On the subject of tearing down Confederate monuments, here is a guest post from Anonymous Berkeley Professor:
You might be right that the Confederacy fought for a bad cause, and that their military leaders don’t deserve reverance. But the SJWs who are trying to bring down the symbols of Southern culture, including their flag, are not primarily motivated by a fresh burst of virtue, however much they like to morally preen. Their main motivations are power, mob hysteria, and the plain joy of destroying their perceived enemies.
Let’s get away from the small-picture issue of whether the North has been insufficiently punitive of their defeated enemies from a war 150 years ago, and look at the big picture. There are three big-picture reasons why today’s statue-razing is inviting tomorrow’s tragedy.
First, America is moving rapidly toward a period of extreme chaos and disruption, as happens periodically to all societies, and every sign suggests that our time of troubles will be bigger than the Civil War itself. The modern left in America does not want reconciliation; they want blood. If the South cedes their flag and their statues, the SJWs will not thank them for their sacrifice and make friends; rather, the left will smell blood in the water and increase their demands, ordering greater and greater destruction for smaller and smaller deviations from leftist orthodoxy, with no limit until they are resisted with force. This parallels the current increases in purges for wrongthought (currently happening only in employment in America, but already including prison time for crimethink in Europe). Only a strong nationalist reaction has any hope of preventing this. I think we are moving toward a very violent climax before 2040–and if the left wins, the climax will be followed by Soviet-style ideological repression for 80 years or so. (Academic research hardest hit!)
Second, America and Europe are both rapidly building nationalist reactions against the excesses of the left. These reactions are inevitable and are not tied to specific personalities; they are outgrowths of embattled peoples (yes, including white working-class Americans and Europeans, who are being deliberately crushed) and it will continue to grow as the left becomes more malign. I notice that a lot of professors I know delusionally think that this right-wing reaction can be stopped if only we cure their “ignorance”, or if Trump is deposed. Wrong: Trump is merely an effect, not the cause. It is 100% certain that the nationalist backlash will continue to grow, regardless of who is in power. Because the pain caused by immigration, globalization, and anarcho-tyranny is real and extremely intense (though the elite deny it exists at all).
Third, America has been terribly damaged by immigration and can no longer hold together as a single nation. The nationalist reaction is inevitable because diversity and immigration really are incredibly, overwhelmingly destructive (not presently to the elite, who are safe in their enclaves and are ideologically forbidden to admit that diversity has downsides, but to ordinary Americans and Europeans). The multicultural utopia is a lie; America’s future is racial strife and, ultimately, partition into multiple nations. By renewing their attack against the South, the Yankees are reopening old fissures and bringing this partition closer to the present. Among the people who will suffer the most are American blacks, who have never been able to integrate into white society. Twenty years from now, whites will be a minority, the worldwide debt crash will have occurred, and even the most optimistic globalist will no longer be able to deny that America has degenerated into a land mass of quarreling tribes who hate each other and have absolutely no values in common (contrary to the lying managerial boilerplate we all mouth today). When that happens, white America will no longer be willing or able to carry black America on our shoulders via tax transfers and government jobs. Today, most white Americans have some genuine desire to see black Americans succeed. I predict that this will not be true in 2040.
It seems to be a trait of the left that they are never, ever capable of foreseeing the unintended consequences of their actions.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Travel Ban Thwarted by Judicial Supremacy
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly
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.
One might wonder why a statement by a campaign spokeswoman would even be admissible in a court proceeding to consider the constitutionality of an Executive Order. Katrina Pierson, a Trump spokeswoman, once told CNN that “we’ve allowed this propaganda to spread all through the country that [Islam] is a religion of peace,” and the Fourth Circuit relied on that statement and others as the basis for striking down an Executive Order limiting travel from certain countries.
The Fourth Circuit also quoted Rudy Giuliani, the former popular mayor of New York City, who was described as an “advisor” to the candidate, which means that he did not speak for Trump but offered advice to him. Despite that relationship lacking in authority, the Fourth Circuit relied on a statement by Giuliani that President Trump wanted to enact a “Muslim ban.”
A trial judge would not ordinarily allow such hearsay to be admitted in an everyday trial, so why is a Court of Appeals basing its review of a presidential action on what talking heads say on CNN? Those statements were not under oath, were not subject to cross-examination, and lack the reliability and credibility usually required by a court of law before relying on it.
The Court even reached back to December 7, 2015, nearly a year before Trump was elected president, to cite a “Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration” that was posted on Trump’s campaign website by someone unknown. No court has ever relied so heavily on campaign rhetoric by a presidential candidate in order to invalidate actions he took after he became president.
Trump was, after all, ultimately elected president, based largely on his strong opposition to uncontrolled immigration and his promise to stop it. Under the logic of the Fourth Circuit, President Trump could be acting unconstitutionally just by sitting in the White House.
As pointed out by the Republican-appointed judges who dissented, the Fourth Circuit decision was wrong for at least three different reasons.
First, the Fourth Circuit ignored the clear precedent in favor of deferring to the president's authority to exclude aliens from the United States. Few matters are as clearly within the exclusive authority of the legislative and executive branches as immigration is.
Second, the Court invented out of thin air a new rule that allows mere campaign statements to be used against a president as he exercises his authority in the White House. Judges thereby inject themselves into the political process in a way never contemplated by the Founders.
Third, the Fourth Circuit vastly expanded the misuse of the Establishment Clause to sacrifice even national security on the altar of the phony “separation of church and state.” As the dissenters pointed out, this expanded view of the Establishment Clause is “totally unworkable and inappropriate under any standard of analysis.”
There are no vacancies on the Fourth Circuit for President Trump to fill. For now, the White House seems content to climb the ladder one more time, hoping for a 5-4 win before the Supreme Court.
But what if the Supreme Court rules against President Trump and the will of the People as the Fourth Circuit did? The Trump Administration needs to develop a “Plan B” that prevents the will of the People from continuing to be thwarted by judicial supremacy.
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.
By John and Andy Schlafly
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.
One might wonder why a statement by a campaign spokeswoman would even be admissible in a court proceeding to consider the constitutionality of an Executive Order. Katrina Pierson, a Trump spokeswoman, once told CNN that “we’ve allowed this propaganda to spread all through the country that [Islam] is a religion of peace,” and the Fourth Circuit relied on that statement and others as the basis for striking down an Executive Order limiting travel from certain countries.
The Fourth Circuit also quoted Rudy Giuliani, the former popular mayor of New York City, who was described as an “advisor” to the candidate, which means that he did not speak for Trump but offered advice to him. Despite that relationship lacking in authority, the Fourth Circuit relied on a statement by Giuliani that President Trump wanted to enact a “Muslim ban.”
A trial judge would not ordinarily allow such hearsay to be admitted in an everyday trial, so why is a Court of Appeals basing its review of a presidential action on what talking heads say on CNN? Those statements were not under oath, were not subject to cross-examination, and lack the reliability and credibility usually required by a court of law before relying on it.
The Court even reached back to December 7, 2015, nearly a year before Trump was elected president, to cite a “Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration” that was posted on Trump’s campaign website by someone unknown. No court has ever relied so heavily on campaign rhetoric by a presidential candidate in order to invalidate actions he took after he became president.
Trump was, after all, ultimately elected president, based largely on his strong opposition to uncontrolled immigration and his promise to stop it. Under the logic of the Fourth Circuit, President Trump could be acting unconstitutionally just by sitting in the White House.
As pointed out by the Republican-appointed judges who dissented, the Fourth Circuit decision was wrong for at least three different reasons.
First, the Fourth Circuit ignored the clear precedent in favor of deferring to the president's authority to exclude aliens from the United States. Few matters are as clearly within the exclusive authority of the legislative and executive branches as immigration is.
Second, the Court invented out of thin air a new rule that allows mere campaign statements to be used against a president as he exercises his authority in the White House. Judges thereby inject themselves into the political process in a way never contemplated by the Founders.
Third, the Fourth Circuit vastly expanded the misuse of the Establishment Clause to sacrifice even national security on the altar of the phony “separation of church and state.” As the dissenters pointed out, this expanded view of the Establishment Clause is “totally unworkable and inappropriate under any standard of analysis.”
There are no vacancies on the Fourth Circuit for President Trump to fill. For now, the White House seems content to climb the ladder one more time, hoping for a 5-4 win before the Supreme Court.
But what if the Supreme Court rules against President Trump and the will of the People as the Fourth Circuit did? The Trump Administration needs to develop a “Plan B” that prevents the will of the People from continuing to be thwarted by judicial supremacy.
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.
Friday, May 26, 2017
Trump is the most honest President
It is funny how some people are always complaining about President Trump lying, while others say that his problem is that he is much too candid and truthful:
In fact, the “liar president,” as his opponents would have it, might just be the most pathologically unsecretive — dare I say, honest — president we’ve seen yet. ...Some comments here.
In a town of snakes and double-agents, the president’s extreme emotional transparency would be admirable, a sign of vulnerability, sincerity, guilelessness—that is, if it weren’t so self-incriminating. ...
No, Trump could not prevaricate. Evidently, the president dies in darkness. And it wasn’t even under interrogation lights that he gave up the truth. He volunteered it. I chopped down the cherry tree, Lester Holt!
After the Confederates, Who’s Next?
Pat Buchanan writes:
Behind this remorseless drive to blast the greatest names from America’s past off public buildings, and to tear down their statues and monuments, is an egalitarian extremism rooted in envy and hate.
Among its core convictions is that spreading Christianity was a cover story for rapacious Europeans who, after discovering America, came in masses to dispossess and exterminate native peoples. “The white race,” wrote Susan Sontag, “is the cancer of human history.” ...
As scholar Charles Murray has written, 97 percent of the world’s most significant figures and 97 percent of the world’s greatest achievements in the arts, architecture, literature, astrology, biology, earth sciences, physics, medicine, mathematics and technology came from the West.
What is disheartening is not that there are haters of our civilization out there, but that there seem to be fewer defenders.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Despite Record Reporting Bias, Trump’s Base Remains Solid
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly
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.
The Allott Brothers are studying a subset of these Pivot Counties as a project of the Washington Examiner. Their work illustrates that Trump’s most important support is not from the stereotypical rich white males as Trump’s detractors pretend.
On Monday Daniel Allott released his analysis of Robeson County, North Carolina, which switched from voting for Obama in both of his elections to voting for Trump last November. It is the state’s largest county, and was one of the six Pivot Counties in North Carolina that went from thoroughly blue to bright red, i.e., from Democrat to Republican, thereby enabling Trump to carry the state.
Obama had carried Robeson County by a landslide margin of 17 points in 2012, but then Trump carried it by 4 points in 2016. That is a 21-point swing in just four years.
Robeson County, like many of the Pivot Counties, is awash in poverty and what Daniel Allott calls “cultural despair.” Prior to Trump, a Republican presidential candidate had not won the county since 1972.
Robeson County is not overwhelmingly white in race as one might mistakenly think. To the contrary, Robeson County is racially diverse, with more than half of its voters either American Indian or African American.
It has been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs, and its average income is only $30,000 today, far less than the national average. This is one of hundreds of counties in the United States which has been ravaged by the so-called “free trade” that deprives Americans of good jobs while enriching Wall Street.
Two-thirds of our country contains at least one Pivot County, and the biggest clusters of them are in Iowa and Maine. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois all have their share of these counties too.
Equally telling are the states that have no Pivot Counties, where voters are so locked into the Democratic machine that not even a charismatic candidate like Trump can dislodge the grip. Liberal strongholds of California, Massachusetts, and Nevada, for example, did not have a single county that switched from Obama to Trump.
Western Pennsylvania is the region perhaps most crucial to the presidential election in 2020, as the prize of 20 electoral college votes from that state is difficult to make up elsewhere. When it became apparent that Trump had won Pennsylvania last November, the keys to the White House were his.
Trump’s popularity in Western Pennsylvania has even increased amid all the media-bashing of his presidency. A 60-year-old Democrat there, Robert “R.J.” Sokol, was quoted recently as saying “I think he's doing what he thinks is best for the country.”
Sokol is a supervisor at a chemical plant, so he knows a thing or two about the need for manufacturing jobs. As to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, Sokol said, “This country needs a shake-up.”
Statewide, Trump’s approval rating in Pennsylvania has risen nearly to that of its Democratic Senator Bob Casey, who is up for reelection. Given that Democrats have an advantage of nearly one million registered voters more than Republicans in Pennsylvania, it is phenomenal that Trump does so well there as a Republican, and Trump’s approval rating has even improved significantly there since he took office.
A Washington Post poll reveals that 96% of Trump voters would cast their ballots for him again, while only 85% of Hillary voters would. The more Trump is unfairly disparaged by the elite, the more his supporters rightly stand by their man.
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.
By John and Andy Schlafly
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.
The Allott Brothers are studying a subset of these Pivot Counties as a project of the Washington Examiner. Their work illustrates that Trump’s most important support is not from the stereotypical rich white males as Trump’s detractors pretend.
On Monday Daniel Allott released his analysis of Robeson County, North Carolina, which switched from voting for Obama in both of his elections to voting for Trump last November. It is the state’s largest county, and was one of the six Pivot Counties in North Carolina that went from thoroughly blue to bright red, i.e., from Democrat to Republican, thereby enabling Trump to carry the state.
Obama had carried Robeson County by a landslide margin of 17 points in 2012, but then Trump carried it by 4 points in 2016. That is a 21-point swing in just four years.
Robeson County, like many of the Pivot Counties, is awash in poverty and what Daniel Allott calls “cultural despair.” Prior to Trump, a Republican presidential candidate had not won the county since 1972.
Robeson County is not overwhelmingly white in race as one might mistakenly think. To the contrary, Robeson County is racially diverse, with more than half of its voters either American Indian or African American.
It has been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs, and its average income is only $30,000 today, far less than the national average. This is one of hundreds of counties in the United States which has been ravaged by the so-called “free trade” that deprives Americans of good jobs while enriching Wall Street.
Two-thirds of our country contains at least one Pivot County, and the biggest clusters of them are in Iowa and Maine. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois all have their share of these counties too.
Equally telling are the states that have no Pivot Counties, where voters are so locked into the Democratic machine that not even a charismatic candidate like Trump can dislodge the grip. Liberal strongholds of California, Massachusetts, and Nevada, for example, did not have a single county that switched from Obama to Trump.
Western Pennsylvania is the region perhaps most crucial to the presidential election in 2020, as the prize of 20 electoral college votes from that state is difficult to make up elsewhere. When it became apparent that Trump had won Pennsylvania last November, the keys to the White House were his.
Trump’s popularity in Western Pennsylvania has even increased amid all the media-bashing of his presidency. A 60-year-old Democrat there, Robert “R.J.” Sokol, was quoted recently as saying “I think he's doing what he thinks is best for the country.”
Sokol is a supervisor at a chemical plant, so he knows a thing or two about the need for manufacturing jobs. As to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, Sokol said, “This country needs a shake-up.”
Statewide, Trump’s approval rating in Pennsylvania has risen nearly to that of its Democratic Senator Bob Casey, who is up for reelection. Given that Democrats have an advantage of nearly one million registered voters more than Republicans in Pennsylvania, it is phenomenal that Trump does so well there as a Republican, and Trump’s approval rating has even improved significantly there since he took office.
A Washington Post poll reveals that 96% of Trump voters would cast their ballots for him again, while only 85% of Hillary voters would. The more Trump is unfairly disparaged by the elite, the more his supporters rightly stand by their man.
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.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Dependency on foreign-born workers
Bloomberg reports:
The number of foreign-born workers in the U.S. rose to nearly 27 million in 2016, up about 700,000 from the previous year and representing 16.9 percent of the nation's labor force, according to an annual report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Thursday. That's the highest proportion in records going back to 1996, when immigrants accounted for just 10.8 percent of the workforce.Do we really need foreigners to do 17% of the work in the USA? We have become dangerously dependent on foreign workers. There is no need for it.
The share has risen steadily over the last six years ...
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Election Integrity Will Make America Great Again
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
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.
Kobach's Kansas is one of two states where state law requires proof of citizenship from persons registering to vote. Since Kobach began enforcing that sensible law, some 30,000 people left their voter registrations incomplete because they were unable to prove U.S. citizenship.
Secretary Kobach has also promoted wider use of the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck for catching people who are registered to vote in more than one state. Recently he obtained the conviction of a Kansan who voted for Colorado's Amendment 64 to legalize marijuana.
One need look no further than Wisconsin to see the positive results of voter integrity reforms. In the 2016 presidential election Wisconsin enforced strong new voter ID requirements to prohibit willy-nilly voting by illegals, felons, out-of-staters, and double-voters who happen to wander by a polling booth.
The Wisconsin voter ID law in effect for this past presidential election stamped out voter fraud, and supporters of Hillary Clinton are furious about it. They claim that as many as 300,000 people were unable to vote in Wisconsin due to this good law.
That’s baloney, of course, as nowhere near 300,000 or even 30,000 were turned away by the polling booths in Wisconsin for lack of a voter ID. Instead, many thousands of Democrats obviously stayed home rather than cast their ballot for pro-abortion, pro-immigration, pro-bad-trade-deals Hillary Clinton, whom even Bernie Sanders defeated there.
Wisconsin is a mixture of the Rust Belt and sentiments of the Bible Belt, a combination of religious faith and a longing for return of manufacturing jobs. Trump’s campaign message resonated perfectly there, where the massive turnout at his rallies confirmed the genuine groundswell of support for him and for down-ballot candidates like Senator Ron Johnson who endorsed Trump.
Nearly 3 million people cast their ballots in Wisconsin in this past presidential election. Yet voter turnout overall was down by 91,000 people, as huge numbers of Democrats stayed home, including 41,000 fewer votes in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee.
As with many elections, Trump’s final margin of victory was quite close in Wisconsin, less than 23,000 votes, and the margin was even closer for many Republican candidates down-ballot. Thousands of illegal votes could swing a close election like this or force a recount, and indeed liberals did demand a recount afterwards that could have impacted our entire Nation.
But thanks to Wisconsin’s strong new voter ID law, not enough illegal votes could possibly have been cast to swing the result to Hillary. Wisconsin’s law prevented double voting by out-of-staters, fraudulent votes on behalf of dead people, balloting by illegal aliens, and improper voting by felons.
Wisconsin requires a valid in-state drivers’ license, with a photo ID, in order to vote there. This is the same requirement for passing through security at airports, for entering most government buildings, and for opening a new bank account.
Safeguarding our elections is just as important as securing the entry into government buildings, and the integrity of the presidential election in Wisconsin was what it should have been in every state. Legal voters decided the outcome there, not the inaccurate polls that predicted Hillary would win it easily.
It is essential to improve the integrity of our elections and repair the holes in our rickety system of casting ballots, and President Trump’s creation of the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity is welcome relief. With so much hoopla about securing the confidentiality of routinely classified information, it is even more important to secure the integrity of our elections.
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.
by John and Andy Schlafly
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.
Kobach's Kansas is one of two states where state law requires proof of citizenship from persons registering to vote. Since Kobach began enforcing that sensible law, some 30,000 people left their voter registrations incomplete because they were unable to prove U.S. citizenship.
Secretary Kobach has also promoted wider use of the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck for catching people who are registered to vote in more than one state. Recently he obtained the conviction of a Kansan who voted for Colorado's Amendment 64 to legalize marijuana.
One need look no further than Wisconsin to see the positive results of voter integrity reforms. In the 2016 presidential election Wisconsin enforced strong new voter ID requirements to prohibit willy-nilly voting by illegals, felons, out-of-staters, and double-voters who happen to wander by a polling booth.
The Wisconsin voter ID law in effect for this past presidential election stamped out voter fraud, and supporters of Hillary Clinton are furious about it. They claim that as many as 300,000 people were unable to vote in Wisconsin due to this good law.
That’s baloney, of course, as nowhere near 300,000 or even 30,000 were turned away by the polling booths in Wisconsin for lack of a voter ID. Instead, many thousands of Democrats obviously stayed home rather than cast their ballot for pro-abortion, pro-immigration, pro-bad-trade-deals Hillary Clinton, whom even Bernie Sanders defeated there.
Wisconsin is a mixture of the Rust Belt and sentiments of the Bible Belt, a combination of religious faith and a longing for return of manufacturing jobs. Trump’s campaign message resonated perfectly there, where the massive turnout at his rallies confirmed the genuine groundswell of support for him and for down-ballot candidates like Senator Ron Johnson who endorsed Trump.
Nearly 3 million people cast their ballots in Wisconsin in this past presidential election. Yet voter turnout overall was down by 91,000 people, as huge numbers of Democrats stayed home, including 41,000 fewer votes in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee.
As with many elections, Trump’s final margin of victory was quite close in Wisconsin, less than 23,000 votes, and the margin was even closer for many Republican candidates down-ballot. Thousands of illegal votes could swing a close election like this or force a recount, and indeed liberals did demand a recount afterwards that could have impacted our entire Nation.
But thanks to Wisconsin’s strong new voter ID law, not enough illegal votes could possibly have been cast to swing the result to Hillary. Wisconsin’s law prevented double voting by out-of-staters, fraudulent votes on behalf of dead people, balloting by illegal aliens, and improper voting by felons.
Wisconsin requires a valid in-state drivers’ license, with a photo ID, in order to vote there. This is the same requirement for passing through security at airports, for entering most government buildings, and for opening a new bank account.
Safeguarding our elections is just as important as securing the entry into government buildings, and the integrity of the presidential election in Wisconsin was what it should have been in every state. Legal voters decided the outcome there, not the inaccurate polls that predicted Hillary would win it easily.
It is essential to improve the integrity of our elections and repair the holes in our rickety system of casting ballots, and President Trump’s creation of the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity is welcome relief. With so much hoopla about securing the confidentiality of routinely classified information, it is even more important to secure the integrity of our elections.
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.
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Republican is the family values party
Steve Sailer writes:
Sine late 2004, I’ve been pointing out how the family values party does best in Presidential elections in family values states, which tend to be those with high rates of marriage, likely due to Affordable Family Formation. At the Electoral College levels, these correlations are extraordinarily high for the social sciences.In other words, Democrats can win elections by destroying marriage and the family.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
How to Pay for the Wall
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
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.
As a presidential candidate in 2015, Donald Trump cited the $4.2 billion figure as part of his plan to enforce U.S. immigration law. Even the leftwing Politifact had to admit that the inspector general’s report “corroborates” Trump’s claim that $4.2 billion a year can be saved by stopping those illegal refunds.
The potential for illegal refunds has existed since the tax credit was first enacted in 2001, but a new member of Congress is determined to end the ripoff. The first bill introduced by newly elected Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA), would close the loophole by simply requiring a valid Social Security number to claim the refundable credit.
Stanching the flow of illegal tax refunds would be enough to pay for the wall by itself, but even that’s not the biggest source of indirect funding to build the wall. It would also relieve the burden that illegal aliens place on many other programs that make up our taxpayer-funded social safety net for low-income households.
Dr. Steven Camarota explained how this works in his April 27 testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The key point is that people who would be stopped by the border wall lack the skills or education that would permit them to earn enough to support themselves.
Based on data from the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Camarota testified that the vast majority of illegal border-crossers never finished high school, a level of education that is far less than Americans as a whole or even immigrants as a whole. No matter how hard-working they may be, high-school dropouts just can’t make it in America without relying on tax-funded programs for food, housing, and medical care.
Dr. Camarota also cited the monumental 2013 report by Robert Rector, who has long been the leading authority on the 72 means-tested programs which are collectively known as welfare. Rector calculated that the average illegal immigrant imposes a lifetime fiscal cost (benefits consumed minus taxes paid) of $74,722.
In other words, for every 100,000 people stopped by the wall on the southern border, our nation saves $7.5 billion in what we would otherwise have to shell out to support them and their families. With that staggering savings, the border wall would clearly pay for itself. It’s the most cost-effective infrastructure we could build.
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.
by John and Andy Schlafly
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.
As a presidential candidate in 2015, Donald Trump cited the $4.2 billion figure as part of his plan to enforce U.S. immigration law. Even the leftwing Politifact had to admit that the inspector general’s report “corroborates” Trump’s claim that $4.2 billion a year can be saved by stopping those illegal refunds.
The potential for illegal refunds has existed since the tax credit was first enacted in 2001, but a new member of Congress is determined to end the ripoff. The first bill introduced by newly elected Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA), would close the loophole by simply requiring a valid Social Security number to claim the refundable credit.
Stanching the flow of illegal tax refunds would be enough to pay for the wall by itself, but even that’s not the biggest source of indirect funding to build the wall. It would also relieve the burden that illegal aliens place on many other programs that make up our taxpayer-funded social safety net for low-income households.
Dr. Steven Camarota explained how this works in his April 27 testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The key point is that people who would be stopped by the border wall lack the skills or education that would permit them to earn enough to support themselves.
Based on data from the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Camarota testified that the vast majority of illegal border-crossers never finished high school, a level of education that is far less than Americans as a whole or even immigrants as a whole. No matter how hard-working they may be, high-school dropouts just can’t make it in America without relying on tax-funded programs for food, housing, and medical care.
Dr. Camarota also cited the monumental 2013 report by Robert Rector, who has long been the leading authority on the 72 means-tested programs which are collectively known as welfare. Rector calculated that the average illegal immigrant imposes a lifetime fiscal cost (benefits consumed minus taxes paid) of $74,722.
In other words, for every 100,000 people stopped by the wall on the southern border, our nation saves $7.5 billion in what we would otherwise have to shell out to support them and their families. With that staggering savings, the border wall would clearly pay for itself. It’s the most cost-effective infrastructure we could build.
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.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
It is do-or-die for America
WND recalls its its May 6, 2015 article on Phyllis Schlafly:
When it became apparent that Trump was the only candidate standing against the forces wanting to break up this country, she endorsed him. This caused a split with some of her Eagle Forum followers who wanted a pro-immigration candidate like Jeb Bush.
The women credited – or blamed – by many in America for halting the Equal Rights Amendment in its tracks is now warning that this is another “do-or-die” moment for the nation, ...She did not know it at the time, but the following month Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy for President, and promised exactly the choice she had been asking for.
This, she said on Wednesday, is another such moment.
“It is do-or-die for America,” Schlafly said of the developing battle over mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens in the country.
Kids out of control, parents out of control, and people want to know “Who Killed the American Family?” Answers are here, in Phyllis Schlafly’s new analysis of the nation.
“Once you have one amnesty, people are lining up for the next one. It doesn’t stop or end anything. I think there are people who simply want to break up this country,” she said.
She said the critical time is coming when America will have to decide on open borders, amnesty, cheap labor and more, including its own future.
About the 2016 election, she pointed to the possibility it will be a Hillary Clinton - Jeb Bush fight for the Oval Office.
On one hand, she said, is a candidate who wants to give those already in the country illegally a chance to stay, and who recently claimed America has “11 million people that should come out from the shadows and receive earned legal status.”
On the other side is a candidate who recently proclaimed America must give illegal immigrants a path to “full and equal citizenship.”
If it comes down to Bush vs. Clinton, will the American people really have a choice on immigration? Schlafly doesn’t think so.
When it became apparent that Trump was the only candidate standing against the forces wanting to break up this country, she endorsed him. This caused a split with some of her Eagle Forum followers who wanted a pro-immigration candidate like Jeb Bush.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Missile Defense Needed Against North Korea
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
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.
Globalists have long opposed using American technology to build missile defense, just as they oppose building a border wall to stop illegal immigration. Globalism favors a less sovereign United States, one that is more dependent on the United Nations and international power brokers.
Globalists have interfered with missile defense development for a half-century, dating back to 1966 when Phyllis Schlafly advocated for the Nike X missile defense system. Nike did not stand for an athletic shoe then, but for the Greek goddess representing victory in both war and peace.
Phyllis pointed out then that development of a missile defense system would have weakened the resolve of the Soviet Union and could have dissuaded them from continuing to fund the war of attrition in Vietnam. Nearly two decades later, again at the urging of Phyllis, President Ronald Reagan promoted the development of a similar program and it helped enormously in causing the collapse of the communist Soviet Union.
In a speech delivered in October 1966 – more than 50 years ago – Phyllis Schlafly urged globalist Robert McNamara to drop his opposition to the Nike X missile defense program. McNamara was the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in American history, dictating policy under the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.
Phyllis explained then that “American technological genius has developed a marvelous new weapon which can give us the anti-missile defense we need. It is called the Nike X. It has been developed, and thoroughly tested, so that we know it is reliable and ready to go into production.”
Arguments against missile defense are almost too silly to repeat. On one hand critics insisted that it is impossible to build, but then on the other hand they contradicted themselves by asserting that it would be destabilizing to construct one successfully.
President Reagan persevered against the naysayers, and his refusal to abandon this program was a major cause of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, as the Soviets realized they could not keep up with our technological advances. When the Gulf War broke out during the presidency of the first George Bush in 1991, the newly developed missile defense system known as “Patriot” played a spectacular role in shooting down missiles launched by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Phyllis Schlafly referred to opponents of missile defense as the “gravediggers," because their senseless opposition to defending us against enemy attack was akin to digging graves for us. It is inevitable that an attention-seeking dictator will get control of a nuclear arsenal and start launching missiles far and wide.
That day may arrive soon, in the form of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. With so many technological advances in every other walk of life, now is the time for a new “Manhattan Project” to upgrade and perfect our missile defense systems.
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.
by John and Andy Schlafly
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.
Globalists have long opposed using American technology to build missile defense, just as they oppose building a border wall to stop illegal immigration. Globalism favors a less sovereign United States, one that is more dependent on the United Nations and international power brokers.
Globalists have interfered with missile defense development for a half-century, dating back to 1966 when Phyllis Schlafly advocated for the Nike X missile defense system. Nike did not stand for an athletic shoe then, but for the Greek goddess representing victory in both war and peace.
Phyllis pointed out then that development of a missile defense system would have weakened the resolve of the Soviet Union and could have dissuaded them from continuing to fund the war of attrition in Vietnam. Nearly two decades later, again at the urging of Phyllis, President Ronald Reagan promoted the development of a similar program and it helped enormously in causing the collapse of the communist Soviet Union.
In a speech delivered in October 1966 – more than 50 years ago – Phyllis Schlafly urged globalist Robert McNamara to drop his opposition to the Nike X missile defense program. McNamara was the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in American history, dictating policy under the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.
Phyllis explained then that “American technological genius has developed a marvelous new weapon which can give us the anti-missile defense we need. It is called the Nike X. It has been developed, and thoroughly tested, so that we know it is reliable and ready to go into production.”
Arguments against missile defense are almost too silly to repeat. On one hand critics insisted that it is impossible to build, but then on the other hand they contradicted themselves by asserting that it would be destabilizing to construct one successfully.
President Reagan persevered against the naysayers, and his refusal to abandon this program was a major cause of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, as the Soviets realized they could not keep up with our technological advances. When the Gulf War broke out during the presidency of the first George Bush in 1991, the newly developed missile defense system known as “Patriot” played a spectacular role in shooting down missiles launched by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Phyllis Schlafly referred to opponents of missile defense as the “gravediggers," because their senseless opposition to defending us against enemy attack was akin to digging graves for us. It is inevitable that an attention-seeking dictator will get control of a nuclear arsenal and start launching missiles far and wide.
That day may arrive soon, in the form of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. With so many technological advances in every other walk of life, now is the time for a new “Manhattan Project” to upgrade and perfect our missile defense systems.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)