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THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
35 Years After the Defeat of ERA
by John and Andy Schlafly
July 4, 2017
The Equal Rights Amendment died thirty-five years ago, on June 30, 1982, as its opponents gathered at a banquet with Phyllis Schlafly to celebrate its demise. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the time for its ratification had expired, and efforts to revive the amendment have gone nowhere.
Our Nation can be grateful for this victory in avoiding the unisex society that ERA unsuccessfully attempted to impose. The obligation to register for the military draft still applies only to young men, and Defense Secretary James Mattis has sensibly delayed entry by so-called transgendered individuals into our military until the impact on combat readiness can be fully evaluated.
Many of the arguments made by Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s against ERA were ridiculed by liberals at the time, yet here we are today dealing with court-imposed same-sex marriage, transgender bathrooms, and taxpayer-funded abortion. Bill and Hillary Clinton put ERA’s most prominent advocate on the U.S. Supreme Court, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has never been able to persuade a majority of the Court that our Constitution requires mindless gender equality.
Thirty-five years without ERA, we have thriving single-sex sports teams, sororities, fraternities, and even some flourishing public schools and classrooms that are all-boys or all-girls. As bad as judicial activism is now, if the Equal Rights Amendment were in the Constitution, federal courts would be spending their time deciding if Johnny has a constitutional right to play on an all-girls’ field hockey team, or if an all-boys public school is unconstitutional.
The defeat of ERA had an immense cultural impact in addition to these obvious legal and political benefits. It made it socially acceptable for mothers to spend time away from the workforce to raise their children, during a moment in our history when feminists were demonizing that traditional role.
During the 1970s, mothers were increasingly herded into the workforce and misled to think that was the only way they could have a fulfilling life. ERA was going to “seal the deal,” and render it impossible for our society ever to have a respectable role for the stay-at-home mom with a working husband.
Feminists even tried to restructure Social Security to eliminate the provisions that allow wives and widows to benefit from their husbands’ earnings. Those provisions were made sex-neutral in 1983, but homemakers still draw most of the benefits which their husbands earned.
The feminist ideology behind ERA sneered at any woman who would choose to stay at home while her husband advanced his career in the workplace. With the media and universities pushing this agenda hard alongside ERA, the percentage of stay-at-home moms with employed husbands did steadily decline.
But Phyllis Schlafly’s defeat of ERA permitted a new culture to emerge for the stay-at-home mom. Phyllis even instituted the innovative Homemaker Award in 1985 to honor a woman each year who exemplified this tried-and-true approach.
Her award was ridiculed by feminists, but like many of Phyllis’ ideas it is increasingly praised and imitated today. County fairs in states as diverse as Maryland, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Oregon give homemaker awards, and our First Lady Melania Trump is a homemaker who initially declined the glamour of the White House to stay at home while her son completed his school year.
By the mid-1980s the decline in the percentage of stay-at-home moms with working husbands began to level off, and remains today at about the same level it was then. Nearly a third of women with children and working husbands choose to stay at home rather than be employed, as made respectable by the defeat of ERA.
Many of those women do what Phyllis Schlafly herself did back more than half-century ago: give their children a head start on school by teaching them to read with phonics. Our society depends on homemakers to produce the next generation of inventors, writers, artists, teachers, and leaders.
This 35-year anniversary of the defeat of ERA commemorates an additional milestone: the emergence of the modern conservative movement, built on social values as much as economic and national security ones. The election of Donald Trump, which Phyllis Schlafly foresaw and supported from the beginning, was a triumph over feminist political correctness.
State authority over family and marriage would have been totally subsumed within federal law, if ERA were ratified. Everyday issues of divorce and custody could have become federal cases as Congress would have been empowered by ERA to pass new laws concerning custody and divorce.
Stopping a media-promoted constitutional amendment once it is presented to the states for ratification is as impossible as installing brakes on a runaway freight train. Our values and national security today owe much to the stunning defeat of ERA 35 years ago.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
Supreme Victory by Trump at High Court
by John and Andy Schlafly
June 27, 2017
“Very grateful for the 9-0 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. We must keep America SAFE!” Trump tweeted in celebration of the biggest victory by a president in the Supreme Court in a generation.
Every Supreme Court Justice, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, voted to uphold the essence of President Trump’s executive order keeping dangerous foreigners from entering our country. Not one Justice endorsed the allegation that Trump somehow violated the First Amendment by discriminating against Muslim visitors from Syria, Somalia, and other dangerous countries.
This is a stunning reversal of fortune for the Left not seen since Election night. The American Civil Liberties Union, which had publicly threatened President Trump to “see you in court,” saw its dreams of judicial activism go up in smoke as the activist rulings by lower federal courts were effectively nullified.
All nine Justices on the High Court joined a “per curiam” opinion striking down the essence of the rulings against Trump by the Fourth and Ninth Circuits. Trump’s prediction that he would win before the Supreme Court came true, just as many of his other predictions have been fulfilled despite media insistence otherwise.
“The interest in preserving national security is an urgent objective of the highest order.” So declared the Court, using tweet-like wording that President Trump himself might have sent out over Twitter to his 32 million-strong audience. ... click here to read this full column
Trump: Even Better at 150 Days
by John and Andy Schlafly
June 20, 2017
President Trump’s accomplishments in his first 150 days have been drowned out in the media by their obsession with Russia and the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. When combined with the lack of significant action by Congress, it’s easy to mistakenly think the Trump agenda is stalled.
In fact, the Trump Administration has continued to carry out the policies Trump campaigned on. Here are a few examples of progress on Trump’s signature issues of immigration, jobs, and trade.
On June 15, DHS secretary John F. Kelly rescinded the Obama amnesty known as DAPA that had been ruled illegal by the federal courts. DAPA would have legalized about 4 million people solely because they were parents of anchor babies.
Some wondered why the earlier Obam-nesty called DACA wasn’t rescinded at the same time, but Kelly’s statement included a veiled warning about that, too. In a little-noticed footnote, Kelly warned that “deferred action, as an act of prosecutorial discretion, may only be granted on a case-by-case basis” — not the wholesale legalization of 700,000 so-called Dreamers.
On June 19, DHS announced that the government is finally ready to deploy a method of tracking whether visitors leave the United States. That’s been the missing piece to determine if people who arrive on temporary visas actually leave when they’re supposed to.
It’s been more than 20 years since Congress ordered the government to install an entry-exit tracking system, but the last three administrations (Clinton, Bush and Obama) failed to get it done. As a result, millions of people checked into our country under the pretense of a temporary visit and never checked out. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
Hyde Amendment Showdown on Obamacare
By John and Andy Schlafly
June 13, 2017
The Hyde Amendment has long been the single most important pro-life legislation at the federal level, originally enacted in 1976 and upheld on a 5-4 vote by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980. The amendment, which is an annual rider to the federal budget, prohibits the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortion.
The late Congressman Henry Hyde, an ally of Phyllis Schlafly from Illinois, championed this ban against forcing taxpayers to subsidize abortion at the federal level. This prohibition has been a mainstay of the Republican National Platform for decades, where Phyllis and Henry worked together tirelessly to preserve this pro-life plank of the GOP.
But it is in jeopardy now, as opponents of the unborn want Republican Senators to accept federal funding of abortion and thereby ostracize the pro-life issue from the halls of the Capitol. The Senate is secretly plotting, behind closed doors, to “repeal and replace” Obamacare without including a ban on taxpayer-funded abortion, and pro-life organizations are being told to accept it.
The pro-life issue is a thorn in the side of the Senate leadership, as it interferes with their desire to pass what they want without regard for the interests of the unborn. The pro-life issue hampers the cronyism preferred by senators who want to pick their friends, rather than pro-life nominees, to fill the more than 100 vacancies on the federal judiciary.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a career politician who has been in the Senate for more than three decades, just gave his buddy Amul Thapar a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, despite the lack of any pro-life record by Judge Thapar. Meanwhile, McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, became one of the first confirmed Cabinet members back in January, without the resistance by senators which nearly every other nominee of President Trump received.
While McConnell held prompt votes for his family and friends, he does everything he can to duck and avoid the pro-life issue, while pretending to be for the unborn at election time. Other senators also brag about having a so-called “100% pro-life voting record,” but that is only because they doggedly prevent any real votes from occurring on the issue. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Trump Should Call His Opponents’ Bluff
by John and Andy Schlafly
June 6, 2017
An important reason why Phyllis Schlafly enthusiastically supported Donald Trump for president was because, in her words, “He has fight in him.” Nearly every day he proves that to be true, most recently with his tweets in support of his travel ban from terrorism-associated countries.
Not since Ronald Reagan have we had a conservative president like Trump who “has fight in him” to stand up for the security and prosperity of ordinary Americans. So many other politicians cave into whatever the media want.
After the press criticized Trump all day Monday, June 5th, for some early-morning tweets by Trump in support of his travel ban, by evening Trump demonstrated that he was undeterred by comments from the peanut gallery. He came out swinging with another tweet after hours: “That’s right, we need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries, not some politically correct term that won’t help us protect our people!”
Oh, how refreshing it is to have a president who does not kowtow to the liberal media and the D.C. establishment who think they run our country. Trump is fighting to win on his travel ban, and on many other issues near and dear to the hearts of average Americans. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
Travel Ban Thwarted by Judicial Supremacy`
By John and Andy Schlafly
May 30, 2017
Now we know why the Fourth Circuit took the unusual step of going “en banc” on its initial hearing of the appeal of President Trump’s second so-called travel ban. The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals is stacked 10-5 with liberal Democratic nominees among its active judges, and by convening en banc it ensured a lopsided ruling against President Trump on his Executive Order limiting travel from certain Middle Eastern countries.
On appeal was Executive Order No. 13,780, which was issued by President Donald Trump on March 6, 2017, to protect our national security against hostile visitors from other countries. The Executive Order suspended temporarily, while vetting procedures could be reviewed, the entry into our country of non-Americans from six countries that are hotbeds of terrorism.
On Thursday, all 10 Democratic nominees voted against the Executive Order by Republican President Donald Trump, and all 3 Republican nominees voted in favor of it, with 2 Republican nominees absent due to recusal. With such a uniformly partisan outcome, one wonders what all the legal briefs were for.
The reasoning used by the Democratic super-majority of judges was even more alarming. Following a similar ruling from the Ninth Circuit, which also has an 18 to 7 supermajority of Democrat-appointed active judges, the Fourth Circuit dug deep into campaign statements made by candidate Trump, a campaign spokeswoman and one of his surrogates, in order to declare past and future actions by Trump as President to be unconstitutional and void. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
Despite Record Reporting Bias, Trump’s Base Remains Solid
By John and Andy SchlaflyDespite Record Reporting Bias, Trump’s Base Remains Solid
May 23, 2017
A recent Harvard study confirms that there has been record-breaking reporting bias against President Donald Trump. An astounding 80% of the stories about Trump by the mainstream media during his first 100 days in office have been negative.
The real story, however, is how Trump’s base remains solid, unfazed by the persistent media negativity. Trump’s approval rating has not fallen to the low ratings of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the prior Republicans in the White House.
For many of Trump’s supporters, the unrelenting bias against him simply confirms the nature of the problem facing America. The swamp known as D.C. and their allies in the media are protesting too much, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s famous expression from Hamlet.
Their hysteria against Trump underscores the urgency for someone to stand up against the entrenched interests in D.C. This unfolding battle reinforces how our country needs someone strong enough to get the job done against all odds.
There are 206 counties that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but then for Trump in 2016, which Ballotpedia calls “Pivot Counties.” Located in 34 states, these Pivot Counties comprised a total of 7.5 million votes in 2016, which was 5.5% of the electorate and provided the margin of difference for Trump to prevail. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
Election Integrity Will Make America Great Again
by John and Andy Schlafly
May 16, 2017
While the Washington Post searches high and low – mostly low – for another Watergate, it is nowhere to be found. The incessant attempts by President Trump’s enemies to fabricate a scandal fail to recognize that the American people choose our president, not a handful of media elites in the swamp.
The remarkable tranquility in the stock market belies the hysterical cries of disaster emanating from Washington, D.C. The financial markets evidently think nothing of the gossipy allegations of imaginary wrongdoing in the White House’s dealings with Russia, and the American people think nothing of it also.
The real news is that President Trump has acted to improve the integrity of our elections, and thereby ensure our future prosperity against the foes of freedom. The top priority is to eliminate the loopholes that facilitate illegal voting.
Last Thursday President Trump issued an Executive Order creating the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, to safeguard our election system that the Obama Administration left in disrepair. President Trump is making America great again by taking steps to end illegal voting in our country.
This new commission will be formally headed by Vice President Mike Pence, and its driving force will be its vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whose energy and expertise are unequaled on this topic. For more than a decade the Honorable Kobach has been advocating, designing, and implementing reforms to stop the rampant illegal voting that occurs. click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
How to Pay for the Wall
by John and Andy Schlafly
May 9, 2017
When President Trump signed a stopgap spending bill that funds the government for the next five months, the media trumpeted the news that the bill doesn’t include money to begin building a wall on our southern border. Nancy Pelosi gloated that the omission was “a defeat for President Trump,” and even some of his most ardent supporters expressed disappointment at the lack of progress on Trump’s signature campaign issue.
The critics spoke too soon, because adequate funding sources are hiding in plain sight. And yes, Mexico will indirectly pay for it, just as President Trump promised.
“We’ll build the wall,” the president assured the 80,000 people who attended this year’s convention of the National Rifle Association in Atlanta. “Don’t even think about it. That’s an easy one.”
The positive reaction of NRA members was illustrated by Kathleen Mahn, a 45-year-old stay-at-home mom and fitness instructor from Peachtree City, Ga. “So far, I think he’s done better than he’s been given credit for in the media,” she told USA Today after cheering Trump’s remarks.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions dropped a clue in his Sunday morning TV appearance on April 23, telling George Stephanopoulos, “We’re going to get paid for it one way or the other. There are a lot of ways we can find money to help pay for this.
“I know there’s $4 billion a year in excess payments, according to the Department of the Treasury’s own inspector general several years ago, that are going to payments to people — tax credits that they shouldn’t get. Now, these are mostly Mexicans. And those kind of things add up — $4 billion a year for 10 years is $40 billion.”
The attorney general was referring to a July 2011 report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) who said that individuals not authorized to work in the U.S. received $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits in 2009. Not all illegal aliens are Mexicans, of course, but most of them either came from or passed through Mexico on their way to the United States.
Low-wage workers are eligible for both the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which requires a valid Social Security number, and the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), which does not. Illegal aliens have learned how to cheat the system by claiming the ACTC to receive a “refund” of up to $1,000 per child. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
Missile Defense Needed Against North Korea
by John and Andy Schlafly
May 2, 2017
North Korea is under the thumb of a communist dictator who has nuclear weapons that threaten to strike our West Coast and our allies in South Korea and Japan. Among many crises dumped by Obama on President Trump, this may be the worst.
The optimal approach for dealing with the rogue state of North Korea is as obvious as building a border wall to stop illegal aliens from pouring into our country from Mexico. The equivalent of a wall, an effective missile defense system, should be installed around North Korea.
We have long had the ability to develop this, more so with each passing day as our technology improves. So why don’t we have a combat-ready missile defense system to install immediately to shut down the frightening threat posed by Kim Jong-un of North Korea?
It is not due to a lack of resources or high-tech know-how that our missile defense system is not as advanced as our iPhones, Androids, and driverless cars. Our annual spending on defense (including pensions and veterans benefits) approaches a trillion dollars a year, more than the market value of Apple Computer or any other company in Silicon Valley.
Today officials confirmed that our Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is successfully installed in South Korea, which helps but may not intercept the intermediate-range missiles that North Korea has been deploying. Relying on THAAD is like continuing to use an outdated flip cell phone.
Developing state-of-the-art systems to protect people against missile attack should be enthusiastically supported by Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, pacifists and hawks. A madman who gains control of a nuclear arsenal may be not deterred by the possibility of his country being bombed in retaliation if he misbehaves.
A high-tech missile defense system that intercepts enemy missiles in the boost phase, as envisioned by the “Brilliant Pebbles” system developed in the late 1980s at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, would cost only about $20 billion today. Brilliant Pebbles was cancelled by President Bill Clinton in order to pander to globalism. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
100 Reasons to Celebrate Trump’s First 100 Days
by John and Andy Schlafly
April 25, 2017
There are at least 100 reasons to like what President Trump has already achieved in his first 100 days. For someone who is new to the “swamp” in D.C., Trump has accomplished far more than his counterparts down Pennsylvania Avenue on Capitol Hill.
For starters, Trump has issued 37 sensational executive orders, memoranda, and other directives. His order requiring federal agencies to eliminate two regulations every time they issue a new one is a brilliant curtailment of the overbearing regulatory state.
His memorandum requiring a 30-day review of military readiness is splendid. So is his memorandum instructing the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan within 30 days in order to defeat ISIS.
Liberals have sued to block several of President Trump’s finest initiatives, such as his Executive Orders limiting visas from Muslim-majority countries associated with terrorism. Judicial supremacy has delayed several of these Executive Orders from going into effect, but the vast majority of Trump’s actions have already benefited our country. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American”
by John and Andy Schlafly
April 18, 2017
It is not enough to “buy American.” It is also important to “hire American,” which means curtailing corporate abuse of the H-1B visa program that gives our good jobs to foreigners.
President Donald Trump traveled to Wisconsin on Tuesday to deliver on his campaign pledge to limit the H-1B visa program that allows employers to bring in lower-cost foreign labor to fill American jobs. President Trump’s new Executive Order to “Buy American, Hire American” starts to roll back the failed policies of his predecessors, which has cost American workers attractive jobs and has driven down wages for everyone.
Despite unemployment rates at or below 5 percent for nearly two years, wages for Americans are actually declining when adjusted for inflation. The average American’s paycheck is less than what it was last year, after inflation is factored in, and many are choosing not to work due to a lack of good-paying jobs, particularly in engineering and manufacturing.
Many engineering jobs have been going to foreigners under the H-1B visa program, which allows corporations to bring in tens of thousands of foreign workers annually to work for less, thereby driving down the wages of all Americans. While there is an official cap to this program of “only” 85,000 workers per year, the law has loopholes that allow employers to ignore the cap and replace many tens of thousands of additional American workers with foreigners.
Phyllis Schlafly rightly criticized the H-1B program beginning more than 15 years ago. “Employers want aliens with H-1B visas not only because they can pay them less than U.S. technicians, but especially because the H-1B visas lock them into sticking with the sponsoring employer and prevent them from job-hopping for better pay as Americans do” she observed in 2001. ... click here to read the full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Fourth Circuit ‘Lawyers Up’ Against Trump
by John and Andy Schlafly
April 11, 2017
“Lawyer up” refers to hiring a bunch of lawyers to address an emerging dispute. An example was when President Bill Clinton “lawyered up” to deal with the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has just “lawyered up” in order to take on Donald Trump’s second travel ban, Executive Order 13,780, which is on appeal from a federal district court in Maryland. The Fourth Circuit has convened an en banc (full sitting) of its lawyers-turned-judges to consider this standoff between the courts and the President of the United States, in International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump.
It is nearly unheard of for a court to convene en banc to consider an initial federal appeal. More than 99% of federal appeals are heard by a three-judge panel chosen at random from among the judges who sit on that particular federal appellate court.
But there are several reasons why the Fourth Circuit broke from tradition and insists on all its active judges hearing this case from the get-go. The current composition of this appellate court reveals why.
From its headquarters in Richmond, the Fourth Circuit presides over Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and North and South Carolina. Historically the Fourth was the most conservative Circuit in the entire Nation, featuring judges handpicked by Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Strom Thurmond (R-SC).
But today the Fourth is one of the most liberal of the 13 federal circuit courts, stacked with 10 Democrats against only 5 Republicans on active service, and no vacancies. President Obama placed 6 judges on the Fourth Circuit, all in his first term alone.
By insisting on going en banc at the outset, this Democrat-dominated court ensures that Trump will not draw a Republican majority on a three-judge panel, which would have been possible under the ordinary process. Instead, Trump will be looking at a group of judges more liberal on social issues than the voters in California, where Trump lost by 62-32%.
Another likely reason why the Fourth Circuit took this extraordinary step was to muscle up for its stand-off with the commander in chief. It will be easier to rule against the Chief Executive with the support of ten judges than merely with only two or three. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
End NFL Subsidies as It Moves to Gambling
by John and Andy Schlafly
April 4, 2017
Nearly a billion dollars in taxpayer money are being wasted by the NFL Oakland Raiders’ move to Las Vegas. In direct costs are the $750 million in taxpayer subsidies to build a luxurious new stadium in the desert, plus roughly $95 million in unpaid debt on the stadium that will be left behind in Oakland.
Oakland taxpayers had already spent $110 million in improvements to the stadium being abandoned. St. Louis taxpayers are still on the hook for $85 million of the $300 million they committed to for the Rams' now-abandoned stadium; San Diego owes $47 million on the football stadium renovated for the Chargers, who have moved to Los Angeles.
That is pricey litter by the billionaire NFL owners, which blights our struggling cities. Where are the environmentalists when we need them?
Overall, an estimated $6.7 billion in public money props up NFL stadiums today. In addition, the NFL receives tax breaks and free public services, and demands massive sales taxes refunds from locations that host the Super Bowl.
Now the NFL has gone from bad to worse. Last month nearly every NFL owner approved the move of the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, cozying up to gambling.
Former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle would roll over in his grave if he knew. Rozelle, a long-time admirer of Phyllis Schlafly, prohibited the playing of NFL games on Christmas to avoid interfering with the holy day.
Pete Rozelle built the NFL for 29 years into the success it is today by defending its integrity against the corrupting influence of gambling. The NFL had even prohibited visits to Las Vegas during the football season, and had banned advertisements to promote Vegas during the Super Bowl.
The NFL still publicly pretends to disfavor gambling on its games, yet nearly all of its teams have signed lucrative, multi-million-dollar deals for “fantasy football” to encourage gambling by fans. As Phyllis Schlafly walked around Cleveland Browns stadium last summer for her pro-life event during the Republican national convention, she faced many banners promoting fantasy football. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Sessions Warns Sanctuary Cities
by John and Andy Schlafly
March 28, 2017
The sanctuary city movement, which gained momentum and arrogance during the eight years of the Obama administration, has finally met its match. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that cities, counties and states will soon lose billions of dollars of federal assistance if they refuse to assist federal officials charged with enforcing our immigration laws.
The new policy was no surprise, because Donald Trump often spoke out against sanctuary cities throughout his 18-month campaign for president. By announcing the new policy at the White House, using the same podium used for daily press briefings, Sessions confirmed that the president supports his determination to end the lawlessness of local officials.
“Sanctuary cities” are Democrat-controlled places which harbor dangerous illegal aliens and fail to detain them for deportation by the federal government. At least 118 jurisdictions in the United States consider themselves to be sanctuary cities for illegal aliens, and many of these cities fail to cooperate with the federal government when a violent illegal alien is apprehended.
“Such policies cannot continue,” Sessions announced on Monday to the public. “They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.” ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Trump Puts Economic Nationalism on the Agenda
by John and Andy Schlafly
March 21, 2017
When President Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January, he was fulfilling a campaign promise. During last year’s campaign, Trump had repeatedly called the TPP a “disaster” for American workers, while ridiculing Hillary Clinton for calling it the “gold standard.”
“This wave of globalization has wiped out totally, totally our middle class,” Trump said last June to blue-collar workers at a scrap yard near Pittsburgh. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can turn it around and we can turn it around fast.”
Despite Trump’s tough talk on trade during the campaign, many thought it would be back to business as usual for the “shadow government” of bureaucrats who run the government no matter who is elected. The multinational companies and international financial institutions have dominated our nation’s economic policy since the end of World War II.
The recently concluded meeting of G20 finance ministers shows just how different the Trump administration is going to be. The G20, or group of 19 industrialized countries plus the European Union, has been meeting annually since the 2008 financial crisis in an effort to decide economic policies for the whole world.
Representing the United States at the G20 meeting was newly installed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The former Goldman Sachs executive was not previously thought to be an economic nationalist, but he effectively delivered the president’s views to startled finance ministers of the other G20 countries.
The other members of the G20 wanted the United States to sign a joint statement declaring that “We will resist all forms of protectionism.” That sentence had been included in previous joint statements, and everyone thought it would be non-controversial.
Everyone, that is, except Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, who recognized the word “protectionism” as a slap at the president’s pro-American policies, and would not stand for it. The message Mnuchin delivered was that the new administration intended to follow through on Trump’s campaign-trail promises.
“I understand what the president’s desire is and his policies and I negotiated them from here,” Mnuchin said at a news conference at the conclusion of the G20 meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany. “And we couldn’t be happier with the outcome.”
While Mnuchin was meeting German officials in Germany, President Trump was receiving German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington. “The United States has been treated very, very unfairly by many countries over the years,” Mr. Trump said before meeting with Merkel. “That’s going to stop.”
Trump tweeted, “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!” ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Making American Civilization Great Again
by John and Andy Schlafly
March 14, 2017
Donald Trump’s effective use of Twitter has often dominated the news cycle, but a new tweet from Representative Steve King (R-IA) is giving the president a run for his money. On Sunday the 8-term Congressman from northwest Iowa tweeted, “culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
The liberal media reacted in horror, which briefly distracted them from their “day job” of nonstop criticism of President Trump. A columnist for the Washington Post objected to King’s reference to “our” civilization as being distinct from “others,” while feminists predictably took offense at the suggestion that American women should have more babies.
Steve King’s belief that Americans have a distinct civilization, which is better than others and worth preserving, has a long and distinguished history. Alexis de Tocqueville noted it during his nine-month tour of America in 1831-32, which he summarized in his 1835 book Democracy in America: “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional.”
A half century before Tocqueville’s tour, a French immigrant named Crèvecœur asked, “What is the American, this new man?” Crèvecœur’s Letters from an American Farmer, published in 1782 and widely circulated in Europe, explained that Americans were in the process of creating a remarkable new civilization.
Yet another Frenchman who recognized the preeminence of “our civilization” was the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi, who created what the poet Emma Lazarus called “a mighty woman with a torch.” But Bartholdi never intended his Statue of Liberty to invite the world’s “huddled masses” to come here, and he would have been horrified that his masterpiece was hijacked to symbolize immigration. ... click here to read this full column
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Trump Battles the ‘Shadow Government’
by John and Andy Schlafly
March 7, 2017
The president of the United States is often called the most powerful man in the world, but the forces arrayed against Donald Trump are unprecedented. To the 63 million Americans who voted for him, the campaign to undermine President Trump is downright frightening.
The first sign of trouble came when the President’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, was forced to resign. A telephone call between General Flynn and the Russian ambassador was wiretapped by one of our intelligence agencies, and its contents were leaked to the press.
We still don’t know if the Flynn wiretap was properly authorized by a court order, and Judicial Watch is suing to find out. But we do know that whoever leaked its secret contents to the press is guilty of a felony.
With blood in the water, the so-called deep state went to work to against Trump’s other appointees, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions. As Rush Limbaugh commented, “They’re trying to isolate Trump from the people he trusts ... from the best people around him.”
The term “deep state” was coined to mean the permanent governing class, the people who really exercise power regardless of who is elected. Also known as the shadow government, the deep state includes our intelligence-collecting agencies such as the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
States Are Rejecting a ‘Horrible Idea’
by John and Andy Schlafly
February 28, 2017
Most state legislatures are now in regular session for a limited number of days, and there’s no shortage of important work to be done at the state level. Yet many state legislatures are wasting precious time on a scheme to change the U.S. Constitution by calling for a national convention.
Although it is theoretically allowed by Article V of our Constitution, a convention for proposing constitutional amendments has never been held, and there is no precedent to guide how it might work. That hasn’t stopped a small group of wealthy donors from spending an estimated ten million dollars on a path that would throw our Nation into a constitutional crisis.
Justice Antonin Scalia called it a “horrible idea” during the year before his untimely death. “This is not a good century to write a constitution,” Scalia warned in 2015, after spending 30 years defending our original Constitution on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of the first eight state legislatures to consider the idea this year, all eight have rejected it. These states are Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
But the convention remains very much alive in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has made it an emergency item in the current legislative session. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who controls the agenda in the state senate, is also demanding its passage.
In Texas, where most elected officials are Republicans, the state Republican Party is on record favoring a national convention to amend the U.S. Constitution. That’s directly contrary to the Republican National Platform, after the national platform committee rejected a similar proposal by a nearly unanimous vote last summer in Cleveland.
Arizona would be the ninth state to reject the convention this year, if the state senate stands by its vote of 13-17 last Wednesday, February 22, to reject the Convention of States bill. But that legislation, HCR2010, continues to be pushed hard behind the scenes, and it could be revived due to a motion for reconsideration.
The campaign for a convention masquerades under the misleading slogan Convention of States, which falsely implies that states can exert some measure of control over the agenda, rules, or apportionment of a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution. In fact, all such powers are reserved to Congress or to the convention itself.
Rex Lee, the legendary Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, wrote that there’s no way to limit the scope of a constitutional convention to the single issue or issues stipulated by those who advocate it. Anyone who guarantees such a limited convention, Rex Lee added, “is either deluded or deluding.” ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
New Deportation Policies Advance Trump’s Agenda
by John Schlafly and Andy Schlafly
February 21, 2017
John F. Kelly, the new Secretary of Homeland Security, has launched Trump’s immigration agenda with a pair of memos officially released on Tuesday. These documents demonstrate how serious President Trump is in halting illegal immigration.
Contrary to the liberal hysteria sparked by these memos, they outline in measured tone the sensible steps to be taken to deport illegal aliens who are dangerous to our citizenry. The era of “big immigration” is officially over.
A six-page memo entitled “Enforcement of the Immigration Laws to Serve the National Interest” is followed by its thirteen-page counterpart, “Implementing the President’s Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements Policies.” Signed by Secretary Kelly, these formal documents lay the blueprint for rolling back the harmful immigration policies of the Obama Administration and firmly establishing much-needed national security for Americans.
The number of illegals deported by the Obama Administration in 2015 was the lowest amount in a decade, as merely 333,000 criminals were sent back home. That was down more than 20% from the number of deportations a few years earlier.
It was for political reasons that Obama cut back on deportations, in order to appease the liberal base who view illegals as future Democratic voters. Trump’s new guidelines do not change the law, but merely enforce immigration statutes that Obama refused to.
Secretary Kelly expands deportation to include illegal aliens who have been charged with the commission of a crime regardless of whether they have been convicted. If someone is in this country illegally, then that by itself is contrary to our laws, and our overburdened criminal justice system should not have to obtain a conviction against him before he is sent back to where he came from.
Often persons charged with crimes are out committing more crimes before they are convicted, as convictions can take many months or years to obtain. Also, taxpayers should not have to fund criminal defense attorneys to represent illegal aliens in our court system.
Sometimes wrongful acts are committed by illegal aliens that do not result in criminal charges, such as obtaining money by fraudulent means. These illegals should also be deported, and Trump’s new policy allows for that. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Judges Join the ‘Resistance’
by John and Andy Schlafly
February 14, 2017
Judge Leonie Brinkema of Alexandria, Virginia has become the latest federal judge to join the “resistance” to Donald Trump. She joins Judge James Robart of Seattle, whose political decisionruling against Trump was upheld by three judges of the Ninth Circuit.
Resistance has become the rallying cry for those who failed to defeat Trump at the ballot box last year. The well-funded Center for American Progress, which employs people connected with Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, said it hoped to be “the central hub of the Trump resistance.”
Resistance to Trump began on November 9, the day after the election, when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) threatened to “see him in court” where it promised to unleash its “full firepower” to stop Trump. Resistance is the theme of the anarchists who sparked violent protests against Trump, including smashed windows and fires, from Berkeley, California to Washington, D.C.
Like Judge Robart before her, Judge Brinkema did not bother to cite any relevant law that supports her opinion against Trump's executive order being carried out. Instead, her opinion complained that campaign speeches by Trump and one of his surrogates, Rudolph Giuliani, revealed the President’s “religious prejudice” against Muslims.
Both judges falsely claimed there’s no “evidence” that suspending travel from 7 Muslim countries would protect Americans from terrorism, and Judge Robart even said that no visitor or refugee from any of the 7 countries had ever been arrested for terrorism. In fact, 72 individuals from those 7 countries have been convicted of terror-related crimes since September 11, 2001. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Trump versus the Judge
by John Schlafly and Andy Schlafly
February 7, 2017
Donald Trump won the presidency fair and square, but there’s a well-funded movement to resist his victory and defy the new president’s authority over the executive branch of our government. Now one federal judge, who sits nearly 3,000 miles away in the “other” Washington, has raised the stakes by ordering federal bureaucrats to disobey a lawful order by President Trump.
Judge James L. Robart’s reckless ruling shocked legal scholars because in so many previous decisions, courts have recognized the president’s power to keep aliens out of the United States. If taken literally, the judge’s ruling gives everyone in the world the right to sue in our courts for the right to enter and remain in our country.
“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril,” Trump tweeted from Mar-a-Lago. “If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
A few minutes later, he tweeted again: “I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult!”
It should should be obvious that we need to pause the admission of refugees and others from known terror havens, and Donald Trump was elected on a promise to institute a temporary ban followed by “extreme vetting” of future visitors. The American people are entitled to get what we voted for.
Orlando, San Bernardino, and Chattanooga are just a few of our cities scarred by atrocities committed by refugees or aliens from known hotbeds of terrorism, or by their spouses or children who grew up among us. The bombers of the Boston Marathon were sons of refugees, and the recent attack at Ohio State University was committed by an 18-year-old refugee from Somalia.
“What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?” read another Trump tweet. “When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot, come in & out, especially for reasons of safety & security - big trouble!” ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Trump Ejects Obama Holdover
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 31, 2017
Last Friday was Donald Trump’s seventh full day as President, but there was no time to rest. At 4:42 p.m., just as many federal bureaucrats were starting the weekend, Trump signed executive orders that carry out his pledge to temporarily restrict travel from Muslim terrorist nations, including Syria and Somalia, until we come up with a better way to identify those who would do us harm.
Under the new policy, the privilege of visiting the United States would be suspended for 90 days for citizens of 7 of the most dangerous Muslim nations. Refugee admissions would be suspended for 120 days, and Syrian refugees would be suspended indefinitely.
“We’ve taken in tens of thousands of people,” Trump said. “We know nothing about them. How can you vet somebody when you don’t know anything about them and they have no papers?”
“We have enough problems,” Trump continued. “I am going to be the president of a safe country.”
Over the weekend, thousands of apparently organized protesters disrupted airports and delayed travelers around the country, while ACLU lawyers rushed papers before Obama-appointed judges. More Americans were inconvenienced by the protesters than the handful of foreign visitors who were briefly detained by U.S. customs and immigration officials.
On Sunday Chuck Schumer, the new Senate minority leader, cried crocodile tears as he denounced “this evil order.” As President Trump commented to laughter from the media, “There’s a 5 percent chance they’re real. I think they were fake tears.” ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
The Darkness of the Women’s March
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 24, 2017
President Trump’s inaugural address was well received by the people who voted for him, but the media reacted with predictable hostility as the plain-spoken non-politician repeated the themes he used so successfully during the campaign. Newspapers called the speech dark, a word that was repeated by almost every reporter.
Trump was certainly blunt about the challenges facing our country, but his address was sweetness and light compared to the truly dark rhetoric of those who demonstrated in Washington the following day. It was billed as the “Women’s March” on Washington, but it featured every kooky cause you ever heard of (and several you probably haven’t).
Speakers at the “Women’s March” were consumed with the grievances of those who think they are oppressed by institutional prejudice. They were obsessed with the rights of illegal immigrants, Black Lives Matter, Muslims, refugees, and unusual sexual preferences.
Abortion was repeatedly celebrated at the march, which was co-sponsored by Planned Parenthood. Most speakers used the euphemism “reproductive rights,” although one speaker, Kierra Johnson, said “I am unapologetically abortion positive.”
A speaker named America Ferrera announced, “As a first-generation American born to Honduran immigrants, it has been a heart wrenching time to be a woman in this country. Our rights have been under attack. Our freedom is on the chopping block for the next four years.” Doesn’t Ms. Ferrera realize how fortunate she is to be a woman born in the United States, instead of Honduras?
Muriel Bowser, the self-proclaimed “chick mayor” of Washington, D.C., “soon to be the 51st state” (not!), said: “Mayors have to stand up for immigration rights, for reproductive rights, for LGBTQ rights. We have to stand up to fight climate change from the mayor’s office.”
The next speaker, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, seemed out of place as he told the mostly female audience to “call Congress on Monday and tell your Senators we do not accept Betsy DeVos as our Secretary of Education.” Conservative women were not welcome at the Women’s March.
Actress Ashley Judd kept repeating “I’m a nasty woman” among other vulgar chants. “I feel Hitler in these streets,” she continued, as she raged against “racism, homophobia, trans-phobia, misogyny, and white privilege.” ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
The Hazing of the President
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 17, 2017
A new president is supposed to enjoy a “honeymoon” of good will and support from the press and public after he assumes the office once held by George Washington. But Donald Trump and his Cabinet nominees are receiving what can only be described as a hazing without precedent in recent American history.
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a member of Congress for more than 30 years, has received inordinate attention for his irresponsible declaration that “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.” We’re told he’s a “civil rights icon,” but in his 30 years in Congress John Lewis cast more than 100 votes against legislation to protect the civil rights of unborn children.
Lewis is one of more than 38 Democratic Congressmen who announced their intention to boycott the presidential inauguration this year. Their boycott has been joined by an assortment of celebrities from Hollywood and the music industry, such as Elton John and Celine Dion, who declined invitations to perform at inaugural-related events.
One of the boycotters is the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli, who decided not to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony after “Boycott Bocelli” appeared up on social media and the blind tenor decided he was “getting too much heat.” Trump, who once hosted an evening with Bocelli at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, said, “It’s sad people on the left kept him from performing on a historic day.”
Another singing star, Jennifer Holliday, reneged on her commitment to perform, saying: “I sincerely apologize for my lapse of judgment and for causing such dismay and heartbreak to my fans.” She and her family reported receiving anonymous death threats from fans feigning outrage that she would use her talent to honor our new president.
Another no-show is the singer Beyoncé Knowles, who was caught lip-syncing “The Star Spangled Banner” to pre-recorded accompaniment at the last presidential inauguration in 2013. Beyoncé’s faked performance was a closely guarded secret until someone noticed that the superb musicians in the U.S. Marine Band were merely pretending to play their instruments while the band’s director, Col. Michael Colburn, was energetically pretending to conduct them.
An anti-Trump boycott was declared against the L.L. Bean catalog store merely because Linda Bean, a granddaughter of the founder and one of 50 family members who co-own the company, had supported Trump. Linda Bean courageously protested the “bullying” campaign against her which would injure the company’s 9,000 employees. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Obamacare Repeal Is on the Way
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 10, 2017
As soon as the newly elected 115th Congress was gaveled to order last week, both houses got to work on the long-promised effort to “repeal and replace” the failed legislation known as Obamacare. The Senate, with its more cumbersome rules, began 50 hours of debate on a budget resolution that will eventually repeal much of the law by reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority of 51 Senators.
In the House, “replace” was launched with a bill endorsed by the 170-member Republican Study Committee, which is by far the largest caucus in the chamber. In introducing the bill, RSC chairman Mark Walker and lead sponsor Dr. Phil Roe stressed their intention to protect the small number of Americans who currently benefit from Obamacare, while improving the system for the much larger number who have been harmed.
Only about 16 million Americans (5% of our population) directly benefit from Obamacare. That number includes 12 million covered by Medicaid expansion plus 11 million who bought insurance on the exchanges, minus 7 million of those who previously had insurance.
Another estimate by the American Action Forum puts the number of Obamacare beneficiaries at only 13-14 million people, which is just 4% of the population. On the other hand, about 8 million Americans have been hit with fines for refusing to buy an inferior product. ... click here to read this full column
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Stay Engaged: The Battle Resumes on Jan. 20
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 3, 2017
As soon as the election results sank in, sleepy federal bureaucrats woke up and shifted into high gear, furiously finalizing regulations that could be issued before President Obama leaves office. According to The New York Times, President Obama “is using every power at his disposal to cement his legacy and establish his priorities as the law of the land,” and the new rules are “intended to set up as many policy and ideological roadblocks as possible before Mr. Trump takes his oath of office on Jan. 20.”
Some of these last-minute regulations can be revoked by President Trump on his first day in office. Others can be overturned by Congress under the Congressional Review Act, a process that requires only 51 Senate votes if the Senate acts within 60 legislative days after the rules were published.
Washington’s permanent governing class is also preparing to fight the new president in every possible way. Ground zero of the opposition is the Center for American Progress (CAP), which employs hundreds of staffers and enjoys a budget of $50 million. ... click here to read this full column
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
The Phyllis Schlafly Report delivers a thoughtful, clear voice on behalf of the family, traditional values, and a strong America.
Did you know that this insightful report is being continued by Phyllis Schlafly's sons Andy Schlafly and John Schlafly?
To read the latest weekly columns of the The Phyllis Schlafly Report, please go to: The Phyllis Schlafly Report columns at Pseagles.com
