Editor’s note: This article was penned Friday, Nov. 20.

Despite President Obama’s veto threats, a bi-partisan, veto-proof majority of the House of Representatives voted yesterday to approve legislation demanding more security checks on refugees from Syria and Iraq.

In a major rebuke to Obama, 47 House Democrats sided with the GOP majority in supporting this bill. Now consider this excerpt from the beltway publication The Hill:

“The Obama administration’s eleventh-hour bid to rally Democrats against Syrian refugee legislation backfired on Thursday… A number of Democrats who were on the fence about the bill decided to vote yes after hearing administration officials make the case against it.”

That’s very telling. The more the administration tried to reassure its allies about the quality of the existing refugee vetting program, the less safe some of them felt!

While I think this legislation falls short of what we should be doing, it tells you a lot about the left that even this modest proposal is being castigated by Obama and the media with suggestions that it doesn’t reflect our values, plays on fears, amounts to demagoguery, etc. (More on that below.)

The government’s first responsibility is to secure the homeland and not subject its citizens to unnecessary risks. Yet this is condemned by the president, many of his allies and leading media personalities.

The refugee bill now heads to the Senate where liberals are threatening a filibuster. So the battle is far from over.

At least someone is learning from the Paris attacks. Check out this Washington Post headline: “European Countries Agree To Strict New Steps To Secure Borders.”

About That Religious Test

Barack Obama says it is un-American to have a religious test in our refugee policy. But as we have pointed out, American law already states that we must have a religious test in deciding whether a certain group is in danger and should be given sanctuary. Here’s a quote right from the State Department’s web site about U.S. refugee policy:

“Under U.S. law, a refugee must have a well-founded fear of persecution based on one of the five ‘protected grounds’: Religion, Political opinion, Race, Nationality, Membership in a particular social group.”

Notice the very first category of “protected grounds” — RELIGION!

Previous administrations have followed that rule for Soviet Jews, Catholics from Vietnam and Christians and Jews in Iran. It is Obama who is not reflecting America’s values (or the law) when he insists that we should not have a religious test for refugees.

The reality in Syria and Iraq is that Christians and Yazidis are the most at risk of being murdered by ISIS. There is a genocide taking place and there is something deeply wrong with the refugee system now because only a miniscule percentage of Syrian Christians are being allowed in compared to Syrian Muslims.

Here’s something else to consider. Muslim refugees have a lot of options — Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. Christians and Yazidis have no comparable haven in the Middle East. So again, priority ought to be given to Christians and Yazidis.

Instead of accepting the left’s terms of the debate, I hope our friends in Congress start making these points and stop rushing to assure their critics that our proposals don’t include preferences for Christians.

Yes, It Is About Islam

This morning, Islamic terrorists stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, the capital of the west African nation of Mali. The hotel was targeted because it was well-known for being frequented by westerners and foreign diplomats.

Reuters reports that at least two dozen people are dead. A counterattack, led by U.S. Special Forces, is reportedly underway. Twenty-two Americans have been freed.

Several witnesses said that some hostages were released if they were able to accurately quote the Koran. Apparently the Mali terrorists didn’t get the president’s memo that this kind of terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. The jihadists, who yelled their supremacist battle cry “Allahu Akbar,” believe that it has everything to do with Islam.

We are learning more about Hasna Ait Boulahcen, the woman who blew herself up in Paris. She reportedly had a difficult childhood, but her foster mother recalls Boulahcen “applauding in front of the [television]” when news of the 9/11 attacks in New York City broke.

She apparently liked to drink, smoke and wear cowboy hats … until a few months ago when she underwent a “dramatic conversion to radical Islam.” Then she became willing to kill the infidel.

Poll Position

Two weeks ago, Dr. Carson was leading the Republican presidential primary race. But Donald Trump is once again in the lead. Several recent polls showed Trump leading by single digits, and a new NBC poll out this morning shows him leading Dr. Carson by ten points — 28% for Trump to 18% for Carson.

Where is Carson’s support going? Perhaps some of his voters are shifting to Senator Ted Cruz. Today’s NBC poll shows Cruz jumping into a tie for second place at 18%, nearly doubling his support over the past four weeks. Sen. Marco Rubio is in third place at 11%. No other candidate received double-digit support.