It shouldn’t surprise anybody that the president delivered on a promise made during the campaign when he listed 21 people that he would choose from. Everybody knew ahead of time what sort of a judge he would put on the court for this vacancy or any future vacancy.

Gorsuch’s decade of service on the 10th Circuit has earned him a reputation as a brilliant, principled, and mainstream judge. It’s already been widely reported that he was unanimously confirmed by a voice vote to the 10th Circuit. There are still 31 senators in this body who voted for the judge at that particular time. Twelve of them are Democrats, and one of them is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Yet even before we had the nominee, there were some Democrat members who vowed to filibuster the nominee, sight unseen. That’s, of course, unfortunate. But given how Democrats have treated the president’s Cabinet nominees so far, it isn’t exactly surprising.

Gorsuch is universally respected as one of the finest and most fair-minded judges in our country. In fact, one of President Barack Obama’s solicitors general called him “one of the most thoughtful and brilliant judges to have served our nation over the last century.” If that’s not “mainstream,” I don’t know what is.

After the president’s announcement, something interesting happened. Right out of the gate, there were a number of Senate Democrats calling for “a hearing and a vote.” Well, that certainly sounds encouraging. The press picked up on these comments, and one newspaper even reported that after learning who the nominee was, there were already seven Senate Democrats opposed to filibustering him.

At first glance, it appears those Democrats were trying to be consistent with their stance from last year that a nominee deserves a hearing and an up-or-down vote. That’s what those comments would lead you to believe. Even the press was fooled.

But of course, now they conveniently seem to have dropped the “up-or-down” portion of that stance.

That’s a neat trick.

Take for example, one of my colleagues who just last year said, “The Constitution says the Senate shall advise and consent, and that means having an up-or-down vote.” But, oddly, just yesterday, that same colleague said, “I support a 60-vote margin for all Supreme Court nominees.”

That’s a nice sleight of hand. But most senators aren’t that gullible.

The Washington Post fact-checker certainly took notice of their wordsmithing. And that has earned them two Pinocchios. When you look at the facts, a 60-vote threshold has never been the “standard” as the Democrat leader said yesterday. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have two of the current justices sitting on the Supreme Court.

My colleagues tried unsuccessfully to filibuster Justice Samuel Alito. The Senate voted 72-25 to invoke cloture. He was then confirmed 58-42 on an “up-or-down” vote. Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed 52-48. There was no cloture vote on his nomination.

In fact, the Senate didn’t set any sort of requirement that there be 60 votes for seven of the eight justices serving on the court. So if there has been any sort of requirement or practice in the Senate on Supreme Court nominees, it’s that the nominee does NOT have to get 60 votes, although many of them end up getting that kind of support.

We already know some members have pledged to filibuster the nominee. And the Democrat leader stated that part of the “fair process” is a 60-vote threshold. I suppose if you’re already committed to attempting a filibuster on a Supreme Court nominee before you even know who it is, then you might consider that part of the “fair process.”

Of course, we all know—Republicans and Democrats—that launching a filibuster against a Supreme Court nominee isn’t part of a “fair process.” It never has been.

But I suppose we should cut our colleagues a little slack. They’re having a hard time figuring out how to make good on their promise to attack the nominee no matter who it is, when they’ve now been presented with a nominee with impeccable credentials and broad, bipartisan support.

Judge Neil Gorsuch looks on as Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, speaks to reporters in the U.S. Capitol. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

And this brings me to my second point.

Gorsuch had barely finished speaking at the White House, and there were already attacks on the nominee by some on the left. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have already taken to the Senate floor to attack and mischaracterize Gorsuch’s record.

Though we expected it, these scurrilous attacks are untoward and misplaced.

After all, those on the left trot out the same tired arguments against every Republican nominee.

They attacked Justice John Paul Stevens because he “revealed an extraordinary lack of sensitivity to the problems women face.” They called Justice Anthony Kennedy a “sexist” who “would be a disaster for women.” And they said there was “ample reason to fear” Justice David Souter.

This morning, the Washington Post editorial board noted that while we argued last year that the president shouldn’t fill a Supreme Court vacancy that occurs during a presidential election year, Senate Republicans “refrained from tarring Mr. Garland personally.”

In contrast, they noted that “trashing Mr. Gorsuch as an outlandish radical, despite his impeccable credentials, the wide respect he commands in his field, his long service as an appeals court judge and the unanimous voice vote he received the last time the Senate considered him for the federal bench, is at the very least premature.” Our friends on the other side of the aisle would do well to take note of this observation.

If the process we’ve witnessed for Trump’s Cabinet nominees is any guide, I’m quite confident we’ll hear all manner of reasons and arguments about why we should delay a hearing for Gorsuch.

But, as my friend and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, often notes: Supreme Court nominees don’t have the opportunity to respond to personal attacks outside of their confirmation hearing.

I’m going to consult with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, about the timing for Gorsuch’s hearing. But I can tell you what we aren’t going to do. We’re not going to delay this hearing, especially in the face of all of these attacks on his record and character.

I met with Neil Gorsuch yesterday. He’s as impressive in person as he is on paper.

I expect that as my friends on the other side of the aisle meet Gorsuch and actually review his record, they’ll find him to be an eminently qualified and universally respected judge whose decisions faithfully applying the text of the law place him well within the judicial mainstream.

The post Don’t Let the Democrats Fool You About a 60-Vote Threshold for Neil Gorsuch appeared first on The Daily Signal.

With liberal activists calling on Democrats to block Gorsuch’s confirmation, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is demanding a 60-vote threshold. Republicans have 52 seats, meaning they would need to secure the support of eight Democrats to end a filibuster and move to a confirmation vote.

So far, at least eight Democrats have said they support a “vote” on Gorsuch, although their statements aren’t exactly clear on what they mean.

“Various Democrats are trying to use weasely language about a supposed 60-vote standard for Supreme Court nominees in order to try to sound tough to some of their constituents,” said Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “At the same time, in order to try to appear reasonable to other constituents, they state their support for a floor vote on the Gorsuch nomination.”

Whelan said Democrats “can’t have it both ways.”

There are some like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia who have clearly ruled out a Democrat-led filibuster of Gorsuch, whom Trump picked Tuesday to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s seat.

“The Senate should hold committee hearings,” Manchin said in statement. “Senators should meet with him, we should debate his qualifications on the Senate floor and cast whatever vote we believe he deserves.”

Manchin, who represents a state that Trump won by 42 percentage points, added, “I urge my colleagues to put partisan politics aside and allow the vetting process to proceed.”

Manchin met with Gorsuch on Thursday, but did not say if he would vote for his confirmation.

Then there are others like Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. She initially signaled support for a hearing and vote for Gorsuch, but backtracked after facing criticism.

On Tuesday, before Trump made his announcement, McCaskill tweeted, “We should have a full confirmation hearing process and a vote.”

About an hour later, however, McCaskill added a caveat: it would need to be at a 60-vote threshold.

Schumer said Wednesday that 60 votes should be the “standard” for a Supreme Court nominee.

“Sixty votes is a bar that was met by each of President [Barack] Obama’s nominees,” he said. “At the time, there was no need for a cloture vote, because we knew that each of them would garner over 60 votes.”

The Washington Post’s fact-checker called out Schumer for his 60-vote “standard” on Supreme Court nominees. While 60 votes would be needed to overcome a filibuster, a simple majority is required for confirmation.

Obama’s two nominees, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were confirmed with more than 60 votes. But other Supreme Court nominees have been confirmed with less than 60 votes.

Justice Samuel Alito was confirmed by a vote of 58 to 42 in 2006, and Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed with a vote of 52 to 48 in 1991.

This week, Democrats sent mixed signals about what an up-or-down vote would mean for Gorsuch. In addition to Manchin and McCaskill, six others weighed in with similar statements.

• Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.: “I will support having a hearing and a vote because I think the president’s nominee deserves that consideration.”
• Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.: “I will push for a hearing and I will push for a vote.”
• Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.: “As I have said part of our job as senators includes considering, debating, and voting on judicial nominations, including to the Supreme Court.”
• Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.: “I will meet with Judge Gorsuch and support a hearing and vote for him.”
• Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., asked if Gorsuch should get “a straight up-or-down vote,” told Politico: “Absolutely.”
• Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.: “Have a hearing and vote.”

What remains unclear is the type of vote these senators have in mind: a cloture vote of 60 or confirmation vote of 51. In the case of McCaskill and Durbin, their statements were enough to rattle liberal activists and prompt responses.

A day after his original statement, Durbin clarified that Gorsuch would need to reach a 60-vote threshold.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee attacked Coons for lacking “backbone.” The group’s email to supporters said, “After everything Trump has done since taking office, this is NOT what Democratic backbone needs to look like.”

“Democrats are having an internal debate, and their senators are between a rock and a hard place, causing some senators to swing back and forth,” said Ken Klukowski, senior counsel and director of strategic affairs for First Liberty Institute.

“Some in Democratic ranks argue that they should keep Scalia’s seat open for a full four years,” Klukowski added. “They cannot sustain such opposition for four years. As President Obama said, elections have consequences. The American people voted for this outcome.”

>>> Upcoming Senate Votes Put Pressure on These 12 Vulnerable Democrats

Rachel Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, said Democrats have a losing argument.

“The Democratic Party appears to be split on this issue,” Bovard told The Daily Signal. “However, it’s the height of hypocrisy for the Democrats to demand a 60-vote threshold on Gorsuch after they destroyed the 60-vote threshold for every other judge by going nuclear in 2013.”

In 2013, when Democrats controlled the Senate, they changed the rules to eliminate the filibuster for lower court nominees and executive branch nominees. Trump has advised Senate Republicans to “go nuclear” and make the same standar apply to Supreme Court nominees.

Republicans, however, could also use what is known as the two-speech rule to run out the clock on a Democrat-led filibuster, preserving the 60-vote threshold while also eventually confirming Gorsuch.

Klukowski said that dissension in the Democrat ranks is not sustainable. He expects Gorsuch to win confirmation and be seated on the Supreme Court.

“President Trump made the Supreme Court central to his campaign, including a list with Gorsuch’s name on it,” Klukowski said. “In a sense, the election was Merrick Garland vs. Neil Gorsuch. President Trump won, so Judge Gorsuch won. Senate Democrats need to accept the verdict of the American people, and confirm this well-qualified nominee.”

This story was updated with new information.

The post Democrats Send Mixed Signals on Senate Vote for Neil Gorsuch appeared first on The Daily Signal.

But the only way for the GOP to keep that pledge is by passing the reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare. The longer Republican leaders delay that effort, the less likely either defunding Planned Parenthood or fully repealing Obamacare will actually happen.

We spoke with pro-life activists participating in the recent 44th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., who said they expect the GOP to keep its campaign promises.

The post Will GOP Keep Its Promise to Defund Planned Parenthood? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Last night, a group of over 1,500 protestors showed up on that same campus to shut down a speaker with whom they disagreed, and about 150 of them started a riot.

Clearly, the culture of tolerance on college campuses has changed quite a bit since 1964.

Last night, Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos stopped by the UC Berkeley campus on his college tour to talk about the importance of free speech, yet was met with shocking hostility that led to violence.

He is well known for criticizing the “social justice left” in a very provocative manner that elicits a strong response from the campuses he visits. He is no stranger to disruptive protests outside his events.

However, the new violent nature of these protests prompts a discussion over whether or not the school should be a recipient of federal funds.

Videos have surfaced of a crowd of protestors beating a man unconscious and lighting a massive fire, which led to the cancellation of Yiannopoulos’ speaking engagement by the university.

Yet as of last night, campus police remained minimally involved in containing the riots, with the police chief saying she was not aware of any arrests made.

This soft response seems odd in light of UC Berkeley’s statement this morning, which affirmed the importance of free speech:

Campus officials [said] that they regret that the threats and unlawful actions of a few have interfered with the exercise of First Amendment rights on a campus that is proud of its history and legacy as the home of the Free Speech Movement.

If UC Berkeley is so dedicated to protecting Yiannopoulos’ free speech, why the weak response?

The riots were violent enough to elicit a response from President Donald Trump, who tweeted out, “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”

If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017

Indeed, American taxpayers should be well aware of where their money is going.

UC Berkeley is a public institution that receives federal dollars, yet it appears to allow violence, censorship, and holds contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.

UC Berkeley is a public institution that receives federal dollars.

Yet on Jan. 26, the university’s chancellor issued a statement saying that Yiannopoulos had “been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech” and added that “Mr. Yiannopoulos’s opinions and behavior can elicit strong reactions and his attacks can be extremely hurtful and disturbing.”

Hardly impartial statements.

This is not the first time lawmakers have called for federal funds to be withheld from Berkeley, California.

In 2008, Heritage Foundation President and former Sen. Jim DeMint called for federal funding to be revoked from the city after the Berkeley City Council voted to remove a Marine Corps recruiting center from the city.

As DeMint said, “The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money.”

No city and no university campus should turn a blind eye to the rule of law in order to promote their political agendas. Indeed, the acceptance of federal funds should require an adherence to the basic rights guaranteed Americans in the Constitution—and that includes the First Amendment.

The threats to freedom of speech on college campuses are disturbing and warrant a response.

On Tuesday, Stanley Kurtz along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of the Goldwater Institute presented model state legislation at The Heritage Foundation to combat censorship and restriction of free speech on college campuses, which is intended to silence any dissenting views on political and social issues.

If adopted, this state-level legislation would require universities to open their doors to all invited speakers and reaffirm their commitment to free speech.

This is an important first step in restoring respect for constitutional rights in our university systems, something that is essential to preserving the free flow and vigorous debate of ideas that is fundamental to thriving academic institutions.

On the federal level, lawmakers should consider policies that limit federal subsidies to institutions that are hostile to free speech and who allow violence, threats, and intimidation of speakers and students to occur without consequence.

Taxpayers, who are already on the hook for $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loan debt should not continue to provide funding for universities that do not offer First Amendment protections to their students and guests.

Hopefully, such legislative responses will restore our universities to being places of thoughtful debate, where opposing views are met with respect and civil debate, rather than riots.

The post Americans Should Not Have to Subsidize Campus Lawlessness appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In a statement Thursday, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina pushed GOP leaders to bring the legislation unwinding major provisions of the Affordable Care Act and defunding Planned Parenthood to the floor for a vote.

The bill passed both the House and the Senate in 2016, but President Barack Obama vetoed the legislation when it arrived on his desk.

“There’s no reason we should put anything less on President [Donald] Trump’s desk than we put on President Obama’s now that we know it will be signed into law,” Jordan and Meadows said.

Republicans used a budget tool called reconciliation to pass the bill crafted in 2015, which fast-tracked the repeal legislation through the Senate and allowed it to pass with a simple majority of 51 votes.

The bill repealed the individual and employer mandates; the Cadillac, medical device, and other taxes; and Medicaid expansion. It also removed the government’s authority to run the exchanges, and lessened the fine for not complying with the individual mandate to $0.

The legislation also stripped Planned Parenthood of its federal funding.

Jordan and Meadows are both leaders in the House Freedom Caucus, a group of roughly 40 conservatives. Jordan formerly served as its chairman, and Meadows currently leads the group.

The Republican congressmen have been calling for Obamacare’s repeal for years and believe the issue was one that contributed significantly to Republican victories in 2012, when Meadows was elected, and 2014.

Now, with Trump in office, GOP lawmakers have an executive in the White House who has said he supports Obamacare’s repeal.

Republicans passed a budget resolution last month that began the initial steps of reconciliation, which lawmakers will use once more to repeal Obamacare. The budget document instructed House and Senate committees to begin drafting the legislation to dismantle the health care law.

But GOP lawmakers aren’t yet in agreement over what specific parts of the Affordable Care Act to undo, and some are even backing away from their initial calls for repeal.

Conservatives like Jordan and Meadows want to see Republicans unwind as much of Obamacare as possible, including its taxes and insurance mandates.

“Health care will be better and more affordable once Obamacare is repealed,” the duo said in their statement. “We committed to the American people to repeal every tax, every mandate, the regulations, and to defund Planned Parenthood.”

But Jordan and Meadows are at odds with other Republicans like Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine who have advocated that lawmakers hold off on repealing the taxes for a few months.

Additionally, conservatives are frustrated with the timeline for Obamacare’s repeal laid out by House Speaker Paul Ryan at a joint retreat for House and Senate Republicans last week.

Ryan, R-Wis., said Congress would vote to dismantle the law and implement parts of a replacement by the spring.

But Jordan, Meadows, and other Freedom Caucus members want to see leadership move faster.

“That’s what the American people expect us to do—and they expect us to do it quickly,” Jordan and Meadows said of Obamacare’s repeal.

The post Conservatives Offer Solution to Repeal Obamacare, Defund Planned Parenthood: Pass 2015 Bill Again appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The violence was instigated by a group of about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest.

The decision to cancel the event was made at about 6 p.m., and officers read several dispersal announcements to a crowd of more than 1,500 protesters who had gathered outside the student union, where Yiannopoulos was to speak. …

Fires that were deliberately set, one outside the campus Amazon outlet; Molotov cocktails that caused generator-powered spotlights to catch fire; commercial-grade fireworks thrown at police officers; barricades pushed into windows and skirmishes within the crowd were among the evening’s violent acts.

The masked agitators came to campus eastbound on Bancroft Way, and fire damage and other destruction to the Stiles Hall construction site, where a new residence hall is planned, was reported. The group entered campus and immediately began throwing rocks at officers. In an effort to avoid injuries to innocent members of the surrounding crowd who might have been caught in the middle, police officers exercised restraint and did not respond with force.

Agitators also attacked some members of the crowd who were rescued by police. UCPD reported no major injuries and about a half dozen minor injuries. Mutual aid officers from the city of Oakland and from Alameda County arrived at Berkeley around 7:45 p.m. to assist UCPD and Berkeley city police.

No arrests had been made by UCPD as of 9:30 p.m.

This is insane.

Just try to imagine the reaction if this had occurred at, say, Hillsdale College if Lena Dunham had come to speak.

Yes, it’s true that most liberals wouldn’t act like this—and it’s not clear who the “masked agitators” were. (Although again: How many on the left would use those caveats if this happened in the hypothetical Dunham speech at Hillsdale?)

And to UC Berkeley’s credit, the statement continued, “Campus officials added that they regret that the threats and unlawful actions of a few have interfered with the exercise of First Amendment rights on a campus that is proud of its history and legacy as the home of the Free Speech Movement.”

(Although—it does seem strange that when protesters threw rocks, attacked crowd members, pushed barricades into windows, etc., etc., no one was arrested.)

Here are photos of what happened Wednesday night in Berkeley, California:

A light stand is set on fire during protest on the University of California, Berkeley campus against Milo Yiannopoulos. (Photo: Jeremy Breningstall/ZUMA Press/Newscom)

A demonstrator protesting Yiannopoulos sets a fire. (Photo: Noah Berger/EPA/Newscom)

Rioters smash windows at a T-Mobile store during a protest against Yiannopoulos. (Photo: Noah Berger/EPA/Newscom)

Protests against Milo at UC Berkeley. Protesters chanting “This is what community looks like.” pic.twitter.com/a0YIZ3epIc

— Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) February 2, 2017

Rioters loot and vandalize a Starbucks during a protest against Yiannopoulos. (Photo: Noah Berger/EPA/Newscom)

A worker surveys the damage to a vandalized Starbucks after the protest. (Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters/Newscom)

A vandalized Bank of America office is seen after a protest turned violent at UC Berkeley during a demonstration over Yiannopoulos. (Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters/Newscom)

In the 20 years I’ve lived in the Bay, I’ve never seen in go down like this in Berkeley. We’re living in a new country now. pic.twitter.com/iN2xMHuVsQ

— Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) February 2, 2017

A rioter smashes a window at a Mechanics Bank branch. (Photo: Noah Berger/EPA/Newscom)

Picture of graffiti as protesters storm UC Berkeley’s campus. (Photo: Butch Escobar/newzulu/Newscom)

THE MILO EFFECT: When a gay conservative shows up at Berkeley, the left goes berserk https://t.co/hB9hGa87pR

— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) February 2, 2017

Eddy Brock, who says he is a free speech advocate who was attacked by demonstrators protesting against Yiannopoulos, holds his head. (Photo: Noah Berger/EPA/Newscom)

The post In Photos, the Latest Example of Liberal ‘Tolerance’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The study from Avalere Health, a health care consulting firm, showed rising premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs for many customers, a shrinking amount of insurance options in the exchange market, and a drastically lower number of Obamacare enrollees than projected.

Premiums for the silver-level plan, Obamacare’s most popular option, increased by an average of 12 percent in 2017. Specifically, the Avalere report showed that 71 percent of Obamacare enrollees covered under the silver plan have seen their average costs rise from $496 per month last year to $554 per month this year. The average cost for the first and second cheapest silver-level plans have also gone up by 25 percent.

Even for Obamacare’s bronze-level plan—the cheapest, lowest quality option—the monthly, average premiums rose from $408 in 2016 to $475 this year.

“Part of the reason why these premiums are rising is because there are fewer people enrolled than I expected, and the people who are enrolled are sicker than expected,” said Chris Sloan, a senior manager at Avalere, in a phone interview with The Daily Signal.

However, according to Sloan, with government subsidies and tax credits, lower-income earners enrolled in Obamacare may not be affected by the rising costs of these cheaper plans.

“While many consumers will experience significant premium increases this year, most will receive subsidies to help offset the costs of the increases and make premiums more affordable,” Sloan said in a statement.

Obamacare premiums are going up, but due to government financial assistance, real costs for many enrollees are remaining relatively the same. These costs will fall on taxpayers, according to a health care expert.

“If subsidies are going up through premium tax credits and cautionary reduction subsidies, the federal taxpayer ends up paying for that increase, so the burden of that is on all us federal taxpayers,” said Alyene Senger, a health care policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.

Senger added, “When supporters of the [Affordable Care Act] say, ‘Well, these figures don’t really matter, because we’re subsidizing [Obamacare enrollees] so they aren’t feeling the brunt of their premium increases because the federal taxpayer is picking up the tab,’ that doesn’t apply to all the people who are purchasing in the individual market that get no subsidy.”

However, even with many Obamacare enrollees being assisted by subsidies or tax credits, they may still find themselves paying more out of pocket for their health care, as deductibles for services and drugs jumped by about 20 percent for silver-level plans in 2017. The number of silver-level plans charging coinsurance—an out-of-pocket payment charged after a consumer’s deductible is paid—for specialty drugs went up by 10 percent.

Issuer participation is also a problem highlighted by the Avalere report, as approximately 1 in 3 regions in America now only have one health insurance issuer. In 2016, just 4 percent of the country was limited to one issuer in their region. After several national and regional insurers exited the exchange markets, 36 percent of the country is now stuck with one issuer in their region.

“What this means is that people who have purchased insurance for 2017 have a lot less choice, so if there’s only one issuer offering health plans in your area and their network doesn’t include your doctor, then that’s it, you don’t really have another option,” Sloan told The Daily Signal.

“People in this market just won’t have as much choice as they had in 2016, or 2015, or 2014,” Sloan said.

This Avalere report, titled “2017 Health Insurance Exchange Snapshot,” was published on Jan 18.

The post New Obamacare Report Shows Rising Costs and Fewer Options for 2017 appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A draft copy of the executive order was leaked to LGBT groups and liberal media outlets in an attempt to prevent the president from issuing it.

But the president should not cave. He should stand up to the liberal outrage and hostility to ordinary American values that fueled his rise in the first place.

The executive order is good, lawful public policy. And it makes good on several promises then-candidate Trump made to his supporters.

Indeed, just this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump pledged, “My administration will do everything in its power to defend and protect religious liberty.” This executive order is the place to start.

Here are some of the things the religious freedom executive order would do:

• It tells the entire federal government to respect federal statutes and Supreme Court decisions that make clear the free exercise of religion applies to all people, of all faiths, in all places, and at all times—that it is not merely the freedom to worship.
• It notes that religious organizations include all organizations operated by religious principles, not just houses of worship or charities. And it follows the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in saying that religious exercise “includes all aspects of religious observance and practice,” not just those absolutely required by a faith.
• It instructs all agencies of the federal government, “to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law,” to reasonably accommodate the religion of federal employees, as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
• It instructs the secretaries of health and human services, labor, and treasury to finally grant relief to the Little Sisters of the Poor and others who weren’t exempted from the Obamacare abortifacient and contraception mandate.
• It instructs the secretary of health and human services to ensure that all citizens have the ability to purchase health care plans through Obamacare that do not cover abortion or subsidize plans that do.
• It instructs the secretary of health and human services to ensure that the federal government does not discriminate against child welfare providers, such as foster care and adoption services, based on the organization’s religious beliefs.
• It adopts the Russell Amendment and instructs all agencies of the federal government to provide protections and exemptions consistent with the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act to all religious organizations that contract with the federal government or receive grants.
• It instructs the secretary of the treasury to ensure that it does not revoke nonprofit tax status because a religious organization’s ordinary religious speech deals with politics, or because it speaks or acts on the belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife, that a person’s sex is based on immutable biology, or that life begins at conception.
• It instructs all agencies of the federal government to refuse to recognize any decision by a federally recognized accrediting body that revokes or denies accreditation to an organization because of such beliefs.
• It instructs all agencies that they may not take adverse action against federal employees, contractors, or grantees because of their speech about marriage outside of their employment, contract, or grant, and that agencies shall reasonably accommodate such beliefs inside of employment, contract, or grant.

This executive order is good policy and entirely lawful. The president has the legal authority to instruct agencies of the federal government to respect the religious liberty rights of all Americans where it can.

And to avoid any potential conflicts, the executive order explicitly states that it “shall be carried out … to the extent permitted by law” and that any accommodation must be “reasonable.”

With those two clauses alone, the hyperventilating criticisms of the LGBT left are immediately rendered void.

>>> For more on this, see Ryan T. Anderson’s “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom”

But liberals shouldn’t be concerned in the first place.

Opponents to the executive order misrepresent the order by claiming it would repeal an Obama-era executive order elevating LGBT status to a protected class in federal contracts.

As bad and unnecessary as President Barack Obama’s order was, this new order does not repeal it.

Rather, it protects the religious liberty rights of all Americans in very tailored ways that address problems of today.

It ensures that the government will not discriminate against beliefs that are under assault, and protects religious organizations’ right to maintain their mission and identity in their staffing decisions and programming, while not losing the ability to partner with the government.

The executive order also provides specific protections to undo some of the worst of liberal overreach.

It finally and fully protects Americans from having to violate their consciences under the Obamacare abortifacient and contraception mandate. It protects the ability of all Americans to buy health care that doesn’t cover or subsidize abortion.

And it protects all Americans who believe that marriage is the union of husband and wife from federal government penalties or coercion.

These protections take nothing away from anyone—they simply ensure that the public square remains open to all religious voices, even when those voices diverge from the government’s view on contested questions. They protect diversity and pluralism and tolerance.

None of this should be objectionable—which makes you wonder why liberals are objecting, except to continue the denunciation of “deplorables” that offended Americans of good will last year.

Trump promised while on the campaign trail that he would defend religious freedom. Now is the time to make good on that promise.

The post Mr. President: Don’t Cave to Liberal Fearmongering. Protect Religious Freedom. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“[The] recent intensification of hostilities on the contact line in eastern Ukraine has had a very heavy impact on the local population,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement Tuesday. “The weather conditions make the negative impact even more severe.”

Avdiivka is a Ukrainian government-controlled town outside the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. About half of the town’s pre-war population of 33,000 have fled since the war began in April 2014.

Of the 16,000 civilians who remain, 2,000 are children, according to Ukrainian officials.

Since Sunday, combat has intensified along the 250-mile-long front lines in the Donbas, Ukraine’s embattled southeastern territory on the Russian border.

Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the spike in violence, exchanging differing narratives as to which side set off the attacks, and for what purposes.

“[The] recent intensification of hostilities on the contact line in eastern Ukraine has had a very heavy impact on the local population.” —@ICRC

Ukrainian officials say that a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars in eastern Ukraine is deliberately trying to derail the February 2015 cease-fire, called Minsk II. According to one line of thinking, the attacks are a ploy meant to bait Ukraine into a counteroffensive, which Russia can exploit for propaganda purposes.

“Russia and its proxies in Donbas continue to undermine the peaceful process, based on full and good-faith implementation of the Minsk agreements, by pursuing their political objectives through the usual blackmail of the indiscriminate use of force,” Ihor Prokopchuk, permanent representative of Ukraine to the international organizations in Vienna, said during a statement to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Permanent Council in Vienna on Tuesday.

In turn, Moscow and the Donetsk People’s Republic—one of two breakaway territories in east Ukraine—have accused Kyiv of provoking the violence. They claim Ukraine is using the humanitarian crisis to vilify Russia and convince the U.S. and the EU to maintain punitive sanctions against Moscow.

Internally displaced persons line up at a United Nations World Food Program distribution center in east Ukraine. (Photos: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

“The essence of what is happening around Avdiivka and already other communities at the engagement line is that Kiev is trying to use combat engagements it has provoked as a reason for completely giving up the Minsk accords,” Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin aide, told journalists in Moscow on Monday, according to the Russian news site TASS. Kiev is the Russian spelling of Ukraine’s capital city.

The U.S. and the European Union placed sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, as well as for Moscow’s military interventions in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S., for the moment, is resolutely in Ukraine’s corner.

“Russia and the separatists initiated the violence in Avdiivka,” Kate M. Byrnes, acting deputy chief of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE, said in Vienna on Tuesday.

“We call on Russia to stop the violence, honor the cease-fire, withdraw heavy weapons, and end attempts to seize new territory beyond the line of contact,” Byrnes said. “Most of all, Russia and the separatists must demonstrate their willingness to fully abide by the cease-fire, a primary component of the Minsk agreements that they have so often broken.”

Disaster

According to Ukrainian military reports, as well as civilian accounts from Avdiivka, combined Russian-separatist forces launched an infantry assault on Ukrainian military positions in Avdiivka on Sunday. The Ukrainian military repelled the attack, but artillery and rocket attacks didn’t let up.

Eight Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the fighting on Sunday and Monday, and 26 were wounded.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Ukrainian forces in Avdiivka were shelled 400 times on Sunday, and 800 times on Monday. On Monday night, combined Russian-separatist forces fired 80 Grad rockets at Ukrainian positions, according to Kyiv.

Eight Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the fighting on Sunday and Monday, and 26 were wounded. The Ukrainian military and humanitarian groups like the Red Cross also reported civilian casualties.

On Sunday, shelling damaged three of the four power lines supplying the Avdiivka Coke Plant. Shelling destroyed the fourth power line on Monday, cutting off all power to the facility.

All power and heating for Avdiivka and its 16,000 remaining residents comes from the coke plant. And so, as temperatures plunged double digits below zero Celsius, Avdiivka went dark and cold.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who was in Germany on a diplomatic trip Monday, cut short his visit to return to Kyiv to address what his staff referred to as a looming “humanitarian disaster.”

Ukrainian officials considered evacuating the civilian population, but as of Wednesday, evacuations were still voluntary. About 80 buses are standing by, ready to evacuate as many as 12,000 people.

On Tuesday night, combined Russian-separatist forces launched another ground assault on Ukrainian positions in and around Avdiivka. Ukrainian forces repelled that attack, as well as another one on Wednesday morning, comprising a 30-man infantry unit supported by indirect fire from BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket systems, and 152 mm artillery, according to a statement from the Ukrainian military.

False Starts

Throughout the day Wednesday, calls for a truce have been made, and then promptly violated.

Combined Russian-separatist forces provided a written proposal to the Ukrainian military, calling for a cease-fire in Avdiivka from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., which is about the time it gets dark in east Ukraine in winter.

Yet, after the provisional truce went into effect Wednesday, the shelling resumed, according to statements from Ukrainian military and civil officials.

“An hour ago, the enemy requested a truce and, taking advantage of the calm, launched an attack,” the Ukrainian army’s 72nd Brigade, the unit deployed to the front lines around Avdiivka, posted to its Facebook page shortly after the cease-fire was supposed to start on Wednesday.

“The battle is still ongoing,” the unit wrote.

Artillery damage in Avdiivka.

“At first they [combined Russian-separatist forces] asked for cease-fire, but they regrouped and went on the offensive 10 minutes later,” Donetsk Military and Civil Administration Gov. Pavlo Zhebrivskyi wrote on Facebook.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, fighting in Avdiivka had not yet stopped, but had relented enough to allow, for the first time in days, workers to begin repairs needed to restore heating.

The Avdiivka hospital was operating on an “autonomous” source of power, according to area officials. And as of Wednesday, 11 warming centers were up and running, providing civilians places in which they could escape the cold. The Ukrainian military has also set up warming tents for civilians.

International aid groups have also stepped in to address the humanitarian crisis.

The Red Cross responded by delivering items like blankets, candles, mattresses, flashlights, and tarpaulins. The United Nations World Food Program also told The Daily Signal that it was delivering food parcels to Avdiivka.

Blood and Treasure

The spike in fighting could deal Ukraine an economic blow.

The Avdiivka Coke Plant produces 40 percent of Ukraine’s coke supply, and is the largest coke production facility in Europe. Coke is a fuel made by refining coal, which is then used as a precursor to producing different types of gas, as well as smelting iron ore into steel.

Since June 2014, nine workers at the Avdiivka Coke Plant have been killed by artillery.

“There is no need to repeat what destiny is awaiting the residents of Avdiivka, should Avdiivka Coke cease its operation, and what catastrophe it will be for the economy of Ukraine, if Avdiivka Coke shuts down,” Musa Magomedov, director of the Avdiivka Coke Plant, wrote in a December 2016 statement, after an artillery attack cut off power to the plant for 24 hours.

Avdiivka is considered a “monocity,” a carryover classification from the Soviet Union denoting cities or towns dominated by a single industry or company, which were a key part of the Soviet planned economy.

In the case of Avdiivka, the town orbits around the coke plant, which is run by Metinvest, a Ukrainian mining and steel company.

Metinvest owns industrial facilities throughout Ukraine, including the country’s second-biggest metallurgical plant, the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol.

As of Wednesday evening, an uptick in fighting on the periphery of Mariupol—comprising artillery, armor, and rockets—had not impacted operations at the plant.

The Avdiivka Coke Plant is the largest coke production factory in Europe.

The Ilyich Iron and Steel Works does, however, receive coke for smelting iron ore from the Avdiivka coke factory. Thereby, a long-term disruption of operations at the Avdiivka Coke Plant could ripple throughout Ukraine’s metallurgical industry.

On Wednesday, Magomedov, the Avdiivka Coke Plant director, told Ukrainian journalists that it would take three to four days to get the facility back up and running once the shelling had stopped.

But the Avdiivka Coke Plant was dealt another setback on Wednesday afternoon when the only railway line connecting Avdiivka to the rest of Ukraine was damaged.

“I hope the repair crews will work quickly … this is a real challenge for the company,” Magomedov said on Ukrainian TV.

“Our colleagues in Avdiivka make heroic efforts to deal with the situation,” Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov wrote in a statement posted to the company’s website. “The efforts are now focused on finding power generators, tents, and heating equipment to help people in Avdiivka survive the potential heating disruption.”

Blame Game

Some analysts have attributed the recent spike in violence in Ukraine to peripheral events.

For one, the violence began one day after Saturday’s phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. One line of thinking is that this week’s escalation is a move by Putin to test the White House’s tolerance for Russian provocations in Ukraine.

Also, on Wednesday, Ukraine begins its one-month presidency of the United Nations Security Council—a rotating billet based on the alphabetical order of countries’ names.

Ukraine, which is a non-permanent member of the Security Council, has repeatedly called on the U.N. to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine to enforce the cease-fire.

Through the U.N., Ukraine “will continue using every opportunity to defend Ukraine against Russia’s military aggression,” Poroshenko said on Twitter Wednesday.

Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

The post ‘Humanitarian Disaster’: Thousands of Civilians Caught in the Crossfire as the War in Ukraine Escalates appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“I’m astounded that you’re even having this conversation,” former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said during the Republican Study Committee discussion. “If the Republicans really want to give up control of Congress, just [bring back earmarks]. I guarantee it’s going to happen if you do.”

Coburn called earmarks “the gateway drug to overspending,” and cautioned against restoring them.

Earmarks, which were banned under House rules in 2010, allow taxpayer money to be directed to special interests and projects through the budget.

The proposal to reinstate earmarks—led by Reps. John Culberson, R-Texas; Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; and Tom Rooney, R-Fla.—was set in motion just days after the 2016 election.

>>> Conservatives Warn GOP Not to Revive Earmarks in Wake of Trump’s Win

Jim DeMint, a former South Carolina senator who represented the state’s 4th Congressional District from 2005 to 2013 and who serves as the president of The Heritage Foundation, said that earmarks lead to a corrupted political system.

“You can hear all kinds of good excuses for earmarks, [like] ‘this is a good project,’’’ DeMint said. “For every good project, there are wasteful projects. It corrupts the system, we’ve had congressmen go to jail, we’ve had congressmen use earmarks for their own special interests.”

> >> Congressman Sent to Prison for Using Earmarks to Illegally Pocket Taxpayer Money

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., warned that reinstating earmarks would work against the mandate of voters to “drain the swamp.”

“When you hear ‘drain the swamp’ right now, just realize that was the rallying cry for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in 2006 when they took the majority, largely because of earmarks,” Flake said.

Flake added that the process of allocating earmarks takes away from the oversight responsibilities that committees in Congress hold.

“I think that the worst part [of earmarks], worse than the money spent through the actual earmarks themselves, is the time, effort, and resources that the appropriations committees in the House and the Senate spend just trying to divvy out earmarks,” Flake said.

>>> How Congressional Earmarks and Pork-Barrel Spending Undermine State and Local Decisionmaking

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said he is disheartened that Congress is raising this proposal again.

“I never thought I would have to be a part of getting the ‘earmark ban band’ back together,” Hensarling said.

Earmarks, Hensarling said, embody everything that is contrary to conservative values.

“[Earmarks] represent a victory of seniority over merit, they represented a victory of secrecy over transparency, they represented a victory of sweetheart deals over competitive bidding … they cause members to vote for spending bills they otherwise would not have voted for,” Hensarling said.

Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said that achieving spending restraint will not be possible with earmarks in play.

“With the election of [President] Donald Trump, Americans made it clear that they want to ‘drain the swamp,’” Flores said. “Now, there are a lot of people around here that think the swamp is a hot tub, but it’s a swamp and it needs to be drained.”

Flores said that he was “surprised” that the subject of reinstating earmarks has even been raised.

Concerned about Congress’ current stance on earmarks, Flores urged listeners to voice their disapproval of reinstating the process.

“I have this sick feeling that there is more than half the conference that would vote for this if it came back. So we need to make sure that we have grassroots support … so we can make sure this does not come back,” Flores said.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., said bringing back earmarks would only contribute to the problematic public policies in Congress and harm its political climate.

DeSantis said it is a myth that Congress “needs earmarks to reclaim the power of the purse.”

“We forfeited the power of the purse by doing continuing resolutions and omnibus bills, and, if you introduce earmarks tomorrow … you will have even bigger and more grotesque omnibus bills,” he said.

Should earmarks return, DeSantis said that curbing executive overreach and reining in the national debt will be harder to accomplish.

“Earmarks facilitate federal overreach, spending on things that aren’t linked to the general welfare … the more you expand the spending power to subsidize anything possible under the sun, it’s much more difficult for us to get our fiscal house in order,” DeSantis said.

For Sen. Mike Lee., R-Utah, earmarks are a symbol of everything that Congress should avoid.

“When people talk about the fact that Congress needs to get back in charge of its own spending, I couldn’t agree more,” Lee said. “But that does not mean ‘Bring back earmarks.’”

Instead, Lee said Republicans would own the pork-barrel spending legacy, should earmarks be reinstated.

The post Conservative Lawmakers Warn Congress Not to Reinstate Earmarks appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“If you can, Mitch, go nuclear,” @POTUS says.

Judge Neil Gorsuch of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other senators Wednesday at the Capitol less than 24 hours after Trump announced his nomination.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., however, has vowed to filibuster the nomination.

“It’s doable to get a swift confirmation. The average Supreme Court confirmation comes in 67 days. Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg was confirmed in 50 days,” Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, told The Daily Signal. “Obviously, Democrats want to drag their heels.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told CNN he is planning to have confirmation hearings in six weeks for Gorsuch.

Authorities on the Supreme Court say the likely big-ticket items for the spring will be three cases.

One is regarding whether a Christian school in Missouri is entitled to compete for the same state dollars as nonreligious schools. The outcome could affect so-called Blaine amendments in states across the country.

The second case involves property rights in Wisconsin. The third is a transgender bathroom case out of a Virginia high school, and how broadly the federal government may interpret Title IX, a federal law that bars sexual discrimination in education.

Some Senate Democrats, such as Jeff Merkley of Oregon, have said the Supreme Court seat was “stolen” because Senate Republicans refused to hold a hearing on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia.

But that’s because McConnell and other GOP leaders wanted to allow the electorate to decide in the presidential election, Severino said. McConnell almost certainly would have made sure the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Hillary Clinton’s nominee had the Democratic candidate been elected, she said.

“The Garland nomination was in the middle of an election,” Severino said. “This is not an election year. We are more than three years away from an election.”

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he supported killing a Senate filibuster if necessary by using the so-called nuclear option—a rules change in which 51 rather than 60 votes are needed to bring a nomination to the floor.

“If we end up with that gridlock, I would say, ‘If you can, Mitch, go nuclear,’” Trump said of McConnell. “Because that would be an absolute shame if a man of this quality was put up to that neglect. I would say it’s up to Mitch, but I would say, ‘Go for it.’”

Senate Rule XIX, the two-speech rule, empowers the majority to overcome a filibuster and confirm a nominee. This would require the Senate to remain in the same legislative day until filibustering senators exhaust their ability to speak about the nominee, which would be after they give two floor speeches. Then, the Senate could proceed to vote.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, tweeted yesterday:

One survey found that the public seems to favor quick action.

A Marist poll released Wednesday, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, found that 56 percent agreed it should be an “immediate priority” to appoint a Supreme Court justice who will interpret the Constitution as it was originally written, while another 24 percent agreed it is an “important” priority.

Conservatives are hoping Gorsuch will be seated on the court by April 16, when its last session of arguments takes place for the current term, said John Malcolm, director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. If not, some of the most controversial cases could be reheard, he said.

“It is not the end of the world if he isn’t confirmed by that time, because the court can hold over cases for reargument in the next term if it believes the case needs a full nine justices to decide,” Malcolm told The Daily Signal.

Here’s a look at the three key cases likely to be argued:

1. Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley

The case involves whether states can withhold state grants based entirely on the recipient’s being a religious institution.

Missouri’s Blaine Amendment, on the books since 1875, outlaws the use of public funds to aid a church. Today, Missouri has a program that offers grants to nonprofit organizations to install rubber surfaces made from recycled tires to replace gravel as a way to make playgrounds safer.

However, the state denied Trinity Lutheran Church’s application for the resurfacing even though it ranked ranked fifth out of 45 applications in meeting the government’s criteria.

The case began in 2013. Trinity contends the grant wouldn’t violate the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. It argues that singling out a church for exclusion from the program violates the right to free expression of religion as well as the Equal Protection Clause.

2. Murr v. Wisconsin

In this property rights case involving the Takings Clause of the Constitution, four siblings in the Murr family owned two adjacent waterfront properties St. Croix, Wisconsin. One property included a cabin built by their parents.

In 2004, zoning regulations prevented the siblings from developing the second lot because the state declared both properties to be one lot.

The family contends the state effectively took the second property by regulating it to the point of having no value without providing just compensation.

3. Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board

This case out of Virginia involves the Obama administration order requiring public schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

Gavin Grimm, 17, a transgender student who was born female, wanted to use the boys’ restroom at a Gloucester County public high school. Grimm said school policy violated Title IX, the section of the federal code prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program.

A District Court sided with the school system, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Grimm.

Obama’s Department of Education issued a directive suggesting noncomplying schools would lose federal money if they didn’t allow transgender restroom choice. Texas and a dozen other states challenged the order.

The Supreme Court is expected to determine whether the department can make the final determination in broadly interpreting Title IX.

The post Neil Gorsuch Could Rule on These 3 Big Cases If He Joins Supreme Court Soon appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Since the health care law’s implementation three years ago, Weldin, 60, has lost her insurance four different times.

And the Nebraska woman is currently enrolled in her fifth new insurance policy in four years.

“Yet again, and through no fault of my own,” Weldin told The Daily Signal. “I’m just sitting here minding my own business, and here we go again.”

A former dental hygienist, Weldin has all the hallmarks of a consumer intended to benefit from the Affordable Care Act.

She has been denied coverage in the past because of a pre-existing condition related to her career as a dental hygienist.

Additionally, Weldin qualifies for a tax credit, which she has received every year since 2014.

As a result, her premiums are low when compared to consumers who don’t qualify for financial assistance: In early 2015, Weldin purchased a plan through Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska that cost her $232 each month.

This year, premiums for her silver-level plan with Medica are $161 per month after her tax credit.

But though Weldin has benefited from aspects of the law, she hasn’t been immune to the changes in the health insurance market that have occurred in last few years.

“I’m a person who has been denied because of pre-existing conditions,” Weldin, a Pampered Chef director, said. “I’m on Obamacare and have lost my insurance four times in three years. I understand the challenges, but it’s not sustainable.”

Pamela Weldin of Minatare, Nebraska, lost her insurance four times since the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014. (Photo: Pamela Weldin)

Weldin’s Journey

Since HealthCare.gov opened for business in the fall of 2013, four policies sold by three different insurance companies—Humana, CoOportunity Health, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska—that Weldin purchased were ultimately terminated.

The Daily Signal previously covered her experiences with Obamacare in a February 2015 article.

But since then—when Weldin lost her insurance for a third time—she’s logged another cancellation.

First, Weldin’s initial policy with Humana, which she held for several years, was canceled in the lead-up to Obamacare’s implementation in January 2014.

The Nebraska woman then purchased a platinum-level plan for 2014 through CoOportunity Health, a consumer operated and oriented plan, or co-op. But CoOportunity Health terminated her platinum-level policy for 2015 after the co-op decided it would no longer offer those policies.

Weldin, though, decided to stick with CoOportunity Health and selected a silver-level plan for 2015.

On Jan. 23, 2015, Weldin received a notice from the co-op notifying her that it was going out of  business. CoOportunity far outpaced its initial enrollment projections, and its customers racked up medical expenses that far outpaced what they paid in premiums.

Weldin had no choice but to select a new insurer and policy, and purchased coverage through Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska for the remainder of 2015 and 2016—a plan that, though a bit more expensive, allowed her to see her original doctor.

Late last year, though, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska announced it would no longer sell coverage on the exchange in the state.

“This system is collapsing under its own weight,” Weldin said, “like the co-ops and basic companies like Blue Cross pulling out of Nebraska.”

To ensure she would be covered for 2017, Weldin went to HealthCare.gov to select a plan that allowed her to see her current doctor in Colorado.

In Nebraska, consumers on the exchange had just two insurance companies to choose from: Aetna and Medica.

A policy through Aetna was more expensive than its competitor, but because Weldin thought her doctor was considered in-network, she selected a plan through that insurer.

It wasn’t until after she paid her first month’s premium, however, that Weldin learned from the insurance company that any doctor located more than 100 miles from her rural Nebraska home wasn’t in her network.

If she wanted to see her doctor in Colorado—considered out-of-network now—Weldin had to meet a $20,000 out-of-network deductible before Aetna would start covering her medical expenses.

That information, she said, wasn’t listed on HealthCare.gov when she was shopping for plans.

“$20,000 for a deductible? Are you kidding me?” Weldin said. “How is that affordable?”

From left, Republican Reps. Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, and Raul Labrador spoke about Obamacare repeal at a monthly press Q&A session. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

Speaking Volumes

Across the country, millions of Americans faced higher premiums heading into 2017.

And premium hikes have been well documented by The Daily Signal and others.

Less attention, however, has been paid to the number of insurers and plans available to consumers.

According to an October report from the Department of Health and Human Services, insurer participation in Nebraska decreased from four insurers in 2016 to two in 2017.

And consumers nationwide aren’t just seeing a decline in the number of insurance companies selling coverage on the exchange in their states.

The federal government reported that Americans would also see a decrease in the number of plans insurers offered in 2017.

In Nebraska, there was an average of 18 fewer plans per county available on the exchange to consumers this year. Nebraskans purchasing plans on HealthCare.gov in 2017 had 13 plans to choose from, down from 31 last year.

“That speaks volumes in terms of ultimate consumer benefits,” Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., told The Daily Signal of the change in insurers selling plans in his state. “Fewer choices most often means higher prices and less quality.”

In 2015, Smith introduced a bill to exempt consumers like Weldin who purchased coverage from a failed co-op from the individual mandate. The legislation passed the House, but stalled in the Senate.

Now, Smith and other Republicans—who have spent six years talking about repealing Obamacare—are looking to check the box on a major campaign promise.

Republicans have taken the initial step toward dismantling the health care law after passing a budget resolution earlier this month, and often cite the experiences of Americans like Weldin to bolster their arguments that Obamacare needs to be repealed and replaced.

But despite their control over Congress and the White House, Republican lawmakers differ on their approaches to unwinding Obamacare.

Conservatives are urging GOP leadership to move forward with repeal as soon as possible and say they’re frustrated with the speed at which their leaders are moving to dismantle the health care law.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said last week repeal would be slated for March or April.

“I’d like to see an acceleration of the front-end repeal side,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday at a monthly gathering with reporters. “Let’s get rid of [Obamacare]. That’s what we told the voters that we were going to do.”

Jordan was joined by other Republicans who said they want to see GOP leadership move faster on Obamacare repeal.

“I, too, am frustrated with the pace,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said Wednesday. “We need to not only be against the [Affordable Care Act] or Obamacare, which I am for a myriad of reasons … but we also, if not for political reasons, but for the reason that our constituents and America needs to know what we stand for. We should vote on something.”

But during a gathering last week of House and Senate lawmakers in Philadelphia, other Republicans showed tepid support for dismantling the law and even expressed doubts over their party’s plans to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Though the GOP agrees that the law needs to be scrapped, members haven’t yet concurred on whether to repeal major parts of Obamacare like its taxes. Many also want to see Congress move a replacement at the same time they repeal the law.

Still, Smith, the Nebraska congressman, points to Americans like Weldin as a reason why Congress needs to act.

“When you look at the overall picture, [Obamacare] has failed miserably and will continue to cause great damage,” Smith said. “That’s why we need to step in.”

“We want to prevent further pain that we know will happen if we just let Obamacare sit the way it is,” he continued.

“I’m on Obamacare and have lost my insurance four times in three years,” Pamela Weldin said. “I understand the challenges, but it’s not sustainable.” (Photo: Pamela Weldin)

‘Not Sustainable’

After learning about her $20,000 out-of-pocket deductible, Weldin contacted HealthCare.gov to seek assistance with purchasing another plan.

A representative there was able to enroll her in a new policy with Medica, and Weldin learned that her doctor was, in fact, included in the new plan’s network.

This year, the Nebraska woman will pay $161 per month in premiums after a tax credit.

Weldin is one of the more than 9 million Americans who receives a tax credit and has been relatively immune to the increased costs of health insurance, but she still wants to see changes made to the health care system.

“Allow us the choice of what kind of policy and coverage suits our needs,” she said. “Allow us the choice of deductible and to cross state lines for provider care so we can choose and keep our own doctors. Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines so we have more options and have more choice of providers.”

And Weldin said she recognizes that any action Republicans take on Obamacare could very well lead to further changes with her insurance and the health insurance market.

Still, she said she wants to have additional choices, even it means more coming out of her pocketbook.

“Something has to be done because this is not sustainable,” Weldin said. “I’m fine paying a little bit more if it’s what I need. But let me choose a policy that’s appropriate for my needs. Let me have a policy that’s appropriate to my medical needs. Let me choose a deductible that’s appropriate for my budget.”

This article has been modified.

The post Nebraska Woman Loses Health Insurance for Fourth Time Under Obamacare appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Just check out how often Swalwell (who is, of course, from California) dodged it in an appearance Tuesday night (transcript omits some cross chatter):

Carlson: Do you think it is the taking of a human life, abortion?

Swalwell: I think that, right now … before viability, a woman should be able to make her own decision. After viability, in the case of her own psychological health, in the case of rape or incest, she should also be able to make that decision.

Carlson: OK, but is it the taking of a human life?

Swalwell: That is a woman’s personal decision.

Carlson: OK, but what do you think? I’m not asking about the decision, I mean is it human life or not?

Swalwell: She’s terminating something that she does not want, and that’s her own choice.

Carlson: OK, but do you think it’s human life?

Swalwell: Do I think—I think, at viability, a baby … should be decided by the woman. She’s the one who has to have it.

Carlson: You brought it up, that’s why I’m pressing you, but do you think, before viability, it’s a human life or something else?

Swalwell: I think it’s not viable yet, Tucker, and courts have decided this and it’s a woman’s decision.

Carlson: You’re not going to answer my question, now or ever I suspect, but you should because it’s a basic question I think.

This is … a muddled mess of illogical thinking.

And it really gets to the gist of the abortion debate, which is this: Is the unborn baby human or not, and if not human, at what point does she become human?

Because after all, if the baby isn’t human, it’s irrelevant if women want to have abortions, just as it’s irrelevant if they want to remove tumors or a few cells or have any other number of medical procedures.

But if the baby is human … it’s horrifying that our society wouldn’t protect her life, just because she’s in a vulnerable, dependent position.

Yet this is the question over and over again that the left won’t deal with.

Maybe they won’t deal with it because it threatens their current abortion policies. After all, it’s risible to argue that a full-term baby isn’t human in the womb, and yet acquires humanity passing through the birth canal.

Yet our current laws act like that is the case. Right now, the United States is one of only seven countries in the entire world that allows abortion on demand after 20 weeks.

As President Donald Trump— who pledged during his campaign to make the late-term abortion ban the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act law—bluntly put it in one of his debates with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

Incidentally, that’s not a position that aligns with most Americans’ viewpoints: A mere 27 percent of Americans think that abortion should be allowed beyond the first three months, outside of rape/incest/life-of-the-mother situations, according to a January Marist poll sponsored by the Catholic organization Knights of Columbus.

It’s not surprising that Americans aren’t comfortable with abortion during all nine months. The increasingly prevalence of ultrasounds has made seeing unborn babies much more vivid than it was in decades past.

And the age at which unborn babies are viable is steadily lowering: In 2011, a baby born at 21 weeks survived in Germany, according to Time.

There’s no doubt that women who face unexpected pregnancies, particularly women in difficult circumstances, have a tough situation. There’s much as a culture that we can—and should—do to help support these women, whether it’s helping them financially or emotionally or in other ways. Thankfully, there are private organizations across the country that do just that—and deserve our support.

It’s irrelevant what the courts think about when life becomes human. It’s irrelevant what abortion activists think about when life becomes human.

What is relevant is science—which tells us that an unborn child has her own unique DNA at the moment of conception.

If Swalwell doesn’t think unborn babies are human, he should say that (and be ready to explain why having your own unique DNA and being able to grow into an adult human aren’t signs of being human).

But if he does think that unborn babies are human or are human at the time they are viable, he should realize it’s time to demand justice for those babies and their right to life, no matter how tragic the circumstances in which their lives began.

Nor is it just Swalwell who refuses to take this question seriously. When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked a similar line of questions in 2015, she refused to answer:

CNS News: In reference to funding for Planned Parenthood: Is an unborn baby with a human heart and a human liver a human being?

Pelosi: Why don’t you take your ideological questions—I don’t, I don’t have—

CNS News: If it’s not a human being, what species is it?

Pelosi: No, listen, I want to say something to you. I don’t know who you are and you’re welcome to be here, freedom of this press. I am a devout practicing Catholic, a mother of five children. When my baby was born, my fifth child, my oldest child was six years old. I think I know more about this subject than you, with all due respect.

CNS News: So it’s not a human being, then?

Pelosi: And I do not intend to respond to your questions, which have no basis in what public policy is that we do here.

If you’re going to make public policy about who lives and dies, it’s relevant who is human and who’s not. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be something many on the left agree with.

The post The Question the Left Won’t Answer on Abortion appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Travis County will no longer have access to $1.8 million in state criminal justice grants, Abbott announced in a letter to county officials, because of a new sanctuary policy implemented by the county sheriff. The policy at issue instructs staff at the sheriff’s department to release illegal immigrants booked in the local jail rather than assist the federal government in deporting them, unless they have been charged with murder, aggravated sexual assault, or human smuggling.

“Stiffer penalties coming soon,” Abbott added in a tweet Wednesday.

He said “banning” such areas of sanctuary in Texas is a top priority in an address to the state Tuesday. “Elected officials don’t get to pick and choose which laws they obey,” he said. “To protect Texans from deadly danger, we must insist that laws be followed.”

Supporters of sanctuary cities argue local jails shouldn’t be forced to extend detention of illegal immigrants picked up for crimes, because deportation is the job of the federal government.

Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez told a local outlet the sanctuary policy builds trust between police and the community, saying the threat of deportation might prevent people from reporting crimes for fear of the immigration consequences.

This article was originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Texas Governor Deprives Sanctuary County of $1.5 Million Grant appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Several courts ordered a halt to provisions of Trump’s order, prompting members of the media to speculate that this could create a constitutional crisis in which Trump disobeyed the courts.

Some have even suggested that Trump and his supporters are using the comparisons to Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh president, as a justification for ignoring court decisions.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes made this argument on Twitter in the most hyperbolic terms.

While Jackson’s role in Indian removal was complex, one thing is for certain: Jackson never defied or violated a Supreme Court ruling. This idea has unfortunately been passed down by an unverified and likely fabricated quote from a member of the anti-Jackson press in the 1830s.

The Cherokee tribe’s creation of a new constitution in 1827 initiated a conflict over sovereignty. The Cherokee tribe was thrown into a legally tenuous situation with Georgia, which was desirous of Cherokee land and resentful of such a large part of the state’s territory falling under a separate jurisdiction.

Jackson, who had favored a policy of removing tribes to the western territories, sided with Georgia in the confrontation. He believed Georgia and all states should have been given latitude in how they dealt with tribal governments.

This was fairly consistent with his view that most domestic policy should be set by the states, not the federal government.

>>>The Media Have It Wrong: Andrew Jackson’s Legacy Was Fighting Crony Capitalism

This clash between governments came to a head in a series of Supreme Court cases involving the Cherokee and two missionaries arrested by Georgia for “illegally” crossing onto tribal land.

In the famous case Worcester v. Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Georgia laws dealing with the Cherokee should be null and void, and that all legal interactions with Indian tribes must be exclusively under federal jurisdiction.

However, due to the technical language in the Judiciary Act of 1789, Marshall’s decision was unenforceable by law. The court couldn’t compel the Georgia government to act and release the missionaries. The decision was more of a statement of principles rather than a legally binding judgment.

But anti-Jackson partisans in the press howled with rage over the result. Famous New York editor Horace Greeley angrily remarked that Jackson had said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it,” thus giving credence to the idea that the president was openly disobeying the Supreme Court.

But this quote has never been traced to Jackson, and was likely made up or misinterpreted by Greeley. What Jackson actually said is “the decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield its mandate.”

Under the precedent of the time, Jackson was legally correct.

Law professor Gerard Magliocca noted how this story has been distorted and that the consensus among historians is that Jackson followed the letter of the law. He wrote:

Notwithstanding the myth that Jackson said, ‘John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it,’ in reality there was nothing to enforce. One could say the president had a moral obligation to persuade Georgia to obey … But the president had no legal duty to act.

And so this story, concocted to attack Jackson, has now been pulled up by modern partisans to throw at Trump.

While Trump rightly fired his acting attorney general who refused to carry out his executive order on refugees, there has been no indication that the administration will openly oppose court decisions.

The post History Is Being Distorted to Insinuate Trump Will ‘Defy’ Courts Like Andrew Jackson appeared first on The Daily Signal.

This January, Senate Republicans led by Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake voted to continue the moratorium on earmarks for the 115th Congress. Flake backed his sentiment with a witty comment that “you can’t drain the swamps by feeding the alligators pork.”

While earmarks, synonymous with the pejorative term “pork-barrel spending,” have long been thought to be a vehicle of cronyism and political favors by conservatives, some GOP members in the House have considered an amendment to roll back the ban on earmarks citing, among other things, congressional duty and a more effective power of the purse.

This sentiment is worrying for many in Congress who remember how destructive earmarks were before and after they were “banned” in 2011. And even without earmarks, government waste and fraud is still rampant.

While prolonging the moratorium was a necessary step, members of Congress still find ways to circumvent the ban, and the processes that disburse funds in the absence of earmarks are imperfect as well.

Toxic Influence on Spending

Congressional earmarks are problematic for a variety of ethical, political, and economic reasons.

Most prominently, earmarks can be utilized by members of Congress to get pet projects such as museums, highways, and military bases funded in their district. In this way, earmarks are a tool for political jockeying as they can be offered as an incentive to sway an individual vote in Congress.

It is true enough that wasteful spending should always be avoided. But earmarks represent only a small portion of the discretionary budget—they reached their peak of $29 million in 2006.

Their potential for toxicity stems from the fact that they are administered as political favors to members of Congress who vote to support certain pieces of legislation. In some cases, appropriated funds are used to line the pockets of corrupt politicians such as Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., in 2006, and more recently, Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Penn.

In terms of real taxpayer dollars being wasted, earmarks are a textbook example of fiscal irresponsibility. Generally, earmarked funds don’t utilize competitive bidding processes. This means that in using earmarks, Congress is bypassing superior and cheaper services.

Federal funds can also be administered through competitive grants that attempt to match funds with the most promising projects at the lowest cost through an application process.

While they often fail at achieving this goal, competitive grants can, at the very least, provide a process that is based on a premise of objectivity and merit compared to the blatant favoritism of earmarking.

Federal agencies also use statutory formulas to distribute funds.

For example, 92 percent of highway funding in the most recent surface transportation bill is distributed to the states through formula programs. These formula grants give more autonomy to state and local governments over funding decisions, while somewhat reducing the risk of corruption and cronyism.

State and local governments know best how to use federal money in their own regions in order to maximize efficiency. Still, it would be better for state and local governments to raise their own funds for infrastructure and transportation, thus cutting out the federal middle man.

Covert Earmarks Still Exist

While Congress has banned direct allocation of funds for individual projects, in practice, members have found ways to get around this.

Some members simply use more roundabout ways of obtaining funding for projects in their district, such as commemorative coin schemes. Another way is to attempt to influence federal agencies in how they spend their funds once money has been appropriated.

While legislators can no longer add specific projects onto bills due to the earmark ban, whether competitive grants are actually “competitive” is up for debate.

For instance, Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants that are administered through the Department of Transportation were supposedly in place as part of a temporary stimulus. However, it has turned into a more uncompetitive use of federal funds for pet projects like ferries and historic furnaces.

Even the funding formulas can be overly complex and incentivize costly behavior. The Community Development Block Grant, a grant administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is a prime example of wasteful and inefficient spending through a formula method.

Citizens Against Government Waste reports that earmark funding increased from 2015 to 2016 by more than 20 percent, despite the formal ban. While the Senate ban will continue to limit wasteful and irresponsible spending, there is still far too much pork to go around in Washington.

More competition for federal funds will produce more value for taxpayer dollars. Congress should prevent its members from using federal agency accounts for their own pork-barrel projects through what might be considered executive earmarks.

Congress has the responsibility to use federal funds with prudence and efficacy. Holding its own members accountable is the place to start.

The post Congressional Ban on Earmarks Hasn’t Stopped Pork-Barrel Spending appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Gorsuch now awaits confirmation by the Senate.

>>> Trump Nominates Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court

Gorsuch is hailed by conservative leaders as a solid choice to defend the original public meaning of the Constitution.

Here’s what 11 senators are saying about Trump’s choice for the high court.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Gorsuch is an “impressive” choice for the position and called him a “prepared, thoughtful, and careful jurist.”

“I’ve had the privilege of arguing before Judge Gorsuch and he is extremely impressive,” Lee said in a statement released Tuesday night. “He is a prepared, thoughtful, and careful jurist, who has demonstrated a strong commitment to textualism and originalism … he has enriched the 10th Circuit’s jurisprudence in a number of areas during his 10 years on the court.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Gorsuch is a “worthy successor to Justice Scalia” and he is a “strong defender of religious liberty.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called Gorsuch a “mainstream choice” to fill Scalia’s seat.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he is confident Trump’s choice will honor Scalia’s legacy.

“Filling Justice Scalia’s seat with a principled conservative who will interpret the Constitution rather than legislate from the bench should be our top priority,” Flake said in a statement released Tuesday night. “I am confident that Judge Neil Gorsuch fits the bill, and I’ll do whatever I can to see that he receives an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.”

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said he wants Gorsuch to be approved “without delay.”

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said the fabric of Gorsuch’s judicial judgment is “rooted in respect for the law.”

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said that Gorsuch “understands constitutional interpretation of law.”

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., praised Gorsuch for his “unwavering commitment to the Constitution,” in a statement released Tuesday night.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., said Gorsuch “ … applies the law without regard to person or his own preferences. By all accounts, he has a record of deciding cases based on the text of the Constitution and the law.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he is looking forward to Gorsuch’s confirmation process:

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Gorsuch “is committed to the principles of original intent and judicial restraint,” and called that dedication “critical.”

“ … too many in the federal judiciary today believe it is appropriate for judges to invent new policies and rights instead of interpreting and defending the Constitution as it is written,” Rubio said.

The post What Senate Republicans Are Saying About Trump’s Supreme Court Pick appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Borrowed from similar rules in effect in countries including the United Kingdom and Canada, the idea has gained popularly in the regulatory reform community in recent years. The Trump administration’s embrace of it sends a clear message to regulators: Trump expects them to decrease—not increase—the burden they place on Americans. This is significant. The “one in, two out” rule is only a first step, though, and achieving the goal of reducing the burden of red tape will take much more.

The Obama years were a time of eye-popping expansion of America’s regulatory state, with new annual regulatory costs exceeding $100 billion annually since 2009. But the growth of the regulatory state didn’t begin with President Barack Obama.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, the burden of regulation has grown every year since 1982. Trump’s goal of reversing this trend is a welcome one.

But the “one in, two out” rule by itself is unlikely to do much toward that end. In Canada, the rule has resulted in small paperwork reductions, but few changes of significance in terms of reduction of government overreach. In the 2015-2016 fiscal year, the total savings was C$9 million. And C$8 million of that came from a single rule.

In the U.S. similar results can be expected. For starters, independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission are excluded from the 2-for-1 requirement.

Also, it’s unclear whether any two rules could be used to offset a new regulation: If so, expect pro-regulation forces to try to pair massive new rules with insignificant old ones. And if the rules must be of similar cost, how is that to be determined?  The original cost estimate for any rule is higher than the savings from getting rid of it later, since much of the cost is sunk and irretrievable.

Moreover, any regulation proposed for elimination will almost certainly take years to actually repeal, if it is repealed at all.

In addition to the 2-for-1 rule, the executive order imposes a “regulatory budget” system on regulators, in effect capping their regulatory expenditures. Such a budgeting system, given the penchant of regulators to game such things, should be approached with caution. The order gives few details about the system, however, except that the budget for the current year is to be zero.

To successfully achieve the crucial goals of reducing regulation, more is needed. Individual agencies must begin to examine and repeal unnecessary rules under their purview—regardless of whether they have new rules to replace them. Independent agencies must be brought into the effort, and included in White House regulatory reviews.

Congress must be engaged—assuming its constitutional power to review rules being imposed (as would be done under the REINS Act) and increasing requirement on regulators imposing mega-rules (as would be done under the Regulatory Accountability Act). And the president must appoint regulators who understand the costs that rules impose on America, and are committed to relying on free markets whenever possible.

Accompanied by such changes, the good intentions expressed in this week’s executive order might actually be achieved.

The post More Is Needed to Combat Excessive Regulation Than Trump’s Executive Order appeared first on The Daily Signal.

They committed acts such as assaulting Trump supporters, setting fires, and stoning police.

Suppose Republicans/conservatives had carried signs that read “F— Obama” or talked about “blowing up the White House.” The news media, instead of calling them protesters, would have labeled them evil racists, obstructionists, and everything else except a child of God.

The reason for the difference in treatment is simple. Republicans and conservatives are held—and hold themselves—to higher standards of behavior. By contrast, Democrats and liberals are held—and hold themselves—to less civilized standards of behavior.

Let’s look at some of the history of conservative and liberal behavior.

One of the nastiest more recent liberal events was the Occupy movement around the nation.

During Occupy protests, there were rapes, assaults, robberies, and holdups. These people publicly defecated and urinated on police cars. The mess they left after their demonstrations can be described as no more than a pigsty.

Does anybody recall any Democratic official, from the president on down, admonishing them to behave?

Contrast their behavior with that of tea party protesters. Tea partyers didn’t set fires, stone police, or engage in the other kinds of despicable behavior the liberal Democrats did. On top of that, they left the areas where they protested clean.

Ask yourself whether you have ever seen Republicans/conservatives rioting, turning over police cars, looting, setting places of business on fire, and shouting obscenities while marching.

Have you ever seen conservatives marching with chants calling for the murder of police officers? You may have heard liberals yelling, “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!”

In fact, virtually all of the violence against police—whether it’s throwing stones, ambushing, or murdering—is committed by liberals or people who’d identify as Democrats.

The fact of the matter is that if we were to examine criminality in America—whether talking about murderers, muggers, or prisoners—it would be dominated by people who would be described as liberals, Democrats, and Hillary Clinton supporters.

Democrats and liberals accuse Republicans of conducting a war on women. Assault, rape, and murder are the worst things that can be done to a woman.

I would bet a lot of money that most of the assaults, rapes, and murders of women are done by people who identify as liberals, and if they voted or had a party affiliation, it would be Democratic.

One of the most glaring examples of how liberals are held to lower standards comes when we look at what they control.

The nation’s most dangerous big cities in 2012 were Detroit, Oakland, St. Louis, Memphis, Stockton, Birmingham, Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. The most common characteristic of these cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations.

Some cities—such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark, and Philadelphia—haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century.

It’s not just personal safety. These Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite the fact that they have large and growing school budgets. Most of these dangerous cities have suffered massive decreases in population.

Some observers have suggested that racism has caused white flight to the suburbs. But these observers ignore the fact that black flight has become increasingly significant.

It turns out that black people do not like to be mugged and live in unsafe neighborhoods any more than white people.

Republicans and conservatives, including Trump, should not gripe or whine about different treatment by the liberal media. Magnanimity commands that we have compassion and try to understand our fallen brethren.

We should make every effort to sell them on the moral superiority of personal liberty and its main ingredient—limited government.

The post The Left Holds Itself to Lower Standards of Behavior appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Trump nominated Judge Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. With this nomination, Trump held to the promise he made on the campaign trail to select a nominee from a list of 21 individuals.

>>> Related: Trump Nominates Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court

Gorsuch is an eminently qualified and well-respected judge with a record that demonstrates he cares about religious liberty, the separation of powers, and the original public meaning of the Constitution and the laws he interprets. He would be a fine successor to Scalia.

Now, the confirmation process begins for Gorsuch. It can be a harrowing process for a nominee and his family as senators, the media, and others dig into his past—particularly looking for scandals and juicy details that might derail the nomination.

Let’s take a closer look at Gorsuch.

Background

Born in 1967, Gorsuch sits on the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. He received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, his law degree from Harvard University, and his doctorate of philosophy from Oxford University.

But Gorsuch is not the only credentialed member of his family. His mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, served as the first female head of the Environmental Protection Agency, under President Ronald Reagan.

After serving as a law clerk to Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, Gorsuch joined a prominent D.C. law firm, where he practiced for 10 years.

He then served as principal deputy to the associate attorney general and as acting associate attorney general (the third-highest position) at the U.S. Department of Justice.

In May 2006, President George W. Bush nominated and the Senate confirmed Gorsuch to the 10th Circuit by a voice vote just two months later. His former boss, Kennedy, administered the oath of office.

Before joining the bench, Gorsuch authored “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” (2006), a book that, as Princeton University Press described it, “builds a nuanced, novel, and powerful moral and legal argument against legalization [of assisted suicide and euthanasia], one based on a principle that, surprisingly, has largely been overlooked in the debate—the idea that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong.”

After joining the bench, he co-authored “The Law of Judicial Precedent” (2016) with the highly-respected legal writer Bryan Garner (who co-authored several books with Scalia) and 11 other federal appellate judges.

Gorsuch has also critiqued the left’s increasing preference to resort to the courts instead of the political process to advance its policy goals. In a 2005 op-ed, he wrote:

American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education. This overweening addiction to the courtroom as the place to debate social policy is bad for the country and bad for the judiciary … As a society, we lose the benefit of the give-and-take of the political process and the flexibility of social experimentation that only the elected branches can provide.

Gorsuch has criticized the judicial confirmation process and decried treating would-be judges as “little more than politicians with robes.”

Approach to Judging

During the campaign, Trump pledged to nominate an individual who was “very much in the mold of” Scalia.

One recent study singled out Gorsuch as one of the top judges whose approach to interpreting the law was closest to that of Scalia’s approach. Gorsuch ranked second out of 15 judges in “Scalia-ness,” surpassed only by Utah Supreme Court Justice Thomas Lee.

When it comes to interpreting statutes and the Constitution, a Supreme Court justice must keep uppermost in mind that he did not write the text and should not attempt to rewrite that text through creative “interpretation” to mean something quite different from what was intended by its drafters, but which the justice personally considers more fair, wise, or just.

In other words, a justice should interpret the text and structure of a statute, or the Constitution, based on the original public meaning of that text at the time it was adopted, and should not, under the guise of statutory or constitutional interpretation, impose on the rest of society his own policy preferences based on his perceptions of contemporary values.

Gorsuch gives every indication that he will be just such a justice if he is confirmed by the Senate. He has demonstrated that he understands the proper, limited scope of the judicial power.

During his 10th Circuit confirmation hearing he stated, “The independence of the judiciary depends upon people in both parties being willing to serve, good people being willing to serve who are capable and willing to put aside their personal politics and preferences to decide cases and to follow the law and not try and make it.”

He has since written,

… donning a robe doesn’t make me any smarter. But the robe does mean something … It serves as a reminder of what’s expected of us—what [Edmund] Burke called the ‘cold neutrality of an impartial judge.’ It serves, too, as a reminder of the relatively modest station we’re meant to occupy in a democratic society. In other places, judges wear scarlet and ermine. Here, we’re told to buy our own plain black robes.

In a concurring opinion in 2016, Gorsuch wrote that the Constitution “isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams … but a carefully drafted text judges are charged with applying according to its original public meaning.”

Gorsuch leaves his personal views at home. During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., questioned Gorsuch about how his views on assisted suicide and euthanasia would affect his judging.

Each case, Gorsuch said, deserves the “complete attention of the judge without being diverted by personal politics, policy preferences, or what you ate for breakfast.” He later added that he would “follow the law as written and not replace it with [his] own preferences, or anyone else’s.”

In a tribute to Scalia, Gorsuch wrote that “legislators may appeal to their own moral convictions and to claims about social utility to reshape the law as they think it should be in the future,” but that “judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be—not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best.”

He quoted Scalia, saying:

If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.

He also wrote that he was “an adherent to the view that outcomes (ends) do not justify methods (means).”

Notable Opinions

Gorsuch has written several notable opinions, some of which are described below, that are likely to be scrutinized during his confirmation hearing.

Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch

Courts will typically defer to an administrative agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute if that interpretation is reasonable. Known as “Chevron deference,” this practice is controversial and often criticized by conservatives.

In 2016, Gorsuch authored a separate concurring opinion, explicitly calling Chevron deference into question. He wrote, “ … the fact is Chevron … permit[s] executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers’ design.”

He added, “[m]aybe the time has come to face the behemoth.”

United States v. Ackerman (2016)

When an AOL filter identified what appeared to be child pornography in Walter Ackerman’s email, it forwarded the email to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) (a quasi-governmental body), which then completed an investigation and notified the police.

After being indicted by a federal grand jury for possessing and distributing child pornography, Ackerman filed suit, claiming NCMEC violated the Fourth Amendment when it searched his emails without a warrant.

Writing for the majority, Gorsuch determined that the Fourth Amendment applied to NCMEC since its “law enforcement powers extend well beyond those enjoyed by private citizens” and that NCMEC conducted a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The case was remanded for the district court to determine whether the search was nevertheless reasonable.

United States v. Carloss

In this 2016 case, the 10th Circuit held that police did not violate Ralph Carloss’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure when they walked onto his property to knock on the front door, even though there were four plainly visible “No Trespassing” signs.

Gorsuch dissented, writing that the signs revoked the officers’ implied license to walk onto the property and knock on the front door. He emphasized that under the majority’s bold view, “[a] homeowner may post as many No Trespassing signs as she wishes. She might add a wall or a medieval-style moat, too. Maybe razor wire and battlements and mantraps besides. Even that isn’t enough to revoke the state’s right to enter.”

Hobby Lobby v. Burwell

Gorsuch joined the en banc opinion in this 2013 case challenging the regulation issued pursuant to Obamacare that would force employers to pay for contraception and abortifacients as part of their employee health insurance plans—even if they had a religious objection.

The government argued that there were too many steps between the employer paying for coverage and the employee’s decision to use contraception for an employer’s free exercise of religion to be substantially burdened.

The court rejected this argument. Gorsuch concurred in the decision holding that Hobby Lobby was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim. He wrote that “it is not for secular courts to rewrite the religious complaint of a faithful adherent, or to decide whether a religious teaching about complicity imposes ‘too much’ moral disapproval on those only ‘indirectly’ assisting wrongful conduct.”

Gorsuch also joined 11 other judges in dissent when the full 10th Circuit refused to rehear Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell, a similar case involving religious nonprofits. The Supreme Court heard the case last term and in an unusual opinion, agreed that the government could not force employers, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, to violate their faith.

The consolidated cases were remanded for the lower courts to reconsider the claims brought by the Little Sisters of the Poor and others that the regulations violate their religious exercise in light of the government’s admission that it could indeed provide contraceptive coverage without the Little Sisters’ collaboration.

Also in the religious liberty context, Gorsuch joined a dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, a case involving whether a city could put up a privately donated Ten Commandments monument in a city park to the exclusion of another proposed monument.

The Supreme Court ultimately reversed the 10th Circuit in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, relying in part on the dissent. Gorsuch has also dissented from denial of rehearing en banc in two other cases, criticizing the Supreme Court’s confused Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah v. Herbert

After national news broke alleging Planned Parenthood harvested and illegally sold the body parts of aborted babies, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert directed state agencies to stop the flow of federal funds to Planned Parenthood in Utah.

In 2016, the 10th Circuit granted Planned Parenthood’s request for a preliminary injunction and ordered the governor to fund Planned Parenthood.

When the 10th Circuit refused to hear the case en banc, Gorsuch dissented, criticizing the panel for applying the wrong standard of review and for relaxing Planned Parenthood’s burden of proof.

The Coming Fight

Gorsuch has a record that demonstrates his fidelity to the Constitution and a proper understanding of the role of courts.

In his announcement this evening, Trump noted that Gorsuch has “outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline, and he’s earned bipartisan support.” Gorsuch is “a man who our country needs badly to ensure the rule of law.”

While Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and other Senate Democrats have already announced their intention to try to filibuster any nominee, it will be a hard case for them to make given Gorsuch’s impressive record and clear commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law.

The post A Closer Look at Neil Gorsuch, an Excellent Choice for the Supreme Court appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“I have selected an individual whose qualities define, closely defined, what we’re looking for,”  Trump said in introducing Gorsuch to guests and reporters gathered in the East Room of the White House shortly after 8 p.m. “Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, tremendous discipline, and has earned bipartisan support.”

>>> Commentary:  A Closer Look at Neil Gorsuch, an Excellent Choice 

It’s now up to the Senate to decide whether Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, will fill the nearly year-old vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch conservative.

“I would only hope both Democrats and Republicans can come together for the good of the country for once, for the good of the country,” Trump said.

Gorsuch, after being introduced by Trump, said: “Standing here in a house of history, and acutely aware of my own imperfections, I pledge that if I am confirmed I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the Constitution and laws of this great country.”

“Justice Scalia was a lion of the law,” he added. “Agree or disagree with him, all of his colleagues on the bench shared his wisdom and his humor. And like them, I miss him.”

Gorsuch, 49, brings a strong record on gun rights and religious freedom, and what admirers call a clearly articulated judicial philosophy.

“Judge Gorsuch has sterling credentials and is highly regarded by anyone who has read his opinions,” Ed Whelen, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank, told The Daily Signal. “He is a brilliant writer and a deep thinker.”

Last March, President Barack Obama appointed another appeals judge, Merrick Garland, to fill Scalia’s seat. Democrats unsuccessfully pressured Republicans to confirm the election-year nomination.

Republicans never advanced Garland out of the Judiciary Committee. His nomination expired with Obama’s presidency, clearing the way for Trump to choose a successor to Scalia.

During the presidential campaign, Trump released two lists totaling 21 potential nominees and including federal judges, state supreme court judges, and one U.S. senator, Republican Mike Lee of Utah.

Over the weeks, Trump reportedly narrowed the list to appeals court judges Steven Colloton, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, William Pryor, and Diane Sykes as well as Gorsuch, plus Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen. In recent days, Hardiman, Gorsuch, and Pryor were reported to be his favorites.

Gorsuch, a Colorado native, is married to Louise Gorsuch and the father of two teenage daughters. He is known to enjoy fishing, hunting, and skiing.

President George W. Bush appointed Gorsuch to the appeals court in Colorado. Before that, he was a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.

A Harvard Law School graduate, he clerked for current Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Justice Byron White.

Some Senate Democrats have pledged to oppose any Trump nominee, but Gorsuch was confirmed to the appeals court by a unanimous voice vote of the Senate in 2006.

“His approach to what a judge should be is very well respected,” John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “He has written on a number of issues that we as conservatives care about.”

A Judicial Crisis Network brief noted Gorsuch’s decision in the case of United States v. Games-Perez, in which he wrote of “a long tradition of widespread gun ownership by private individuals in this country.”

The Supreme Court, Gorsuch added, “has held the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own firearms and [it] may not be infringed lightly.”

In a speech published last year in Case Western Reserve University’s Law Review, Gorsuch made a strong case for textualism; it was titled “Of lions and bears, judges and legislators, and the legacy of Justice Scalia”:

Respectfully, it seems to me an assiduous focus on text, structure, and history is essential to the proper exercise of the judicial function. That, yes, judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views, always with an eye on the outcome, and engaged perhaps in some Benthamite calculation of pleasures and pains along the way. Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure.

Gorsuch ruled in two major religious liberty cases that came before the 10th Circuit challenging the Obamacare mandate that employers pay for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs for employees, siding with Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor in the two cases.

In a lower-profile case, Yellowbear v. Lampert, Gorsuch ruled in favor of an inmate who said prison officials denied his religious freedom by not accommodating his Native American faith.

Gorsuch also issued a decision against a Colorado campaign finance law, determining that it unconstitutionally permitted major party donors to make two contributions per election cycle, while limiting minor party candidates to receive just one donation per election cycle. There is “something distinct, different, and more problematic afoot,” he wrote, “when the government selectively infringes on a fundamental right.”

The post Trump Nominates Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In the statement that Yates circulated inside the Justice Department, she said the department would not defend the executive order against the proliferation of lawsuits being filed against it because she was not “convinced” that that it was “legally defensible.”

Furthermore, she claimed that in addition to her legal responsibilities, she has an obligation to “stand for what is right” and she obviously does not believe this executive order is “right.”

But Yates is wrong.

As the deputy attorney general and acting attorney general, her obligation is to defend federal law and actions taken by the president pursuant to the law when there is a valid basis for doing so, regardless of whether or not she agrees with the president from a public policy standpoint or thinks his action is the “right” thing to do.

There is no question that the president’s executive order is eminently defensible and that he is entitled to have the Department of Justice defend it in court.

In his executive order, the president cites a provision of federal immigration law, 8 U.S.C. §1182(f), which gives him almost unlimited discretion to suspend “the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States” if, in his judgment, their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Since Congress has absolute authority under the Constitution to determine our immigration policy, its delegation to the president of this authority is perfectly constitutional.

Yates’ decision appears to have been primarily motivated by politics, not law, which, no doubt, prompted the action Trump took in firing her almost immediately.

The constitutionality and legality of the executive order is bolstered by the fact that, as even Yates was forced to acknowledge, the order was reviewed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which concluded that it was “lawful on its face and properly drafted.”

It has long been the job of the Office of Legal Counsel to analyze laws passed by Congress and executive orders issued by the president to determine their constitutionality and determine whether they can be defended in the courts when they are challenged.

As its own website explains, it is Office of Legal Counsel “by delegation from the attorney general” that “provides authoritative legal advice to the president.”

So Yates’ claim that the immigration executive order is legally indefensible flies in the face of the Office of Legal Counsel’s legal opinion—which constitutes the Justice Department’s legal opinion—that the president’s executive order is, indeed, “lawful.”

As a statement released by the White House said, by her refusal to carry out her duty to defend the executive order, Yates “betrayed the Department of Justice.”

It is clear from her statement that Yates took her action because she doesn’t like the executive order as public policy. As the White House statement says, that is because she “is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”

As former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith says, if Yates didn’t like this executive order, the proper course for her would be to resign—not tell Justice Department lawyers that they would not be allowed to defend a lawful action of the president.

There is no doubt that Yates is going to be portrayed as a martyr by progressives and the media who don’t like the executive order because she was fired. But she allowed her political views to interfere with her basic professional obligation to enforce the rule of law and to defend an executive order issued by the president that her own department had already concluded was lawfully issued.

She failed in her duty as the acting attorney general and is certainly not a martyr.

Yates has also provided the final confirmation of how politicized the Justice Department became under President Barack Obama. It is going to take a long time and a lot of work for Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions to restore the department’s professionalism and its reputation.

The post Acting Attorney General’s Defiance of Trump Shows Politicized Nature of DOJ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.; Mark Meadows, R-N.C.; Raul Labrador, R-Idaho; Scott Perry, R-Pa.; Mark Sanford, R-S.C.; and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; were all present at the January meeting of Conversations with Conservatives, a monthly press Q&A hosted by conservative lawmakers and The Heritage Foundation.

When Jordan was asked how he felt about the progress Republican lawmakers had made on Obamacare, he said, “I’d like to see an acceleration of the front-end repeal side … let’s get rid of [Obamacare], that’s what we told the voters that we were going to do. Let’s repeal it as quickly as we can and let’s have the effective day be not three and four years down the road.”

The congressman from Ohio added, “health care will be better and cost less when Obamacare is gone.”

“Let’s get after it as soon as we can and repeal everything: every tax, every mandate, and most importantly, every single regulation because I believe that’s [what will be] driving down premiums and deductible costs,” concluded Jordan on the issue of an Obamacare repeal.

>>>Republicans Express Doubts Over Obamacare ‘Repeal and Replace’ Plan

Perry went on to stress the importance of having an alternative health care plan at or soon after the time of repeal, saying, “I do think that the repeal and the alternative needs to happen at the same [time], or …. with[in] a week or two or something like that.”

Labrador, Perry, Sanford, and Jordan all agreed that Obamacare must be repealed, with Sanford saying, “Just in terms of the political realm, I think as a vote for conservatives, it would be very difficult for any of us, at the end of the day, to not vote yes on repeal, whether it’s concurrent or not with regard to replace.”

Talking about a replacement for Obamacare, Labrador said, “I want to make sure that we’re gonna move to a free-market plan. And I’m encouraging our leadership to take a bold position on this and move as far away from Obamacare and government-centered health care as possible.”

Jordan agreed, saying, “Ideally, we’d like a plan that’s free market-oriented, patient-oriented, doctor-oriented, community-oriented; not [as] Washington-focused as Obamacare.”

The post Former House Freedom Caucus Chairman on Obamacare: ‘Let’s Repeal It as Quickly as We Can’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has pledged to filibuster any nominee he disapproves of, even if it means leaving the nation’s highest court short-handed for years.

Doubtless, some Republicans will call for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to exercise the “nuclear option”: eliminating the filibuster so the nominee can be confirmed by a simple majority. After all, Senate Democrats went nuclear in 2013 to thwart Republican plans to filibuster some of President Barack Obama’s nominations.

But success isn’t a given this time.

For one, a majority of senators must approve flouting the rules, and it’s far from clear whether 51 Republicans support using the maneuver to do so. McConnell can afford to lose only two of his Republican colleagues and still prevail in the parliamentary showdown with Schumer.

>>> Read the full report: “A Rules-Based Strategy for Overcoming Minority Obstruction of a Supreme Court Nomination”

Another concern is that using the nuclear option in this case could make eventual elimination of the legislative filibuster—a prerogative that still has broad Senate support despite the 2013 episode—more likely.

Fortunately, invoking the nuclear option isn’t the only way a Senate majority can confirm a Supreme Court justice in the face of minority obstruction.

In a recent Heritage Foundation paper, Ed Corrigan and I detail how Senate rules empower a majority to overcome a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee—without having to invoke cloture or using the nuclear option.

Specifically, a majority may use Rule XIX (the two-speech rule) to shorten the amount of time members are able to filibuster. This rule prohibits any senator from giving more than two speeches on any one question during the same legislative day.

In the Senate’s rules, the terms “legislative day” and “calendar day” do not mean the same thing. A legislative day ends only when the Senate adjourns and therefore may last much longer than the 24 hours that define a calendar day. Indeed, one particularly long legislative day in 1980 lasted 162 calendar days, spanning a period from Jan. 3 until June 12.

Once a senator has given two speeches during the same legislative day, he or she may not speak again. The Senate votes when there are no members remaining on the floor who wish to and are allowed to speak. At that point, the support of a simple majority of the senators present and voting is sufficient for confirmation.

Using the two-speech rule to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court pick is straightforward.

First, the Senate would proceed to consider the nomination. The Republican majority would then keep the Senate in the same legislative day and would strictly enforce the two-speech rule on any filibustering senators.

While Democrats could make procedural motions in protest, doing so in almost all cases would terminate the filibustering senator’s speech, thus hastening the moment at which the minority would have exhausted its ability to delay confirmation by filibustering via debate.

Strictly enforcing the two-speech rule is likely to break the filibuster before every Democrat uses the maximum number of speeches allotted under the rules. This is because continuing to filibuster in this context imposes significant costs on rank-and-file Democrats. To have even the chance of success requires each Democrat to hold the Senate floor for a prolonged period in an effort to wait out the Republicans.

The only way for them to prevail in the parliamentary showdown is for Republicans to relent and cease their efforts to overcome the filibuster.

A rules-based strategy to limit minority obstruction in this context would neither jeopardize the legislative filibuster nor unduly empower the majority to limit the rights of individual senators more broadly. It would, however, accomplish the objective of confirming the president’s nominee—provided, of course, that the Republican senators have the determination to succeed.

Note: This article was originally published by The Washington Times on Jan. 30, 2017.

The post How Senate Republicans Can Break a Supreme Court Filibuster appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Speaking Monday at The Heritage Foundation for the final installment in his six-part series on understanding Trump and Trumpism, Gingrich described the president as “the new presidential”—delivering on what he said he would.

Gingrich also addressed those on the left who question Trump’s legitimacy as a president.

“By definition, whatever he does is presidential, it’s just a new presidential,” he said. “So the new presidential tweets. That doesn’t mean he has to give up tweeting and start writing in longhand with a quill pen to think he’s presidential.”

Political elites and left-leaning news media refuse to understand Trump because he isn’t a politician, according to Gingrich.

“He is a business leader who became president. He never became a politician in between,” Gingrich said. “He has no interest in learning how to be a politician. He has every interest in getting things done.”

Gingrich cited Trump’s recent executive order, which will halt individuals from seven countries from entering the United States for 90 days, as yet another incident to infuriate the liberal news media.

“He’s been saying it for 10 months. You would think at some point in the 10 months they would have gone, ‘Oh, what if he actually means it?’” Gingrich said.

The news media’s reporting of the executive order, describing it as a “Muslim ban,” was a “total, dangerous lie,” Gingrich said.

“Every newspaper and every television reporter who said it should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.

According to Gingrich, the media’s irresponsible “lie” sent a signal to over a billion Muslims about something that is “totally false.”

“The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia; it’s not touched,” he noted. “The second-largest Muslim country, by the way, is India, it’s not touched. Go down the list.”

While the order was not flawless, Gingrich said, the left would still be outraged, regardless of the timing.

“Do any of you doubt that if he’d done this six weeks from now with prior notice that there would have been demonstrations for days leading up to it?” Gingrich asked.

Trump’s favorability and poll numbers will reflect the media’s biased coverage, Gingrich predicted.

“I guarantee you, for a while, Trump’s poll numbers will be bad. And they’ll be bad because every element of the elite media will lie about him every day.”

The post Newt Gingrich: Trump Is Doing Exactly What He Said He Would Do appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In a briefing for reporters Tuesday, some of the most conservative members of Congress strived to portray Trump’s order as a temporary policy meant to improve the vetting of travelers from countries the Obama administration had designated as posing risks of terrorism.

The conservatives, mostly members of the House Freedom Caucus, wish the Trump administration had better told that story.

“What I am hearing from folks back home is there is something sensible about a more thorough vetting and a pause,” said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.

“That having been said, I would say two things: Sometimes it’s not what you say, but how you say it. There were particular problems with implementation on that front. A good idea poorly implemented can come across as a bad idea. That’s the hang up on this one. The implementation was clumsy.”

Trump’s executive order, signed last Friday night, bans Syrian refugees indefinitely, imposes a four-month suspension on all refugee admissions from anywhere in the world, and bars for 90 days people from seven predominantly Muslim countries—Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia—from entering the U.S.

>>>Experts Debate Whether Trump’s Refugee Order Will Make America Safer

The administration received widespread criticism early on for its seemingly chaotic and uneven implementation of the order.

“As a temporary policy, I don’t have a problem with it,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho. “I am a little bit concerned about how it has been implemented in two cases: with regards to legal permanent residents [some who were initially detained upon entering the U.S.], and I am also concerned how it applied to some Iraqi translators who helped us in the war on terror. They need to find an expedited way to deal with those Iraqi translators and I encourage the administration to do something.”

On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security officials defended Trump’s executive order and said they’ve rectified some of the implementation problems.

Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said more than 500,000 foreigners flew into the country in the 72 hours following Trump’s order.

He said CBP agents granted waivers to 1,060 lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, from the countries affected by Trump’s order, allowing them to enter the country after additional screening.

McAleenan said the agency granted 75 additional waivers for “immigrant visa and nonimmigrant visa holders,” including translators who have special visas for assisting the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And he said 872 refugees would be granted waivers, which were permitted because the refugees had already been screened and stopping them from traveling would cause “undue hardship.”

McAleenan said 721 travelers with visas from the seven targeted countries were not allowed to board planes headed to the U.S.

At a news conference Tuesday, DHS Secretary John Kelly characterized the order as a “temporary pause” allowing security officials to “assess the strengths and the weaknesses of our current system.”

The order “is not—I repeat—not a ban on Muslims,” Kelly said.

Kelly denied reports that DHS was surprised by the order, and added that “people on my staff were generally involved” in writing it.

House conservatives say people should not be surprised by Trump’s executive order.

“This [order] has been adjudicated in public across the country for a year and a half,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. “The president said he was going to do this—he ran on this—and most of the American people by way of the electoral process voted for him and voted for this. While there is a minority of folks making raucous at the airports, the fact is most Americans are concerned about their security.”

Conservatives sought to avoid calling the order a “ban,” language Trump has used to describe his action.

They emphasized that House conservatives in late 2015 passed a bill similar to Trump’s order that would have temporarily blocked Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering the U.S. until the government bolstered screening procedures.

Forty-seven House Democrats voted for that bill, but Senate Democrats blocked the legislation from advancing, with only two voting to support it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on Tuesday stood by the executive order, telling reporters, “We need to make sure that the vetting standards are up to snuff,” while conceding, “regrettably, the rollout was confusing.”

Some conservatives raised concerns about language in the order that suggests the pause on immigration from certain nations could become permanent, and the list of targeted countries may expand.

In the order, Trump directs the relevant Cabinet agencies to review the vetting process for citizens of all countries where visas are required to travel to the U.S.

If those nations don’t improve their cooperation, they will be added to the list of countries whose citizens are barred from entry to the U.S.

“If at some point we take issue with the longevity or scope of [the order], we will do that,” Perry told The Daily Signal in an interview. “But we have to at some point trust [Trump] as the chief executive who is being briefed by the National Security Council and other agencies about what’s needed to safeguard the United States. If it seems to us that the administration is reaching to expand the order for reasons we don’t agree with, I guarantee there will be people here who take issue with that. Congress has the job of oversight and we are going to conduct it here.”

The post House Conservatives Back Trump’s Refugee Order, Question Its Implementation appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“This is a stolen seat,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said Monday of the vacancy Trump was about to fill. “This is the first time a Senate majority has stolen a seat. We will use every lever in our power to stop this.”

Merkley was referring to President Barack Obama’s thwarted nomination of a U.S. appeals court judge, Merrick Garland, to fill the Supreme Court seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.

Democrats unsuccessfully pressured Republicans to confirm the election-year nomination of Garland. They said the Senate had a “constitutional obligation” to approve Obama’s nominee to succeed Scalia, a stalwart conservative.

“My constitutional obligation is to review that nominee, to ask questions about that nominee, and then to vote on it,” Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., said in February. “So you know I plan to do my job.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats such as Merkley, however, appeared to change direction after Trump won the White House.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in early January, Schumer said his party would oppose anyone who wasn’t “really good.”

“We are not going to settle on a Supreme Court nominee,” Schumer said. “If they don’t appoint someone who is really good, we are going to oppose them tooth and nail.”

>>> Schumer Poised to Oppose Trump Supreme Court Nominees

Such statements about blocking the confirmation process through a filibuster are in sharp contrast with what Democrat leaders said in the past about the Senate’s role in confirming a president’s Supreme Court choice.

The conservative nonprofit America Rising Squared, or AR2, released a digital ad Monday called “Roll the Tape” that spotlights Senate Democrats’ consistent calls last year for an up-or-down vote on Garland.

“Democrats may try and run, but they can’t hide from their records—all we have to do is roll the tape,” Brian Rogers, the group’s executive director and former communications director for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a release.

“Doing your job is holding a hearing, asking tough questions of the judge, and then voting yes or no,” Schumer said in April.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said he is not surprised by what he called Schumer’s double standard. In an email to The Daily Signal, von Spakovsky said:

The double standard shown by Sen. Schumer and his Democratic cohorts shows that they have no real principles whatsoever when it comes to the Supreme Court and the respectful treatment of judicial nominees—their only interest is achieving their political goals at all costs even if it means destroying the Constitution, the rule of law, and the fabric of the Senate.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in March of the Garland nomination that the Senate should respect the “constitutional duty” of the president by voting on Obama’s choice.

“The president has done his constitutional duty, he has sent us a nominee, and now it is our job in the United States Senate to hold hearings, to examine his credentials, and then to have a vote on him,” Warren said. “That’s what the Constitution calls for.”

In May, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., also voiced support for a vote without obstruction by Republicans.

“The Constitution says the president shall nominate Supreme Court justices,” McCaskill said. “The Constitution says the Senate shall advise and consent, and that means having an up-or-down vote.”

Republicans never advanced Garland out of the Judiciary Committee. His nomination expired with Obama’s presidency, clearing the way for Trump to choose a successor to Scalia.

The post Democrats Change Tune After Demanding Up-or-Down Vote on Supreme Court Nominee in 2016 appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In just a few weeks, the Solar Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group, will release its latest annual report touting growth figures for solar jobs while it also warns against policies that could result in layoffs.

But the hard reality is that even as solar energy became politically fashionable, it remained economically unsound.

Just ask Elon Musk, the South African-born, Los Angeles-based renewable energy business mogul who had his electric car company bail out his solar energy company last year.

Neither company has been able to stand on its own two feet, and neither company has been turning a profit. But because both companies have been heavily subsidized, Musk was able to have U.S. taxpayers foot the bill to have one failing company bail out another.

Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX. (Credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters/Newscom)

The good news is there are some on Capitol Hill who are beginning to ask some hard questions about the taxpayer-funded welfare payments pumped into failing industries.

Last year, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee launched probes into tax incentives paid to solar companies.

With the change in administration, it is possible there might be an end to the solar investment tax credit, which has been propping up failing solar enterprises on the taxpayer dime. So, expect the Solar Foundation to double down on its talking points in its upcoming report.

In America, anyone is free to lobby and push for their own personal policy preferences. Federal and state officials who have the power to give preferential treatment to this industry should know there are all kinds of conflicts of interest that should be taken into account.

For starters, the Solar Foundation is closely aligned with the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group that advocates on behalf of those that manufacture and install solar energy equipment.

That’s not all. Take a good look at who staffs the foundation and it becomes pretty clear this is not an objective organization.

Andrea Luecke, the foundation’s president and executive director, previously worked for the city of Milwaukee’s U.S. Department of Energy Solar America Cities program “Milwaukee Shines,” where “she helped Milwaukee implement policies aimed at increasing solar energy capacity.”

Deputy Director Pari Kasotia serves on the board of directors of the Iowa Renewable Energy Association and is active with Citizens Climate Lobby.

Program Director Yolanda Seabrooks spent eight years with SunEdison, one of the largest global renewable energy development companies aimed at providing solar photovoltaic systems to municipal, state, federal, utility, and commercial customers.

There’s more, but you get the picture.

The Solar Foundation staff is mainly made up of former solar company and trade association lobbyists and other advocacy positions and has ties to government solar advocacy programs.

Policymakers should not put their faith into a report designed to be an advocacy piece managed by solar advocates and lobbyists to produce an accurate depiction of the solar industry’s contribution to economic development.

Whenever state officials push back against solar power, the foundation’s operatives are quick to respond with scare stories about potential job losses. These stories are parroted by solar companies as well.

In Nevada, for instance, two solar companies threatened to end their operations in the state when the Public Utility Commission decreased the subsidy for net metering, a state-level policy that shifts the cost of a solar system to those who do not have solar.

The story quickly became national news and painted the picture that solar policies should not be reformed if states wanted to avoid any severe economic fallout. But the number of jobs that created in the solar industry remains a bit nebulous.

Moreover, there is growing body of research that shows the opportunity cost of government subsidies for renewable efforts versus the jobs that could be generated in the private sector is too high from the perspective of sound public policy.

Under the sins of omission, the Solar Foundation’s annual reports sidestep the question of opportunity costs. But they typically make lengthy references to large percentage increases in solar jobs that are as sly as they are misleading.

For example, the 2015 report stated:

The solar energy workforce grew an impressive 13.2 percent over the last year—nearly six times the overall national employment growth rate, and has grown 27 percent since 2010. This compares to only 3.2 percent national employment growth over that same period (August 2010-September 2012).

The relatively low base numbers (compared to the overall economy) for solar jobs means that, percentage-wise, solar job growth will seem impressive compared to the overall economy.

In simpler terms, if the solar industry had one job in 2015 and two jobs in 2016 and the utility industry had 500,000 jobs in 2015 and 560,000 jobs in 2016, the solar job growth percentage would be 100 percent to the utility job growth of 12 percent.

That is not an honest representation of what’s actually going down in the solar industry.

With a little digging, astute readers will find the Solar Foundation reports that government subsidies are primarily responsible for any growth the solar industry has experienced. The reports typically bifurcate state and federal subsidies into separate categories.

But when these figures are blended together, there is no escaping the prominent role government intervention plays in sustaining an industry that is otherwise unsustainable.

When all the government subsidies are added together, our calculations show that the U.S. taxpayer is really responsible for almost 33 percent of any growth that occurs in the solar industry. That’s not real job growth.

The Solar Foundation’s tax records show that it has experienced a steady jump in revenue.

In 2012 it had $296,243 in revenue, and in 2013 it had $886,715 in revenue. That’s a big jump! For 2014, which is the most recent year that tax records are available, it reported $976,991 in revenue.

Clearly, the foundation is not in the poor house.

The mission statement on the 990 tax form says the foundation was set up to “educate the public” about the benefits of solar power. In reality, it is carrying the water for well-connected special interests that have a vested interest in maintain taxpayer subsidies for unworkable renewable boondoggles.

So, when the Solar Foundation releases its next report on job growth, remember the source of the information and all that glitters is not gold.

The post The Truth Behind the Solar Jobs Report appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On Sunday, Iran “welcomed” President Donald Trump into office by conducting a medium-range ballistic missile test in defiance of United Nations Resolution 2231, which endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e. the Iran nuclear deal) and lifted nuclear-related sanctions on Iran.

Iran’s actions are destabilizing to the region and underscore the United States’ need for the development of a comprehensive ballistic missile defense system.

Resolution 2231 “calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Iran was previously banned from developing ballistic missiles, but the Obama administration watered down the restrictive language during the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.

The nuclear deal, adopted in 2015, effectively rewarded Iran’s noncompliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and regional support for terrorism by giving it billions of dollars. The agreement failed to dismantle key elements of Iran’s nuclear program, leaving the decision to “go nuclear” firmly in the hands of the Iranians.

Iran has already been caught trying to clandestinely procure illicit nuclear and ballistic missile technologies, including components for biological and chemical weapons.

Trump has multiple tools at his disposal to weaken Iran and strengthen the U.S. position in the region. Most importantly, the administration should ensure that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon. It should strictly enforce the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and not continue to give Iran a free pass on its illicit activities.

A nuclear-armed Iran would be a game-changer and could cause cascading nuclear proliferation in a region already fraught with conflict and historical animosities. Strengthening the U.S. military, maintaining a strong regional presence, and mending relationships with regional allies would complicate Iran’s calculations regarding its decision to go nuclear.

The Trump administration should strengthen ballistic missile defense, not only because of Iran’s ballistic missiles but because ballistic missile capabilities in the hands of other rogue states are improving.

A proper resourcing, emphasis on future technologies (particularly space-based), and a sound re-evaluation of assumptions that guide the current U.S. ballistic missile defense posture is in order.

The Trump administration has precious little time to fill the void left by President Barack Obama’s ill-conceived policies in the region. Swift and strategic action is required.

The post Iran’s Ballistic Missile Test Defies UN, Trump Administration appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Topping the list of the new administration’s priorities should be the need to articulate a comprehensive strategy of cyber deterrence.

In outlining policies to shape a deterrence posture, this team would be doing a disservice to the president and America’s cybersecurity if its recommendations did not include support for private sector active defense against cyber threats.

By supporting capable businesses seeking to take proactive steps to defend their assets in cyberspace, the new administration can secure a cost-effective policy win with significant potential to improve whole-of-nation cybersecurity.

The surge in public debate surrounding cybersecurity policy in recent years is indicative of the fact that cyber threats are growing in scope, size, and systemic importance. This problem is compounded by the fact that common responses to cyber aggression are outdated, reactive, and insufficient.

To reverse these troubling trends, America’s cybersecurity strategies and capabilities must begin to match the conditions of the next decade better than they match those of the previous decade.

The Trump administration’s cybersecurity strategy must be grounded in the fact that merely upholding the status quo is a recipe for failure. The president must break the cycle of policymakers who seem to merely admire the problem and then expect different outcomes to come from the same tired policy responses to malicious cyber operations.

Utilizing the Private Sector

America needs to be sensible yet bold in its efforts to deter cyber aggression. One realm of strategic significance that is ripe for such action is private sector cybersecurity.

The Trump administration should capitalize on the industry’s resources, expertise, and position on the front lines of cyber conflict by supporting the responsible expansion and normalization of private sector active defense against cyber threats.

Recognizing the potential for meaningful progress through nonincremental policy changes related to private sector cybersecurity, the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at the George Washington University recently released a detailed report on the legal, policy, and technology considerations relevant to active defense in the private sector.

Its recommendations to the executive branch include the development of public-private coordination mechanisms, continued clarification and socialization of legal enforcement guidelines, and the prioritization of funds for research and development related to active defense measures.

However, some of the report’s most fundamental contributions to the pursuit of sound cybersecurity policy are its efforts to assess the varied usage of the term “active defense,” to propose a common framework for considering private sector active defense going forward, and to call for greater clarity from government actors on how they approach related issues through legal and regulatory lenses.

The term “active defense” refers to a spectrum of cybersecurity measures that range in relative impact and risk and fall between activities that are commonly described as passive defense and offensive cyber.

This graphic from the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security report illustrates the concept of such a spectrum and indicates the relative positions on this spectrum of some of the most common active defense measures.

Source: Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, the George Washington University.

In order to promote effective policy dialogue on matters related to private sector active defense, it is important to explore in greater detail some of the measures that are included in the active defense toolkit and how they should be used by private entities.

Legal Obstacles

The lower-risk active defense techniques, those that take place wholly within a defender’s network, such as the use of honeypots and hunting techniques, are clearly legal under current statutes.

Honeypots lure hackers into isolated areas of a network that allow defenders to safely gather intelligence on an aggressor. Hunting refers to procedures and technical measures that detect and then remove intruders from a network.

Many companies already use these techniques to supplement passive defenses.

Moving up the scale of relative impact and risk, there are measures that should be legal for private actors, but are shrouded in ambiguity because they involve actions that can take place outside of a defender’s network.

Beaconing, which tracks stolen data outside of a network, is one example of an active defense activity that many businesses avoid out of aversion to potential legal risks, despite their capacity to improve cybersecurity and attribution.

Determining the legality of a cybersecurity measure based solely on whether it takes place inside or outside of a network is often inappropriate and should not preclude the use of sound active defenses.

Finally, the riskiest active defense techniques should only be legal for private businesses if they are operationalizing such techniques in close cooperation with a government entity.

Botnet takedowns and the use of software that locks stolen files on a third party’s compromised system before the stolen information can reach the malicious actor (white-hat ransomware) are examples of such activities.

These examples, details, and contextual considerations related to active defense measures are key to facilitating the discussions needed to explain why it is imperative that the new administration works to expand the latitude for private sector cybersecurity.

Private businesses never anticipated that they would be forced to defend their operations from adversaries as capable as the foreign intelligence services of nation-states. Yet that is what they are forced to do in cyberspace.

Unlike more traditional threats, cyber threats are so decentralized and numerous that the American government does not have the resources or bandwidth to be the sole provider of security in this realm.

The legal and reputational constraints on the private sector’s ability to aggressively and proactively defend itself thus creates a gap in the nation’s cyber armor that exposes the integrity of private sector networks and data. If malicious actors were to take full advantage of this cybersecurity Achilles heel, such actions would seriously threaten national security, the economy, and privacy.

A Worthwhile Partnership

The private sector needs better government partners going forward. Regulators and support agencies should quit blaming the victims of cyber exploitation and instead work with businesses to raise the costs on cyber criminals and adversaries.

This shift can begin with joint public and private efforts to build private sector capacity for active defense. By jointly developing and marshaling cybersecurity capabilities, public and private sector actors can move beyond the pablum and flip the equation of cyber conflict so that deterrence becomes possible.

The president and his team of cybersecurity experts will inevitably face several challenges while developing a cybersecurity strategy and defending the nation against malicious cyber activities during the coming years.

Supporting private sector active defense in rhetoric and policy is akin to victory in an early, decisive battle that will significantly improve the cybersecurity of the private sector and the broader security of the nation.

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