Yesterday, I commented on events in Hawaii and the reporting of Fox News’ Will Cain, a Lahaina native. Cain reported on the inspiring stories he was witnessing with his own eyes and ears, including two young mothers who were arranging mercy flights to Maui to bring in food and water. Cain says he isn’t seeing much of a government presence (a fact repeated by ABC News).

The major help is coming from the private sector and churches, and he and Fox News have raised more than $1 million in help for the community. Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his administration have offered each household a paltry $700, enough for a couple of nights in a Hawaiian hotel, if you can get to one.

The ironies here explode. On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see what Americans are still made of. Maybe the government will eventually step up. Maybe it will take less than a decade to figure out why public officials responded so poorly to the immediate catastrophe and so badly to the incredible material needs now. In many ways, what we are seeing in Lahaina is another Dunkirk, where the people bring everything at hand to the coast to aid their desperate fellow citizens, only this time it’s civilians and not soldiers in mortal danger.

Here’s another thought. Hawaii is an outpost of American freedom. Last time I looked, it hosts a major military presence in defense of our nation. There are literally tens of thousands of U.S. military members there (many more if you count retirees and support personnel).

Lahaina is 80 miles away by sea from a major U.S. military base. That base is one of many in the sensitive region. We have reportedly prepositioned our forces to deter conflict and respond to military threats in the South Pacific, particularly from China.

Where are they now? Is our Defense Department so consumed with transgender tolerance training that it cannot break off the parades and provide instant help to U.S. citizens? Not long ago, the United States responded immediately when Vladimir Putin made threatening noises against Poland. Biden ordered 3,000 U.S. military personnel to Poland to send a message. The Polish, even though they are great people and allies, are not U.S. taxpayers.

Our soldiers, sailors, and airmen follow orders and go where they’re sent. So what message is the Biden Administration sending that they are not all-hands-on-deck in Lahaina now? Can we at least elevate Hawaii to the level of concern we show for Poland?

U.S. Aid For Atheism

Some reports are so insane I have to read them three times to believe them. The Christian Post reports that leading House Republicans are investigating grants our State Department has made to atheist and humanist groups to advocate for atheism overseas. U.S. aid policy increasingly pushes abortion and LGBTQ+ causes around the world, often causing anger from other nations that don’t share these values.

While Americans focus at home on such pressing issues as soaring prices, radical attacks on the sanctity of human life, and the integrity of our elections, the Biden Administration’s culture warriors all over Washington, D.C., spend their days stirring up anger at America.

Here we go again. Our recklessly spending government can only muster up a pittance for disaster relief at home while funneling millions to promote atheism abroad. Actions like these are not high-minded defenses of human rights. This is not the way to make friends in Muslim, Hindu and other countries that already see us as the Great Satan in moral free-fall, determined to break down their religious heritage and customs.

Trouble comes free of charge in this world. It’s insane for us to buy that anger with our aid. In the first decades of our Republic, even as we protected religious freedom, our nation’s schools relied on the Bible as a primary source of education and a common heritage. Children learned to read, write, think and act by spelling out verses and paraphrases of verses from Scripture in their copybooks, and they honored these words as the common treasure of a free people.

In 1964, Ronald Reagan summed up the stakes in what he described as our Rendezvous with Destiny. Reagan said that our future would depend on the choice we make between godless communism and ordered liberty, with the result, if we fail, that we sentence our children to take “the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

Fast forward two generations and here we are: a morally and fiscally bankrupt national government that thinks America’s precious tax dollars should be funneled into grants designed to undermine the religions of other nations. I encourage GOP House leaders Michael McCaul and Chris Smith and others to continue pursuing the facts here and put an end to this needless Biden Administration meddling.

D.C. Viewpoint Discrimination Takes A Hit

One last note, some good news, hard fought as it has been. Recent events on multiple issues make clear that when the Left gains power their first battles are against our fundamental ability to resist them. They go after freedom of expression and election integrity. They undermine parental rights and cull libraries of real literature and learning. They shadow ban opinions and censor scientific information with which they disagree, and they seek to fire citizens who dare to speak out.

You will recall that after the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis three years ago, rage and riots broke out across the country. Massive damage was done to city after city, and dozens of law enforcement officers were killed and gravely injured. One common response to Floyd’s death was vandals spray-painting slogans like “Black Lives Matter” (and less pleasant slurs against the police) on buildings, roadways, cars, and sidewalks. Public officials reacted to most of these events passively, and the vandals and “graffiti artists” went unpunished.

In Washington, D.C., where much of this happened, two pro-life young people were singled out for arrest and charged in August 2020 after they chalked on a sidewalk outside the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic the phrase, “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter.” The activists filed suit against the city, charging that its selective enforcement of D.C.‘s defacement law is unconstitutional.

The lower court threw out the lawsuit, but Tuesday a three-judge panel of the federal U.S. Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the lawsuit can proceed. Amazingly, the three judges involved included one each appointed by Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.

Examples like this are few these days. Stories have emerged about how difficult it will be, for example, to find jurors in the nation’s capital who can fairly hear the trial of former President Trump, who lost the city by a margin of 92.1 percent to 5.4 percent in 2020. It’s little help when the nation’s law schools churn out graduates who believe certain points of view - conservative ones - are hate speech or disinformation.

The equal application of the laws and the First Amendment are bedrock principles of self-governance. Tuesday was a victory for those principles in a time of growing peril for them.

Defending Faith, Family & Freedom

In this week’s episode of the “Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom” podcast for the James Dobson Family Institute, you’ll hear Part 2 of my interview with my good friend Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBAPLA). Dannenfelser talks about SBAPLA’s life-saving program, Her Plan. This latest product facilitates collaboration between assistance providers and their communities to empower women and families through comprehensive medical, social, and material support.