought the full weight and power of our massive federal government to bear on the Little Sisters of the Poor and more than a dozen Catholic dioceses, trying to force them, under penalty of crushing fines, to violate the teachings of their faith.

This president refused to defend traditional marriage laws in court and stood against the biblical values of millions of Americans. His agenda has resulted in individuals being punished simply for not wanting to be forced to participate in ceremonies that violate their faith.

Are the bakers, florists, photographers and others who have been harassed, sued and fined for their faith, thanks to Obama’s policies, “truly free”?

Left-wing media elites are falling all over themselves to spotlight areas of agreement between Obama and Pope Francis, such as immigration and climate change. Did you know that Pope Francis met with the Little Sisters of the Poor [Wednesday]? His visit highlighted the hypocrisy of Obama’s claims about “cherishing religious liberty.”

Ayatollah Demands More

As we have told you repeatedly, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated a terrible nuclear deal with Iran. They ignored a law requiring congressional review of the deal and instead took it to the United Nations for approval first. They used every procedural trick to prevent an up or down vote in the Senate.

Commonsense improvements to the treaty, such as demanding the release of American hostages and requiring Iran to recognize Israel’s right to exist, were dismissed out of hand.

The White House insisted this was the perfect deal and any changes would jeopardize it. Evidently, someone forgot to tell the ayatollah, who is demanding more U.S. concessions.

According to various reports, the ayatollah is demanding that sanctions be lifted immediately and entirely, not merely suspended pending Iranian compliance. During a recent speech, the ayatollah declared, “If the sanctions are not going to be lifted, there will be no agreement…Freezing or suspension [of the sanctions] is unacceptable to me.”

And the same administration that initially refused to go to Capitol Hill appears willing to crawl hat in hand next week to the U.N. to see if it can accommodate the ayatollah’s demand for more concessions.

The Refugee Crisis

The European refugee crisis has dominated the headlines for weeks now. The human flood is testing Europe’s commitment to its open borders policies. I’m going to let the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper, speak for itself. Consider these excerpts from a news article in this morning’s Post:

“Moving among the tens of thousands of Syrian war refugees passing through the train stations of Europe are many who are neither Syrian nor refugees, but hoping to blend into the mass migration and find a back door to the West.

"There are well-dressed Iranians speaking Farsi who insist they are members of the persecuted Yazidis of Iraq. There are Indians who don’t speak Arabic but say they are from Damascus. There are Pakistanis, Albanians, Egyptians, Kosovars, Somalis and Tunisians from countries with plenty of poverty and violence, but no war.

"It should come as no surprise that many migrants seem to be pretending they are someone else. The prize, after all, is the possibility of benefits, residency and work in Europe.”

My friends, the evidence increasingly suggests that this isn’t a “refugee crisis.” The U.N. acknowledges that more than 70% of these “refugees” are men — not women and children.

Nevertheless, at least 72 House members are demanding that we take in 100,000 more refugees, as if we aren’t already doing our fair share.

No country is more generous than the United States. We allow nearly one million legal immigrants into the country every year, even though wages are flat and many people are struggling to find full-time employment, especially minorities.

How many more should we take in? Should there be a limit at all? There are a billion people living in poverty around the world who would love to come live next door to you and me. What jobs will they do? Who pays for their benefits? Open borders and a welfare state will crush our own workers.

My point is this: Immigration policies based largely on compassion are threatening to overwhelm Europe. They would bankrupt us too. How is that compassionate to hard-working, struggling American taxpayers of all races?