The Synagogues Are Burning Again in Germany

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There is shocking news this week from Germany. Three Palestinian Muslims who torched a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany have been given suspended sentences because their actions allegedly represented a justified criticism of Israel. A regional court has upheld the decision of a lower court, also agreeing that the actions of these Muslim men were not antisemitic. And to think that this happened in Germany, a nation that still bears the shame of the Holocaust.

According to many historians, the Holocaust began on the evening of Nov. 9, 1938, known today as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. On that fateful night, the Nazis set Jewish synagogues on fire and vandalized Jewish businesses, all while the public stood by and did nothing. This sent a message to the Nazi leaders: We will not stop your attacks on our Jewish neighbors and friends. You have a free hand.

Now, Muslims torch a synagogue and the courts look on and yawn. What message does this send to the Muslim world, especially to Muslims living in Germany? And what message does this send to German Jews, especially considering that, “The original synagogue in Wuppertal was burned by Germans during the Kristallnacht pogroms in 1938.” This is absolutely chilling.

The Growing Antisemitism

A 2013 survey revealed that 1 in 4 European Jews was afraid to wear a yarmulke (or kippah), the head-covering worn by religious Jews. In 2015, it was reported that the Central Council of Jews in Germany warned religious Jews not to wear a kippah for fear of their safety. And in 2016, in Berlin, “Unknown perpetrators kicked and beat a 21-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah after slurring him with anti-Semitic insults.”

This represents a dangerous, unnerving trend, and the regional court’s decision to uphold the preposterous ruling of the lower court certainly sends a dangerous signal.

Given the efforts that Germany makes to distance itself from the Holocaust — including making it a crime to deny the Holocaust — one would think that if there was any act that would be promptly condemned by the German courts, it would be setting a synagogue on fire. Yet a synagogue that was originally burned by the Nazis in 1938 is torched by Muslims in 2014, and two courts say, “Not a big deal. We understand your frustration.”

With good reason Robert Spencer exclaimed, “Meet the new Germany, same as the old Germany. This ruling is the apotheosis of Islamopandering. Would a German court say that the attempted torching of a mosque was a justified criticism of jihad terror attacks? Of course not. Nor should it. But this ruling shows how desperate German authorities are to appease their rapidly growing and increasingly aggressive Muslim population.”

According to the first court’s ruling in 2015, the Palestinian attackers “wanted to draw ‘attention to the Gaza conflict’ with Israel. Moreover, “The court deemed the attack not to be motivated by antisemitism.” What kind of drivel is this?

These Muslims did not attack the Israeli embassy in Germany, which, in theory, could have served as an illegal protest of Israeli policies — in this case, Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists — without raising the charge of antisemitism. But they didn’t torch the embassy, nor did they specifically target Israelis, which, again, while being ugly and illegal, could have theoretically been directed as Israel in particular rather than at Jews in general.

But these Palestinian men attacked a Jewish synagogue in Wuppertal, thereby holding all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, and thereby engaging in a blatant, antisemitic act. In that same spirit, when Israel previously waged war on Hamas in 2009, a female Muslim protester at a demonstration in Fort Lauderdale, FL, cried out, “Go back to the oven. You need a big oven, that’s what you need.”

Yes, those evil Jews deserve to be exterminated, and what Israel does, all Jews do. As Martin Luther King, Jr., reportedly said in 1968, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”

While this dictum is not always true, it is quite often true, and in the case of Palestinian Muslims expressing their frustration with Israel by throwing Molotov cocktails at a synagogue, it is definitely true.

History Can Repeat Itself

The lesson of all this is clear: German Jews, along with European Jews in general, have no business thinking that history cannot repeat itself. Numerous articles document the steadily rising tide of antisemitism in Europe, and just as the handwriting was on the wall in Germany long before 1938, the handwriting is forming on the wall again. (Consider that the blatantly antisemitic Nuremburg laws, which “excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of ‘German or related blood’,” among other restrictions, were instituted in 1935.)

This recent court ruling, upholding the earlier court’s decision, should serve as a wake-up call to all Jews in Germany. It also should serve as a wake-up call to all people of conscience in Germany, especially professing Christians. Will you stand idly by, or will you take a stand with the Jewish people of your nation?

History is watching once again. (For more from the author of “The Synagogues Are Burning Again in Germany” please click HERE)

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Chonda Pierce, ‘Queen of Clean,’ Responds to ‘Angry Haters’ about Her Inaugural Appearance

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Toby Keith, Jennifer Holliday, 3 Doors Down, The Piano Guys, Lee Greenwood, DJ RaviDrums and The Frontmen of Country will be performing at Donald Trump’s inaugural welcome concert next week, The Associated Press reported Friday. Also performing around town at a series of inaugural events will be Christian comedienne Chonda Pierce. Unfortunately, Chonda has been hit with a flurry of hate posts since her participation was announced.

After Chonda accepted the opportunity to headline the Inauguration and participate in several events, “angry haters” came out of the woodwork. Chonda responded on Facebook that it was about being a patriot more than being a performer:

TO ALL THE ANGRY HATERS: Yep! I’m going to the Inaugural! I would have gone if Obama asked me. I would have gone if Hilary asked me. But they didn’t. (And I rarely agreed with them on anything.) And btw, their checkered past plays no part in my discussion or decision. Neither does yours or mine. So, yes … I am going. I go because I love America. I am a Patriot. I respect the process and the Office. I may never even see the President. I may never even get close enough to anyone to snap a picture. But I’m going. My performance may never make the news, the tabloids or the history books. But I’m going. I don’t need your agreement, your filthy language or even your blessing. I am going because at some point in life you must put aside your opinion, your politics and your anger and remember we are ALL Americans and thousands have died so that I might have the freedom to disagree, vote, protest and even dance at fancy parties.

She also posted on Facebook that people need to unify as Americans and stop the nasty language:

Action News 5 reported that Pierce will attend the Inauguration, the Inaugural Ball and the Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. (For more from the author of “Chonda Pierce, ‘Queen of Clean,’ Responds to ‘Angry Haters’ about Her Inaugural Appearance” please click HERE)

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When the ‘Enlightened’ Left Doesn’t Get Its Way, Expect Riots and Death Threats

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After many hours of hard work, I’ve put together an exhaustive list of the prominent celebrities who chose not to perform at President Obama’s inaugural ceremonies in 2009 and 2013 because they were threatened with death, boycotts or ostracism. The grand total, to my knowledge, is zero, despite the right’s deep antipathy of Barack Obama.

But when it comes to the inauguration of Donald Trump, Andrea Bocelli, the wonderfully gifted, blind operatic tenor, has decided not to perform, despite being a friend of the president-elect. And reports indicate that it was not just because he was threatened with a boycott; rather, it was because of death threats that his security team deemed too serious to ignore.

Broadway star Jennifer Holliday has also dropped out of the inaugural festivities after being branded an “Uncle Tom.” (I thought Uncle Tom’s were male, by definition.) Claiming she didn’t realize that performing at the inauguration would be interpreted as supporting the president (really?), she wrote, “My only choice must now be to stand with the LGBT community and to state unequivocally that I will not perform for the welcome concert or for any of the inauguration festivities.”

Ironically, Trump offended some of his most conservative supporters by having his openly gay friend Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, speak at the Republican National Convention, while Thiel remains a key member of Trump’s transition team.

Trump also proudly held up a gay flag at one of his rallies, celebrating LGBT’s for Trump, and he recently picked Anthony Scaramucci, a self-described “gay rights activist,” for a senior advisory role.

In fact, it was Scaramucci, as a member of the president-elect’s transition team, who started the rumor that Trump would be “the first American president in U.S. history that enters the White House with a pro-gay-rights stance. Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mall for the inauguration.” (Fran Curtis, John’s spokesman immediately denied this report to the New York Times, stating, “Incorrect. He will NOT be performing.”)

It appears that the vast majority of LGBT leaders are not impressed. Standing with Trump means standing against them, and those who stand against them must be punished.

Other celebrities also declined invitations, apparently without any outside pressure being put on them, with John Legend explaining to the BBC:

Creative people tend to reject bigotry and hate. … We tend to be more liberal-minded. When we see somebody that’s preaching division and hate and bigotry, it’s unlikely that he’ll get a lot of creative people that want to be associated with him.

Ah yes, the tolerance and enlightenment of the creative left!

I fully understand that President-elect Trump continues to be a divisive figure, most recently attacking Congressman John Lewis, a Civil Rights icon, for saying that he did not believe Trump was a “legitimate” president because of Russian hacking of the election. Even some Republican leaders spoke up on Lewis’s behalf, while his constituents, who also felt slighted, lashed out at Trump as well.

And I fully understand that many on the left think the absolute worst about Trump, as if he was another Hitler about to rise to power, genuinely believing their own, nearly-hysterical rhetoric. Leading the way in the hysteria are the Hollywood elites, among whom Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner said he has a harder time being a political conservative than being transgender.

But having hysterical reactions to an incoming (or current) president is just as characteristic of the right as it is the left. For the last 8 years, I have heard every kind of crazy conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, including the claim that he is a secretly-gay, Muslim member of the Illuminati who is being groomed for his ultimate role as the antichrist. (Some of you reading this are saying in reply, “But he is!”)

My issue is with the reaction of the so-called “tolerant and enlightened” left, the same left that, we are told, tends “to reject bigotry and hate,” yet goes on violent looting riots when it doesn’t get its way and launches death threats against celebrities who associate in any way with Trump.

I’m aware that people burned effigies of Obama after his election, while a liberal scholar writing on The Hill argues that demonstrators “aren’t protesting [Trump] because he is a white male. These protests are because of the bigotry his campaign has emboldened and the fear of discrimination his presidency has the capacity to perpetuate.”

But that underscores the very point I’m making. Those allegedly protesting bigotry, hatred and discrimination are themselves engaging in those very things, with some Hollywood elites leading the way with their over-the-top, anti-Trump rhetoric.

It is the hypocrisy of the left, not its rejection of Trump, that is galling. (For more from the author of “The Synagogues Are Burning Again in Germany” please click HERE)

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Ukraine’s Former Top Spy Goes after a New Enemy: Corruption

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Ukraine’s former top security official has gone from tracking down Russian spies to fighting what he perceives to be the country’s greatest threat—corruption.

“The question is, are we going to survive or not?” Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told The Daily Signal from his offices in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

Nalyvaichenko, 50, is the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, which is Ukraine’s successor agency to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’s branch of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s main security agency.

“At stake is survival of the country,” Nalyvaichenko said. “At stake is whether we’ll finally get rule of law and a functioning state instead of chaos, corruption, weakness, and [being] not capable to defend our territory and the country. So, at stake is the country, its independence.”

During his interview with The Daily Signal, Nalyvaichenko wore a well-appointed suit and tie. He spoke fluent English, evidence of his university degree in linguistics.

His affable demeanor and emotive manner of talking hinted more to his background as a diplomat and member of parliament than his years in charge of Ukraine’s successor agency to the KGB.

Nalyvaichenko led the SBU for the first time from 2006 to 2010. He took over the security agency for a second time on Feb. 24, 2014, two days after deposed former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in the closing days of the revolution.

Nalyvaichenko has also served as a member of parliament and as Ukraine’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.

Nalyvaichenko’s 2015 departure from the SBU was controversial. In June 2015, while the security agency was investigating high-level Ukrainian officials for financial crimes, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sacked Nalyvaichenko from his leadership post at the SBU.

Today, Nalyvaichenko is the leader of two upstart anti-corruption political platforms: the Justice Civil-Political Movement, and the Nalyvaichenko Anti-Corruption Movement.

“Our people, our common people, are suffering because of corruption, corruption at the top,” Nalyvaichenko said, pounding his fist on the table for emphasis.

“I really like what [Winston] Churchill said in the Second World War,” Nalyvaichenko said. “‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ If we’re corrupt it doesn’t mean we have to say, ‘OK, we’re a failed state.’ No, it’s not true.”

Purge

True to his diplomatic roots, Nalyvaichenko recently traveled to Washington to present evidence to Congress about Russia’s involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine and to press for U.S. assistance in anti-corruption efforts.

As part of his anti-corruption platform, Nalyvaichenko has called for the FBI to investigate the financial crimes of Ukraine’s current and former political leaders.

He also wants U.S. and EU prosecutors to oversee the adjudication of corruption investigations, and for the U.S. to press Ukrainian officials to make Ukraine’s newly minted National Anti-Corruption Bureau independent from the executive and judicial branches.

Nalyvaichenko said Ukraine has a chance to “show for the whole world, especially to the Russian people, that there is an opportunity, there is a plan B, to such nations after the Soviet Union time to be democratic, to be not corrupt, to live in a not corrupt state, to be independent.”

“Ukraine belongs to the Western world,” he added.

Nalyvaichenko added that Ukraine has “several months, two or three months” to show real progress in anti-corruption measures before Western partners begin to break ranks on measures such as maintaining punitive sanctions against Russia.

“It will be no tolerance from the new administration in the United States,” Nalyvaichenko said. And next year, “there might be many changes in the European Union,” he said. “That’s, I think, what is at stake when we’re talking about the European Union and the United States.”

Within Ukraine, Nalyvaichenko’s strategy is to reach out to civil society leaders working at the grassroots level. He wants to convince Ukrainians to believe in the democratic process, despite a quarter-century of oligarchic thug rule after the fall of the Soviet Union.

To that end, Nalyvaichenko’s two anti-corruption organizations—which comprise 10,000 activists across Ukraine—have provided pro bono legal assistance to more than 3,000 Ukrainian citizens involved in court cases against allegedly corrupt government officials.

Nalyvaichenko’s groups have also given free medical care to more than 9,000 civilians in the war zone.

“If you would like to stop Russian aggression, if you would like to get back not only territories but people … we have to show them what?” Nalyvaichenko said. “Believe me, not Kalashnikovs and not tanks. We have to show them a better life.”

Lifestyle

That better life has not yet materialized for many Ukrainians.

For one, the hryvnia, Ukraine’s national currency, is currently less than one-third its value against the dollar from before the revolution. Wages have not concurrently risen to match the falling currency, dramatically reducing Ukrainians’ spending power.

Also, corruption still taints almost every aspect of Ukrainian life. University students in Kyiv, as an example, say it’s still common practice to pay their professors a bribe to pass exams.

According to an October 2016 public opinion poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, and funded by the government of Canada, 30 percent of Ukrainians surveyed who had visited a doctor in the previous 12 months said they paid a bribe for service.

Among those who interacted with the police, 25 percent said they paid a bribe.

A large part of Ukraine’s economy is off the books—what Ukrainians refer to as the “shadow economy.” Ukraine’s Economic Development and Trade Ministry said the shadow economy was 40 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2015.

This black market economy robs the government of valuable tax revenue. It also leaves many returning combat veterans, many of whom were drafted, no legal recourse to recover their jobs at the conclusion of their military service.

Many veterans previously worked off the books and were paid in cash so their employers could skirt payroll taxes.

According to the 2016 International Republican Institute study, 72 percent of Ukrainians surveyed said the country was moving in the wrong direction, while 11 percent said the country was on the right track.

As a point of comparison, a year prior to the revolution in May 2013, 69 percent of Ukrainians surveyed said the country was moving in the wrong direction, and 15 percent said the country was moving in the right direction.

According to the same poll, 73 percent of Ukrainians disapprove of Poroshenko’s performance as president, and 87 percent of Ukrainians have an unfavorable opinion of their parliament.

Nalyvaichenko said he no longer has faith in Poroshenko.

“For me this is not personal,” he said. “Whoever becomes president or prime minister is immediately part of a corrupt and not transparent system. Immediately they are reproducing the same Soviet or simply corrupt practices and environment … So, to get rid of that, to dismantle, to change the system, to reboot the country [we need to] get new people with absolutely different minds and mentality into the governmental offices.”

A New Fight

Nalyvaichenko is among a new breed of Ukrainian reformers who have emerged after the 2014 revolution.

Among Nalyvaichenko’s allies is former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who resigned as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast in November. The move was a protest against what Saakashvili claimed was stonewalling by Poroshenko and the majority of Ukraine’s political class in implementing anti-corruption reforms.

Saakashvili has since launched his own anti-corruption, opposition party called Wave.

“We had a revolution with lots of casualties,” Saakashvili told The Daily Signal in an earlier interview. “And every time a revolution happens, people have a right to expect revolutionary changes.”

One bright spot for Ukraine is its budding civil society. Across the country, political activists and humanitarian workers, including many millennials, have enabled the spread of democratic norms and are pushing for government accountability at the grassroots level.

“Across the country there is real willingness at the local level, at the grassroots level to stop corruption,” Nalyvaichenko said. “Fifteen or 20 years ago it was unimaginable that Ukraine would have such a powerful civil society.”

He continued:

I remember my parents and how modest the family used to be. How we young, young kids in Zaporizhia and other regions dreamed about another life. And to really have a chance with a free market, with the rule of law … for our children to create a new country with more opportunities. Our better future is here, and we should fight for that. I will not take no for an answer—from anyone.

Sacked

As head of the SBU, Nalyvaichenko endeavored to purge the security agency of its Soviet KGB past. He booted many personnel who had served in the SBU when it was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’s branch of the KGB.

Nalyvaichenko spearheaded an effort to open up the SBU’s KGB archives, launching fresh investigations into Soviet crimes in Ukraine, including Joseph Stalin’s organized mass famine in the 1930s known as the Holodomor.

He also hunted down and expelled Russian spies in Ukraine who were working for Russia’s successor agency to the KGB, the Federal Security Service of Russia, or FSB.

“With SBU, what I started with was to stop KGB practices,” Nalyvaichenko said. “I was the first and only chief of the SBU who actually started to detain FSB officers in Ukraine.”

The intent of Nalyvaichenko’s personnel scrub at the SBU went beyond security concerns. He wanted to shed the agency of its “Soviet mindset.”

To fill out the SBU’s thinned ranks, Nalyvaichenko tapped young political activists and reformers who had no living memory of life in the Soviet Union.

“That is my approach and my understanding of how it could be done in all the country,” Nalyvaichenko said, explaining how his SBU scrub could be used as a model for nationwide reforms.

The solution to beating corruption in Ukraine, according to Nalyvaichenko, is to elevate a new generation of political and business leaders.

“Let the generation shift happen in Ukraine,” Nalyvaichenko said. “For the new generation to be in the offices, to let them finally rule the country … it’s high time to finally stop with old practices.”

Nalyvaichenko’s second term as head of the SBU came at a tumultuous time for Ukraine. In the months following the February 2014 revolution, Russia launched a hybrid invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, ultimately annexing the territory.

Russia followed up the seizure of Crimea with a proxy war in the Donbas. A combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars was on the march in eastern Ukraine in 2014, and there were worries then that Ukraine could be cleaved in two, or that Russian forces massed on Ukraine’s borders might stage a large-scale invasion.

In Kyiv, the post-revolution government was at the time trying to establish its legitimacy and follow through on the pro-democratic promise of the revolution.

Meanwhile, officials were piecing together a military campaign out of the remnants of Ukraine’s armed forces, which had been gutted by decades of corruption and purposeful neglect.

Amid all of this, Nalyvaichenko pushed to prosecute corrupt government officials.

A New Fight

In Ukraine, opinions diverge about the hierarchy of threats facing the country.

A nearly three-year-old war between Ukrainian troops and a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars continues to simmer in the Donbas, Ukraine’s embattled eastern territory on the border with Russia.

About 10,000 Ukrainians have so far died in the conflict, which has also displaced about 1.7 million people. The war cost Ukraine an equivalent 20 percent of its gross national product in 2015, according to a 2016 report by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The February 2015 cease-fire has failed. Military and civilian casualties still occur almost every day from landmines, artillery fire, rocket attacks, and small arms gun battles.

Ukraine’s military has rebuilt itself since 2014, but many front-line soldiers complain that after nearly three years of combat, they still aren’t getting basic supplies.

Despite the war’s cost in blood and treasure, Nalyvaichenko said the greatest threat facing Ukraine today is not on the battlefields of the Donbas, but within Kyiv’s government halls.

“If you don’t understand how deep and how destroying the corruption is, you’ll never win the war,” Nalyvaichenko said. “This system, as I understand it, is not workable anymore. And because of war, because of Russian aggression, we now understand why. We simply, as a country, as a nation, have no time and no space anymore to continue with such corrupt practices.”

There is, however, a countervailing, quieter faction, particularly among Ukraine’s military brass, which says the war effort should take priority over any anti-corruption crusades.

Ukrainian military officials who spoke to The Daily Signal on background cautioned against ambitious anti-corruption agendas while the country is still at war.

And, according to the October 2016 International Republican Institute poll, most Ukrainians consider the war to be the biggest threat to the country.

Of the Ukrainians surveyed in the poll, 53 percent said the war in the Donbas was the country’s most important issue, compared with 38 percent who singled out corruption as the top issue.

“The tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, tanks, and artillery sitting along Ukraine’s southern and eastern borders are Ukraine’s sole existential threat,” Alexander Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark, wrote in OZY. “If [Russian President] Vladimir Putin gives the command, they could invade and possibly destroy large parts of the country. Corruption, by comparison, could eviscerate Ukraine’s institutions, but only in the long term.”

Outsider

As SBU chief, Nalyvaichenko spearheaded an investigation into a June 8, 2015, fire at an oil depot near Vasylkiv, Ukraine. The investigation allegedly implicated government officials in financial crimes, according to Nalyvaichenko’s account of events.

The investigation also revealed the undisclosed involvement of a Russian company in the oil depot.

Nalyvaichenko said he personally presented Poroshenko with the evidence and pushed for the issuance of arrest warrants.

Then, on June 15, 2015, Poroshenko fired Nalyvaichenko as head of the SBU. And three days later, Ukraine’s parliament voted to approve Nalyvaichenko’s ouster.

“That’s why I decided to be outside the government,” Nalyvaichenko said. “I really understood and understand for sure that to be subordinated and to fight the corruption, which is above you, is impossible. You become a part of this corrupt group of people, or you are outside. Here’s a red line. For me it was a clear decision.”

The Poroshenko administration declined a request for comment for this article. But, in an emailed statement to The Daily Signal, the SBU defended its track record of investigating and prosecuting corrupt officials.

“After the Revolution of Dignity, state leadership gave a clear indication to law enforcement authorities to begin the real fight against corruption, regardless of position, party affiliation, and the number of stars on one’s epaulets,” the SBU wrote in its statement to The Daily Signal.

According to the SBU, the security agency investigated 673 Ukrainian officials for corruption in 2016, compared with 545 in 2015, and 359 in 2014. The SBU said its investigations led to 256 convictions in 2016, an increase from 184 in 2015, and 181 in 2014.

“This suggests an increase in the intensity of the intelligence agencies in this cause,” the SBU said in its statement.

Nalyvaichenko acknowledged that Ukraine has made some progress in fighting corruption, but he said the past few years of investigations have largely targeted mid- and low-level government officials.

“The worst thing, I think, is that no single person from the top of the previous government [has been] prosecuted,” Nalyvaichenko said. “No single trial, or public hearings, or other procedures were organized by this government, by these officials. That’s I think the worst thing for the country and for Ukrainians.” (For more from the author of “Ukraine’s Former Top Spy Goes after a New Enemy: Corruption” please click HERE)

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What Happens for Consumers after Congress Repeals Obamacare

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All the talk about congressional Republicans preparing to repeal Obamacare may have some Americans on edge, but GOP lawmakers say they intend to craft a plan that will phase out the health care law to ensure a “stable transition” for consumers who depend on it.

Republicans say they want consumers to keep their health coverage, and continue receiving any subsidies, until Congress can pass a replacement that may not kick in until 2019.

In the days before Donald Trump is sworn in as president Jan. 20, Republicans are continuing to debate the substance of a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

Details are sparse, but conservative senators are urging Senate leaders to use legislation from 2015 as a floor, or minimum, for what should be done this year.

That bill phased out parts of Obamacare over two years, repealed the health care law’s individual and employer mandates, and did away with fines for not complying. It also eliminated the law’s Medicaid expansion, medical device tax, and Cadillac tax on high-cost plans.

Congressional committees have started work on a repeal bill. But already President Barack Obama, Democrat lawmakers, and other supporters of the health care law warn that 20 million Americans they say gained coverage under Obamacare—a figure that is disputed as inflated—are in jeopardy of losing that coverage.

Though Republicans plan to send a bill repealing Obamacare to Trump in the next few weeks, GOP lawmakers are considering delaying implementation of the repeal for two years to protect those who gained coverage under Obamacare.

“The repeal legislation will include a stable transition period as we work toward patient-centered health care,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday in a speech mapping out Republicans’ path for repeal.

A two-year transition before Obamacare’s official repeal takes effect would give Congress time to pass and implement a replacement plan. The goal is to ensure that those who obtained health coverage under the law—and received tax credits—would continue to until the replacement for Obamacare is implemented.

“There’s more of an understanding that if you just throw 20 to 30 million [insured Americans] out on the street, that’s not politically wise and, as far as I’m concerned, immoral,” Timothy Jost, professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and a supporter of the Affordable Care Act, told The Daily Signal.

“How do you deal with that?” Jost said. “I think the idea is you repeal it and put it off for some period of time and adopt and implement a replacement plan.”

Many proposals introduced by Republican members of the House and Senate, including House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “A Better Way” plan, include tax credits to provide financial assistance to consumers who purchase coverage in the individual market.

“We want to have tax credits that give everybody a shot at buying, take their tax credit and go buy a health plan of their choosing,” Ryan said Thursday during a town hall hosted by CNN.

Republicans “generally are not talking about” ending all subsidies, Jost said. But since they haven’t yet introduced a replacement for the health care law, he said, it isn’t clear whether tax credits will be based on a consumer’s age or income.

Republicans may agree it will take time to eliminate Obamacare without imperiling Americans’ insurance status, but GOP lawmakers remain split over aspects of the repeal legislation itself.

Some Republican senators, for example, would like to see a repeal of Obamacare’s taxes delayed for several months, while others say the taxes should be rolled back immediately after Trump signs the repeal bill into law.

The 2015 reconciliation bill, which members of the last Congress said plotted the steps for successfully dismantling Obamacare, repealed all of the law’s taxes immediately. Obama vetoed that bill.

Alyene Senger, a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy Studies, advocates following the model set by the 2015 legislation and repealing the taxes immediately. Included are taxes on prescription drugs and health insurers, as well as higher restrictions and penalties placed on health savings accounts.

Other Republican lawmakers want to see GOP leaders produce a replacement plan before they vote to repeal Obamacare.

At first, House conservatives advocated a repeal-first, replace-later strategy. Now, though, they’re backing a plan to replace the law soon after voting to repeal it.

Congress took a major step toward repealing Obamacare this week after members passed a budget resolution for fiscal 2017. The resolution instructs committees in the House and Senate to begin writing the bill to repeal the law using a process called reconciliation.

After the November election, Republican lawmakers said they planned to have a bill repealing Obamacare on Trump’s desk not long after his inauguration Jan. 20.

But Trump has begun to set his own expectations for Congress.

At his first press conference since the election, the president-elect Wednesday mapped out a timeline for Obamacare’s repeal and replacement that centers around Senate confirmation of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., his pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

“We’re going to be submitting as soon as our secretary is approved, almost simultaneously, [or] shortly thereafter, a plan,” Trump said. “It will be repeal and replace.”

The Senate Finance Committee, which has primary jurisdiction, hasn’t scheduled a confirmation hearing for Price.

The Georgia Republican will appear at a courtesy hearing next Wednesday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of that panel, said earlier this week he doesn’t expect Price to be confirmed until mid-February.

Under Trump’s timeline, that would delay repeal of Obamacare until at least then.

But GOP leaders in Congress hope to move faster.

Ryan said Thursday that congressional Republicans are “moving as quickly as they can” to repeal and replace the health care law. But, Ryan admitted, it will take “a little bit of time.”

“The law is collapsing,” Ryan said, “and so we’ve got to rescue people from the collapsing of this law and fix this problem.” (For more from the author of “What Happens for Consumers after Congress Repeals Obamacare” please click HERE)

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Iran Says It Will Not Renegotiate Nuclear Deal

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Iran will not renegotiate its nuclear agreement with world powers, even if it faces new U.S. sanctions after Donald Trump becomes president, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday.

Trump, who will take office on Friday, has threatened to either scrap the agreement, which curbs Iran’s nuclear program and lifts sanctions against it, or seek a better deal.

“There will be no renegotiation and the (agreement) will not be reopened,” said Araqchi, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator at the talks that led to the agreement in 2015, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.

“We and many analysts believe that the (agreement) is consolidated. The new U.S. administration will not be able to abandon it,” Araqchi told a news conference in Tehran, held a year after the deal took effect.

“Nuclear talks with America are over and we have nothing else to discuss,” he added. (Read more from “Iran Says It Will Not Renegotiate Nuclear Deal” HERE)

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Trump Vows ‘Insurance for Everybody’ in Obamacare Replacement Plan

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President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of “insurance for everybody,” while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview late Saturday with The Washington Post, but any proposals from the incoming president would almost certainly dominate the Republican effort to overhaul federal health policy as he prepares to work with his party’s congressional majorities.

Trump’s plan is likely to face questions from the right, after years of GOP opposition to further expansion of government involvement in the health-care system, and from those on the left, who see his ideas as disruptive to changes brought by the Affordable Care Act that have extended coverage to tens of millions of Americans.

In addition to his replacement plan for the ACA, also known as Obamacare, Trump said he will target pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. (Read more from “Trump Vows ‘Insurance for Everybody’ in Obamacare Replacement Plan” HERE)

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Watch List: Islamic Extremism the Cause of Persecution for Christians in 35 out of 50 Most Persecuted Countries

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Open Doors USA released its 25th annual World Watch List (WWL), a ranking of the top 50 countries “where Christians face the most severe persecution for their faith”, noting that “Islamic extremism is the lead generator of persecution for 35 out of 50 countries on the list.”

Communist North Korea topped the list for the 16th consecutive year because of the regime’s extreme oppression of Christians. The other nine countries in the top 10 are listed as having either Islamic extremism or Islamic oppression as a main cause of persecution.

The watch list’s top 10 countries for the most Christian persecution are, in order: North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Eritrea.

Pakistan, which placed fourth on the list, had “the most all-pervasive violence recorded” in the WWL 2017 recording period from November 2015 to October 2016. The 2016 Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore, which killed 74 and injured 320, is one example of the violence Christians have seen in Pakistan over the past year.

World Watch Research also noted in its summary of the Watch List’s major trends that “Islamic militancy is gaining ground in many more sectors of society” in Somalia since, “especially with generous Saudi funding – they are building new networks of extremist schools in Somalia, Kenya, Niger and Burkina Faso, and then targeting local government cadres, asking for concessions to build mosques and sponsoring those who are running for office.” (Read more from “Watch List: Islamic Extremism the Cause of Persecution for Christians in 35 out of 50 Most Persecuted Countries” HERE)

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Radical Political Operatives Plan to Disrupt Trump Inauguration, Harass Mike Pence at His Home

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The radical political operatives aspiring to disrupt Donald Trump’s inauguration next week are planning to throw a “dance party” on the lawn of Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s temporary home in Washington, D.C., Fox News reports.

Confirmation of the upcoming event came in the form of audio recorded by Trevor Loudon on behalf of Capital Research Center’s documentary division, Dangerous Documentaries. Capital Research Center is also the originator of the Bombthrowers website.

The audio was obtained as part of Capital Research Center’s upcoming documentary on left-wing protesters, “America Under Siege: Civil War 2017.” The film, directed by Judd Saul, is set for release before Inauguration Day.

The audio features a female member of the #DisruptJ20 organization, which has ties to left-wing financier George Soros, explaining the group’s plans to “do everything we can to try and stop people from being able to access the inauguration.”

The woman says on the recording that her group intends to holds a “pure dance party at Mike Pence’s house” on Wednesday, January 18, two days before Trump and Pence take their respective oaths of office.

“It’s his last few days living in Chevy Chase before he moves into the vice presidential residence, and we’re going to send him off with a bang,” the woman says. Chevy Chase is a neighborhood in Northwest Washington not far from the vice president’s official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory on Embassy Row.

Pence’s left-leaning neighbors in Chevy Chase have given him a frigid reception but the so-called dance party by the Marxists and anarchists of #DisruptJ20 takes leftist animosity against the former Indiana governor to a new level.

After harassing Pence, the group will focus on the pro-Trump “DeploraBall” the next day at the National Press Club.

On the recording, the woman describes the DeploraBall as the “alt-right neo-Nazi … party to celebrate Trump.”

“We’re gonna crash it,” she says.

On the morning of the Inauguration, Friday, January 20, members vow to block entrance points as well as roads and transportation leading to the swearing-in ceremony.

“We’re going to be doing blockades,” she says. “We’re going to [be] blockading checkpoints into the security zones. We’re also going to be blockading roads and other modes of transit into the city.”

Friday 10 a.m. the group is planning an “anti-Capitalist, anti-fascist bloc” that “will be an unpermitted march that will be leaving from Logan Square.”

A #DisruptJ20 spokeswoman spoke to Fox News about her group’s agenda. “We’re exercising our freedom of speech and really want to set a tone for the next few years that there’s a massive body of people … who are very concerned about the dangerous direction Donald Trump is taking our country in.”

Fox News reports that one organizer said he hopes to “turn the inauguration into as big of a clusterf— as possible.”

The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition has laid out its own inauguration plans, saying it hopes to galvanize tens of thousands of people at permitted locations — like Freedom Plaza and the Navy Memorial — to march and protest in a more conventional way. ANSWER is an ultraleftist organization supportive of the dictatorships in Cuba and North Korea. (For more from the author of “OUR SCOOP ON FOX NEWS: Trump Inauguration Disrupters Admit to Planning ‘Dance Party’ on Mike Pence’s Lawn” please click HERE)

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Here’s the Potential Short List for Trump’s Supreme Court Pick

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President-elect Donald Trump has narrowed his potential Supreme Court picks to only the federal appeals court judges on his broad list of potential nominees, according to CNN.

CNN reported that Vice President-elect Mike Pence said the team is “winnowing” the list that “is made up of mostly federal appellate court judges.” That doesn’t automatically mean all the others are off the list yet, according to Pence.

Appeals court judges on the list of 21 are Steven Colloton, Neil Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, William Pryor, and Diane Sykes. However, the story also mentions Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen.

Pence met with senators Wednesday about the potential pick, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.

“There’s been some of the people on that list who have already gone through the process here as far as approving,” Manchin told CNN. “I guess they would look at someone who has gone through, somebody who’s made it through here before would have a chance.”

Trump said during his Wednesday press conference he would be making a decision on a Supreme Court justice choice within two weeks of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Daily Signal as to whether the CNN report on the short list was accurate.

Here’s a look at all of the seven appeals court judges on the list, in alphabetical order.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen was named to the state’s high court by Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican. Larsen, 48, in 2002 became an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Larsen, who also taught law at the University of Michigan, received her law degree from Northwestern and clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a President George W. Bush appointee, has served since 2004 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Alabama, and there was a fight to get him on the court. Interestingly, Pryor’s comment about “nine octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the Supreme Court” deciding on the death penalty became an issue during his appeals court confirmation fight. Pryor’s confirmation came only after the May 2005 “Gang of 14” bipartisan Senate compromise, to break a Democratic filibuster of several Bush judicial nominations and also prevent the Republican leadership from invoking the so-called “nuclear option,” of curbing the filibuster. In a 53-45 vote, the Senate confirmed Pryor the following month. Pryor, 54, has a political background. He became Alabama’s attorney general in 1997 after his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. Trump designated Sessions to be his next attorney general. Pryor was elected in his own right in 1998 as state attorney general and was re-elected in 2002. In 2013, he was confirmed to a term on the United States Sentencing Commission. Pryor received his law degree from Tulane University.

Judge Thomas Hardiman was appointed by Bush in 2007 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Pennsylvania. The Senate confirmed him 95-0 in March 2007. Hardiman, 51, previously was a federal district judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania, a position confirmed by a voice vote in October 2003. A Notre Dame graduate, Hardiman practiced law in Washington and Pittsburgh.

Judge Steven Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Iowa was appointed in 2003 by Bush. The Senate confirmed him in September 2003 by a vote of 94-1. Colloton previously served as a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. The 53-year-old graduate of Yale Law School clerked for the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Judge Neil Gorsuch, 49, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Colorado, was appointed in 2006 by Bush. The Senate confirmed him by a voice vote in July 2006. Before that, Gorsuch was a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. The Harvard Law School graduate clerked for both current Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Justice Byron White.
Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Wisconsin was named by Bush. The Senate confirmed her by a vote of 70-27 in March 2004. Sykes, 58, had been a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 1999. Before that, she was a trial court judge in both civil and criminal matters. She received her law degree from Marquette University.

One federal appeals court judge on the list of 21 who wasn’t mentioned in the CNN story is Judge Raymond Gruender, 53. He was named by Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Missouri. The Senate voted 97-1 to confirm him in May 2004. He previously was a prosecutor and served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. He received his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

With a few exceptions, such as Justice Elena Kagan and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, most justices in modern times have been federal appeals court judges. The list Trump considered was intriguing because it included many state supreme court justices, as well as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

Generally, there is a reason most justices are drawn from federal appeals courts, said John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

“Federal appeals court judges have written more legal opinions about matters that are likely to go before the Supreme Court, while state supreme court justices have ruled mostly on state law and not federal law,” Malcolm, a former deputy assistant attorney general, told The Daily Signal.

But there is also merit to having state supreme court judges, said J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

“I’m big fan of state Supreme Courts just because I think they might have a better understanding of overreach by the federal government, but the list I saw, they are all good names and any one would be fantastic,” Adams told The Daily Signal. (For more from the author of “Here’s the Potential Short List for Trump’s Supreme Court Pick” please click HERE)

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