What I Saw at an NYU Speech Proves Good Policing Can Prevent UC Berkeley-Type Riots

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This February, there was a riot at UC Berkeley and a near riot at NYU over the invitation of speakers leftists do not like. Both are shocking stories that have gained extensive coverage. What has not been highlighted, however, is why a riot erupted in one place and why a near riot did not become a riot in the other.

The same group was involved in both incidents. A violent, brownshirt cabal known ironically as the “Antifa” (Anti-Fascists) organized to attack “Nazis.” And literally anything can get someone called a “Nazi.” My friend Katie Richter — after she appeared on “Fox & Friends” not long after a picture framing business refused to frame her photographs from Trump’s inauguration — was swamped with hate messages calling her a “Nazi” and wishing her bodily harm.

When Antifa set out to attack people at Berkeley, there was no effective police presence from the city to stop them.

The New York City Police Department, however, is not the Berkeley PD. The central pillar of the NYPD is that disorder is not tolerated. Situations are tackled quickly and decisively, leaving no room for escalation. And the bad guys know that the stuff they get away with in Ferguson, or Baltimore, or Berkeley, they won’t get away with in New York.

I was standing outside the NYU student center when Canadian Libertarian comedian Gavin McInnes was scheduled to speak. I couldn’t get inside the building because dozens of NYPD officers in bulletproof vests were denying access to anyone who did not have a current student ID. There was a good reason for this. NYU Antifa had loudly proclaimed their intention of stopping this event on their Facebook page.

On his way into the building, Gavin and his entourage was rushed by Antifa crew, though the only harm they could inflict was when one of them hurled himself over the scuffle and got close enough to Gavin to pepper spray him. Within moments, all the attackers were on the ground subdued by a police officer. Two of the Antifa people, apparently thinking I was on their side, told me that they had put a bounty out for anyone that could hurt Gavin.

Antifa still wasn’t getting the message though. So for the next few hours they mulled around, chanting about fighting fascism, about how they were going to “Off the Pigs,” about how the many black police officers were traitors (and other words I do not wish to repeat), so on and so forth. Every now and then they tried to start fights with Trump supporters, but the moment the first punch was thrown a police officer twice the troublemaker’s size would have him by the shirt collar and on the ground before anyone had time to get their cameras out.

Inside the building, Gavin was shouted down. The NYU administration did not throw the troublemakers out, so the talk could not continue. Antifa did shut down the speech — which was their goal — but it was a pyrrhic accomplishment for Antifa, as many of their “comrades” now have criminal records. And they now enjoy the contempt of hundreds of thousands of people who have seen the video of their antics on YouTube.

The real victory of the night went to the NYPD. NYU Antifa said repeatedly that they wanted to recreate the chaos and destruction of Berkeley. And they failed. They tested the Thin Blue Line, and the only “safe space” they found was the back of a police van. (For more from the author of “What I Saw at an NYU Speech Proves Good Policing Can Prevent UC Berkeley-Type Riots” please click HERE)

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5 Smart Reasons to Abolish the Department of Education

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At the very moment of Betsy DeVos’ confirmation as secretary of Education, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. (A, 94%) pointedly introduced a bill calling for the elimination of the Department of Education.

This has been a long-held goal of conservative Republicans, and now that they control all three branches of government, there may never be a better opportunity to finally end the thing. One of the few policy areas in which President Trump has been consistent is his support for school choice and scorn for federal education policy.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday in 2015, Trump said, “I may cut the Department of Education,” and in his book “Crippled America,” released the same year, he wrote “A lot of people believe the Department of Education should just be eliminated. Get rid of it. If we don’t eliminate it completely, we certainly need to cut its power and reach. Education has to be run locally.” So there is opportunity if only Republicans in Congress are brave enough to seize it.

To help push them in the right direction, here are five reasons why the Department of Education should be eliminated.

1. It’s unconstitutional

The word “education” never occurs in the U.S. Constitution. Already, this should mean that the federal government has no business interfering with education policy, since the Constitution is a list of enumerated powers. In other words, the Constitution is a comprehensive list of things the federal government is allowed to do, and anything not included is de facto forbidden.

To make this doubly clear, the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights is explicit: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” There you have it. The power to set education policy is reserved to the states or the people. The federal government is not authorized to meddle.

2. It’s expensive

The Department of Education comprises more than 80 subagencies, employs more than 4,000 people, and has an annual budget of nearly $70 billion. When you include other federal spending like Head Start and the School Lunch Program, that number swells to more than $100 billion.

With a national debt rapidly hurtling toward $20 trillion, this may be a drop in the bucket, but as a wise man once said, a few billion here and there eventually adds up to real money. It’s insane to think we couldn’t find better, more productive uses for $100 billion a year. Just off the top of my head, how about giving it back to the taxpayers?

Of course, maybe the federal government could justify this expense if it produced positive results.

Unfortunately …

3. It doesn’t work

The Department of Education has been around since 1979, and in that time, with the huge amounts of money that have poured into it, a reasonable person would expect to see massive improvements in educational performance.

In fact, we’ve seen no such thing. The more money we spend, the less students benefit. The department itself recently admitted that education spending isn’t producing any measurable results — a finding, which conforms with previous analyses of programs like Head Start and the department in general.

It may seem like an obvious question, but why are we continuing a program which has proven, time and time again, not to work?

4. It hinders school choice and student freedom

Perhaps the most infamous of Department of Education initiatives was Common Core, foisted upon the states through a complex system of incentives and penalties with the goal of imposing standardization of testing and, to a certain extent, curricula across the whole country.

These wildly unpopular standards have been the source of outrage and confusion among parents and students alike, who found the math problems impossible, the history textbooks revisionist, and the constant testing oppressive.

But Common Core is far from the only soul-crushing program leveled at local schools from on high. The Department of Education also brought us the spectacular failures of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Head Start, and most recently the Every Student Succeeds Act.

All of these share the goal of making schools everywhere the same, in spite of the fact that different states, different cities, and different children have diverse education requirements that cannot be met by a single top-down structure.

Like every other market, the market for education thrives only when innovation, competition, and experimentation are allowed to flourish. The Department of Education has devoted itself to stamping out all of that.

5. It’s really, really creepy

Like so many other pseudoscientific pursuits, the Department of Education has been moving increasingly toward data collection and analysis in what it claims is an effort to improve student performance. Barack Obama’s Education secretary, Arne Duncan, made the following statement about his ambitions:

Hopefully, some day, we can track children from preschool to high school and from high school to college and college to career.

It may come as a surprise to education bureaucrats, but many parents are not comfortable with their children being “tracked” by the federal government. In many cases, parents have no idea what type of data is being collected on their children, and it is not easy to find out even if you are aware of the practice and want to know.

Nor are we just talking about test scores. A surprisingly candid 2013 report from the Department of Education provides a wish list of data collection, including the desire to monitor students’ facial expressions and eye movements during class, and then using the data to diagnosis learning disabilities or other problems.

In fact, schools may already be doing this; they are notoriously tight-lipped about data collection. The idea that a computer algorithm might diagnose one’s child with mental illness because he made the wrong expression in class is chilling, and we can be sure that it’s only the beginning of where the department would like to go in the future.

Bearing all these points in mind, it’s baffling that the government continues to fund and defend the Department of Education, which, by its own admission, has not improved student outcomes yet interferes with the freedoms of America’s children on a daily basis. The time is now. Abolish the Department of Education once and for all. (For more from the author of “5 Smart Reasons to Abolish the Department of Education” please click HERE)

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Was Menachem Begin the Donald Trump of Israel?

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George Orwell ‘s 1984 and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here have returned to the bestseller lists, as readers prepare for totalitarian rule in America. Many liberals are filled with fear, and some grieve as though a close relative has died.

Lena Dunham, star of the HBO TV show, Girls, has returned with a slimmer figure. She told Howard Stern why on his radio show:

Donald Trump became president and I stopped being able to eat food. Everyone’s been asking like, ‘What have you been doing?’ And I’m like, ‘Try soul-crushing pain and devastation and hopelessness and you, too, will lose weight.’

Filled with despair, some liberals have convinced themselves that Donald Trump’s election is likely to lead to the end of American democracy.

This is odd.

After all, Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neal Gorsuch, is a strict Constitutionalist. That choice is consistent with the seriousness Trump has shown in his first days in office about keeping his campaign promises, and foremost among these is appointing judges who want to hold back the government’s power and reach.

Nobody Panicked When Obama Abused His Power

Ironically, the recent administration which showed the least regard for the Constitution and the principle of limited government was that of Barack Obama. It was Obama, after all, who proposed a health care law that appeared to be a first step towards nationalization of medicine. Moreover, set within that plan were regulations, later overturned by the courts, which required religious organizations to provide their employees with free abortifacients. Even convents were to be compelled to give their novices stocks of drugs for killing fetuses.

The Obama administration further showed its disregard for the Constitution in its unwillingness to act against IRS agents who had targeted grassroots conservative organizations.

In addition, under Obama there was a broad expansion of domestic wiretapping, a wholesale growth of the national security state and increased use of targeted killings of foreigners — and even Americans abroad — who were suspected of involvement with terror cells.

Why, then, are liberals behaving so hysterically now?

All the “Best People” Think He’s a Thug

Perhaps a clue can be found in the Israel of 1977. In that year, Menachem Begin‘s conservative Likud party defeated Israel’s Labor party, making Begin the country’s prime minister. The response of most Israeli intellectuals was much like that of liberals in the United States today: a national media and upper-class meltdown.

Left-wing and center-left parties had dominated Israeli politics since the country’s founding in 1948. Although its management of the country’s economy was often ineffectual, the leftist “Alignment” had the backing of the nation’s powerful labor unions and nearly all of its leading intellectuals. Its popularity was particularly great among secular Jews and among European-descended Jews, the “Ashkenazim.” These groups also comprised most of the leaders of the country’s military.

Your Voters are Deplorable, with Tacky Accents

When it was declared on television in May 1977 that Begin’s Likud party had won the election, the announcer promptly termed it a “revolution,” and it is still often referred to in Israel as The Revolution (HaMahapakh). Intellectuals were shocked and repelled. This was embodied during a campaign event that proved pivotal to the election’s outcome. During a major Labor Party rally, a comedian named Dudu Topaz mocked Begin’s supporters for their accents. Since many were refugees expelled from North African countries like Morocco, they spoke with an accent that caused them to be called “chach chach.” The term referred to their difficulty pronouncing the Hebrew letter “ch.” It was a put-down meant to suggest that they were low-class and uneducated.

Begin responded by arranging a counter-rally just before the country went to the polls. Weakened by a recent heart attack, Begin arose before his followers as best he could and pointedly noted that Jews were one people, no matter if they were from Europe or the Middle East, poor or rich, and that they had to stand together as one in a world filled with enemies. The “chach chach” cheered him wildly and then went to vote. It was these working-class and less educated voters who decided the election for Begin. They liked his unabashed nationalism and his undoubted religious faith.

It was a shock to the Westernized, mostly agnostic intellectuals who had run the country for almost thirty years. They found Begin’s win almost incredible, and they regarded the man with open contempt. This hostility was so great that the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, had reportedly refused to even speak Begin’s name.

A Mad Right-Winger has Seized Control of Our Country!

Begin was mocked for his belief in free-market economics, and he was accused of being a terrorist. The basis of the charge of terrorism was a bombing that men loyal to Begin had carried out against the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. Begin’s agents had called the hotel to warn all inside to leave the building before the bomb was to go off, and they had planned the attack at the request of men loyal to Begin’s rival, Ben-Gurion. Nonetheless, the attack led to 91 deaths, and blame had long been pinned on Begin for the lives lost.

Thus, with Begin’s election in 1977, it was easy for intellectuals to persuade themselves that they had been defeated in the election by a mad right-winger backed by uncouth people who took all their ideas from the Bible. Surely, they declared, Israel’s economy would be ruined, and war with Israel’s neighbors was likely.

What actually happened, however, was that Begin led Israel towards a formal peace treaty with Egypt, and, with lower taxes and less regulation, the nation started on its trek to its current status: a rich nation, that is among the world leaders in technology.

What’s Really at Stake: Loss of Status

In retrospect, it’s apparent that what the “smart” Israelis were really suffering from was a loss of social standing. They had always been the ones in charge. They were both literally and figuratively the authorities. Then, quite abruptly, they had been tossed aside and ignored by the little people. But those Bible-thumpers turned out to be the wise ones.

Is something similar happening in the U.S. forty years later? Time will tell. (For more from the author of “Was Menachem Begin the Donald Trump of Israel?” please click HERE)

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A Dishonest Rewriting of Democratic Racist History

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The media is doing a terrible disservice to U.S. history, race relations, and the Democratic Party by dishonestly papering over the Democrats’ racist history. The Washington Post, in particular, engaged in this to make political hay and to criticize Sen. Ted Cruz.

The article began:

The day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was rebuked while making a speech critical of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Democrats, saying their party is the one rooted in racism.

“The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan,” Cruz (R-Tex.) said in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday. “You look at the most racist — you look at the Dixiecrats, they were Democrats who imposed segregation, imposed Jim Crow laws, who founded the Klan. The Klan was founded by a great many Democrats.”

Cruz isn’t the first Republican to associate Democrats with the Ku Klux Klan.
I’m going to stop there, and remind us all of some history.

A Dark Moment in Georgia

One of the darkest moments of Georgia history occurred on November 25, 1915. A local granite contractor, Sam Venable, was the owner of Stone Mountain, west of Atlanta. He joined a group of 40 men led by “Colonel” William J. Simmons, that included the speaker of the Georgia House, on a trek to the summit.

What happened there is a matter of historical record.

Under Simmons’ direction, the fifteen shivering men gathered stones to build a base for the cross of pine boards he had brought up earlier that day, and a crude altar upon which he laid an American flag, an open Bible, an unsheathed sword, and a canteen of water. They put on the bed-sheet robes and pointed mask caps and then gather around in a semi-circle as Simmons touched a match to the kerosene-soaked cross, the dancing light of the win-blown flames creating an eerie backdrop for the ceremony. With practiced oratory he then called forth the Invisible Empire from its slumber of nearly half a century.1

A week later, the silent film The Birth of a Nation opened in Atlanta. The film portrayed the Ku Klux Klan in a rather heroic light, and portrayed black men “as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women.” Atlanta newspapers ran an announcement of “The World’s Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order” next to advertisements for the movie.

The Old South and the Democratic Party

In those days, the South was ruled by a single party: the Democratic Party. The first Republican governor of Georgia since 1872 was Sonny Perdue (now nominated as Secretary of Agriculture). The first GOP senator since 1873 was Mack Mattingly in 1981, and he served just one term.

There is no doubt that Democrats led the South during the height of the KKK’s popularity. Yet Kristine Guerra of The Washington Post treated it like a political football and punted. “Cruz isn’t the first Republican to associate Democrats with the Ku Klux Klan,” she wrote.

She then spent eight paragraphs responding to a 2013 remark by Virginia state Sen. Stephen Martin, who said the Democratic Party created the KKK, for which he later apologized and retracted. The entire piece was crafted to refute what Cruz said to Fox News, which is irrefutable. So Guerra dug to find something she could refute, and tied it to Cruz. If that’s not dishonest reporting, then dishonest reporting isn’t a “thing” anymore.

In her specious argument, she quoted Carole Emberton, “an associate professor of history at the University of Buffalo,” attributing the quote to PolitiFact. Possibly she was too lazy to get her own quote, so she just Googled it from another left-leaning media source. Guerra wrote that Emberton said party lines of the 1860s and 1870s “are not the party lines of today.”

Guerra added, “By the 1960s, the Democratic Party was becoming the party of the civil rights movement.” That line was not a quote from Emberton or anyone. It was the reporter misstating the facts, badly.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, although supported by President Lyndon Johnson, was filibustered for 54 days, with South Carolina Democrat Strom Thurmond leading the opposition. That forced a bipartisan group of senators to introduce a substitute bill to gain enough votes for cloture. The filibuster continued, ultimately taking up 60 legislative days to overcome. Only eight southern Democrats voted for the bill in the House, and one in the Senate.

(To be fair, southern legislators of both parties voted against the legislation. But southern Democrats voted 107 against — in both houses — to Republicans’ 11.)

It is obvious that Democrats did not “become the party of the civil rights movement” by the 1960s.

The Press Must Acknowledge Democrats’ Ugly Racist History

After her major detour through rewritten history, Guerra finally returned to Cruz and the context of his remarks, which is Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s citing of 30-year-old accusations of racism against newly-confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Guerra opposed the Senate’s decision to bar Warren from speaking after she violated Rule 19 by impugning another senator from the floor. Apparently, Democrats get a pass for 100 years of blatant and open racism, with some of those senators serving into the 2010s. But remarks made by the late Ted Kennedy and Coretta Scott King in the 1980s are to be held against Sessions.

How can our nation ever be expected to move past racial division when the press won’t acknowledge the Democrats’ ugly history, yet dishonestly smear Ted Cruz, and prop up Liz Warren? (For more from the author of “A Dishonest Rewriting of Democratic Racist History” please click HERE)

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Buffalo Mom Busted for Homeschooling, Had Kids Taken Away

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A single mother in New York was arrested and her children taken away in January after she decided to homeschool — and some are claiming it’s because the school system lost her paperwork. That doesn’t seem to be unusual in New York state, where bureaucratic incompetence often brings school systems and homeschooling parents into needless conflict.

CPS Inquires, Then Arrests

Kiarre Harris removed her children from the Buffalo Public School District in December. “I felt that the district was failing my children,” she told Buffalo’s WKBW.

In compliance with New York state’s regulations, she submitted a letter of intent to homeschool her children along with the other necessary paperwork. Harris showed copies of the documents, dated December 7, to WKBW.

“I spoke directly to the homeschool coordinator and she told me from this point on my children were officially un-enrolled from school,” Harris said.

But a week later she received a call from Child Protective Services (CPS) inquiring about her children’s absence from school. Within a month, CPS contacted Harris again, claiming they had a court order to remove her children. CPS had her arrested her for obstruction when she told them no, WKBW reported.

A Family Court judge ruled on Thursday — nearly four weeks after Harris was separated from her children — that she could visit them under supervision for two hours every week. Vanessa Guite, Harris’s attorney, said county workers are citing “baseless allegations” to keep her from regaining custody.

“A family was broken up because of someone’s negligence,” Ulysees O. Wingo, Sr., a Buffalo City Council member, said at a council meeting earlier this week. He alleged it was a paperwork issue that caused authorities to believe Harris’s children were truants.

The Buffalo Public School District told WKBW that it wasn’t a paperwork issue, and that CPS was notified before Harris’s letter of intent was submitted.

A Broken System

As of Thursday, Wingo continued to address the issue as a systematic failure between the school and the district, WKBW reported.

“If you in good faith put in your letter of intent, and at that point begin to homeschool your children and not send them to school, and at that point if the school is not communicating with the District, and the District is not communicating with the school, you are educationally neglecting your children,” Wingo said in a Facebook Live video.

If paperwork is indeed the issue behind Harris’s predicament, it wouldn’t be the first time homeschooling parents in New York state have been targeted by CPS due to internal failures. In December 2016, Parent Herald reported, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) sued New York City for “systematic mistreatment.”

The lawsuit came after Tanya Acevedo received a visit from CPS one evening shortly after she began homeschooling her son. Even though she had filed the necessary paperwork, her son’s former school reported her for “too many absences,” Acevedo told HSLDA. CPS proceeded to conduct a 60-day investigation of the Acevedo family.

The New York Post reported last year that at least two dozen homeschooling families in New York City were accused of educational neglect in 2016, despite filing the required notices. New York is among five states HSLDA classifies as “high regulation” when it comes to homeschooling. The state requires that parents submit a notice of intent to homeschool and an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP) that includes syllabi and a list of curriculum materials. Families must also meet day, hour and subject requirements, file quarterly reports and complete annual assessments of their children.

The Paperwork Gets Lost Or Backlogged

In all, seven documents per homeschooled child must be submitted to the state each year, according to HSLDA’s New York attorney Tj Schmidt.

But the paperwork often gets lost or backlogged, meaning that weeks go by after parents submit the initial notice before officials unenroll their children from public school. This causes public school teachers to report families for educational neglect.

In New York City the problem is particularly bad, Schmidt said. All the paperwork of the between 3,500 and 4,000 homeschooled children in the city is funneled into one central office of homeschooling. Schmidt believes the office is understaffed.

Problems for homeschooling families around the state also arise when school officials mistakenly assume a parent’s IHIP must be approved before children can actually be removed from public school, Schmidt said. In reality, parents have 14 days after removing their children from public school before they are even required to submit the letter of intent.

“It appears that could be part of the concern or part of the issue of the Harris case,” Schmidt said, though he noted that he does not have direct knowledge of the situation. HSLDA isn’t currently involved with Harris’s case, but Schmidt has offered his assistance to Guite.

“It’s Time to Reevaluate New York State Regulations”

Eleven states require no notice from parents who intend to homeschool, while the majority of states require a notice of intent, and in many cases, test scores and student evaluations — though nothing like the seven documents a year required by New York.

“It just becomes unworkable for many of these state officials to actually follow the regulations,” Schmidt said, adding that New York’s homeschooling regulations date back to the late 1980s.

“At that time homeschooling was still somewhat new in the modern era,” he added, acknowledging the legitimate concern of many to ensure that homeschooled children received adequate education. Three decades later, it’s a different story.

“Clearly we’ve been able to identify over the past 30 years that parents can be successful, and [homeschooled students] are on average as or more successful than children educated in the public school system,” Schmidt said.

“It’s time to reevaluate New York state regulations.” (For more from the author of “Buffalo Mom Busted for Homeschooling, Had Kids Taken Away” please click HERE)

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We Hear You: From Obamacare to Affordability and Choice for Consumers

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Dear Daily Signal: Thank you for Elizabeth Fender’s data-filled article on the Obamacare approval ratings over time. I appreciate your truthful reporting of the facts, and your citing the specific data and your sources (“Obamacare May Soon Be Over. Here’s What Americans Have Thought of the Law Since 2010”).

In addition to the reasons you cite for Obamacare’s low approval ratings (narrow networks, high and rising health care premiums), there are several others.

These include religious liberty violations: the contraceptives mandate on employers by the Department of Health and Human Services (source of two Supreme Court challenges and hundreds of lawsuits); abortion and Planned Parenthood funding; Independent Payment Advisory Board “death panels” (someone wouldn’t be able to use his own money to save his own life); and the government’s definition of “religious entity.” Last but not least is the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, which affects administration of health care benefits.

The Obamacare regulations seem to have completely ignored the serious comments advising the government to stop, slow down, make major changes. The contraceptives mandate and transgender mandate are huge mistakes, ignoring the science that shows that the premises upon which these mandates are based are faulty.

I am hopeful the Trump administration will work more collaboratively with key stakeholders in our health care system, including Catholic health care providers. The larger Judeo-Christian health care delivery system deserves to be treated as the large stakeholder that it is.

As the new administration moves into office and into power, we still can attempt to be peacemakers. We can honor the goal of the Affordable Care Act—to create a health care system that provides affordable care and expands access. This is a worthy goal.

People who have preexisting conditions need to have some form of health care insurance. Theoretically, there should not be an “uninsurable” person. These are some of the areas where insurance companies can focus to create new products and services. I believe they would respond appropriately. My experience with the industry supports the fact that they have far more goodness than they are given credit for.

We can honor one administration for their work as we move forward with the next administration’s agenda—as determined by the voters who put them there. —Kathleen Goryl

Making News Personal

Dear Daily Signal: I just read your piece about Obamacare and its effect on an owner of an International House of Pancakes franchise (“Obamacare a Factor in IHOP Owner’s Decision to Sell His 16 Restaurants”). Your mentioning Utica, New York, jumped out at me. I live just north of Utica in Remsen, home of Olympic luger Erin Hamlin.

I loved your piece because it made the news very personal. So much of the debate on health care is numbers about “millions of people covered.” This showed what happened to an employer who was trying to do right by his employees, not to a number of people.

Thank you for mentioning Utica. —Jane White

Sorting Out Plans to Replace Obamacare

Dear Daily Signal: I think that there is merit to each of the Obamacare replacement plans, and lawmakers need to sort it out and commit to one (“A Look at 4 of the GOP’s Obamacare Replacement Plans”).

However, I have never favored health care support for grown people age 21 and up. Why should taxpayers support these adults and/or subsidize their parents who choose to do so? —David Cromer

Choosing Between Mortgage and Health Premiums

Dear Daily Signal: I’m writing about the repeal of Obamacare and its consequences (“What Happens for Consumers After Congress Repeals Obamacare”). My son is paying over $1,200 per month for a family health insurance plan, and he has lost his primary job.

His family can’t qualify for subsidies because they still make too much with part-time jobs. But they will have trouble between choosing to pay the mortgage or health premiums. He’s no congressman! —Susan Peed

Obamacare Doesn’t Protect Patients

Dear Daily Signal: I know from personal experience that the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act doesn’t contain enough to protect patients. Obamacare should have included where to file comments, suggestions, and complaints about your care. This would help pinpoint what and where the problems are. I find filing with the state to be useless.

My five-day nightmare stay at a hospital revealed what I consider serious problems. I had requested my hospital records three different times within a half-year, but the hospital claimed the records were not complete. After the two-year limitation to sue them, they finally gave me my “records.”

The records were not what I expected. There was no timeline of services provided, treatments, doctors’ assessments, medications, or the amounts. Being sued by the hospital for unpaid bills (some for services I didn’t request), I requested my records from the hospital lawyers. They sent me a list of the charges instead.

I was shocked at the number of drugs I was given—over 40, eight of which were for pain. I was given eight doses of morphine in a four-day period. All of those drugs and the amounts should have been in my records in a timeline, along with things like blood pressure and temperature checks.

Medical records in a timeline would help keep communications open between doctors and nurses, reduce unnecessary treatments and services, help keep the patient from being overmedicated, and give patients and health insurance companies better oversight. Do you know what’s in your medical records? —Gary Kujat

(For more from the author of “We Hear You: From Obamacare to Affordability and Choice for Consumers” please click HERE)

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North Korea Tests a Missile, and Donald Trump

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Pyongyang launched another ballistic missile on Saturday, raising tensions and pushing itself to the top of the Trump administration’s policy agenda.

Preliminary reports indicate the missile flew approximately 300 miles, but it is unclear what the missile type was or whether the launch was a success of failure. But, it doesn’t appear to have been the initial test flight of an intercontinental ballistic missile that Pyongyang had vowed to launch “anywhere, anytime.”

Last year, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests, its most extensive year of testing. Pyongyang had not tested a missile since October, leading to speculation that the regime’s restraint was to not give the advantage to conservative candidates during a forthcoming South Korean presidential election or to wait until the Trump administration had completed its North Korea policy review.

In 2009, North Korea conducted a long-range missile test and a nuclear test as the Obama administration was formulating its own policy toward Pyongyang.

During my meetings in Seoul this week, all senior U.S. and South Korean officials expected a missile launch wouldn’t occur for several more months. It is unclear why Pyongyang abandoned its testing hiatus or chose to do so while President Donald Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In any case, the launch will undermine those in the U.S. and South Korea advocating resumption of long-stalled negotiations to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

The increasing North Korean threat has aggravated long-standing allied concerns of U.S. abandonment exacerbated by perceptions of diminished U.S. military capabilities and resolve during the Obama administration and comments made by Trump during the campaign suggesting conditionality of U.S. troop presence in Asia.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ trip to Seoul and Tokyo last week assuaged much of the allied concerns, though as one senior South Korea official commented, “the concerns are gone, but anxiety remains.”

In recent months, there have been growing South Korean fears of a decoupled alliance in which the U.S. “wouldn’t trade Los Angeles for Seoul” once North Korea demonstrates an unambiguous capability to threaten the continental U.S. with nuclear ICBMs.

This has led to greater advocacy in South Korea for a range of military options, including the reintroduction of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn in the 1990s, development of an indigenous South Korean nuclear program, and greater reliance on preemption strategies.

The Trump administration should build on the positive momentum generated from its recent affirmation of its “ironclad commitment” to defend South Korea and Japan by closely coordinating on an allied response.

The launch is yet another violation of United Nations resolutions prohibiting any North Korean launch using ballistic missile technology and the allies should press Beijing for further restrictions on North Korea financial activity, most notably coal exports to China.

Given Chinese foot-dragging on fully implementing required U.N. resolution sanctions, the Trump administration should go beyond the timid incrementalism of the Obama administration by more vigorously enforcing U.S. laws against North Korean transgressions.

While President Barack Obama talked a good game on sanctions, his administration pulled its punches, sanctioning a limited number of entities while holding other actions in abeyance until the next North Korean provocation. Obama’s most significant actions against the regime last year were the result of requirements contained in Congress’ North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act.

The Trump administration should use the extensive authorities already contained in existing legislation and executive orders to impose targeted financial measures against a broader array of North Korean entities. Just as importantly, the U.S. should end its self-imposed restraint against third-party sanctions against Chinese entities facilitating North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Washington should also consult with Seoul to accelerate the planned deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) ballistic missile defense system to South Korea.

Both governments have agreed to the deployment but it is not scheduled to occur until later this year. North Korea’s resumption of missile tests shows the need to more quickly augment allied defenses.

The U.S. and South Korea should continue the planned annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises which begin in early March. Washington should reassure our allies by including U.S. strategic assets, such as B-52 and B-2 bombers as well as dual-capable aircraft and nuclear naval vessels.

However, the allies should tone down public messaging about “decapitation attacks” and preemptive strikes that are potentially destabilizing and could lead either side to misinterpret the other’s intentions, fueling tension and raising the risk of miscalculation.

Responding to the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threats is like a military version of playing “whack-a-mole.” Unlike the arcade game, however, in the real world there is the very real danger that the mole will whack back. (For more from the author of “North Korea Tests a Missile, and Donald Trump” please click HERE)

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How Trump’s Executive Orders Line up With Past Presidents

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President Donald Trump is moving rapidly to fulfill campaign promises early. With little activity from Congress so far, Trump has used executive actions to achieve what he pledged to do.

Trump is on track to begin his fourth week in the White House having issued 12 executive orders. While questions have surfaced over Trump’s use of executive power, recent history demonstrates that Trump’s actions are in line with past presidents.

By the end of his third week in office in 2009, President Barack Obama had issued 14 executive orders.

Trump and Obama each issued five executive orders in the first week in office. Prior to Trump, Obama was the first modern-day president since John F. Kennedy to issue more than two in the first week.

Traditionally, a president’s early orders aim either to make good immediately on campaign commitments or rescind the previous administration’s policies. Trump has done both.

On Trump’s first day, he signed an order to begin dismantling Obamacare. Obama, on his third day in the White House, signed an executive order on closing the detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. In the face of congressional opposition, it has yet to close.

In addition to his 12 executive orders, Trump issued 12 presidential memorandums and two proclamations—totaling 26 executive actions.

An executive order is one of three basic types of written instructions a president can employ to achieve a desired outcome through the executive branch of government. The total number of executive orders issued by American presidents is over 15,000, according to data collected by the American Presidency Project.

President George Washington issued a total of eight executive orders, according to the data, while John Adams, James Madison, and James Monroe were the only presidents to issue just one.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt holds the record with 3,721—five of which were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1935. More recently, President Bill Clinton issued 364 and President George W. Bush issued 291 during their two terms.

Trump’s actions are consistent with presidents of the modern era. In his first year as president, Obama issued 39 executive orders, Bush issued 54, and Clinton issued 57.

Trump’s 12 executive orders address rolling back Wall Street regulations, reducing government regulations, placing ethics restrictions on administration officials, implementing a temporary ban on travel from seven terrorism-prone nations, enforcing border security, cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities, expediting environmental reviews, and reducing the burden of Obamacare.

His latest orders focus on “making America safe again,” which includes implementing a task force on “crime reduction and public safety,” preventing violence against law enforcement officers, and enforcing federal law to stop international trafficking of “humans, drugs, or other substances, wildlife, and weapons.”

Trump’s executive actions drew controversy, especially his order temporarily suspending immigration or travel from seven terrorism-prone countries. A federal judge in Seattle paused enforcement of the order Tuesday, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld that ruling Thursday.

Over his two terms, Obama issued 276 executive orders, some of which conservatives criticized and even went to court over. Some of the most contested ones addressed illegal immigrants, health care, gun control, cybersecurity, the environment, education, and gender identity.

In his second term, Obama touted his executive power, saying: “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.”

Many Trump supporters looked forward to seeing him fulfill his campaign commitment to reversing some of Obama’s executive actions, with Republican controlling the White House as well as both chambers of Congress. (For more from the author of “How Trump’s Executive Orders Line up With Past Presidents” please click HERE)

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How Tom Price Can Begin to Unravel Obamacare From Inside the Agency That Implemented It

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Tom Price took the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday, capping a lengthy confirmation process that ended in the wee hours of the morning.

Now, as the health and human services chief, Price can begin fulfilling a yearslong goal of unwinding Obamacare. But instead of dismantling the health care law from the halls of Congress, he’ll be acting from inside the agency that oversaw its implementation.

The Senate confirmed Price 52-47, and the former House Budget Committee chairman is taking over the Department of Health and Human Services as the White House and Congress prepare to follow through on their campaign promises to repeal Obamacare.

An orthopedic surgeon who served more than a decade in the House, Price has spent the last seven years in Congress opposing the Affordable Care Act. The new HHS secretary introduced his own health care plan in 2009—he’s reintroduced that same proposal, the Empowering Patients First Act, in every Congress since then.

The Georgia Republican will take the helm of the agency at a crucial time. GOP lawmakers are debating how to dismantle the law, with a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act expected to take place by March or April.

Unwinding Obamacare

But even as congressional Republicans finalize their course for unwinding the law, Price can now use his executive power to begin chipping away at Obamacare’s framework.

The Affordable Care Act gave the federal government the power to write and implement many of the law’s regulations through the federal rule-making process—like the exemptions from the individual mandate that are available to consumers who encounter hardships and the mandate that requires insurance plans to cover contraception and abortifacients.

And already, President Donald Trump is using that authority to make changes to the law.

“You live by the administrative state, you die by the administrative state,” Ed Haislmaier, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation who worked on health policy for Trump’s transition team, told The Daily Signal.

During a confirmation hearing in January, Price told a Senate committee he believed insurers needed some assistance from the Trump administration before 2018.

“What they need to hear from all of us, I believe, is a level of support and stability in the market,” the Georgia Republican said.

And as the new health and human services secretary, Price can begin providing them with that relief by tightening the monitoring of consumers purchasing coverage on Obamacare’s exchanges—changes insurers asked the Obama administration to make long before Trump took office.

That includes making changes to special enrollment periods, or the time outside the standard enrollment window a person can purchase health insurance, and verifying the eligibility of consumers purchasing coverage during open enrollment and special enrollment periods.

The Obama administration created several special enrollment periods, which a consumer can qualify for if they lose their health insurance, get married, or move to a new state.

But insurance companies warned last year that Americans were taking advantage of the special enrollment periods and purchasing coverage only when it was needed.

That led to an increase in costs for plans and higher costs for consumers, insurers said.

“The Trump administration you would expect to go in and say, ‘We’re going to prioritize minimizing costs and disruption, and we’re not going to let people enroll at the drop of a hat,’” Haislmaier said.

The new health and human services secretary can also eliminate federal regulations that already exist at the state level, such as oversight over proposed rate increases and network adequacy.

Under the current system, insurance companies looking to raise their rates must receive approval from state regulators and the federal government, which review the plans insurers want to sell for the upcoming benefit year.

“If you’re approaching it from the Obamacare mindset, then you make insurers go through all of that at the federal level after they’ve done it at the state level,” Haislmaier said. “If you come in at the Trump administration, they’re saying, ‘We’re not interested in nationalizing insurance. If it’s OK with the state, it’s OK with us.’”

According to draft documents obtained by Politico, the Trump administration is also weighing whether to make changes to a provision of Obamacare that dictates how much more insurers can charge older Americans than younger Americans.

The provision prohibits insurance companies from charging their older customers more than three times what they charge younger customers. According to the documents, the Trump administration proposes changing the ratio to 3.49-to-1.

Health policy experts, though, worry that such a change may not be legal, since the Affordable Care Act specifically set the ratio for insurance companies. Changing the ratio from 3 to 3.49 would require action from Congress.

Still, Trump administration officials believe that since 3.49 “rounds down” to 3, the changes can be made without a change in statute, according to The Huffington Post.

Eliminating Mandates

In addition to enhancing the monitoring of consumers who sign up for coverage, Price can take aim at one of Obamacare’s most controversial provisions: the contraception mandate, which requires plans to cover contraceptives and abortifacients without cost-sharing.

Price, an opponent of abortion, has criticized the contraception mandate in the past for infringing on religious liberty.

As the leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Georgia Republican could have his agency rewrite the regulations tied to the mandate or choose not to enforce it.

Price could also revise the list of services insurers are required to cover—called the essential health benefits requirement—to amend or exclude preventive health.

The White House set the stage for the new Health and Human Services secretary to begin making changes to Obamacare just hours after the president took the oath of office.

On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition to repeal and replace.”

The order was light on specifics, but health policy experts said it gave the executive branch the authority to begin addressing the thousands of regulations tied to Obamacare.

And some wondered if the individual mandate was on the chopping block.

Price could decide not to enforce the individual mandate, the part of Obamacare that requires consumers purchase insurance or face a fine, or extend hardship exemptions to all enrollees.

But Haislmaier said that for Price, the decision regarding enforcement of the mandate would need to involve the White House, since such a move would require coordination between multiple agencies.

For the executive branch, deciding whether to enforce the individual mandate also is a game of timing.

Republicans are considering passing a repeal bill that gets rid of the individual mandate, among other major provisions of Obamacare.

Turning to Congress

Haislmaier questioned whether it would be necessary for the Trump administration to take action on a part of the law Congress may get rid of on its own.

“If the mandate is going to be repealed in repeal legislation, is it worth the bother of the administration doing it?” Haislmaier asked.

Like with the executive order on Obamacare, the White House began the process for making changes to the health care law through the rule-making procedure before the Senate confirmed Price.

Last week, the Trump administration submitted a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget. The details haven’t yet been released to the public, but the rule aims to stabilize the Obamacare markets, likely through the changes reference above.

Once the details are released, it’s Price who will oversee the efforts to provide relief for insurers. (For more from the author of “How Trump’s Executive Orders Line up With Past Presidents” please click HERE)

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Clinton Foundation Partner Hiked Opioid Overdose Reversal Drug Price by 680 Percent

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The head of a pharmaceutical company, who partnered with the Clinton Foundation, has increased the price of an auto-injector used to treat opioid overdoses by 680 percent over the course of three years.

Spencer Williamson, the president and chief executive officer of the Richmond, Virginia-based Kaleo Pharmaceuticals, is under fire after the price of a two-pack of Evzio, a device that treats life-threatening opioid overdoses, skyrocketed from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 today.

Thirty-one Democratic senators are now demanding answers on the price hike.

“We are deeply concerned about reports that Kaleo dramatically increased the cost of its naloxone injector device, Evzio, an FDA approved medication used for the emergency treatment of an opioid overdoes – from $690 for a two pack in 2014 to $4,500 today,” the letter sent from the senators to Williamson said. “This drug is now in the hands of first responders and families struggling with substance use disorder across the country. It is particularly needed in rural areas where access to life-saving emergency services can be limited. Such a steep rise in the cost of this drug threatens to price-out families and communities that depend on naloxone to save lives.”

The senators ask Williamson to detail the pricing structure of Evzio and to provide documentation as to why the company changed its pricing structure. In addition, the lawmakers seek the total amount that Evzio has received in reimbursements over the last 12 months, among other demands. (Read more from “Clinton Foundation Partner Hiked Opioid Overdose Reversal Drug Price by 680 Percent” HERE)

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