Confused about raising a son in America

Jo Piazza writes in Elle mag:

I'm Terrified of Raising a Boy in Trump's America ...

How can I explain to a little boy that the year he was born, the President of the United States was an admitted sexual predator who treats women (including his own daughters) as "pieces of ass"? That the president thinks Time magazine changed its annual accolade to "Person of the Year" instead of "Man of the Year" just because it's more politically correct? ...

Every day I count my blessings that I'm married to a really good man. My husband, Nick, can often be more of a feminist than I am. ...

We can read our son Judy Blume, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, and all the Nancy Drew mysteries. We can talk to him about the man who was in office when he was conceived, a self-declared feminist who made the world a better place for men and women of all colors and stripes. The burden of raising a good man in the age of Trump is a burden, but it's on my husband and me to make sure that we do this right.

Just last week, right before we got the test results, it was Nick who ultimately set my mind at ease about the possibility of having a boy. "Regardless of whether we have boys or girls we need to raise children who defy these base stereotypes of what is masculine and feminine. Hillary Clinton did a good job of being that. We can do this," my husband said with intense confidence. He's a good man.

I'm still terrified about having a boy, but there is plenty I can do to make sure he becomes a good man. And I'll start on January 21. I'll be nearly five months pregnant when I travel to Washington, D.C., to march with thousands of other women who want to show our new president that there will be consequences for bad behavior.

I would have told our little girl that these are the women who are fighting for her future. I will tell my little boy the same exact thing.

Yes, I am worried about these Trump haters raising kids also.

Trump, the Great Communicator on Twitter

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

How did it happen that a man we were told could not possibly be nominated, let alone elected, is about to take the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States?

Part of the reason is that Donald Trump spoke to a set of hot-button issues (immigration and trade) that no other Republican was willing to touch, and those issues resonated with thousands of Americans who had previously voted for Obama. But even with the right issues and a brilliant slogan, “Make America Great Again,” Donald Trump still had to bypass the mainstream media in order to speak directly to the American people, as Ronald Reagan did a generation earlier.

For the benefit of Americans too young to remember, Reagan was called the “Great Communicator” because he effectively used television to connect directly with voters. Reagan frequently won people over with a folksy story or a perfectly timed joke, like the way he deflected a hostile question about his age during the final presidential debate by leaving everyone, even his opponent, in congenial uproarious laughter.

Having grown up in the construction industry, Trump uses a blunt and caustic style that is the direct opposite of Reagan’s affable avuncularity. But Trump has mastered the art of the tweet, sending out very short messages on Twitter, which provides an effective way to connect directly with the public.

Consider the tweet he sent out just before Christmas: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” The media thundered in outrage, claiming the tweet endangered national security and could spark a new Cold War with Russia.

But Vladimir Putin, who controls Russia’s nuclear weapons, dismissed the tweet as “nothing out of the ordinary” because Trump had already promised many times to rebuild U.S. military forces. Most foreign leaders, whether they are friends or adversaries, respect a President who says what he means and means what he says.

Limited to 140 characters (20 to 25 words), Twitter would not have been much help to Reagan, but it has been a perfect fit for Trump’s blunt candor. Trump has a genuine style on Twitter and his voice comes through loud and clear in that medium, as authentic as Reagan’s mastery of speaking on camera.

Effective use of Twitter requires an economy of style and expression comparable to a great bumper sticker, such as “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Phyllis Schlafly, a master of political communication herself, emphasized the value of honing her message to an effective sound bite, presenting “more facts in fewer words” than other conservatives.

A good example of Trump’s mastery of the media happened in November when a student at tiny Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts burned the American flag to protest the election results, and the liberal college president responded by removing our flag from its place of honor on campus. More than 1,000 veterans gathered to protest that cowardly response, but the incident drew little national attention until Trump unloaded a tweet: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”

The media jumped on Trump with a fierce intensity, keeping the story alive for days, until they realized Trump was being helped, not hurt by their criticism. Most Americans agree with Trump’s opinion even if a divided Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

Even Obama’s press secretary weighed in, saying Trump should submit himself to “skeptical questioning from an independent news media” at a formal press conference with its built-in advantages for the liberal media. As skillful as Reagan was, at times he struggled with rude reporters repeatedly trying to trip him up.

Instead of taking the media bait, Trump lobs Twitter bombs like this one, two weeks ago: “Just watched @NBCNightlyNews - So biased, inaccurate and bad, point after point. Just can’t get much worse, although @CNN is right up there!” He doesn’t spare the late-night shows, either: “Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad.”

When the media feel compelled to report President-elect Trump’s tweets, repeating his own unfiltered words, it means he and not they control the daily news cycle. When they have to interrupt their own agenda to report how politicians and pundits respond to what Trump just said, media-created stories get lost in the shuffle.

Without press conferences, liberals have difficulty setting the agenda for a Republican president. The first President Bush held three times as many press conferences in four years as his predecessor Ronald Reagan did in eight, and the outcome was a disastrous defeat in 1992. Americans do not want a president whose agenda is set by the press corps in Washington, D.C.

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.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

How Obama Stole Christmas

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

The Trump transition team is working on its first package of executive actions, including steps to rescind or revoke numerous improper executive actions by President Obama. Here are two federal regulations and further actions that Trump should take care of in his first day on the job as president.

The liberal “war on Christmas” is a recurring feature of the holiday season, but this year a federal regulation is being blamed for continuing that unhappy trend. At a senior living center called Mercy Village in Joplin, Missouri, residents were told they are forbidden to put traditional Christmas decorations in any of the common areas.
Mercy Village is owned by Denver-based Mercy Housing Inc., which receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Mercy’s management claimed that it was merely enforcing a HUD regulation that prohibits “discrimination” by housing providers on the basis of religion.

Mercy Village did have a so-called “holiday” tree in the main lobby, but when residents (at their own expense) placed a Nativity scene in the hallway of an upper floor, it was removed by the management. Even though no resident complained, the display could have been seen by other residents who might claim to be offended by the sight of a Nativity scene beneath the Christmas tree.

Mr. Dee Wampler, a prominent attorney from nearby Springfield, Missouri, informed Mercy Village that a 1984 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court found it perfectly constitutional to include a Nativity scene within a publicly funded Christmas display. But the management of Mercy Village was unmoved, insisting that Christmas decorations must remain inside the residents’ individual apartments, and that all common areas must remain “religion neutral.”

President-elect Trump was criticized for naming Dr. Ben Carson as the new Secretary of HUD because the eminent Dr. Carson has no experience in “housing policy.” In fact, Dr. Carson’s years of experience battling the forces of political correctness make him perfectly suited for redressing the anti-Christmas regulations of federally subsidized housing.

Another regulation due for prompt revocation by the new administration is a last-minute rule to prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood. This new rule became final on December 19 following an unusually short 30-day comment period, and is set to take effect on January 18, just two days before the President Trump will be inaugurated.

Obama’s director of the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) complained that 13 states have restricted “certain types” of providers from participating in the federal program to prevent poor people from having children. Is it really the proper function of the federal government to prevent births to poor people? Yet that is the basic mission of the federal OPA, with the result that this new rule was issued at an especially offensive time, during the season when we celebrate the miraculous birth of a child to a poor family 2,000 years ago.

Trump won the pivotal Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania due to their loss in manufacturing jobs and due to the large numbers of Catholic and evangelical voters there who oppose the pro-abortion positions of Hillary Clinton. In Wisconsin, for example, many Democrats were unwilling to cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton, after her unapologetic support of abortion-on-demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy was exposed during the presidential debates.

Perhaps the most influential action that the incoming President Trump could take on his first day of office would be simply to withdraw the appeal by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) of a splendid decision that declared illegal the taxpayer subsidies of Obamacare on the health insurance exchanges. If Trump merely withdraws the appeal of U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, which is as easy as filing a one-page document with the court, the subsidies would cease and the Obamacare health exchanges would mercifully collapse.

Those taxpayer subsidies are funding abortion in addition to wasting billions of dollars in money that could be better spent on real health care and other good uses. In Alaska, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Washington, it is impossible to buy a health insurance plan on the exchange that does not cover elective abortion.

The incoming President Trump could go further and order the Internal Revenue Service not to enforce any fines or penalties for individuals who elect not to purchase Obamacare-compliant insurance, which would allow them to use their own money in ways that best suit their own needs. Nothing is more wasteful and inefficient as a government forcing people to purchase a product they do not want, in this case Obamacare and its funding of abortion.

Amid the holiday merry-making and revelry, which as Shakespeare observed 400 years ago “is a custom more honor’d in the breach than the observance,” we should remember the whole point of Christmas is the birth of a child.

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.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

For another view, the NY Times says:

The most organized attack on Christmas came from the Puritans, who banned celebrations of the holiday in the 17th century because it did not accord with their interpretation of the Bible.

Fast forward 400 years, and the idea of a plot against Christmas gained wide publicity when Fox News promoted a 2005 book by a radio host ...

There is no evidence of an organized attack on Christmas in the United States.

See here and here for details on the war.

Could Hillary Hijack the Electoral College?

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

Remember when the liberals demanded that Donald Trump swear to accept the outcome of the presidential election? That was two months ago, when they were sure Trump would lose in a landslide.

Now many of the same people are chanting that Trump is “not my president.” In the days following the November election, thousands of anarchists participated in often violent protests in places like Oakland, California and Portland, Oregon, setting fire to police cars, smashing plate glass windows, and waving Mexican flags to express their contempt for the will of the American people.

Remember when the liberals complained that the Electoral College is undemocratic and should be abolished? That was one month ago, after Trump won all the battleground states and extended his sweep to four states that Republicans haven’t carried since Ronald Reagan’s time.

Now many of these same people are demanding that presidential electors assert more power than our Constitution gives them. They want the Electoral College to “deliberate” over who should be the next president.

The most ridiculous example is the “open letter” signed by 29 members of the Electoral College, all but one of them from blue states carried by Hillary Clinton. The lead signer is a California elector named Christine Pelosi, who happens to be Nancy’s daughter.

The Pelosi letter, addressed to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, demands a briefing from “the intelligence community” about Russia’s alleged hacking of John Podesta’s emails. The 29 electors claim they need that information in order to determine “who is constitutionally qualified and fit to serve” as president.

“We do not understand our sole function to be to convene in mid-December and summarily cast our votes,” the letter goes on. “The Constitution envisions the Electoral College as a deliberative body. Accordingly, we seek an unrestrained opportunity to investigate, discuss, and deliberate with our colleagues about whom to vote for.”

No, the Constitution does not allow the Electoral College to deliberate; in fact, it prevents the electors from constituting themselves as a deliberative body. Electors are required to meet separately in each state, on the same day, and only the winning slate is eligible to attend each state’s meeting.

Next Monday, December 19, for the 58th time since our U.S. Constitution was adopted, presidential electors will gather in their respective state capitols to cast their ballots. Without deliberation, each state’s electors will cast their ballots for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state.

In the 30 states where Donald Trump won the popular vote, Republican electors will cast 306 ballots. In the 20 states plus the District of Columbia where Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, Democratic electors will cast 232 ballots.

The 538 electoral ballots will be sent to Congress, where they will be opened and counted during a joint session of the newly elected 115th Congress. On January 6, Speaker Paul Ryan and outgoing Vice President Joe Biden will announce that Donald J. Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States by “a majority of the whole number of Electors.”

Since there’s no way to stop the Electoral College from doing its duty to confirm Trump’s election, liberals have floated a disturbing plan to undermine his legitimacy. Consider the campaign against Trump waged by our public and private schools and colleges against the man who will soon be inaugurated as our president.

A month before the November election, the National Education Association announced a six-figure expenditure for an all-out campaign to elect Hillary Clinton. “We are going to do everything humanly possible,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García, whose union collects mandatory dues from 3 million public school teachers, including many Republicans.

The teachers union president justified her intervention with the absurd claim that Trump was responsible for an increase in student bullying. The NEA’s anti-Trump campaign “is not something that will go away after Election Day,” she warned, because “we’re seeing millions of people who seem attracted to (Trump’s) message, and those folks are still going to be here.”

On the day after the election in St. Louis, at a prestigious private school known as MICDS, the “head of school” sent an email to student families that began, “Today has not been an easy one on our campus.” Noting that “some teachers” were “deeply upset by the election,” Lisa Lyle continued, “our community has a higher level of anxiety, which means that some may feel unprepared to perform at their best in the next few days.”

When young people are “educated” to believe that our new president is a source of justifiable fear and anxiety, it’s no wonder that some take to the streets in violent protest. When Betsy DeVos becomes the next Secretary of Education, her first order of business should be to “drain the swamp” of our leftist-controlled educational system.

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.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Goldwater, Reagan, and the Trumpian Revolution

Patrick J. Buchanan writes writes:

Has the Trumpian Revolution Begun?

The wailing and keening over the choice of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the EPA appears to be a lead indicator of a coming revolution far beyond Reagan’s. ...

Yet, as with his choices of Steve Bannon as White House strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, he has shown himself to be an unapologetic apostate to liberal orthodoxy.

Indeed, with his presidency, we may be entering a post-liberal era.

In 1950, literary critic Lionel Trilling wrote, “In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.”

The rise of the conservative movement of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan revealed liberalism’s hour to be but a passing moment. Yet, today, something far beyond conservatism seems to be afoot.

Phyllis Schlafly’s favorite US Presidential candidates were Goldwater, Reagan, and Trump. She liked Buchanan also, but never thought that he could get the broad base of public support that Reagan and Trump have achieved.

Democrat calls for censoring news

The NY Post reports:

WASHINGTON — In her first visit to the Capitol since her shocking election loss, Hillary Clinton on Thursday called on Congress to address the “epidemic” of fake news that she said was a danger to the nation.

Clinton was speaking at a ceremony to honor retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid when she diverted from her compliments to address “one threat in particular that should concern all Americans.”

She called on Congress to stop the “epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year.” ...

“It’s now clear that so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said,

The Ctrl-left needs to control the news, in order to be effective.

Much of the last two months of her campaign was based on using fake news stories to slander Donald Trump.

Newspaper article on Eagle Forum dispute

The St. Louis Riverfront Times has a long article on turmoil within Eagle Forum:

The Man Who Replaced Phyllis Schlafly

At Eagle Forum, a bitter battle between Phyllis Schlafly's oldest friends — and Ed Martin, her chosen successor

Most of the people quoted are former eagles (ie, former followers of Phyllis Schlafly) who joined the #NeverTrump movement and rejected Phyllis Schlafly's leadership in endorsing Donald Trump for President.

The claims that she was manipulated into endorsing Trump, and that she was sheltered from talking to others, are vicious lies. She wrote articles in favor of Trump. She gave interviews in favor of him. The endorsement was no surprise to those who knew her or who understood her writings over many years.

She made many efforts to talk to those Eagle Forum board members. They refused to talk to her, and sued her instead. When she did talk to them, she said that they were like zombies.

Lawyer Erik Solverud is fond of recklessly accusing people of violating the law, and committing crimes. He has repeatedly gone into court with motions for contempt of court. None of those motions have been granted. He is the one who is trying to steal property that does not belong to him or his clients.

The big election is over. I wish the Trump-haters would go run their own organization, and stop trying to misrepresent Phyllis Schlafly. If they cannot understand that Trump is the right man for the job today, then they are very far apart from her views. Her work is being carried on by Ed Martin, her sons, and many loyal eagles.

Trump Starts Draining the Swamp

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” when he reached the White House, but Washington’s swamp creatures are putting up a heck of a fight.  The people who inhabit the permanent government are doing their best to resist and obstruct the kind of change that Trump promised.

A good example is the furious reaction to the news that Trump accepted a 10-minute courtesy call from the president of Taiwan.  As if on cue, Washington-based pundits and so-called experts erupted with criticism of Trump for taking the call, and some even warned that it could provoke war with China.

Taiwan is a free and independent nation of 24 million Chinese people who live on an island off the Chinese coast.  Ever since Jimmy Carter, U.S. presidents have refused to extend diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, whose official name is the Republic of China, preferring to do business with the Communist People’s Republic on the mainland.

As we’ve learned to expect, Trump responded to his critics on Twitter:  “Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?  I don’t think so!”

The uproar inside the beltway over Taiwan’s telephone call is a skirmish in the coming battle over global trade.  No matter which party wins the election, Washington is still the place where foreign lobbyists can gain access to the lucrative American market through one-sided trade deals.

The Taiwanese telephone call came right after the “Carrier coup” -- the deal brokered by the President- and Vice President-elect to save nearly 1,000 manufacturing jobs from moving to Mexico.  Trump astounded even his critics by redeeming a campaign promise so quickly, even before he’s inaugurated.

The Republican primary contest was in full swing last February when Carrier, the famous maker of air conditioners, announced it would close a large factory in Indianapolis and relocate its production to Monterrey, Mexico.  That decision would have allowed the company to eliminate 1,400 jobs where Americans earn over $20 an hour and replace them with Mexicans earning $3 an hour. 

A cell phone video captured a hapless Carrier manager giving the bad news to a roomful of angry workers who were soon to be laid off.  The manager pleaded that “this is strictly a business decision” the company made in order to “stay competitive and protect the business for the long term.”

Trump took up the cause of the Carrier workers, who perfectly illustrated his campaign speeches about the costs of bad trade deals, especially NAFTA.  Trump rode the issue to win Indiana, first with a decisive victory over Ted Cruz in the May 3 primary, before cruising to a 19-point victory over Hillary in the general election. 

As usual, Trump celebrated on Twitter:  “The U.S. is going to substantially reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence, is WRONG!”

Although the Carrier deal involved much more carrot than stick, Trump’s tweet repeated his earlier warnings to companies pondering a move offshore:  “There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc., back across the border. This tax will make leaving financially difficult, but these companies are able to move between all 50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged.”

In the final installment of his 6-part tweet, Trump concluded:  “Please be forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS.”

In a single brilliant stroke, Trump has already begun to reward the votes of his supporters while disarming the fears of his opponents.  A new poll from Politico/Morning Consult finds that 60 percent of voters have a more favorable view of Donald Trump as a result of Carrier’s decision to keep some of its manufacturing jobs in Indiana, while only 9 percent view him less favorably.

Before the election, the same people who assured us that Trump could not win, also predicted that his election would lead to a stock market crash and a collapse of world trade.  One month after he won, business conditions have already improved so much that people are calling it the “Trump bump” in the economy.

Trump’s decisive handling of the Carrier crisis recalls the way President Reagan, in his first weeks in office, dealt with the illegal strike by air traffic controllers.  George Shultz said that was Reagan’s most important foreign policy decision because it showed America’s enemies that our president meant what he said and his words were to be taken seriously.

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.

Ten Reasons Left-Wingers Cut Trump Voters from Their Lives

Dennis Prager writes in National Review:

Many Hillary Clinton voters have ceased communicating with friends, and even family members, who voted for Donald Trump. It is so common that the New York Times published a front-page article on the subject headlined “Political Divide Splits Relationships — and Thanksgiving, Too.”

The article begins with three stories: ...

The Times acknowledges that this phenomenon is one-sided, saying, “Democrats have dug in their heels, and in some cases are refusing to sit across the table from relatives who voted for President-elect Donald J. Trump.”

A number of people who voted for Trump called my show to tell me that their daughters had informed them they would no longer allow their parents to see their grandchildren. And one man sent me an e-mail reporting that his brother-in-law’s mother told him that she “no longer had a son.”

All of this raises an obvious question: Why is this phenomenon of cutting off contact with friends and relatives so one-sided? Why don’t we hear about conservatives shunning friends and relatives who supported Hillary Clinton? After all, almost every conservative considered Clinton to be ethically and morally challenged. And most believed that another four years of left-wing rule would complete what Barack Obama promised he would do in 2008 if he were elected president — fundamentally transform the United States of America.

Prager goes on to give ten explanations.

The Ctrl-left is all about controlling what people think, and being intolerant of other people and ideas. Currently the Left is complaining about "fake news", and wanting to censor Facebook and Twitter.

The Alt-right is all about putting all ideas on the table, and using reason and honest discussion to sort them out.

Trump Has a Point About Illegal Votes

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

When Donald Trump boldly complained about the “millions of people who voted illegally” in the presidential election, he may not have been far from the mark after California is considered.  Most Americans are unaware just how far California’s election procedures have drifted away from the rest of our country.

In the 49 States other than California, Donald Trump crushed Hillary Clinton by almost 2 million popular votes.  The claim that Hillary won the national popular vote is due entirely to the huge run-up in votes that she claims she received in California.

Hillary’s reported vote total in California is constantly changing, even weeks after the election, so Donald Trump’s skepticism about the popular vote total is healthy.  A look at rules in California which are rejected by nearly every other state illustrates why California’s vote should not dictate the future of our country.

For starters, California continues to accept mailed-in ballots lacking in safeguards against voter fraud for many, many days after the rest of the country voted on Election Day.  How many of these mailed-in ballots, not received until long after the election, are the result of fraud?

California does not require any photo identification or comparable verification before allowing someone to cast a ballot.  This is in contrast to the states that do have safeguards against voting by impostors, and most of the voter ID states were carried by Trump.

California is one of only three states that allow convicted felons to vote while sitting in jail behind bars.  In most other states, murderers and rapists are denied the ability to influence the outcome of an election even after they have been released from jail, unless they go through a process to have their voting rights restored.

California harbors illegal aliens in far greater numbers than other states, with several major cities in California designated as “sanctuary cities.”  The entire state was declared a “sanctuary” by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice, a decision which allows the Attorney General to withhold federal funds from the state.

In 2013 the California legislature even passed a law to allow illegal aliens to serve on juries, in contrast with all other states.  Democratic Governor Jerry Brown vetoed that bill, but he signed a bill to prohibit state government from using the word “alien” because, according to the bill’s sponsor Tony Mendoza, it “has very negative connotations.”

Illegal aliens have been given so many benefits and protections unavailable to them in other states that the term “California citizenship” has been used to describe its un-American approach.   Many of those illegal aliens could have voted because in practice there is nothing to stop them from doing so, and Trump is right to complain about the unknown number who “voted illegally” in the presidential election.

In addition, California did not allow any Republican to be on the general election ballot for U.S. Senator this year, due to an unusual process that eliminated the Republican candidate in the primary.  Given a choice between two liberal Democratic minority females, California’s U.S. Senate race was more like something found in Cuba or other one-party systems.

Many local races in California also reflected a one-party system where voters were given a choice between two different members of the Democratic Party, both of whom generally supported the same political positions.  While Californians could vote for the Republican candidate Trump for president, many could not vote for a Republican candidate for other key offices in the general election.

Neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton spent much time or money campaigning in California, which has expensive media markets and a sprawling population nearly 800 miles from north to south.  The final vote tally in that state is as meaningless as the final score in a sporting event where one side continued to run up the score after the outcome was already settled.

If the outcome of the election were based on who won the most popular votes rather than who won the Electoral College, then the candidate who spent the most money would have an enormous advantage.  The very problem that liberals criticize so often – the influence of money in determining the outcome of elections – would be far worse if popular vote were all that mattered.

Instead, the Electoral College brilliantly allows a less-funded candidate, as Trump was, to focus on a half-dozen small-media states to take his campaign right to the American people without relying heavily on negative ads as Hillary Clinton did.  How ironic it is that the critics of negative campaigning and the corrosive effect of big money in politics are not defending Trump’s victory based on his large rallies with the people in a few swing states.

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.

Media attack on the alt-right

Get ready for 4+ years of the leftist news media calling Donald Trump Hitler.

The NY Times reports:

With the election of Donald J. Trump — and his subsequent appointment of Stephen K. Bannon, a former chairman of the right-wing website Breitbart News, as his chief White House strategist — the term alt-right has emerged as a linguistic flash point. Generally deployed by news organizations to describe a far-right, white nationalist movement known for its aggressive online expression, the term has attracted widespread criticism among those, particularly on the left, who say it euphemizes and legitimizes the ideologies of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and white supremacy.

Trump has been denounced by various gatekeepers of the Right, such as Mitt Romney, National Review, George Will, and the Weekly Standard. So alt-right is a good term for his message.

Yes, the leftist news media likes all that name-calling, but they say the same about Republicans, conservatives, and everyone else they don't like.

The article does not cite any views of Trump supporters.

Last Wednesday, The Washington Post circulated style guidelines for several terms, including alt-right, which it defined in part as “a small, far-right movement that seeks a whites-only state” whose adherents are “known for espousing racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view.”

This is just an attempt to marginalize Trump supporters. Some Trump supporters have extreme views, just as many Democrats do. I use the term alt-right to refer to the broader coalition that elected Trump.

Gingrich says Romney sounds phony

From Fox News:

NEWT GINGRICH: I think there’s nothing Mitt Romney can say that does sound fake and doesn’t sound phony. He made his case all year. he did all he could to cause Trump to lose Utah. He called Trump vicious and vile things. He described him in language that is not possibly compatible with being together. And the idea that now that Trump has won that Mitt would suddenly decide to issue a mea culpa… Speaking for most of the Trump supporters, we will support President-elect Trump in whatever he does, We will be enormously disappointed if he brought Mitt Romney into any position of authority.

Sounding fake and phony is just a small part of the problem. How can you trust Romney or consider him a Republican, when he worked to help Hillary Clinton defeat Trump?

Looting the bank accounts

Anne Cori and Eunie Smith have started looting the Eagle Forum c4 bank accounts. They apparently used a temporary restraining order from a judge to convince the bank that they had authority over the money, even tho he has not ruled on who controls the board.

They have given no explanation as to how they are spending the money.

That money was raised by Phyllis Schlafly, but they are trying to undermine what she stood for.

Attempt to shut down web site

I have been notified that the #NeverTrump ex-eagles have tried to get an ISP to shut down eagleforum.org.
I am not sure what will happen, so maybe we will start migrating content to another site.

Defining the Alt Right

The NY Times attempts to define the alt-right:

These are exultant times for the alt-right movement, which was little known until this year, when it embraced Mr. Trump’s campaign and he appeared to embrace it back. ...

While many of its racist views are well known — that President Obama is, or may as well be, of foreign birth; that the Black Lives Matter movement is another name for black race rioters; that even the American-born children of undocumented Hispanic immigrants should be deported — the alt-right has been difficult to define. Is it a name for right-wing political provocateurs in the internet era? Or is it a political movement defined by xenophobia and a dislike for political correctness?

At the conference on Saturday, Mr. Spencer, who said he had coined the term, defined the alt-right as a movement with white identity as its core idea. ...

While many of its racist views are well known — that President Obama is, or may as well be, of foreign birth; that the Black Lives Matter movement is another name for black race rioters; that even the American-born children of undocumented Hispanic immigrants should be deported — the alt-right has been difficult to define. Is it a name for right-wing political provocateurs in the internet era? Or is it a political movement defined by xenophobia and a dislike for political correctness?

At the conference on Saturday, Mr. Spencer, who said he had coined the term, defined the alt-right as a movement with white identity as its core idea. ...

“Trump and Steve Bannon are not alt-right people,” Mr. Brimelow said, adding that they had opportunistically seized on two issues that the alt-right cares most about — stopping immigration and fighting political correctness — and used them to mobilize white voters.

Mr. Spencer said that while he did not think the president-elect should be considered alt-right, “I do think we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans.”

White identity, he said, is at the core of both the alt-right movement and the Trump movement, even if most voters for Mr. Trump “aren’t willing to articulate it as such.”

Richard B. Spencer may have coined the term, but the alt-right is much bigger than him now. There must be a better name for white identity anyway.

My favorite definition is that the alt-right is the opposite of the ctrl-left.

I think that the definition that is most likely to be accepted is that the alt-right is the set of beliefs that got Donald Trump elected.

The terms Republican and Conservative do not adequately describe Trump's message, because many Republicans and Conservatives joined the #NeverTrump movement and seemed to prefer Hillary Clinton. So we need a term for right-wingers who wish to disassociate themselves from the NeverTrumpers.

Trump is so vastly superior to Clinton on so many crucial issues that I do not want to be grouped with NeverTrumpers. So the term alt-right makes sense to me.

How Phyllis helped Trump

The Untold Story: How One 91 Year-Old Woman Helped Donald Trump Win Election

Guest post by Roddy McCorley, courtesy of the The Gateway Pundit.

One of the untold stories of the 2016 campaign is about a 91-year old woman who died trying to get Donald Trump elected, and her six closest friends who tried to trip her up.

There is a good argument that this woman saved the Donald Trump campaign. Her name was Phyllis Schlafly.

Here’s how she may have done it.

Ted Cruz’ failure to win any states on Super Tuesday II (March 15, 2016) was a crippling blow to his campaign. Phyllis Schlafly’s efforts for Trump and more importantly against Cruz, around whom conservatives and evangelicals were increasingly rallying, proved to be the margin of difference.

In Phyllis’ founding state of Illinois, Trump beat Cruz decisively by eight points that day. But it was the narrow win in her home state Missouri (by 0.2 points) that made Ted Cruz 0-for-5 on Super Tuesday II keeping his name out of the headlines during the pause in the election cycle for March Madness that followed and stopping his momentum, a momentum he could never fully recover with subsequent caucus victories and a lone April primary win.

It was not easy. In Missouri, it was a pitched battle between two Missourians: Cruz’ campaign manager, whom the press dubbed “Ruthless” Jeff Roe, who was being touted as the “next Karl Rove” …. and Phyllis. But Phyllis had seen “ruthless” before, and was fully unimpressed by ruthless.

The situation was that Trump had done well out East, and in the South, but had not broken through in the Midwest. Cruz had won three states that border Missouri: Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma. Minnesota had even dealt Trump what was to be his only third-place finish in a state. Phyllis immediately sized up the problem: less affected by immigration issues than the South and Southwest, the conservative Midwest was not accepting Trump as a “true conservative”. She set to work, writing a series of articles that would become the basis for her last book, The Conservative Case for Trump.

The signature moment however was a speech she gave on March 11, 2015, four days before Super Tuesday II, at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis in front of 3500 people and thousands more watching on monitors and smart phones outside. Outside, the fiercest protests yet of the campaign were raging. Agitators had set up permanent shop in St. Louis in the wake of the Ferguson riots. Captured on numerous handheld videos, the protest was unruly and profane. There was even one case of blood-letting. It was everything Phyllis had seen before in her battles against the “Equal Rights” Amendment. She had already been called every dirty name in the book, so had no problem, even at age 91, in crossing that picket line.

Because of some of the outside pandemonium, the rally ended up being the most famous of the campaign, giving birth to the alt-right memes known as AIDS Skrillex and Carl the Cuck and the viral video Black Trump Supporter Accosted by Black Lives Matter Protesters (currently at almost 2 million views). A rally later that evening in Chicago had to be called off because of violence and it looked for a while like Donald Trump would never be able to address his supporters again in person and would have to run his entire campaign through a live feed.

It was a fever pitch at the Peabody that morning. Not for sissies. And where was Eunie Smith? Anne Cori? Cathie Adams? Rosina Kovar? Carolyn McLarty? Shirley Curry?

The six Eagle Forum board members she had hand-chosen abandoned their 91-year-old leader and left her alone to face the mob.

Not only did they abandon her, Cori was back at the Eagle Forum office sending out an email blast with the breathless caption “Ted Cruz is the ONLY Conservative Candidate for President!” And by March 29, three of them were calling special board meetings without Phyllis’ approval. They launched a lawsuit in April to wrest control from Phyllis. And the rest is history. Painful, litigious, expensive (and still ongoing) history.

It was later revealed that Schlafly was fighting lung cancer the entire time. She died in September. Trump spoke at her funeral and Cori who is Schlafly’s daughter, refused to meet with Trump who was greeting the family in an anteroom of the St. Louis Cathedral.

’That is why it is rather rich that they now issue a press release claiming credit for Trump’s win. They wanted Ted Cruz, and there is no way Cruz could have eaten his way through the rust belt like a Pac Man and won Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Or Wisconsin, which had not been won by any of the “long series of losers” (the phrase Phyllis used at that rally) since Ronald Reagan. Or Minnesota, where if Evan McMullin’s “new conservative movement” had not gained its third-highest percentage outside of Utah and Idaho, Trump would have gained territory Reagan never even had, namely the “People’s Republic of Minnesota”.

On the Ides of March, 2016, Phyllis Schlafly was a stitch-in-time for Donald Trump. She is why we are not now saying “President Elect Clinton”. It will go down in history as one of the great untold stories of this campaign. But it cost her a vicious fight in the courts for the control of the donations she raised and the trademarks she built for fifty years.

Avoid the #NeverTrump losers

Anne Cori is part of a group of six women suing Eagle Forum c4, and she put out this press release:

TRUMP WIN A VICTORY FOR THE SILENT MAJORITY

Acting Eagle Forum president Eunie Smith declared, "Donald Trump's win proves once again that when the American grassroots unite, we can do the impossible. We can defeat the Establishment elites in the Washington, the entertainment industry and the mainstream media - even when they cheat."

"The media tried to make this election about personality, and they stacked the deck by colluding with the Clinton campaign, by skewing polling data, giving Clinton overwhelmingly positive and Trump overwhelmingly negative coverage, leaking debate questions to Clinton, giving her campaign review of their coverage of her. Still, the American people, men and women of all races from all walks of life, saw through it all and came out in record numbers to support Trump's message of putting the American people back in charge of our country's destiny," said Smith.

"This election was not about Donald Trump as a personality, but this was about a movement that began with the Tea Parties in 2009," Smith noted. "Through the conservative victories in 2010 and 2014, hardworking, every day Americans told Washington we want pro-family, fiscally conservative leaders who will protect our jobs and secure our borders, but the elites in both parties ignored the message.

'Now, particularly with the re-election of conservative majorities in the House and Congress, Donald Trump has an undeniable mandate to carry out the reform the grassroots are demanding," said Smith. ...

Our beloved founder, Phyllis Schlafly, along with Eagle Forum activists throughout the country, have been praying Isaiah Isaiah 40:31 for decades, ...

This might make sense, except that Cori and Smith were among the #NeverTrump Republicans who fought against Trump's nomination and election.

Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Trump as the Choice, Not An Echo. So did the Eagle Forum president, Ed Martin. Cori and Smith did everything to try to stop the endorsement, including filing a lawsuit to fire Martin and to remove Phyllis Schlafly from any control over Eagle Forum c4. When she formed a new organization to help Trump and support conservative causes, then sued to stop that also.

Ed Martin writes:

One final note: the 6 women that sued Phyllis are still at it (unfortunately). They say they are "protecting Phyllis' legacy" but they are wasting millions of Phyllis' dollars in legal fees, they're hosting #NeverTrump speakers ("losers!") at their events, and they're putting out emails pretending they are actually doing something. Phyllis knew what posers looked like and so do you! Please do not be distracted: Phyllis left her 5 children and me in charge of the following efforts: Eagle Forum Education Fund, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle SuperPAC, Eagle Forum PAC, Phyllis Schlafly's American Eagles, the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, and America's Future. Phyllis wanted us all to move forward with all of these efforts to make America great again! And so we will.

Don't worry - we won't be stopped by lawsuits and posers! Every day, we are building Phyllis' conservative movement just as Phyllis wanted us to do. John and Andy Schlafly have stepped up to lead the intellectual charge that Phyllis led and our team is "moving and shaking" all over the nation! Let us know how we can help you.

He is correct. If the #NeverTrump Republicans had gotten their way, Hillary Clinton would have been elected President. Be thankful that Phyllis Schlafly, Ed Martin, and many others had the courage to stand up and do what was needed to save the country.

Trump wins

Phyllis Schlafly's Eagles worked very hard for Donald Trump.

The renegade ex-Eagles who sued Eagle Forum c4 worked to undermine Trump.

This is a great victory for America, and for conservative values.

The sham lawsuit

Anne Cori, Eunie Smith, and four others filed an Illinois lawsuit in April to take over Eagle Forum c4, one of the late Phyllis Schafly’s Eagle organizations. I have come to the conclusion that the entire lawsuit is a sham and an abuse of process. Judge Barberis should be ashamed that he is going along with it.

The lawsuit sought, at the outset, to control the lawyers on both sides of the case. On Oct. 20 the judge issued a temporary restraining order whose main effect was to grant that request.

This goes against our whole adversarial system of justice. The Cori-Smith group seeks to use Eagle Forum c4 against Phyllis Schlafly’s express wishes, and her views are not being represented.

Their press release complains:

I am particularly troubled that Martin seems to be intentionally misleading people to believe that he is speaking on behalf of Eagle Forum. He is not," Smith said.

Last month, a temporary restraining order issued by a circuit court in Madison County, Illinois ordered Martin suspended from his role as Eagle Forum President. In its ruling, the court inserted Smith as acting President and Anne Schlafly Cori as acting Chairman of the Board. Martin formed the Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle PAC which has no relationship with Eagle Forum whatsoever.

That temporary order suspended Ed Martin from the Eagle Forum c4, but he continues to act in behalf of Eagle Forum c3, Eagle PAC, and Phyllis Schlafly's American Eagles. He is the one who co-authored a best-selling book with Phyllis Schlafly, not Smith or Cori.

As Smith and Cori explain:

Last week's ruling by the Madison County (IL) Circuit Court has temporarily returned management of Eagle Forum to its Board of Directors, which removed Ed Martin from the position of President of Eagle Forum on April 11, 2016. The Circuit Court's ruling directs the Eagle Forum Board of Directors to assume management and control of Eagle Forum and its property, consistent with their fiduciary duties and obligations to Eagle Forum.

The court's ruling makes Mrs. Eunie Smith, First Vice-President of Eagle Forum, the Acting President of the organization while the litigation moves toward a final resolution. Together with Mrs. Anne Schlafly Cori, Acting Chairman of Eagle Forum, Mrs. Smith will work to reinvigorate Eagle Forum and its many volunteers and supporters. ...

There are a number of pending legal challenges still surrounding Eagle Forum and Martin's controversial tenure as its President, including various contempt of court motions related to Eagle Forum's Board of Directors many attempts to enforce compliance with the Circuit Court's Orders. A federal lawsuit alleging misappropriation of Eagle Forum resources by a Virginia corporation called Phyllis Schlafly's American Eagles, is also still pending in US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

Yes, Smith and Cori have made a number of motions for contempt of court, but none of them have merit and none of them have been granted.

Eagle Forum c4 has no title of "Acting President" or "Acting Chairman". Any claim to such a title is illegitimate. It is just the opinion of a judge who has heard a sham lawsuit where Smith and Cori have sued themselves.

Donating to Eagle Forum

If you donate to Eagle Forum, be sure and say which Eagle Forum you prefer.

Donations to the Eagle Forum c3 are tax-deductible. That organization is running by people loyal to the late Phyllis Schlafly and her mission.

Donations to the Eagle Forum c4 are uncertain, as the bank accounts have been frozen by a lawsuit. Anne Cori, Eunie Smith, and a handful of others are attempting to take it over and redirect its mission to something contrary to what Phyllis Schlafly wanted. I have no idea how that money will be spent.

There are various state Eagle Forums. Some are loyal and some are not. I suggest joining and finding out what they do, before donating.

There is also an Eagle Forum PAC.

If you just want to buy books or subscribe to publications, be sure to pay the Eagle Trust Fund, as that is what produces the publications.

Anne Cori gloats about lawsuit win

Anne Cori calls herself "Acting Chairman, Eagle Forum", and writes in a press release:

(St. Louis, Missouri) Last week's ruling by the Madison County (IL) Circuit Court has temporarily returned management of Eagle Forum to its Board of Directors, which removed Ed Martin from the position of President of Eagle Forum on April 11, 2016. The Circuit Court's ruling directs the Eagle Forum Board of Directors to assume management and control of Eagle Forum and its property, consistent with their fiduciary duties and obligations to Eagle Forum.

The court's ruling makes Mrs. Eunie Smith, First Vice-President of Eagle Forum, the Acting President of the organization while the litigation moves toward a final resolution. Together with Mrs. Anne Schlafly Cori, Acting Chairman of Eagle Forum, Mrs. Smith will work to reinvigorate Eagle Forum and its many volunteers and supporters.

Eagle Forum c4 has never had titles of "Acting Chairman" and "Acting President". These titles were created by a judge's temporary restraing order.

Who ever heard of a judge creating titles of authority in a political organization?

Cori and Smith have begun the process to loot the bank accounts of Eagle Forum c4, unfortunately, and to smear the good name of Phyllis Schlafly.

Many Eagles may be moving to Phyllis Schlafly's American Eagles for political activities.

The Eagle Forum Lawsuit

Kelleigh Nelson writes:

The judicial violations are obvious in the lawsuit against Eagle Forum’s 501(c)4 entity. The original suit was filed in April of 2016, and was limited to this one entity of Eagle Forum, the 501(c)4.

It has been suspected that all along this Gang of Six (Anne Cori and the five others on the board) wanted all the other entities of Eagle Forum. The Illinois judge in this case, despite being a republican, actually used the brief presented by Anne Cori’s attorneys, and stated that John Schlafly and Ed Martin had 24 hours to get out of Eagle Forum! There are five entities of Eagle Forum, and the lawsuit is only over one entity!

Quite obviously, this judge overstepped his bounds! Is he colluding with them? Does he not understand what the entire case is all about? Does he not understand that Eagle Forum is more than one entity? Is he stupid? Has he not read through the document. He should know better!

Illinois Judge John B. Barberis has ordered Eagle Forum (Schlafly’s website) to remove all pro-Trump articles posted after April 10, 2016.

This is key, because the judge is implying it is one organization, and it is not! Each of the five entities did not have separate websites, they all posted on the one! This judge is busy doing fund raising for his campaign for judge on a higher court, and Judge Barberis is the lowest rated judge in Illinois.

So, even six weeks after her death, conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly is still being attacked by the left, #NeverTrumpers and activist judges.

The Bully Party

Scott Adams (aka Dilbert comic) writes:

I’ve been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms.

If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it.

If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car.

if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired.

On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood.

We know from Project Veritas that Clinton supporters tried to incite violence at Trump rallies. The media downplays it.

We also know Clinton’s side hired paid trolls to bully online. You don’t hear much about that. ...

I’ll just point out that Trump’s message is about uniting all Americans under one flag. The Clinton message is that some Americans are good people and the other 40% are some form of deplorables, deserving of shame, vandalism, punishing taxation, and violence. She has literally turned Americans on each other. It is hard for me to imagine a worse thing for a presidential candidate to do.

I’ll say that again.

As far as I can tell, the worst thing a presidential candidate can do is turn Americans against each other. Clinton is doing that, intentionally.

Intentionally.

I agree with this, but I note a contrary view. There are people who spend all them time badmouthing Trump, such as calling him a Nazi, but who then complain that they are being bullied by readers who send them nasty emails.

One of those bullies, David French complains in National Review that the Trump supporters are the bullies.

Update: David French was on NPR Radio Fresh Air, explaining how he has spent the last year doing everything he can to undermine the Trump campaign, and carrying on his hatred of the Alt Right. But people on Twitter keep saying nasty things about him, and he cannot get them all banned.

Judge orders pro-Trump articles removed

The Gateway Pundit reports from PSEagles.com:

Even after her death conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly is still being attacked by the left, #NeverTrumpers and activist judges.

Illinois Judge John B. Barberis has ordered Eagle Forum (Schlafly’s website) to remove all pro-Trump articles posted after April 10, 2016.

Phyllis Schlafly was an early Donald Trump supporter.

This week an activist Illinois judge ordered Eagle Forum to remove all pro-Trump articles after April 10, 2016.

Unreal.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:

Martin said he was unavailable for an interview but said in an email the temporary ruling “does not affect our work in any way. Courts do not properly pick leaders of political organizations. The court ruled without hearing any testimony, and mistakes happen that way. I’m confident this unprecedented ruling will be overturned on appeal.” ...

Fault lines opened up when Phyllis Schlafly refused to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for the Republican nomination for president in late 2015, the suit said. In February, Cori used the Schlafly database to orchestrate a robocall for Cruz before he won Iowa’s GOP caucus.

Trump tweeted that “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!”

Phyllis Schlafly and Martin alleged that their fallout with the board started in part because of Schlafly’s public endorsement of Trump.

“The anti-Trump people have gone way too far,” Martin said in an email. “This won’t slow us down. We have more support now than when we started.”

Martin said that although he was suspended from Eagle Forum, he would remain active with a group called Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which he said had published a best-selling pro-Trump book.

He said he was also leading a group called Phyllis Schlafly’s American Eagles, “to address the issue of American sovereignty.”

Addendum

Within about 4 hours of posting this [previous message], the lawyers for the disgruntled eagles complained to Judge Barberis about it. They wrote: "Mr. Schlafly's proclamation mischaracterizes the Court's Order, disparages the Court and its integrity, attacks Plaintiffs, and touts his disdain for the Court's authority." They then quoted the sentence about that links to the Bar Association page saying that the judge has the lowest rating in Illinois.

It is possible that I am mischaracterizing the Court's Order. I have sent an email to the Plaintiffs asking for a clarification. So far, they do not dispute that their main purpose is to remove pro-Trump postings.

Apparently the judge was particularly upset that I said that he was doing fundraising for his political campaign. To be clear, I just googled him and reported what I found, and I have no idea whether there is anything irregular with his fundraising. I am certainly not claiming that it is illegal for him to do fundraising for his campaign. I do not think that is an attack on his integrity and authority. I guess the lawyers figured that they will get the judge to rule against me if they persuade him to have a personal dislike for me and my opinions.

In others words the lawyers (such as Erik O. Solverud) have no respect for the judge to follow the law, and use tactics to generate personal biases instead.

Whether the judge has any authority over me, I do not know. I am not a party to the case, and I am only protecting Phyllis Schlafly's works that I did not think were part of the subject matter of the case.

If I am wrong, I assume that I will soon get a letter from some lawyers.

Looking for Eagle Forum?

Phyllis Schlafly spent her whole life organizing Republicans and communicating conservative political views. She created the www.eagleforum.org web site in 1996 to help further those goals, in conjunction with many other efforts. It contains gigabytes of her works.

Now a court order has thrown the site into doubt. A group of six disgruntled eagles have filed a lawsuit, and Illinois judge John B. Barberis has sided with them.

Their main political argument is that they oppose Donald Trump, and their main legal argument is that Phyllis Schlafly's death has left a power vacuum, so that they can take over one of her several Eagle organizations, called "Eagle Forum c4".

The worst part is that they wish to use Phyllis Schlafly's name, image, reputation, and legacy to support causes opposite to what she stood for. She spent the last six months of her life trying to stop them from carrying out their vendetta.

I hope to keep her works online and available, and I hope to separate them from the platform of her opponents.

I do not know too much about Judge Barberis, except that he is the lowest rated judge in Illinois. He is busy doing fundraisers for his campaign in a election next month to be a judge on a higher court.

His Oct. 20 order is very strange. It is an amendment to a Temporary Restraining Order that issued on April 29, 2016, and that expired 10 days later. It is against Eagle Forum c4 officers as defendants, but then suspends them from Eagle Forum c4, so that they have no ability to carry out the order.

The lawsuit is against Eagle Forum c4 but orders me personally to assist in transferring "Eagle Forum [c4] Property". This is in spite of the fact that I am not a party to the case, and the court papers say that I am "not associated or affiliated with Eagle Forum [c4] in any way."

The judge ordered that all pro-Trump articles posted on www.eagleforum.org since April 10, 2016 be removed. He also said the parties are enjoined from advocating any position with respect to the litigation.

I have never heard of any political advocacy organization being ordered not to express opinions on a web site. Not in the USA, anyway. I thought that the First Amendment prohibited that sort of thing.

The order has language like "All authority to communicate with any third party regarding ... is hereby revoked." Since when does anyone need permission to communicate with a third party?

Complying with this order will not be easy. I am not sure exactly what was on the site on April 10. If I remove the pro-Trump articles, I will create dead links. If I explain the dead links, I might be accused of advocating something. I am reluctant to even post the court order, as that might be construed as advocating about litigation.

I am not sure that the Eagle Forum c4 even has any property on the web site. Most of the site involves political works and activities of Phyllis Schlafly, and these have nothing to do with the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. I have tried to understand the their demands, but they have never even expressed any interest in the web site, as far as I know.

Rolling back Phyllis Schlafly's web site to purge her pro-Trump views is a dishonest and treacherous thing to do, and I refuse to do it, unless forced by the court.

So I am shutting down the eagleforum.org web site for now. I am very sorry about this, and hope to have it back up when the legal issues are settled.