Somewhere, George Orwell is having a good laugh at the former premier newspaper of the United States, which has become the “Newspeak Times” instead of the New York Times. Rachel Stolzfoos reports at the Daily Caller:
The New York Times traded in the term “fetal heartbeat” for “embryonic pulsing” in a report on Louisiana’s new abortion ban last week, playing to abortion advocates and journalists eager to downplay the realities of abortion.
“The measure would require an ultrasound test for any woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy, and forbid abortion if the test detects embryonic pulsing — which can occur before many women know they are pregnant,” reporter Alan Blinder wrote. The sanitizing language was first highlighted by Breitbart News. It’s not a medical term and was apparently invented by Blinder.
When a newspaper struggles to obscure the truth of what it reports on, it forfeits the title of “news”paper.
Somewhere, George Orwell is having a good laugh at the former premier newspaper of the United States, which has become the “Newspeak Times” instead of the New York Times. Rachel Stolzfoos reports at the Daily Caller:
The New York Times traded in the term “fetal heartbeat” for “embryonic pulsing” in a report on Louisiana’s new abortion ban last week, playing to abortion advocates and journalists eager to downplay the realities of abortion.
“The measure would require an ultrasound test for any woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy, and forbid abortion if the test detects embryonic pulsing — which can occur before many women know they are pregnant,” reporter Alan Blinder wrote. The sanitizing language was first highlighted by Breitbart News. It’s not a medical term and was apparently invented by Blinder.
“The Court declines to take sides in this fight between the House and the President.”
If more judges would think as Judge Trevor McFadden wrote yesterday in a memorandum denying House Democrats’ standing to sue Trump’s border wall, we’d have a semblance of a republic left.
Yesterday, in direct contradiction of a California judge’s ruling last week, Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia ruled that House Democrats have no standing to sue the Trump administration over using defense funding for a border wall. He did not write on the merits of whether the president interpreted the statutes correctly or not. That does not matter. The judiciary does not stand above the other two branches and is not the final arbiter of political disputes. It decides cases or controversies and grants relief to specific plaintiffs with legitimate standing before a court. In this case, “the Constitution grants the House no standing to litigate these claims,” according to Judge McFadden.
In the 24-page ruling in U.S. House of Representatives v. Steven Mnuchin, McFadden noted that more broadly, “Intervening in a contest between the House and President over the border wall would entangle the Court ‘in a power contest nearly at the height of its political tension’ and would ‘risk damaging the public confidence that is vital to the functioning of the Judicial Branch.’”
What a refreshing change from what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in the courts. Rather than twisting Marbury vs. Madison to elevate the role of the judiciary to that of a god, as many other judges mistakenly do, McFadden rightfully noted that Marbury limited the role of judicial review “to decide on the rights of individuals, not to enquire how the executive, or executive officers, perform duties in which they have a discretion.”
So what happens to the competing injunction of Judge Haywood Gilliam of the Northern District of California? Last week, he not only gave standing to Democrats to sue, but downright pretended like he has the power to stop Trump from constructing a wall in parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Rather than simply ignoring this toothless injunction, which violates separation of powers, the administration begged the judge to “allow” it to continue the construction pending the appeals process, a request he summarily denied.
This should all change with Judge McFadden’s ruling. It’s time for Trump to set the precedent that “heads we win, tails you lose” is not a legitimate judicial process. Until now, especially during the travel ban case, the Trump administration went along with the point that Democrats can forum-shop for the most liberal districts on a broad national question and shut down the policy, even if judges elsewhere side with the administration. Under this erroneous practice, if 93 district courts were to toss out a lawsuit lodged against an administrative policy, but one takes the case and issues an injunction, prevailing legal theory acts as if there is some sort of extra-constitutional veto on the policy or law. That is simply not the case.
Trump should point to McFadden’s decision and his own separate branch of government as rationale for pushing back against Haywood Gilliam’s order. Democrats were also engaging in forum-shopping by going to the D.C. district along with the northern district of California. Democrat judges have an overwhelming majority on this panel (11-4), just like they do in the San Francisco court. Yet they struck out and got a Trump appointee. Why should the San Francisco judge rule the day when he is not even in a border district? At least the D.C. court naturally has more jurisdiction, because that is the go-to court for most controversies related to executive branch decisions.
The president can use this auspicious moment to delegitimize forum-shopping vetoes. The lawyers in the administration were counting on the Supreme Court to rein in these wayward California judges, but this is clearly not happening. We are nearly one year into this border crisis created by a single district judge, yet the Supreme Court will not act on catch-and-release. Just yesterday, the high court denied the government’s expedited motion for appeal in the case of a lower court judge making DACA the law of the land. Seventeen months after such a harmful and radical opinion, the Supreme Court is allowing lawlessness to pervade the foundation of our sovereignty.
As a separate branch of government, with the power to defend our nation’s border vested in the president, not the courts, the president must begin pushing back. There is no better case with which to launch that campaign, now that he has one robed omnipotent on his side.
Wednesday at the 75th D-Day Anniversary event in Portsmouth, President Trump read an excerpt from the prayer President Franklin Roosevelt delivered to the nation on the radio on the evening of D-Day invasion in 1944.
Queen Elizabeth also spoke at the anniversary ceremony today.
In his radio address, Roosevelt spoke to the nation for the first time about the Normandy Invasion.
Pres Trump reads excerpts from prayer, broadcast to the nation by FDR on the night of the D-Day Invasion, June 6, 1944. "Alimighty God…we we know that by Thy grace…our sons will triumph." (Courtesy: BBC Studios) pic.twitter.com/DfOUstjQJD
Here is the full prayer by FDR on D-Day on June 6, 1944.
Text of Radio Address – Prayer on D-Day, June 6, 1944:
“My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas — whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them–help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
If it weren’t for bad luck, CNN would have no luck at all — especially when it comes to ratings during the network’s vitally important primetime schedule. In May, the channel lost 16 percent of its weekday evening audience from the previous month, falling to just 761,000 viewers and winding up dead last among such cable networks as liberal rival MSNBC and the dominant Fox News Channel.
America is currently facing a massive border crisis, and House Democrats, along with seven Republicans, responded to it Tuesday evening by voting to pass an amnesty bill with absolutely no border security money or asylum system reforms. The final vote was 237-187.
“The Dream, and now Dream and Promise Act, is urgent for our country,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at the bill’s introduction in March, before trying to sell the legislation under a few lines from a Ronald Reagan speech.
However, critics point out that the legislation would do absolutely nothing to address the border enforcement problems and legal loopholes that created the current crisis in the first place.
Conservative Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, took to social media on Tuesday to say the bill would cost the American taxpayer $34.6 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while providing “$0 (ZERO) dollars for border security” and no asylum reforms.
“What is it?” Roy pondered: “A complete dereliction of our constitutional duty to #SecureTheBorder and address the ongoing humanitarian crisis at our southern border.”
What does it do? Costs $34.6 billion, according to @USCBO, while providing $0 (ZERO) dollars for border security. It does not close immigration loopholes, #FixOurBrokenAsylum laws, and constitutes a 2.7 million+ amnesty deal.
According to a summary sheet from House Judiciary Committee Republicans, the total cost of the bill comes from the combined estimated costs of the two bills that make up the legislation in its current form. The summary goes on to explain that “time constraints” kept the CBO from being able to calculate the potential public cost of aliens who could seek citizenship by violating the terms of their visas and then become eligible for green cards: “That cost is unknown.”
Other critics say that the bill’s barriers against applicants with criminal histories are too low. Briefing materials about the bill from the office of Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., say that “applicants with several misdemeanor convictions can obtain a green card, even if the misdemeanors were violent and resulted in death or bodily injury.”
The bill’s language bars illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a felony or three separate misdemeanors involving total jail time over 90 days from getting green cards. It also disqualifies those who have been convicted of a “crime of moral turpitude” and those convicted of domestic violence.
Furthermore, the bill bars the DHS from using state and federal gang databases as the determining factor in disqualifying potential beneficiaries.
“The Democrats are making us consider a bill that will worsen — give a green light — to the border crisis, incentivizing more people to cross our borders illegally in hopes of getting a piece of the amnesty pie,” said House Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., on the House floor Tuesday. “No doubt at this very minute, the smuggling cartels are getting the word out. … Congress is going to legalize millions, just get there.”
The unhinged Democrat led House has invited one of the key participants in the government who helped remove Richard Nixon from office in the 1970’s, John Dean, to speak before Congress.
Dean is a far left NeverTrumper who was a participant in the silent Deep State coup to remove Nixon decades ago. Yeah, this will go over really well…
The Democrat led House of Representatives has done nothing since January when they took over the House. Now they think that far-left CNN hack John Dean can talk the country into a Trump impeachment. Far left Trump hating CNBC reported –
The House Judiciary Committee on Monday announced a “series of hearings” related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, beginning with a June 10 hearing featuring President Richard Nixon’s former White House counsel, John Dean.
The Democrat-led committee revealed its new schedule as calls to impeach President Donald Trump grew louder from a growing list of Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates.
The hearing with Dean, titled “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes,” was announced less than a week after Mueller, in his first public remarks since becoming special counsel in May 2017, said that he would not go beyond the details in his 448-page report if he is forced to testify before Congress.
Dean has been vocal on CNN demeaning and slandering President Trump. If this is all the Democrats have to impeach Trump (which it may very well be) then there is no legal cause to impeach this great American President and the Dems are more ignorant than is commonly believed.
Hannity showed videos of crazy Dean on CNN last night –
Dean is no stranger to Deep State coups like the one attempted against President Trump.
In the 1970’s Dean was a participant in the attempt to remove Richard Nixon from the Presidency. This was all detailed in the book “Silent Coup: The Removal of the President” which discussed Dean’s actions in the coup that led to Nixon’s demise. The authors of this book were on CSPAN in 1991 to talk about their research covered in their book –
…the authors said that White House aide John Dean was responsible for the cover-up of the 1973 Watergate break-in, that General Alexander Haig was attempting to unseat President Nixon, and that General Haig was also “Deep Throat.”
Some other shocking notes from the CSPAN interview about Watergate include:
John Dean Pulled Off a Hoax –
Because John Dean pulled off an incredible hoax. He pulled it off on the Watergate Committee and he pulled it off on the courts and he pulled it off on the American people, and in a sense he erased the election. If you take John Dean out of the story, it doesn’t matter what Woodward and Haig do because it will be a series of leaks that will mean nothing. There’s no Watergate. It will be traditional Washington leaks that may nick the president a little bit, but it’s not going to drive him out of office. It is the John Dean story that is just absolutely the most important story in the book.
The Deep State Included Members of the Military –
Our principal findings are that Richard Nixon came into the office intending to run a secret government, cut out the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others. This caused an angry reaction which caused the military spy ring which Alexander Haig, long considered loyal to Nixon, was involved in. Haig had a secret relationship with Bob Woodward that continued through Watergate, leaked information to Woodward in an effort to tarnish Nixon because of distress over the foreign policy. A separate leg of our story is John Dean. Working independently, a young ambitious guy running a rogue intelligence operation in the White House ordered a break-in at the Democratic National Committee and when it failed, covered it up and tricked the president, who never bothered to find out the truth, into the coverup as well.
Howard Kurtz was used to defame the book Silent Coup –
The first shot out of the box they used their so-called media critic, Howard Kurtz. The idea was to poison the well. They put it in the Style section, they trashed the book, and then they sent it to all the wire services that they service around the country in order to poison the well. That was the whole purpose of that.
This leads us to today –
G. Gordon Liddy supported the central claims of Silent Coup, a book that says that John Dean was responsible for the Watergate break-in & advised Nixon to obstruct. Dean was a plant in the 1st Dem coup d’etat. They tried the same method on Trump.
It looks like CNN’s John Dean is well aware of how a Deep State coup works. The Democrat’s Nadler is wanting him to recreate his crimes but this time against President Trump.
When Barack Obama wasn’t promising to lower ocean levels and heal the planet, he was claiming that he’d be the last president to deal with health care.
”I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he said.
But as John Merline over at Issues & Insights notes, Obama only managed to make matters worse. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that health care is now the top priority for the public, with 24% saying it should be No. 1 on the priority list, and 42% saying it should be in the top two spots.
That’s up sharply from the public’s view of health care before Obamacare, when in 2006 only 14% ranked it as their top priority. Nine years after Obamacare passed, why do you think that might be?
An ongoing Gallup Poll, meanwhile, finds that people are, overall, less satisfied with their health coverage and the quality of their own health care than they were in 2007.
So muc for Obama’s promises. It means that, by Merline’s estimation, taxpayers and rate payers have coughed up more than $800 billion — so far — only to see health care get worse. File under promises of socialism.
So now it’s been up to Obama’s successor, President Trump, to “take up the cause” and repair the damage Obama did, while Democrats who are not on the impeachment train wreck are stating that health care is their big selling point with voters.
The question is, why does the public continue to trust Democrats on this issue? Merline’s piece is excellent insight about the false promises of Obamacare and the dangers of the Democrats’ new banquet of promises all right. Read the whole thing here.
When Barack Obama wasn’t promising to lower ocean levels and heal the planet, he was claiming that he’d be the last president to deal with health care.
”I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he said.
But as John Merline over at Issues & Insights notes, Obama only managed to make matters worse. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that health care is now the top priority for the public, with 24% saying it should be No. 1 on the priority list, and 42% saying it should be in the top two spots.
That’s up sharply from the public’s view of health care before Obamacare, when in 2006 only 14% ranked it as their top priority. Nine years after Obamacare passed, why do you think that might be?
An ongoing Gallup Poll, meanwhile, finds that people are, overall, less satisfied with their health coverage and the quality of their own health care than they were in 2007.
So muc for Obama’s promises. It means that, by Merline’s estimation, taxpayers and rate payers have coughed up more than $800 billion — so far — only to see health care get worse. File under promises of socialism.
So now it’s been up to Obama’s successor, President Trump, to “take up the cause” and repair the damage Obama did, while Democrats who are not on the impeachment train wreck are stating that health care is their big selling point with voters.
The question is, why does the public continue to trust Democrats on this issue? Merline’s piece is excellent insight about the false promises of Obamacare and the dangers of the Democrats’ new banquet of promises all right. Read the whole thing here.
How progressive. Via Campus Reform: The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) chapter at Texas State University boasted on Twitter about not having any straight members on its E-Board and Coordinating Committee after calling to “guillotine bourgeoisie traitors.” The YDSA chapter of Texas State University published a “happy pride month” post on its Twitter account […]
On Tuesday, Alabama legislators passed a bill that would punish child sex offenders by requiring them to be chemically castrated before they are released from prison. HB 379 was introduced by GOP Rep. Steve Hurst, who told WIAT-TV:
“If you openly support BDS in Florida, you’re dead, politically.”
That was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s conclusion from the surprisingly large role the issue of the antisemitic “boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) campaign against Israel played in his close race against Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum in Floridan’s gubernatorial election last November.
DeSantis edged out the hardcore progressive Democrat by a mere 0.4 percent, or 32,000 votes.
DeSantis made the remark during the course of his official visit to Israel last week. He led a massive trade mission of Florida business leaders, cabinet secretaries, and university presidents on a five-day trip to the Jewish state. During the course of the mission, Florida universities signed collaboration agreements with Israeli universities spanning a vast spectrum of undertakings from water purification to space research.
The mission merged the twin goals of increasing Florida-Israel economic, academic and commercial ties; and fighting anti-Semitism generally, and the BDS campaign against Israel specifically. Its success was a stunning expression of DeSantis’s state government’s friendship with Israel. It also placed the sharp contrast between progressive Democrats — like his opponent, Gillum — and DeSantis in stark relief.
Throughout his three terms in Congress, DeSantis distinguished himself as one of the most active defenders and promoters of the U.S. strategic alliance with the Jewish state. In contrast, in the years preceding Gillum’s general election run for Florida governor, he cultivated and benefitted from close ties with BDS groups.
DeSantis made his remark about the negative effect his opponent’s support for Israel’s worst opponents in America had on Gillum’s election prospects during a visit Wednesday to the Etzion Hub in the Gush Etzion industrial park. The Hub is a flexible work office space and a central meeting place for the growing hi-tech, small business and self-employed community of Gush Etzion and Efrat in Judea and Samaria.
During the course of his visit at the Etzion Hub, DeSantis held a roundtable discussion with Israeli officials to discuss the BDS movement and the reasons that Israel is being targeted for discrimination. He also held a joint press conference with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, responsible for Israel’s efforts to combat the global BDS campaign being waged against it.
DeSantis’s visit to the Etzion Hub marked the first time a Florida state official made an official visit to Judea and Samaria. He was accompanied by his cabinet secretaries and members of his delegation.
DeSantis’s decision to visit Gush Etzion, and hold his anti-BDS roundtable discussion in Judea, was a means to attack the BDS movement at its foundation.
The BDS campaign calls for social ostracism of Israelis and Jewish supporters of Israel outside of Israel. It also calls for the boycott of Israeli businesses and citizens, divestment from Israeli firms, and sanctions against Israel and firms that do business with Israel.
The BDS campaign has various permutations. One of them is a selective boycott of Jews and Jewish commercial enterprises in Judea and Samaria. President Barack Obama supported the BDS campaign in that permutation. For example, during Obama’s visit to Israel in 2013, the White House explicitly excluded Israeli students from Ariel University in Samaria from a speech Obama gave before an audience of Israeli students from all of Israel’s other universities.
In its final weeks in power, the Obama administration refused to veto, and indeed insisted on, the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2334. The radically anti-Israel resolution called for states to discriminate against Jews in Judea and Samaria, calling for “all states…to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”
Beyond its false interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention from 1949, there is no legal basis for the resolution to deem Israeli communities and neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria, and united Jerusalem illegal.
Aside from the speciousness of the legal claim, the assertion that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and unified Jerusalem should be targeted from discriminatory treatment is problematic for two reasons. First, it targets Israelis based on the fact of their Jewishness. Palestinians and Arab Israelis who work in Judea and Samaria are not targeted for discriminatory treatment and boycott. Only Jews are.
Second, and perhaps more important, by insisting that there is something inherently criminal about Jewish existence in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization, the partial BDS campaign legitimizes the Palestinian view that Jews are not a nation and have no right to self-determination.
The PLO itself made this point in its internal guidance to its officials. In 2011, the UK Guardian and Al-Jazeera published what became knowns as “The Palestine Papers.” They included a trove of documents from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Support Unit (NSU). Among the documents that were published was a November 2007 memo titled, “Strategy and talking points for responding to the pre-condition of recognizing Israel as a ‘Jewish state.’”
Explaining the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel’s demand to recognize that it is the nation state as the Jewish people, the memo asserted, “Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.”
In other words, once you accept that the Jews are a people, you recognize their homeland is the land of Israel and that their national history unfolded in the land of Israel. That history and sovereignty took place largely in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. So if you admit that the Jews are a people, you necessarily admit that Judea and Samaria, like the rest of the land of Israel, is their native land.
Conversely, by rejecting those rights, and indeed if you criminalize Jews who breathe in and out while in Judea and Samaria and unified Jerusalem, then you effectively criminalize Jews who breathe in and out in Tel Aviv. The two are indivisible. So people who support limited BDS inevitably support the view that Israel as a whole has no right to exist.
State governments historically have not played a major role in foreign policy issues. But as the BDS campaign casts a wider net, seeking to intimidate U.S. firms, universities, cultural institutions, and individuals to boycott Israel, preventing extortion of U.S. citizens and entities that conduct normal relations with Israel and Israelis has become a domestic issue. As a result, nearly half of the state governments have passed anti-BDS legislation over the past several years.
Two months before DeSantis entered office, the online holiday rental giant Airbnb announced that it would delist Jewish-owned properties in Judea and Samaria from its website, thus denying Jews the right to use the service to advertise their properties in the areas, just because they are Jews.
Airbnb’s move was precipitated by a massive pressure campaign by anti-Israel, pro-BDS groups spearheaded by Human Rights Watch. Its announcement was heralded as a great victory for BDS groups and seen as a watershed event that would lead to a flood of companies announcing similar discriminatory policies to target Jews in Judea and Samaria.
DeSantis responded swiftly and effectively.
During his visit to Hub Etzion, DeSantis described what happened and its significance for the wider campaign to defeat BDS in America. He also made clear why it was important for him to hold the anti-BDS roundtable in Judea.
“One of the reasons we wanted to come here [to Judea] is because we were fighting this BDS movement [in response to] Airbnb,” he began.
“In the end of last year, [Airbnb] announced that they were going to target Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria for disfavored treatment. That triggered our anti-BDS legislation in Florida so when I became governor [in January], we immediately placed Airbnb on the ‘scrutinized companies list.’ That would have triggered a number of different penalties particularly if Airbnb went public.”
DeSantis continued, “We have a very big pension system. And that would basically have made them persona non grata for us to invest in. So we took action early. We were the first state to do so. Other states started making noises and taking action. So I’m pleased to say that as we’re here today, Airbnb has reversed the policy.
“In Florida we welcome engagement with Israelis of all stripes. We are not going to discriminate against some Israelis or other Israelis and if people discriminate against Israel as a whole or try to find certain segments of Israeli society to discriminate against commercially, we view that as triggering our anti-BDS legislation and we will take action accordingly. So I’m glad that that has been addressed satisfactorily. And I really think that had we not done what we had done, I think that other companies would have followed Airbnb’s lead.”
In greeting DeSantis, Minister Erdan said, “Governor DeSantis has been one of the greatest and most consistent friends of Israel and of the U.S.-Israel alliance. Governor DeSantis promised that under his leadership, Florida would be the most pro-Israel state in America and he has kept his promise. In the name of the government and people of Israel, I want to thank Governor DeSantis for all that he has done.”
DeSantis’s decision to include the trip to Judea in his itinerary demonstrated two key facts.
First, elections matter. While it is true that Gillum tried to distance himself from his ties to BDS groups once they became an election issue, the fact is that he enjoyed long-standing, close ties to these groups. Gallium also harshly criticized President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and Israel’s steps to defend its border with Gaza from penetration by Hamas-organized mobs.
Had Gillum been elected, there is little chance Florida would today be leading the campaign to protect U.S. business, academic and cultural ties with Israel and defeating BDS campaigns to criminalize and discriminate Jews in the U.S. or in any part of Israel.
The second lesson from DeSantis’s visit is that the Palestinians are right about one thing: if Jewish life can be delegitimized in any part of Israel, then it will inevitably be delegitimized in all parts of Israel. You cannot defend Israel’s right to exist in general while claiming Jews are criminals for living or working or building in specific parts of the country.
