CIA Confirmed Russians’ Role in Shooting of Pope John Paul II, Reagan Biographer Writes

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Contrary to what “pragmatists” in U.S. government agencies concluded, top officials with the Soviet Union were behind the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, a biographer of Ronald Reagan told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview.

Paul Kengor, a Grove City College political science professor and author, has acquired what he calls never-before-seen information about the Reagan administration’s “supersecret investigation” into the shooting and wounding of the pope.

The information details the role of the Soviet GRU, the Russians’ brutal foreign military intelligence unit, and KGB spy agency head Yuri Andropov in the attempt on John Paul II’s life, Kengor said.

President Reagan and his CIA chief, William Casey, had suspected from the outset that the Soviets had a hand in the shooting of John Paul II on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, he said.

But their suspicions weren’t confirmed until after Casey organized his own secret probe spearheaded by two female researchers, according to Kengor’s just-released book, A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century.

“Their suspicions ran completely contrary to the establishmentarians in the institutional CIA, at the State Department, and among the White House pragmatists,” Kengor told The Daily Signal. “That being the reality, Casey, I learned, actually ordered a truly supersecret investigation into the shooting, researched by two impressive women in their 30s and 40s, known only to a handful of agency people.”

A Turk named Mehmet Ali Agca, 23, fired four bullets from a handgun at John Paul II, two of which struck him, as the pontiff entered the square. An Italian court eventually sentenced Agca, an escaped murderer, to life in prison. John Paul later forgave Agca, and Prime Minister Carlo Ciampi pardoned him at the pope’s request, deporting him to Turkey in 2000.

The final report of the Casey-ordered investigation never was released, and Kengor says he is not sure where it is. The author did suggest that someone in the Trump administration, including perhaps the president, could ask that the report be released.

Kengor said he believes he may have learned the names of the two female CIA employees. He emailed one, he said, but did not receive a response.

One source told the college professor that the report was “the most secretive thing I’ve ever seen,” Kengor said, declining to name the source.

“We had to practically remove the eyeballs of those who read it,” the source told him. “That report was the blockbuster of the 20th century.”

But even without the actual report in hand, Kengor said, he learned its major findings.

“I did get the results of the investigation, the background, the thinking of Reagan and Casey,” he said in an email to The Daily Signal. “I even pinpointed the date/time that I believe Casey briefed Reagan on the conclusions: May 16, 1985, 11:02-11:17 a.m. I have the president’s daily schedule from that day.”

Both Reagan, who died in 2004, and John Paul II, who died in 2005, decided it would be best not to disclose the findings at the time, Kengor said.

The pope was concerned about starting World War III and “shrewdly figured that people would rightly blame Moscow anyway,” he said.

Reagan was asked several times about a possible Soviet role in the shooting, but was “very careful not to say what was truly on his mind,” Kengor said. “This is an impressive act of diplomacy by Reagan.”

Putin and the Missing Report

So why hasn’t the report of the “supersecret investigation” been released?

Kengor has one possible explanation.

“The current head of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was in the KGB at this exact time,” he said, adding:

But I have to be very clear, I doubt very much that Putin knew anything or was involved. He wasn’t high-ranking enough. This was, as William Safire put it, ‘the crime of the century,’ and a tiny few Russian officials were permitted to know. It was actually the GRU that organized the assassination attempt.

That was the big finding in the Casey investigation, given that everyone else had been looking for, but couldn’t find, KGB fingerprints. That said, the GRU organized the shooting with Yuri Andropov’s direct order, blessing, and enthusiasm at the KGB. Andropov, as head of the KGB, was Vladimir Putin’s boss.

Since coming to power in 2000, Putin has been a “major protector of the GRU and KGB,” Kengor said. “Maybe that’s why this Cold War report still hasn’t been disclosed by Washington. Maybe Washington has heretofore feared offending Putin and hurting U.S.-Russian relations.”

“I wonder,” he added, “if our new president would have any such fears?” (For more from the author of “CIA Confirmed Russians’ Role in Shooting of Pope John Paul II, Reagan Biographer Writes” please click HERE)

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What You Need to Know About the Obamacare Subsidies at the Center of the Health Care Debate

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While Republicans and Democrats negotiated a government spending bill this week, another form of financial assistance that aims to help low-income Americans under Obamacare has been at the center of a debate involving insurance companies, consumers, and President Donald Trump.

These subsidies aren’t the tax credits implemented under the health care law, which lower the cost of premiums for eligible consumers, but are called cost-sharing reductions.

They’ve been the subject of much scrutiny lately, and a source of concern for insurance companies, congressional Democrats, doctors, hospitals, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

So what are the cost-sharing reductions, how do they work, and why have they been thrust to the center of debate?

What Are the Cost-Sharing Reductions?

The cost-sharing reductions are subsidies designed to reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income patients who purchase silver-level plans through Obamacare’s exchanges. The subsidies are only available to marketplace customers with an income between 100 percent and 250 percent of the federal poverty line ($12,000 to $30,000 for an individual).

In 2017, 7 million people—58 percent of marketplace enrollees—qualified for cost-sharing reductions, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

How Do the Cost-Sharing Reductions Work?

While Obamacare’s tax credits and cost-sharing reductions are both intended to help lower the cost of coverage for low-income Americans, both serve different functions.

The tax credits are paid directly to consumers and lower the cost of premiums. But the government pays cost-sharing reductions directly to insurers.

Insurance companies then offer plans with reduced deductibles, copayments, and out-of-pocket limits to eligible patients.

In 2016, the government reimbursed insurers roughly $7 billion for cost-sharing reductions.

Why Are They in the News?

The cost-sharing reductions were the subject of much scrutiny in 2014, and now they’re back in the news again.

In 2014, the Republican-led House of Representatives filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, then led by Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, over the subsidies.

Republican lawmakers argued that the Obama administration made payments to insurers without an appropriation from Congress, which they said was unconstitutional. But the Obama administration said it intended for lawmakers to fund the cost-sharing reductions alongside Obamacare’s tax credits.

In 2016, a federal district court judge in the District of Columbia sided with House Republicans and ruled that because Congress never appropriated money for the cost-sharing reductions, the Obama administration violated the Constitution.

President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice quickly appealed, and the judge’s order has been halted since then.

Now, the Trump administration has to decide whether it will continue the Obama administration’s fight, and the next court date is scheduled for May 22.

What Does the Trump Administration Want to Do?

At this stage, no one is entirely sure what Trump and his officials plan to do about the cost-sharing reductions.

Both the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, now led by Secretary Tom Price, have sent mixed signals on whether they intend to continue funding the subsidies.

In a statement to The New York Times last month, the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency would continue to make payments to insurance companies.

But Trump floated the idea of using the cost-sharing reductions as leverage to bring Democrats to the negotiating table over a bill replacing Obamacare.

“Obamacare is dead next month if it doesn’t get that money,” Trump said of the subsidies in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month. “I haven’t made my viewpoint clear yet. I don’t want people to get hurt … What I think should happen and will is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.”

Even more recently, though, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Tuesday the administration hadn’t yet decided whether it will make cost-sharing reduction payments for May.

What Options Does Trump Have?

The Trump administration could drop the Obama administration’s lawsuit, and the Department of Health and Human Services would stop making payments to insurers.

But if the White House decided to continue funding the subsidies, it could move forward with the lawsuit that originated with the Obama administration.

Trump could also urge Congress to appropriate the money in future appropriations bills.

Democrats pushed the president and congressional Republicans to allocate money for cost-sharing reductions in a stopgap government spending bill that passed Congress this week. But money for the subsidies was ultimately left out of the legislation.

That spending bill keeps the government running until September.

While it remains unclear how the Trump administration wants to proceed—and whether Congress will appropriate money for cost-sharing reductions—the subsidies could be eliminated entirely.

The House GOP’s health care bill, called the American Health Care Act, gets rid of cost-sharing reductions.

What Happens If the Cost-Sharing Reductions Stop?

If the Trump administration decided to halt subsidies, insurance companies would lose the money they’re reimbursed for offering reduced deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket limits to consumers.

To compensate for the lost money, insurers could raise premiums for all of their customers. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that if that were to happen, health insurance premiums would increase an average of 19 percent.

Insurance companies could also decide to leave the marketplace by canceling contracts with state and federal regulators, and end coverage for consumers mid-year, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

However, the Commonwealth Fund said leaving the marketplace would be complicated.

Where Do Republicans and Democrats Stand?

For Democrats, the answer to the question on what to do with the cost-sharing reductions is easy: They want Congress to appropriate the money to fund the subsidies.

They’re joined by a coalition of insurance companies, physicians, hospitals, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which collectively sent a letter to congressional leaders last month urging them to fund the cost-sharing reductions.

Though the Republican-led Congress didn’t appropriate money for the subsidies in this week’s spending bill, top GOP lawmakers are also in favor of continuing the cost-sharing reductions.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., told The New York Times he believes Congress should provide the money to fund the subsidies.

He was joined by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., who said lawmakers had an obligation to insurers and consumers to make sure the government’s payments to insurance companies were made.

“We cannot leave them high and dry,” he told The New York Times. (For more from the author of “What You Need to Know About the Obamacare Subsidies at the Center of the Health Care Debate” please click HERE)

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FDA May Make Too Many Pizza Toppings a Crime

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Jenny Craig can’t arrest you if you miscount your calories, but the federal government could if a new calorie-counting rule takes effect.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “Nutrition Labeling of Standard Menu Items in Restaurants and Similar Retail Food Establishments” (79 FR 71155) rule is scheduled to take effect on May 5. The 105-page rule implements Obama-era amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), which sets national standards for the marketing and labeling of food products.

The rule will require, among other mandates, that all restaurants and other retail food outlets, such as movie theaters, operating as one brand with at least 20 stores display a calorie count in addition to other nutritional information for all standard menu items on the establishment’s “menus and menu boards.”

To demonstrate the potential scope of that provision, Lynn Liddle, a former executive vice president at Domino’s Pizza, said, “‘Menu’ can refer to any writing that [is] ‘used by a customer to make an order selection at the time the customer is viewing the writing’”—possibly including flyers and other advertisements.

“We no longer know what a menu is,” Liddle said, to point out how confusing the rule is.

When an executive of a major national corporation can no longer ascertain the meaning of the word “menu,” a rule has problems.

During the rule’s notice-and-comment period, some food purveyors raised concerns “that restaurants that ‘unwittingly misbrand their menu offerings’ will be held liable for their food that is misbranded under this rule and related provisions of the FD&C Act.”

The FD&C Act makes misbranding a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment up to one year and a fine of up to $1,000, with more severe sanctions for repeat offenses (21 U.S.C. § 333).

Industry representatives also pointed out that restaurant owners and supervisors can be held criminally liable for FD&C Act violations under the so-called “responsible corporate officer doctrine.” That stems from a U.S. Supreme Court case, United States v. Park (1975), in which the court upheld a retail food chain president’s criminal conviction for food safety violations that occurred on his watch.

An FDA spokesperson said that the agency will spend the rule’s first year on education, not enforcement, but that offers little comfort to market participants.

Chris Reisch, a Domino’s franchise owner in Kentucky who started out as a delivery man, explained, according to The Washington Free Beacon, “To face one year in prison for putting too many pepperonis on a pizza? Everybody laughs and smiles, but that’s the reality of the way it’s written now.”

As if extra pepperonis wouldn’t be a welcome surprise!

The FDA would require pizza providers to display calorie counts on a per serving (slice) basis, which poses a particular problem for proprietors who offer customers significant choice on their regular menu.

Domino’s, for instance, offers customers a selection of 27 regular toppings and nine sauces on five types of crust. All told, there are 34 million potential pizza combinations one could order from Domino’s. Whether a customer adds double pepperoni or mushrooms to their customizable pie can make a significant difference in the calorie range of each pizza.

According to the American Pizza Community—a lobbyist group that advocates on behalf of 20,000 pizza restaurants nationwide—no two slices are alike. This creates significant variance in calorie estimates across pizzas.

Tim McIntyre, an executive vice president at Domino’s Pizza, said that if workers “are heavy handed with cheese or pepperoni, and a pizza doesn’t meet standards and is outside of the range of the nutritional labeling, then that could be a store manager liable for a criminal penalty. And that’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Certain chains—including McDonald’s, Starbucks Coffee, and Panera Bread—already commenced compliance with the pending rule by posting calorie counts on their menu boards, but those restaurants maintain a menu with less potential for customization.

A bipartisan coalition led by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., recently introduced a compromise bill to meet the FDA’s objective that consumers know how many calories are in each menu item without placing an unnecessary burden on businesses.

The Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2017 sets forth a modified rule that includes flexibility for “establishments with standard menu items that come in different flavors, varieties, or combinations.” Under the alternative act, restaurants where the majority of customers place their orders off-premises (online or over the phone) are allowed to disclose nutritional information online.

This compromise bill saves pizza shop owners from making up to $5,000 in menu board alterations per store and provides consumers with nutritional information in a much more accessible format. Domino’s, which takes 90 percent of its orders off-premises, already has a “Cal-O-Meter” available online that can quickly calculate the expected calorie count for any of its 34 million menu offerings.

Leave it to big government to impose an arbitrary regulation where industry has already developed a more efficient solution.

The calorie rule does not only affect pizza shops.

According to the Free Beacon:

Associations representing grocery stores and gas stations say the FDA does not even know what the regulation requires, including whether a store could face criminal penalties for serving different sizes of fried chicken.

In 1892, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in United States v. Eaton, which involved a challenge to a criminal indictment under the Oleomargarine Act, which imposed record keeping and tax burdens on oleomargarine dealers. There, the court reasoned that “a sufficient statutory authority should exist for declaring any act or omission a criminal offense.”

The court recognized that federal regulations may have the force of law, but if federal bureaucrats want to throw people in jail for things like faulty butter records or too many anchovies on a pizza slice, Congress must have expressed a clear intention to criminalize such a trivial act or omission.

As Heritage Foundation scholars have written elsewhere, many arcane regulations carry criminal penalties. It is also clear, as the Supreme Court held in United States v. Grimaud (1911), “that Congress may establish criminal penalties ‘for violations of regulations’ made by administrative agencies.”

But, applying the wisdom of the Eaton decision today, if Congress wants to make it a crime to fail to post calorie information on a menu board, it should say so. Such a significant determination should not be left to the FDA.

The Trump administration’s FDA is reportedly seeking to delay the May 5 effective date (again), but has yet to propose any substantive changes to the rule. If the FDA does not curtail the scope of the rule, Congress must act before it threatens pizza shop owners and similarly situated restaurant chains with criminal penalties for the failure to count calories according to the agency’s preferred standards.

The FDA may want people to eat healthier at restaurants, but it is not its role to send restaurateurs to the brig for unwitting recipe mishaps, nor is a regulatory requirement the proper means to intervene in Americans’ dietary choices. (For more from the author of “FDA May Make Too Many Pizza Toppings a Crime” please click HERE)

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Despite the Rhetoric, US Trade Deficit With China Is Not a Big Problem. Here’s Why.

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When we discuss international trade and balance of payments, there are two types of accounts.

There is the current account, which includes goods and services imported and exported and receives the most political attention.

In 2016, the American people imported $479 billion worth of goods and services from Chinese producers, and we sold $170 billion worth of goods and services to Chinese customers.

That made for a $309 billion current account deficit. In other words, we purchase more goods and services from Chinese producers than Chinese consumers purchase from American producers.

How much of a problem is it when there is a deficit, or a negative imbalance, on current accounts? Let’s look at it.

I buy more from my grocer than he buys from me. Our Department of Defense buys more from General Dynamics than General Dynamics buys from our Department of Defense.

With just a bit of thought, one could come up with thousands of examples in which one party buys more from another than that party buys from it—creating deficits in current accounts.

But a current account deficit is always offset by a surplus somewhere else. That somewhere else is known as the capital, or financial, account.

This account consists of direct foreign investment, such as the purchase or construction of machinery, buildings, or whole manufacturing plants. The capital account also consists of portfolio investment, such as purchases of stocks and bonds.

In our capital account, the U.S. has a huge surplus with China. That means money is flowing into our country from China.

In other words, Chinese people are investing more money into the U.S.—in the forms of home and factory purchases, stocks, and bonds—than Americans are investing in China.

Of necessity, the deficit that we have with China on our current account, ignoring timing issues, must equal the surplus we have with China on our capital account.

It turns out that foreigners own $30 trillion worth of U.S. assets, such as stocks, Treasury bonds, manufacturing plants, and real estate.

One of the reasons that foreigners hold so much U.S. capital is that our country is one of the world’s most attractive places to invest.

Secondly, our capital markets, unlike our goods markets, are open to foreigners. Foreigners can buy and sell any U.S. asset in any quantity, except in cases in which national security is an issue.

One of the troubling aspects of foreign confidence in America is that foreigners invest so much in U.S. Treasury bonds. That in turn gives the U.S. Congress greater latitude to engage in profligate spending.

Japan owns $1.1 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds, and China owns $1 trillion.

What about President Donald Trump’s call to reduce our current account trade deficit?

By the way, we know that we’re being deceived when a politician talks only about the current account deficit, without a word about the capital account surplus.

If foreigners sell us fewer goods, they will earn fewer dollars. With fewer dollars, they will be able to make fewer investments in America.

But that’s fine with politicians. The beneficiaries of trade restrictions are visible. Tariffs on tires, clothing, and electronics will mean more profits and jobs and more votes for politicians.

The victims of trade restrictions, such as people in the real estate market and other areas where foreigners are investing, are less visible.

Last year, Chinese citizens alone purchased record amounts of residential and commercial real estate, bringing their five-year real estate investment total to more than $110 billion.

Let’s put trade deficits into historical perspective.

If trade deficits were something for a president to fret about, every U.S. president from 1790 to today ought to have been fretting. For most of our history, we have had current account deficits.

I should say every president except Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose administrations ushered in the Great Depression. Nine out of the 10 years of the economic downturn of the 1930s, our nation had a current account trade surplus.

Should we reproduce the economic policies of that era and recreate the “wonderful” trade surplus? (For more from the author of “Despite the Rhetoric, US Trade Deficit With China Is Not a Big Problem. Here’s Why.” please click HERE)

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Home Caregivers Identify Evidence of Voter Fraud in Bid to Oust Union

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An in-home caregiver named Edison is supposed to live in a unit on the seventh floor of the Cedars of Edina apartment complex, according to a list supplied by the state government.

But when The Daily Signal tags along on a visit to the Gallagher Drive location by activists seeking to decertify the union that represents such caregivers, no one by Edison’s full name can be found in the directory of residents.

“As you can see, we scrolled through the electronic directory where the names are listed alphabetically,” canvasser Matt Patterson tells this reporter. “There is no one listed here named Edison.”

Which is odd, Patterson adds, because Edison’s name is a new one that Minnesota had just provided on a list of Medicaid-eligible home caregivers represented by the union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

“We’ll want to make sure this person has actually moved and is not residing here,” he notes.

Patterson, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Worker Freedom, is working with a local lawyer to expose what they suspect is voter fraud, unauthorized collection of dues from Medicaid payments, and other illegal or improper actions connected with unionization of in-home caregivers in Minnesota.

Lawmakers on a joint subcommittee of the state House and Senate are scheduled to look into such allegations and evidence beginning next Monday, The Daily Signal has learned.

Volunteers canvassing neighborhoods in and around the Twin Cities also have found what they describe as nonexistent addresses, abandoned homes, and vacant lots, among other irregularities that raise questions about a 2014 election to unionize nearly 30,000 home caregivers.

That vote, conducted by mail-in ballot, was administered by the state’s Bureau of Mediation Services and resulted in victory for SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Copies of affidavits signed by the volunteers and obtained by The Daily Signal detail discrepancies between names and addresses listed in public records and actual locations they visited. The Minnesota residents who gave the affidavits are part of the campaign to decertify SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

Several in-home caregivers, widely known in Minnesota as personal care assistants, or PCAs, have told The Daily Signal that they never received a ballot to vote in the election held in August 2014.

Other PCAs presented evidence in the affidavits suggesting that someone forged their signatures on union documents they say they never signed. Others say they believe someone copied their signatures onto union membership forms and election authorization forms they never would have knowingly signed.

‘My Fears Were Justified’

Janine Yates, a resident of Hopkins, Minnesota, works as a personal care assistant for a family friend.

In an affidavit, Yates says she is convinced an SEIU operative forged her signature on an election authorization form and then used it without permission so that dues would be deducted from her Medicaid benefit check.

In her affidavit, Yates recalls that an SEIU representative visited her at home in May 2014, roughly three months before the unionization election.

Although she was not “willing to endorse, support, or join” the union, Yates says in the affidavit, the SEIU representative was “very persistent.” She had to repeat herself and say “no” several times before he would leave her doorstep:

As the SEIU solicitor walked away, I saw him writing on the document he had presented me for signature. I was worried, at the time, that he was signing this card with my name. My fears were justified …

Exhibit A in Yates’ affidavit is a membership form that she says was presented to the union as though she had signed it when she had not.

Three weeks later, Yates says, another SEIU representative came to her door to ask her to join the union. When she declined, he gave her a document that he said was authorizing the union to send her updates by text message.

“Many months later, I realized that SEIU dues were being deducted from the PCA benefit I received for caring for my friend, which I never wanted and did not sign,” Yates says in the affidavit.

What the Law Did for SEIU

Douglas Seaton, a partner in a Minneapolis-based firm, is spearheading volunteers’ efforts to collect enough signatures to trigger a new election they hope will result in decertification of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota as the PCAs’ union. Patterson, of the Center for Worker Freedom, a nonprofit affiliated with Americans for Tax Reform, is working with him.

Under a Minnesota state program called PCA Choice, about 27,000 personal care assistants receive a Medicaid subsidy to cover the costs of services they provide to disabled individuals, who typically are family members such as a son or daughter. The PCAs provide these services in their own home or the home of the disabled individual.

Kris Greene, a personal care assistant who lives in Lakeville, is the lead plaintiff in litigation against the administration of Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat.

For the past six years, Greene, 53, has provided care at home for her 24-year-old daughter Meredie, who has a disorder called Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome.

“My daughter is very childlike and very vulnerable,” Greene says in an interview with The Daily Signal in St. Paul on the sidelines of the March 4 press conference.

“She was in a day program where she had to rely on a lot of people, but didn’t like it and she would not thrive there. She’s nonverbal and can’t speak well.”

In 2013, Dayton signed into law a bill that classified personal care assistants as public employees, but only for the purposes of collective bargaining. SEIU Healthcare Minnesota organized the election, using mail-in ballots, to unionize the PCAs.

Out of the 27,000 personal care assistants eligible to vote, however, only 5,849 voted. A total of 3,543 voted yes to name SEIU Healthcare Minnesota as their exclusive representative, and 2,306 voted no. This means that 13 percent of the state’s PCAs were permitted to unionize all 27,000.

The current contract between the state and SEIU allows the union to deduct 3 percent, or up to $948 a year, from Medicaid payments to personal care assistants who are part of the union.

Seaton estimates, based on public records, that SEIU could pull in as much as $5 million a year in dues from PCAs in Minnesota.

Going into the election, SEIU had every advantage since state law says unions need only a majority of those who vote and not a majority of the entire bargaining unit.

‘Reprehensible’

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2014 case Harris v. Quinn, ruled 5-4 that unions such as SEIU, which represent public employees, may collect dues only from those who voluntarily join.

Pamela Harris, an Illinois resident who cares for her disabled son at home, brought the case. Citing the First Amendment, Harris and others argued it was unconstitutional for state laws to compel in-home caregivers to pay union dues and accept a union as their exclusive representative to the government.

Harris says she is familiar with union tactics in Minnesota and sees union operatives as making a concerted effort to undermine the Supreme Court ruling.

“I still recall the two young SEIU representatives at my door early on a Sunday asking me to sign the card just so they could show their supervisor they had talked with me,” Harris says in an email to The Daily Signal, adding:

Little did I know that my decision to not sign their card likely kept me from supporting the SEIU. The duplicity and aggressiveness of the campaign was unsettling. The unions are rich, powerful, and adept at suppressing anyone who chooses to rebuke their compulsory fees.

The work that the good people in Minnesota are doing to uncover and shine light on this scheme is so important. The public needs to know how the SEIU and these politicians have twisted our laws to legally siphon these precious Medicaid dollars from our sons and daughters into their own pockets. …

Taking public dollars intended to provide care for the disabled and elderly, and giving it to the unions, is reprehensible. And it must be stopped.

Minnesota’s Bureau of Mediation Services, which monitors and administers union elections, requires that signatures from 30 percent of the 27,000 PCAs, or roughly 9,000, must be collected and filed with the agency before an election can be called.

So far, the volunteers organized by Seaton and Patterson have collected about 6,500 signatures, more than the number of voters in the 2014 unionization election and almost twice the number of votes in favor of the union.

Seaton also is pursuing litigation against the Dayton administration on behalf of seven personal care assistants. Those PCAs and other volunteers are part of the coalition Minnesota Personal Care Assistants, or MNPCA, which seeks to decertify SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

Where’s Edison?

It is Sunday, March 5, and The Daily Signal is observing the canvassing efforts of Seaton and Patterson in the suburbs of Edina, located southwest of Minneapolis in Hennepin County. Edina, with a population of about 50,000, is named after Edinburgh, Scotland.

This afternoon, the canvassers visit a dozen addresses listed by the Bureau of Mediation Services as residences of PCAs in hopes of collecting signatures for a new election. Only three residents turn out to be home.

And then there is Edison, who is supposed to live at the Cedars of Edina complex.

Edison’s address appears on one of the agency’s lists of PCAs but his name isn’t in the apartment directory. Seaton and Patterson have yet to track him down. (The Daily Signal has the full name provided by the state, but is not publishing it.)

The volunteers are using lists of PCAs that a county judge ordered the Dayton administration to release. The day before, during a press conference in St. Paul, Seaton says the official lists are inaccurate, incomplete, and contradictory, making it difficult to collect signatures from those eligible to vote in a union election.

One of the 11 affidavits obtained by The Daily Signal is from Adam Sharp, a resident of Coon Rapids. Sharp isn’t a PCA, but volunteered to collect signatures and spent 12 days canvassing.

“I have discovered that a large number of the addresses on the list are nonexistent or are residences which are abandoned or for sale, or residences at which no one was ever a PCA, is no longer a PCA, or the PCA has moved away,” Sharp says in the affidavit.

One listed address turned out to a vacant lot, he says.

‘Condemned, Abandoned, Torn Down’

Benjamin Wetmore, another volunteer from Coon Rapids, says in his affidavit that he had similar experiences with the state-supplied lists of PCAs’ addresses during 20 days of canvassing:

I have discovered that a very large number of the addresses on the list are nonexistent or are residences which are condemned, abandoned, torn down, or for sale, or residences at which no one was ever a PCA, is no longer a PCA, or the PCA has moved away.

Sharp and Wetmore both say they encountered problems with 30 percent or more of some listings.

The Daily Signal accompanies Seaton and Patterson in a visit to an Edina neighborhood near Pamela Park, where they speak with a resident whose daughter is listed by the state as a PCA but is no longer one.

“My daughter is now off to college where she is a political science major,” the woman says. “She hasn’t worked as a PCA for three months.”

When her daughter lived at home, the woman explains, she attended to the needs of an older sister who is disabled.

The Bureau of Mediation Services dismissed MNPCA’s petition for a new election to decertify SEIU on Feb. 10, saying the group had not collected enough signatures.

Seaton submitted a formal request for reconsideration Feb. 20, but the agency has yet to respond. If the agency doesn’t reverse the dismissal, the lawyer says, he will appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

The Ramsey County District Court judge who ordered the Dayton administration to release the lists of PCAs has the authority to order the Bureau of Mediation Services to proceed with a decertification election.

The suit also names the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Minnesota Management and Budget, and relevant department heads as defendants.

Fearing for Program’s Future

In addition to Meredie, Greene has another daughter, Mari, 26, who like her mother is a personal care assistant.

“There’s a great bond between the sisters,” Greene says. “The PCA Choice program makes this possible. Meredie needs a lot of care and a lot of direction throughout the day. She enjoys and thrives being at home with her family.”

As the lead plaintiff in the PCAs’ case, Greene tells reporters she is concerned that SEIU Healthcare Minnesota could permanently alter the state program. She describes it as working for Medicaid beneficiaries, PCAs, family members, and taxpayers.

The alternative to home-based care services, Greene says, would be taxpayer-funded agencies.

For eight weeks, The Daily Signal has sought comment without success from SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and the union’s national organization.

Dayton’s office and the Bureau of Mediation Services also have not responded to multiple requests for comment on this and previous reports.

What’s Next

State Rep. Marion O’Neill, chairman of the House and Senate’s joint Subcommittee on Employee Relations, has scheduled a meeting for next Monday on related questions.

O’Neill, R-Buffalo, has told The Daily Signal that she wants to hold a hearing before the legislative session ends May 22 so that lawmakers can begin to probe allegations of fraud that arose before and after the 2014 unionization election, O’Neill says.

O’Neill and state Sen. Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, wrote March 14 to Bureau of Mediation Services Commissioner Josh Tilsen, citing the “troubling” allegations and asking him to appear before the 10-member subcommittee. Tilsen, a veteran labor mediator before he joined Dayton’s Cabinet, died unexpectedly April 18 from complications arising from a Staphylococcus infection.

The Dayton administration tapped Deputy Commissioner Todd Doncavage to lead the agency as acting commissioner.

Union officials have done nothing for her family other than to “cause concern for the future of the PCA program,” Greene says, adding:

They have also taken away my voice and are speaking for me at the State Capitol and to [the Department of Human Services]. How can they possibly know what’s best for us? I do not want the SEIU to come between me and my daughter, and intrude on our lives.

(For more from the author of “Home Caregivers Identify Evidence of Voter Fraud in Bid to Oust Union” please click HERE)

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Lead Dem Demands Trump Withdraw Army Secretary Pick Over ‘Homophobia and Transphobia’

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The No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. House is calling for the withdrawal of President Trump’s nominee for Army secretary over his “clear record of homophobia and transphobia.”

Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Maryland, issued a statement on Monday strongly urging Trump to pick someone other than Mark Green, a Tennessee state lawmaker and former Army flight surgeon. Hoyer was adding his voice to LGBT advocates and other lawmakers who have assailed Green for calling transgenderism a “disease” and suggesting the Tennessee governor could refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Green has also come under fire for alleged anti-Muslim rhetoric, including a 2013 Twitter message in which he referred to then-President Obama as “B Hussein Obama” and a statement made during a political meeting last year, that Tennessee “will not tolerate” the “teaching [of] the pillars of Islam.” Hoyer’s statement came on the same day Muslim civil rights group Muslim Advocates condemned Green.

“The civilian leaders the President selects to oversee our military set the tone for the men and women of our Armed Forces and how they are expected to behave,” Hoyer’s statement reads.

“Appointing someone with a clear record of homophobia and transphobia, who has made disgusting statements demeaning toward groups of Americans, would send the absolute wrong signal about the values for which our military service members are risking their lives. (Read more from “Lead Dem Demands Trump Withdraw Army Secretary Pick Over ‘Homophobia and Transphobia” HERE)

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A Question You Should Never Be Asked: Please Vote on Which Ethnic People Groups Should Be Discriminated Against in State Law?

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This was the question put before the Alaska House of Representatives for a vote last Friday. Of course, the question wasn’t phrased quite so candidly as that. Instead, it took the form “shouldn’t veterans from these two ethnic groups be given a special veteran designation on Alaska state drivers licenses?”

And with this simple question we watch the pernicious march of identity politics creep ever so slowly and innocently into our state laws. At the outset, it is never about treating individuals of one race or ethnicity poorly—it is rarely about that—instead, it’s about treating individuals of another race or ethnicity better.

There are ample noble justifications for creating and giving special legal status to members of one ethnic group over another. I won’t list them because the possible justifications are literally limitless.

The question yesterday (House Bill 125) was whether two specific ethnic groups should be given veteran status, and veterans from all other ethnicities should be excluded. In reply to that question, I offered an amendment.

My amendment removed the ethnic qualifier, and returned to what should have been the real question all along, “does this individual’s military service merit veteran status in Alaska state law?”

You see, once you identify the real issue—military service—there is no longer a need to limit veteran status to a particular set of individuals based on race or their ethnic heritage.

And why is that important?

It is critical for every state legislator to recognize that you cannot draw lines based on ethnicity without including some individuals, and excluding others.

In the amendment I put forward, veterans of any racial background would be eligible for veteran status, as the original bill already declared, if they “served in military operations in support of the United States” between “February 28, 1961 and May 15, 1975.”

I didn’t choose those specific dates, they were chosen by the author of the original bill. But in reading the bill, I looked for examples of who was being discriminated against in the bill. I then asked why we would be discriminating against these veterans in state law?

I could find no good reason. I still can’t. And I believe that our politicized legislative system is a terrible process for trying to figure out which race or ethnicity should be accorded special benefits and privileges. Our political process rewards groups with political power; namely, votes, money and lobbyists. Can you think of a worse process for deciding which groups will be looked on more favorably by the government?

As I said to my colleagues in the House, this is a question that governments have no business answering. No matter how clear the answer may seem to a group of politicians, there is no good answer to the question.

The Alaska Constitution declares “that all persons are equal and entitled to equal rights, opportunities, and protection under the law.” Any laws that try to assign rights, opportunities or legal protection based on race or ethnicity are a direct and unmistakable violation of our constitution.

But let us pretend for a moment that the U.S. Constitution and the Alaska State Constitution did not exist. What then? HB125 would still be a terrible law because it promotes discrimination based on a person’s ethnicity.

Read “Human Events: What Really Happened at the Bay of Pigs” by Humberto Fontova.

Both groups were recruited to fight for the U.S. by the CIA. Both were trained and equipped and led by the U.S. government. Both groups received their weapons and supplies from the U.S. government. Members of both groups fought alongside American servicemen, and members of both groups gave their lives in doing so. Both groups were promised support and protection by the U.S. President. And both groups had those promises broken before later emigrating to the U.S. with their families in large numbers.

With this new law, the State of Alaska declares by law that only one group will be given veteran status for their military service in support of the United States. Those who fought with the U.S. in Cuba, who were captured, tortured, and then exchanged by the U.S. government and personally welcomed to the U.S. by the President of the United States—We now declare in state law that their sacrifice was not worthy of veteran status because of their ethnicity and because we place a greater value on the military service that took place in Asia than we do the military service that took place in the Americas, even though both took place at the same time and under the orders of the very same U.S. President.

This is the evil of racism, and laws that draw lines between races and peoples can never escape it.

As another legislator observed nearly two hundred years ago, “If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” (Frederick Bastiat, The Law)

Watch the vote in the legislature here: https://goo.gl/mvvyXK

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Rep. David Eastman is a firefighter in Wasilla, a former military police captain on JBER, and currently represents residents of the Mat-Su (District 10) in the Alaska House of Representatives.

Blame Congress for Trump’s 100-Day Bust

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Friday morning, the House of Representatives easily passed a one-week continuing resolution to avoid a partial government shutdown. The Senate followed suit on the bill, and in so doing proved the utter futility of Republican control of Congress in the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

While the media will hang the apparent lack of Trump’s legislative accomplishments on the necks of the administration, ultimately this is not a failure of the executive branch. In this constitutional republic, it is Congress that holds the legislative power; the House of Representatives and Senate make the laws. They are responsible for the legislative policy of the Trump administration, and they’ve blown the first 100 days.

The failed negotiations over the spending bill Congress must now take up next week is the capstone on congressional Republican incompetence and the failed leadership of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.. The Republican Party has not received a single concession from the Democrats to implement any of President Trump’s agenda … and they will not.

Democrats succeeded in bullying the GOP, threatening a government shutdown over border-wall funding and other “poison pill” riders.

“Our position has been clear, and it’s nothing new: no poison pill riders. The sooner we can resolve this issue, the quicker we can have an agreement on appropriations for 2017, so I object,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Thursday. Schumer prevented the Senate from automatically approving the short-term continuing resolution on grounds that changes to environmental regulations and Dodd-Frank protections are unacceptable.

While the Democrats fight to protect every inch of the leviathan federal government they explicitly support, the Republicans – who pretend to seek to put up a fight on the campaign trail – roll over once they have to take a tough vote.

Observe what has become of the Republican agenda, as timid or cowardly GOP members refuse to fight for smaller government.

Obamacare repeal? That promise was broken and now seems delayed indefinitely, as liberal Republicans fight to keep the core parts of the law they like, and are otherwise afraid of making major changes to any entitlements.

Tax reform? The big announcement that came from Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and White House adviser Gary Cohn Wednesday left out the important details, as both administration officials had nothing but vague answers for reporters and essentially said Congress is “working on it.”

Build the wall? Republicans capitulated after Democrats’ threats to shut down the government.

Speaking of government spending, where is the budget? Where is the congressional action on President Trump’s skinny budget? Why is a Republican-controlled Congress still using soft continuing resolutions to pass short-term spending in place of hard budgets and a return to separate appropriations bills? That’s another broken promise.

What cuts to government spending are happening? None. Why does Planned Parenthood remain funded? Because Democrats will shut down the government to fight for baby murder. But you won’t hear a single Republican speak in those terms.

And then there are the 127 federal court vacancies that need filling. Where is the Trump administration on nominating conservative judges to fill those vacancies? Where is the Senate on taking those nominations up?

Apologists for Congress’ (lack of) accomplishments in the first 100 will note the regulations that have been repealed under the Congressional Review Act. Trump has signed 13 reversals of Obama administration policies into law.

But were Republicans actually interested in dealing a unifying, single blow to the administrative state, the Senate would take up the REINS Act.

The REINS Act is legislation designed to require regulators to seek congressional approval for their most expensive regulations. It passed the House of Representatives in early January, and since then the Senate hasn’t budged on it. What gives?

President Trump promised to “work hard to get it passed” on the campaign trail.

“I will sign the REINS Act should it reach my desk as President and more importantly I will work hard to get it passed,” Trump previously told American Commitment President Phil Kerpen. “The monstrosity that is the Federal Government with its pages and pages of rules and regulations has been a disaster for the American economy and job growth. The REINS Act is one major step toward getting our government under control.”

Nearly every Republican agrees that regulations need to be scaled back, and to a large degree that has been the focus of the Trump administration’s executive actions. But when it comes to legislation from Congress, Republicans are taking time to repeal several regulations individually instead of pursuing sweeping conservative reforms.

The U.S. Senate has not even been in session for 100 days this year. Including weekends, the Senate has taken 54 days off since the session began in January. What have they done to deserve the vacation time?

Like it or not, voters are going to demand that this Congress make the legislative trains run on time before the 2018 midterm elections. Given the GOP’s failure to keep basic promises so far, with no change on the horizon, what campaign promises can Republicans make in 2018 that voters will believe?

We will soon find out if “at least we’re not Democrats” is enough to get Republicans elected in this country. (For more from the author of “Blame Congress for Trump’s 100-Day Bust” please click HERE)

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House Conservatives Won’t Pass Omnibust Without a Fight

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Don’t expect conservatives in Congress to swallow the bipartisan $1 trillion spending bill, which is funding all of former President Obama’s priorities, without a fight, says Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Jordan, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said Monday he expects “lots of conservatives” to oppose the bill as written.

“Money goes to Planned Parenthood […] Money continues to go to sanctuary cities, but no money for the border wall,” Jordan explained on CNN’s “New Day.”

“I think you’re going to see a lot of conservatives be against this plan this week.”

By threatening a government shutdown, Democrats in the minority pressured the GOP to remove 160 conservative agenda items from the spending bill. They assented to the liberal demands without a fight. Rep. Jordan questioned why Republican leaders passed a short-term spending bill in the first place last fall “if we weren’t going to actually fight for the things we told the voters we were going to fight for.”

Jordan’s discontent has been matched by other House conservatives on social media. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., blasted the omnibus as “another deal to grow the government.”

Representative Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a Freedom Caucus ally but not a member himself, offered up criticism for the process behind the omnibust legislation.

But Congressman Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., had the most heated words in a Facebook post, describing the spending deal as “unbelievable,” and saying Democrats have successfully done “what Speaker John Boehner refused to do in 2011 – stand FIRM in the negotiations on government funding and debt for the principals and promises we (GOP) made to the American people.”

“Now – Schumer and Company have a liberal press (MSM) to support them if they stand firm and threaten a government shutdown – the GOP didn’t,” Duncan wrote. “But we do have the White House and its ‘Bully Pulpit.’”

“But when Republicans (moderates) hide from the shadow of a government shutdown and fail to stand firm, when we have House, Senate and the White House, to defund the murder and dismemberment of babies in the womb, fund border security and defund cities which are in direct violation of Federal Immigration laws, well we get crap like this latest CR – government funding ‘Deal.’”

Though many conservatives will likely oppose this omnibust deal, moderate Republicans will betray their campaign promises once again and join with Democrats and pass it.

At this point, the only way to stop the bill is President Trump’s veto power. Now, the American people will see if the president was serious when he said he would go to Washington, D.C., and fight the big government establishment of both parties.

Will President Trump veto the omnibus spending bill and demand a bill that funds the border wall, defunds Planned Parenthood, defunds sanctuary cities as he promised? Or will Trump sign a $1 trillion deficit spending bill into law, funding Democrat priorities (like every other establishment Republican president who has come before him)? (For more from the author of “House Conservatives Won’t Pass Omnibust Without a Fight” please click HERE)

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GOP to Pro-Life Voters: What Planned Parenthood Defunding?

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At the 44th annual March for Life this past January, Vice President Pence told thousands of eager, dedicated marchers that “life is winning again in America.” However, the Republican Congress’ capitulation on Planned Parenthood funding in the latest round of budget talks tells quite a different tale.

Following a national election cycle in which the pro-life cause became a conspicuous and consequential issue in the wake of the Republican Party’s trifold victory in the House of Representatives, Senate, and Oval Office, the GOP is already squandering the momentum of that victory by passing a budget resolution that … wait for it … still funds Planned Parenthood.

Under the gun to avoid the closet-dwelling bogeyman of a government shutdown, congressional leadership has reached a last-minute deal that still funds Obamacare subsidies, doesn’t allocated border wall funds, and keeps the pipeline of federal dollars flowing to the abortion industry’s flagship operation completely untouched, according to POLITICO.

There were and are a host of reasons to stand firm – if not for the simple necessity of keeping one’s most salient promises, for the various reminders such as a new video about Planned Parenthood’s dealings in baby parts or a haunting mountain of colorful baby socks dumped on Capitol Hill. Still, we get: nothing.

This debate over the flow of tax dollars to America’s largest abortion provider is, of course, a debate that goes back farther than the 2016 election, as then-Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana led the House to cut the flow in 2011.

Furthermore, in addition to the cornucopia of campaign promises and the pro-life political drama during the campaign of fret and worry about whether the presumptive nominee would stand up for the cause of the unborn – despite all the apprehensions to the contrary – abortion became a clear watermark issue during the debates, in which the relatively recent convert to the cause squared off against the tired, second-wave feminist extremism found in Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric.

As recently as a week ago, the Democratic Party itself, in contrast, had the beginnings of a decisive moment it its own history. Tom Perez’s statements that pro-lifers do not have a home in the party of Jefferson merely serve as a reminder of how extreme the group’s leadership has allowed it to become. Yet, they’ve won this hill for now, extremism or no extremism.

What this moment shows is that pro-lifers are more and more finding themselves in the midst of a tragic dichotomy, between a party too hostile to their views to entertain them and one that takes their support for granted – even if they don’t realize it. But alas, dead babies don’t vote, they don’t run Fortune 500 companies with the clout to stymie years-long campaign talking points (See: Obamacare repeal), and they definitely don’t write checks. All the promises, all the posturing, all the work of the pro-life movement — gone.

As this goes forward, pro-lifers who placed their hopes on a Republican Congress – all of whom ran on the most pro-life platform in party history – will be told that there will be some next great hurdle they must cross in order to finally do what they’ve been promising for so long.

For now, it seems that the Republican Congress has adapted that old Democrat fig leaf in order to pass a budget. They are, after all, “personally pro-life,” but don’t seem to have the gumption, pluck, or will to do anything about that conviction. (For more from the author of “GOP to Pro-Life Voters: What Planned Parenthood Defunding?” please click HERE)

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