President Donald Trump asked two nuns with the Little Sisters of the Poor to join him in front of a Rose Garden audience Thursday before he signed an executive order easing enforcement of Obamacare regulations forcing religious organizations to pay for employee health plans covering contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.

Trump’s order also takes aim at a 1954 law prohibiting pastors and other religious leaders from supporting specific candidates from the pulpit.

However, the order is scaled back considerably from a draft, leaked in February, that also addressed religious organizations’ freedom in hiring staff, prompting mixed reviews from conservatives.

“We know all too well the attacks against the Little Sisters of the Poor, incredible nuns who care for the sick, the elderly, and the forgotten,” Trump said, before asking representatives of the Catholic order to identify themselves and inviting them to the podium.

The nuns’ lawsuit against the Obama administration over the so-called contraceptive mandate went to the the Supreme Court, which didn’t make a final determination.

“Congratulations, you sort of just won a lawsuit,” Trump said jokingly to the two nuns. “That’s a good way of doing that. I want you to know that your long ordeal will soon be over.”

The president’s executive order states that the administration’s policy is to protect religious liberty. It directs the Internal Revenue Service to use maximum discretion to alleviate the law governing churches and partisan politics, known as the Johnson Amendment. And it offers regulatory relief for religious objectors to Obamacare rules.

“With this executive order, we are ending the attacks on your religious liberty and we are proudly reaffirming America’s leadership role as a nation that protects religious freedom for everyone,” Trump said.

Trump held the event, attended by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim clergy from across the country, on the National Day of Prayer.

Trump focused his remarks on rolling back 1954’s Johnson Amendment, named for Sen. Lyndon Johnson, the Texas Democrat who would become president nine years later. The law threatens churches, religious institutions, and other nonprofits with revocation by the IRS of their tax-exempt status if they talk partisan politics.

James Dobson, an iconic Christian broadcaster who founded the traditional values group Focus on the Family, was among faith leaders attending the Rose Garden event.

“How could I not be satisfied? I mean, we have been struggling with that Johnson Amendment since I’ve been in radio, which is 40 years,” Dobson told The Daily Siganal.

He also said the Obama administration sued his current organization, Family Talk, over Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate.

“When that mandate came down, I wrote the president [Obama] saying I cannot comply. ‘You must come get me, because we’ll close our doors,’” Dobson said. “We’ve been in a lawsuit ever since, and it went to the 10th Circuit and was headed for the Supreme Court. That goes away today. Yes, I’m happy about it.”

However, Greg Baylor, senior counsel with the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the order leaves Trump’s campaign promises “unfulfilled” and is “disappointingly vague.” In a formal statement, Baylor said:

A pledge to ‘provide regulatory relief’ is disappointingly vague, especially given the long existence of an obvious means of solving the problem: crafting an exemption that protects all those who sincerely object on religious and moral grounds so that they can continue to serve their communities and the most vulnerable among them. We encourage the administration to pursue that course of action and to do so promptly so that it can resolve the dozens of cases still pending against it.

During his Rose Garden remarks, Trump invoked the civil rights icon and pastor Martin Luther King Jr. and the history of the African-American church, as well as the larger Judeo-Christian tradition, as reason to honor the role of religion in America’s politics.

“This financial threat against the faith community is over,” Trump said. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors. … America has a rich tradition of social change beginning in our pews and pulpits.”

Trump also heralded the Founding Fathers’ vision as evidence of the intended role of religion in public life:

Freedom is not a gift from government. Freedom is a gift from God. It was Thomas Jefferson who said the God who gave us life gave us liberty. Our Founding Fathers believed religious liberty was so important that they enshrined it in the very First Amendment in our great and beloved Constitution.

Yet for too long, the federal government has used the power of the state as a weapon against people of faith, bullying and even punishing Americans for following their religious beliefs.

The draft of the executive order that leaked earlier this year, however, also protected the right of religious organizations to align staffing decisions with their missions. And it would have prevented the federal government from discriminating against its employees or contractors for practicing their religious beliefs.

Trump “caved” on these and other provisions in the draft order, said Ryan T. Anderson, a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation whose studies include religious liberty. In a commentary for The Daily Signal, Anderson wrote of the president:

Back in February, he caved to the protests of liberal special interest groups as he declined to issue an executive order on religious liberty that had been leaked to hostile press. And earlier today, he issued an executive order on ‘free speech and religious liberty’ that does not address the major threats to religious liberty in the United States today.

Today’s executive order is woefully inadequate. Trump campaigned promising Americans that he would protect their religious liberty rights and correct the violations that took place during the previous administration.

Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, was among those attending the Rose Garden event. Nance told The Daily Signal she was happy with the outcome.

“We were very pleased with what we’ve seen so far. It’s a great first step,” Nance said. “There are still things left to do. We were pleased to be here today. What a beautiful day. This is a great day for religious liberty.” (For more from the author of “Trump: ‘No One Should Be Censoring Sermons or Targeting Pastors'” please click HERE)

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A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration . . .

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but when asked Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was in the works, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “I’m not getting ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue. There is a lot of executive orders, a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.”

Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

[Legal experts described the] breadth of the draft order . . . as “sweeping” and “staggering” . . . (Read more from “Trump Expected to Unveil Massive New Protections for Religious Freedom Thursday” HERE)

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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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In another move to free up domestic energy supplies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday aimed at lifting the Obama administration’s offshore drilling restrictions.

For decades, bad policies have blocked access to America’s abundance of domestic resources, yet America has still managed to be a global energy leader. Trump’s executive order, “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” could unleash further success in the energy sector.

The economic potential sitting just off America’s coasts is enormous. The Outer Continental Shelf is awash with natural resources, containing an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Realizing that potential could create nearly a million American jobs, and the increased energy supplies that would result would put money back into the bank accounts of American families. It would also generate new prospects for investment and job creation, as cheap energy lowers the cost of business operations across all sectors, not just energy.

The federal government has placed various bans on offshore drilling for decades. Last November, the Obama administration’s Department of Interior finalized some of the most restrictive leasing programs to date.

The Interior Department’s final 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program was best known for the areas it placed off limits, rather than what it made available to lease for energy exploration.

It excluded lease sales in the oil-rich Beaufort or Chukchi seas off the coasts of Alaska, as well as areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The Interior Department also restricted opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico and the Cook Inlet off south central Alaska.

Critics of Trump’s decision to free up leasing are making the same arguments they’ve made for years: “Oil prices are too low, so the decision won’t spur more oil exploration. Drilling offshore takes too long, so it’s not going to have any immediate impact.”

But those arguments ignore the biggest drivers of investment. Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis were spot on in writing for The Washington Post, “[L]ocal political considerations and the global energy market are likely to influence future exploration far more than an executive order in Washington.”

While Trump’s executive order will open more doors for exploration, it won’t automatically trigger an energy boom. That’s the way it should be.

Oil prices are long-term and, as history has shown, can increase rather quickly. Industry makes investment decisions looking decades into the future, not simply based on short-term projections.

Although it certainly is possible that low oil prices could prohibit offshore production, that’s a decision for the private sector to consider. Businesses are much better equipped and flexible to deal with changing economic circumstances than shortsighted politicians in Washington.

Another battle cry for of those who oppose offshore drilling is: Do we really want to risk another Deepwater Horizon spill?

The Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010, which caused environmental degradation in the Gulf of Mexico, was a rare and isolated incident, not a result of any systemic problem associated with offshore oil and gas operations.

That’s not to say flaws don’t exist in the current system or that improvements can’t be made.

In fact, after Deepwater Horizon, Congress examined the government-imposed offshore liability cap but never implemented any prudent solution.

Current law states that oil or gas companies do not have to pay more than $75 million in liability costs for accidents they cause—no matter how great the damages.

Additional fees can be paid out of a government-mandated trust fund (the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund), which effectively socializes the risk of offshore oil and gas activities.

Congress should reform the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and remove the $75 million liability cap, replacing it with a new system that assesses the risks of offshore oil and gas operations and appropriately assigns those risks to industry operators.

A new approach would accurately assign risk to all offshore operations, including exploratory drilling, production, and tanker movements.

Such a system should also hold operators fully liable for their actions and guard against frivolous lawsuits. It should rely on market-based mechanisms and be built around private insurers and professional risk assessors.

Environmental activists aren’t the only ones opposed to Trump’s executive order. Some members of the tourism industry have also voiced concerns about expanded drilling off the Atlantic.

But the energy industry has worked in perfect harmony with other industries. Just look to the Gulf Coast. Every year, residents of the Gulf come to Morgan City, Louisiana, to celebrate the lifeblood of the region’s economy: seafood and oil.

Morgan City’s Shrimp and Petroleum Festival emphasizes “the unique way in which these two seemingly different industries work hand-in-hand culturally and environmentally in this area of the ‘Cajun Coast.’”

While the Deepwater Horizon spill affected all industries in the Gulf Coast, the majority of seafood and tourism companies supported the oil industry throughout the ordeal.

In fact, in many respects, the spill has strengthened the bond between the oil and seafood industry. Shrimpers and fishers were as vocal as anyone in lifting the offshore drilling ban after the spill.

Drilling off the Atlantic coasts could welcome the same symbiotic relationship, which already exists in the Gulf and in the state of Alaska.

Furthermore, states should collect more royalty revenue for offshore production.

Currently, states receive 50 percent of the revenues generated by onshore oil and natural gas production on federal lands, and Congress should apply this allocation offshore as well.

Drilling off states’ coasts and allowing them a larger share of the royalty revenue would encourage more state involvement in drilling decisions.

Offshore drilling would also promote state and local government participation in allocating funds, helping them to close their deficits, enabling coastal restoration and conservation, and shoring up funds for schools.

Trump’s executive order is a welcome step to increasing access to domestic resources, but the back-and-forth of banning resource exploration and then undoing it is a sign that wholesale reform is necessary.

The politicization of the leasing program and the static central planning process that has stifled a dynamic, constantly changing energy market points to the need for legislative action. It is time for a fundamental reconsideration of how the U.S. manages offshore resource development.

Congress should amend the Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Act and get rid of this antiquated, piecemeal leasing approach. (For more from the author of “Trump Opens Doors on Oil Exploration, but Deeper Reforms Still Needed” please click HERE)

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