THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly
“I didn’t leave the Democratic Party,” Ronald Reagan famously said when he began his political career in the 1960s. “The party left me.”
Now the same is being said by many former fans about the National Football League. Americans who grew up admiring NFL football in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, can candidly observe that the NFL has left them.
Donald Trump, like Reagan, was elected President with the votes of millions of former Democrats, and Trump did NFL football fans a favor by using his bully pulpit (on Twitter) to expose how un-American America’s pastime has become. As with other issues in the public eye, Trump’s smackdown of the anti-American stance by the NFL is welcome change.
Behind the scenes, the NFL had already been pandering to the radical Left for years. Entirely dependent on the liberal media for profits, the NFL cares more about maintaining its massive revenues than it does about American values.
With attendance and viewership in decline, the NFL has increasingly embraced gambling as a way of boosting its own profits at the expense of those vulnerable to that addiction. Its decision to move the Raiders to Las Vegas will make football seem more like a game of roulette or blackjack than family entertainment.
Near Detroit, the now-roofless Pontiac Silverdome sits as a colossal piece of litter that contributes to the blight of that once successful center of automobile manufacturing. Other cities, from Saint Louis to San Diego, have been harmed by the NFL taking big subsidies from local taxpayers and then, before public bonds are paid off, skipping town to a more profitable deal somewhere else.
Halftime performances at the Super Bowl, in front of the largest television audience of the year, have gone the way of commencement addresses at colleges where no conservative performers are allowed and no conservative messages permitted. Bizarre occult themes are imposed on the captive audience during these shows.
This is not the same NFL where Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney ordered his head coach not to cut Rocky Bleier from the team after Rocky returned from Vietnam, where he was wounded in combat. That patriotic decision created one of the many genuine heroes who played during the golden era of the game, and Rocky Bleier caught the extraordinary winning touchdown pass in the 1979 Super Bowl.
Today, the NFL is more likely to cut talented players in order to pander to liberals, as in the exclusion of the Bible-quoting Tim Tebow. Burgess Owens, a member of the Super Bowl champion Oakland Raiders in 1981, was a dynamic speaker at our recently concluded Eagle Council in St. Louis where he explained how special the NFL was then, and how different it is now.
Phyllis Schlafly applauded Pete Rozelle, founder of the modern NFL and inventor of the Super Bowl, for respecting our traditions by not scheduling football games on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Rozelle also kept gambling out of football during his nearly 30-year tenure.
The current NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, has played footsie with gamblers by making deals with weekly fantasy football games, which are thinly disguised gambling, while fans are deciding not to fill stadiums in several major markets like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Goodell’s spokesman is Joe Lockhart, who managed the White House press during Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and who recently sold his 9-bedroom Washington, D.C. home to Barack Obama for $8.1 million.
Today’s NFL has become a massive entitlement program for billionaires, one of the worst examples of corporate welfare. Like others who enjoy lavish lifestyles based on government handouts, many NFL owners are ungrateful to the American system that makes their success possible.
Of course not all players put their game above the American flag. Pittsburgh Steelers’ lineman Alejandro Villanueva, a former Army Ranger, gave us all something to cheer about when he stood alone on the field to honor the American flag and the National Anthem while his teammates cowered in the tunnel.
But then even he had to pay a price for being patriotic, as his own head coach and teammates began criticizing him for it. He was apparently forced to apologize for supposedly embarrassing his teammates.
President Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin summed this issue up well on one of the Sunday morning talk shows, remarking that NFL players “can do free speech on their own time.” They do not have to insult our Nation in taxpayer-built stadiums before captive audiences.
Congress should hold hearings on how much taxpayer money is flowing to support the anti-American conduct of the NFL, and state legislatures should consider passing laws to cut off that money at the local level. While people have a right to be unpatriotic, Americans should not be forced to support them.
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.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Monday, September 25, 2017
The Genius of Steve Bannon
A Trump-hating Democrat laments:
‘The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ‘em,’ Bannon gloated to Kuttner. ‘I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.’Yes, the Democrat Party is focused on race and identity, while Trump and Bannon talk economic nationalism and what is good for the USA.
Rare does a political strategist so explicitly reveal his game plan. Rarer do his opponents utterly fail to recalibrate their tactics in response. From the day Trump announced his candidacy for president with a smear maligning Mexicans as rapists, to the release of a tape in which he joked about groping women, the American left has campaigned against Donald Trump largely on claims pertaining to identity: that Trump is a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, an Islamophobic bigot. ...
Notwithstanding the merits of these charges against Trump – which I happen to agree with – it was clearly an unsuccessful strategy, as Trump not only won the election, but did so with a higher portion of the black and Latino vote than his Republican predecessor, and with a respectable 42 percent of women.
This result came as a shock to people living in Democratic Party redoubts, like major metropolitan areas and college towns. And it came as a particular shock to the media, which had predicted with utter certainty that Donald Trump could never be elected president. ...
And so we should have every expectation that Trump will continue the Bannonite strategy of playing the role of culture warrior-in-chief. This appraisal of Bannon’s political acumen should not be interpreted as a moral judgment on the policy prescriptions he has advised Trump to follow. For what it’s worth, I disagree with Bannon and Trump on the travel ban, the transgender ban, and the removal of Confederate icons. But I’m not the sort of person Democrats need to win future elections.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
“Just Stop It Now!”
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly
When the Democratic minority leaders of the Senate and House emerged from the White House last week, “Chuck and Nancy” claimed that President Trump had agreed to a deal that would protect so-called Dreamers from deportation. The media spin implied that Trump has a soft spot for the illegal aliens who, we’re told, were brought to our country as children through no fault of their own.
But in fact no deal was reached, as the White House soon clarified. For starters, any deal for Dreamers would require inclusion of real border security provisions to which the Democrats have never been willing to agree.
Trump later told reporters that “We’re not looking at citizenship” for Dreamers, and on Twitter he insisted that “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” (Chain migration and a path to citizenship were included in previous versions of the Dream Act.)
The Dreamers are not children, as globalist opponents of border security pretend. Often those in favor of open borders can be heard referring to Dreamers as “kids” when they are typically adults in their 20s, or even older. As Trump has explained, “people think in terms of children but they’re really young adults.”
Back home in San Francisco during this week’s Congressional recess, Nancy Pelosi held a press conference at which she intended to introduce a carefully selected group of sympathetic Dreamers. Much to her dismay, she was confronted with a mob of 60 angry aliens who feared they would not qualify for the Dreamer deal with Trump.
“You’re not helping the cause,” Pelosi pleaded pathetically to the mob of “undocumented youth” who shouted her down. “Just stop it now!” Pelosi declared to the liberal protesters, who can never be appeased.
In the age of Trump, Pelosi knows that any hope of a deal depends on persuading the public that a handful of sympathetic young people are typical of the millions of illegal immigrants.
“All of us or none of us,” the rioters chanted for nearly an hour, as they waved signs demanding that Pelosi “FIGHT 4 ALL 11 MILLION.” It was a good illustration of the entitlement mentality of illegal immigrants who think they have a right to defy our laws.
The mob scene in San Francisco should have been enough to discredit any DACA deal, but even worse was what happened the same day at the federal courthouse a few blocks away from where Pelosi was prevented from speaking. That’s where the famous leftwing Harvard Law School professor, Laurence Tribe, filed a massive lawsuit against President Trump, claiming that he had no right to phase out the DACA program.
When DACA was announced in 2010 by executive action, Barack Obama insisted that it was not amnesty but merely a two-year reprieve and work permit with no guarantee of renewal. Obama’s unilateral executive action had no legitimate continuing legal authority, but Tribe’s lawsuit claims that it is somehow unconstitutional for Trump to discontinue the program.
There are four other lawsuits filed against Trump over DACA. A growing pattern among the opponents of Trump and the agenda on which the American people elected him is to file a lawsuit in a district court located within a Court of Appeals that consists overwhelmingly of Democratic-appointed judges, and the Ninth, Fourth, Second, and D.C. Circuits do.
That strategy generally ensures a ruling against President Trump at both the district and appellate court levels. This game by the Left has continued even though the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly slapped down and reversed the liberal lower court rulings, and held in favor of Trump, often unanimously.
Anti-Trumpers are even filing numerous briefs challenging President Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The power of a president to pardon has traditionally been fully supported and even promoted by the political Left, and was used flagrantly by Presidents Obama and Clinton.
If that were not enough, there are multiple lawsuits challenging the prudent action by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to withhold a small amount of federal funding from cities that defy federal law by declaring themselves to be “sanctuary cities” for illegal aliens. Even though federal power is at its peak in how it spends money, a federal district court in Chicago just last Friday issued an extraordinary nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the Trump Administration from implementing its plan to withhold federal taxpayer dollars from sanctuary cities.
The will of the American people is to protect our borders and to deport illegal aliens who should not be here. Crime and the burdens on entitlement programs are immense and Trump should not be blocked by the courts from taking action to defend our sovereignty.
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 the Democratic minority leaders of the Senate and House emerged from the White House last week, “Chuck and Nancy” claimed that President Trump had agreed to a deal that would protect so-called Dreamers from deportation. The media spin implied that Trump has a soft spot for the illegal aliens who, we’re told, were brought to our country as children through no fault of their own.
But in fact no deal was reached, as the White House soon clarified. For starters, any deal for Dreamers would require inclusion of real border security provisions to which the Democrats have never been willing to agree.
Trump later told reporters that “We’re not looking at citizenship” for Dreamers, and on Twitter he insisted that “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” (Chain migration and a path to citizenship were included in previous versions of the Dream Act.)
The Dreamers are not children, as globalist opponents of border security pretend. Often those in favor of open borders can be heard referring to Dreamers as “kids” when they are typically adults in their 20s, or even older. As Trump has explained, “people think in terms of children but they’re really young adults.”
Back home in San Francisco during this week’s Congressional recess, Nancy Pelosi held a press conference at which she intended to introduce a carefully selected group of sympathetic Dreamers. Much to her dismay, she was confronted with a mob of 60 angry aliens who feared they would not qualify for the Dreamer deal with Trump.
“You’re not helping the cause,” Pelosi pleaded pathetically to the mob of “undocumented youth” who shouted her down. “Just stop it now!” Pelosi declared to the liberal protesters, who can never be appeased.
In the age of Trump, Pelosi knows that any hope of a deal depends on persuading the public that a handful of sympathetic young people are typical of the millions of illegal immigrants.
“All of us or none of us,” the rioters chanted for nearly an hour, as they waved signs demanding that Pelosi “FIGHT 4 ALL 11 MILLION.” It was a good illustration of the entitlement mentality of illegal immigrants who think they have a right to defy our laws.
The mob scene in San Francisco should have been enough to discredit any DACA deal, but even worse was what happened the same day at the federal courthouse a few blocks away from where Pelosi was prevented from speaking. That’s where the famous leftwing Harvard Law School professor, Laurence Tribe, filed a massive lawsuit against President Trump, claiming that he had no right to phase out the DACA program.
When DACA was announced in 2010 by executive action, Barack Obama insisted that it was not amnesty but merely a two-year reprieve and work permit with no guarantee of renewal. Obama’s unilateral executive action had no legitimate continuing legal authority, but Tribe’s lawsuit claims that it is somehow unconstitutional for Trump to discontinue the program.
There are four other lawsuits filed against Trump over DACA. A growing pattern among the opponents of Trump and the agenda on which the American people elected him is to file a lawsuit in a district court located within a Court of Appeals that consists overwhelmingly of Democratic-appointed judges, and the Ninth, Fourth, Second, and D.C. Circuits do.
That strategy generally ensures a ruling against President Trump at both the district and appellate court levels. This game by the Left has continued even though the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly slapped down and reversed the liberal lower court rulings, and held in favor of Trump, often unanimously.
Anti-Trumpers are even filing numerous briefs challenging President Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The power of a president to pardon has traditionally been fully supported and even promoted by the political Left, and was used flagrantly by Presidents Obama and Clinton.
If that were not enough, there are multiple lawsuits challenging the prudent action by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to withhold a small amount of federal funding from cities that defy federal law by declaring themselves to be “sanctuary cities” for illegal aliens. Even though federal power is at its peak in how it spends money, a federal district court in Chicago just last Friday issued an extraordinary nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the Trump Administration from implementing its plan to withhold federal taxpayer dollars from sanctuary cities.
The will of the American people is to protect our borders and to deport illegal aliens who should not be here. Crime and the burdens on entitlement programs are immense and Trump should not be blocked by the courts from taking action to defend our sovereignty.
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.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Judge supremacist Posner retires
Chicago news:
Here is Posner's legal philosophy:
Richard A. Posner, one of the best known appellate judges in the nation, is retiring from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday. ...Posner used to known as a conservative, but he actually a judicial supremacist.
Posner also supported the legalization of marijuana and wrote opinions in favor of abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
While one of the most — if not the most — frequently cited federal appellate judges in the United States, Posner had no interest in serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s not a real court,” Posner said in a 2014 interview with the Daily Law Bulletin. “It’s a political court.”
Here is Posner's legal philosophy:
My approach in judging a case is therefore not to worry initially about doctrine, precedent, and the other conventional materials of legal analysis, but instead to try to figure out the sensible solution to the problem or problems presented by the case. Once having found what I think is the sensible solution I ask whether it’s blocked by an authoritative precedent of the Supreme Court or by some other ukase that judges must obey. If it’s not blocked (usually it’s not—usually it can be got around by hook or by crook), I say fine—let’s go with the commonsense solution. ...In others, he does not believe in rule of written law, but in imposing his personal and political beliefs whenever he can.
The time to look up precedents, statutory text, legislative history, and the other conventional materials of judicial decision making is after one has a sense of what the best decision should be for today’s society.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
One third of Chicago students are illegal
The Daily Wire reports:
Chicago is a long way from the Mexican border, and from the coasts.
The Associated Press (AP) took their war-on-words to a whole new level on this week by referring to illegal aliens as "undocumented citizens."The AP has now corrected the story:
The report, published Tuesday, was on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s response to President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“Emanuel spoke as Chicago Public Schools marked the first day of classes Tuesday,” AP reported. “The mayor told students at Solorio Academy High School they ‘are welcome in the city of Chicago.’ The Chicago Sun-Times reports that school officials say about a third of the school's students are undocumented citizens. Emanuel said Chicago schools "will be a Trump-free zone.”
The Associated Press incorrectly described the students who could be affected. They are living in the country illegally, not undocumented citizens.Okay, but how did we get to the point where one third of Chicago students are illegal?
A corrected version of the story is below: ...
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that school officials say about a third of the school's students are living in the country illegally. Emanuel said Chicago schools "will be a Trump-free zone."
Chicago is a long way from the Mexican border, and from the coasts.
Flake keeps lying about President Trump
Arizona Senator Jeff Flake is plugging his Trump-hating book on NPR radio:
Trump did not call the judge "Mexican" as pejorative. He said that some of the judge's rulings showed bias, I think Flake is apparently the one who views the word "Mexican" as pejorative.
Let's hope that Flake gets replaced in 2018 with a more genuine Republican.
If speaking out costs Flake his 2018 reelection bid, will it still be worth it?He should not have spoken on any of those issues if he is going to lie about what Trump said. Flake misrepresents Trump on all 3 of those issues.
“I have an opportunity to speak up now and if people say, well you were critical of the president during the election and my response would be when he referred to Mexican Migrants as rapists, or when he referred to John McCain in a disparaging way saying that he couldn’t support him because he was captured or when he referred to an Indiana-born judge as a Mexican in a pejorative way. On which of those issues should I not have spoken up?”
Trump did not call the judge "Mexican" as pejorative. He said that some of the judge's rulings showed bias, I think Flake is apparently the one who views the word "Mexican" as pejorative.
Let's hope that Flake gets replaced in 2018 with a more genuine Republican.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Trump Separates the Wheat from the Chaff
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly
By agreeing to a surprise, temporary budget deal with “Chuck and Nancy,” the Democratic minority leaders of the Senate and House, President Trump served notice that he is losing patience with leaders of the do-nothing Republican Congress. With time running out in this fiscal year, which means the window for “budget reconciliation” is about to close, Congressional Republicans have failed to deliver on their promises to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, and enact fundamental reforms to federal taxes and entitlement spending.
The temporary budget deal produced a spike in the president’s public approval, which is below 40 percent in most polls. But Trump still beats Hillary Clinton, whose approval rating has sunk to 30 percent, and public approval of Congress has fallen to a new low of 10 percent.
The Republican Congress includes many members of both Houses who never supported Trump, and some bragged they didn’t even vote for him. They don’t understand Trump’s appeal and never believed he could carry Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — states that no Republican presidential candidate has won in nearly 30 years.
Exhibit A is Representative Charlie Dent, a liberal Republican who represents a Pennsylvania district that Trump won by a wide margin. After a rally in Allentown by hundreds of angry constituents demanding that he support the president, Dent announced he will not seek another term in Congress.
A similar battle is shaping up in Arizona where anti-Trump Senator Jeff Flake, whose job approval rating is an abysmal 18 percent, faces a strong challenge in the primary. An Alabama special GOP primary election for U.S. Senate, where most Trump supporters have coalesced behind Roy Moore instead of the candidate favored by Mitch McConnell, will be held on September 26.
The battle is illustrated by two veteran Missouri Republicans, both now 81 years old and retired. One is John Danforth, the Ralston Purina heir who became an ordained Episcopal minister before serving as state attorney general and U.S. Senator.
Senator Danforth has such a reputation for sanctimony that he’s often referred to as Saint Jack. He issued a scathing attack on the President, which the liberal Washington Post and St. Louis Post-Dispatch were only too happy to publish.
Danforth claimed that “Trump isn’t a Republican” because “he stands in opposition to the founding principle of our party: that of a united country” as reflected in our national motto, e pluribus unum (out of many, one). Danforth concluded that “for the sake of our nation, we Republicans must dissociate ourselves from Trump by clearly and strongly insisting that he does not represent what it means to be a Republican.”
The other Republican, Gene McNary, was the longtime prosecuting attorney and county executive in Missouri’s richest and most populous county, Saint Louis. McNary released a cogent response to Danforth, but the liberal media weren’t interested in publishing it.
As McNary correctly noted, “It isn’t the President who is dividing this great Nation, it is the liberal left, the media, and obstructionist Democrats. They can’t get over the fact that the American people elected Donald Trump.”
While Danforth complained that “Trump is eager to tell people they don’t belong here, whether it’s Mexicans, Muslims, the transgendered or another group,” McNary responded: “Is it wrong to tell Mexicans and others to come into the U.S. legally? Is it right for sanctuary cities to flout the law and harbor those who are in the U.S. unlawfully?”
As the former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) before those functions were transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security, McNary patiently explained why Danforth was “patently wrong” to say that Trump’s travel ban is anti-Muslim. People who can produce reliable documents from countries with stable governments are not prevented from coming into the U.S. merely because they are Muslim.
Danforth also took the opportunity to blast the so-called Christian right for being “unfriendly to gay Americans,” to which McNary replied: “I haven’t heard a negative word from the President with regard to individuals who identify as transgender. As one who served in the Army, I can see the rationale for keeping these individuals out of the barracks.”
Many Americans have been stunned by the speed at which the transgender issue has reached the point where even our armed forces may be forced to accommodate a tiny sliver of troubled individuals. At the Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, county fair last month, a 71-year-old lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump changed his voter registration, saying, “There are two parties: one party of Americans, and another party trying to put men in women’s bathrooms and perform sex changes on people at my expense!”
Gene McNary concluded his response to Senator Danforth by observing, “Trump broadened the base by appealing to industrial and trade workers who felt that the Democratic Party had deserted them. I like that. I like Trump. He is my kind of Republican.”
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
By agreeing to a surprise, temporary budget deal with “Chuck and Nancy,” the Democratic minority leaders of the Senate and House, President Trump served notice that he is losing patience with leaders of the do-nothing Republican Congress. With time running out in this fiscal year, which means the window for “budget reconciliation” is about to close, Congressional Republicans have failed to deliver on their promises to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, and enact fundamental reforms to federal taxes and entitlement spending.
The temporary budget deal produced a spike in the president’s public approval, which is below 40 percent in most polls. But Trump still beats Hillary Clinton, whose approval rating has sunk to 30 percent, and public approval of Congress has fallen to a new low of 10 percent.
The Republican Congress includes many members of both Houses who never supported Trump, and some bragged they didn’t even vote for him. They don’t understand Trump’s appeal and never believed he could carry Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — states that no Republican presidential candidate has won in nearly 30 years.
Exhibit A is Representative Charlie Dent, a liberal Republican who represents a Pennsylvania district that Trump won by a wide margin. After a rally in Allentown by hundreds of angry constituents demanding that he support the president, Dent announced he will not seek another term in Congress.
A similar battle is shaping up in Arizona where anti-Trump Senator Jeff Flake, whose job approval rating is an abysmal 18 percent, faces a strong challenge in the primary. An Alabama special GOP primary election for U.S. Senate, where most Trump supporters have coalesced behind Roy Moore instead of the candidate favored by Mitch McConnell, will be held on September 26.
The battle is illustrated by two veteran Missouri Republicans, both now 81 years old and retired. One is John Danforth, the Ralston Purina heir who became an ordained Episcopal minister before serving as state attorney general and U.S. Senator.
Senator Danforth has such a reputation for sanctimony that he’s often referred to as Saint Jack. He issued a scathing attack on the President, which the liberal Washington Post and St. Louis Post-Dispatch were only too happy to publish.
Danforth claimed that “Trump isn’t a Republican” because “he stands in opposition to the founding principle of our party: that of a united country” as reflected in our national motto, e pluribus unum (out of many, one). Danforth concluded that “for the sake of our nation, we Republicans must dissociate ourselves from Trump by clearly and strongly insisting that he does not represent what it means to be a Republican.”
The other Republican, Gene McNary, was the longtime prosecuting attorney and county executive in Missouri’s richest and most populous county, Saint Louis. McNary released a cogent response to Danforth, but the liberal media weren’t interested in publishing it.
As McNary correctly noted, “It isn’t the President who is dividing this great Nation, it is the liberal left, the media, and obstructionist Democrats. They can’t get over the fact that the American people elected Donald Trump.”
While Danforth complained that “Trump is eager to tell people they don’t belong here, whether it’s Mexicans, Muslims, the transgendered or another group,” McNary responded: “Is it wrong to tell Mexicans and others to come into the U.S. legally? Is it right for sanctuary cities to flout the law and harbor those who are in the U.S. unlawfully?”
As the former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) before those functions were transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security, McNary patiently explained why Danforth was “patently wrong” to say that Trump’s travel ban is anti-Muslim. People who can produce reliable documents from countries with stable governments are not prevented from coming into the U.S. merely because they are Muslim.
Danforth also took the opportunity to blast the so-called Christian right for being “unfriendly to gay Americans,” to which McNary replied: “I haven’t heard a negative word from the President with regard to individuals who identify as transgender. As one who served in the Army, I can see the rationale for keeping these individuals out of the barracks.”
Many Americans have been stunned by the speed at which the transgender issue has reached the point where even our armed forces may be forced to accommodate a tiny sliver of troubled individuals. At the Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, county fair last month, a 71-year-old lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump changed his voter registration, saying, “There are two parties: one party of Americans, and another party trying to put men in women’s bathrooms and perform sex changes on people at my expense!”
Gene McNary concluded his response to Senator Danforth by observing, “Trump broadened the base by appealing to industrial and trade workers who felt that the Democratic Party had deserted them. I like that. I like Trump. He is my kind of Republican.”
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.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Ending DACA Restores the Rule of Law
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly
President Trump has delivered again on a campaign promise, by ending the unlawful pandering to illegal aliens. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA for short, was an executive order by President Obama that prevented the deportation of adults who are unlawfully in our country.
Most of the beneficiaries of DACA are not children at all, but young, able-bodied adults who are taking jobs and benefits away from American citizens. Many states, whose budgets are burdened by illegal aliens, were planning to bring litigation to block DACA.
President Trump’s plan to phase out DACA, which granted amnesty for illegal aliens who claim they were brought to our country as children, restores the rule of law to immigration. President Obama’s executive actions had undermined both immigration law and congressional authority over it.
No new applications will be accepted under DACA without further action by Congress, but existing applications will continue to be processed, and DACA privileges will be honored until they expire. The government will continue issuing DACA renewals for another six months, which gives Congress plenty of time to consider a permanent law.
Trump’s decision to pass the responsibility to Congress, where it belongs, is the best part. The Constitution gives Congress the power to make our immigration policy, so any change in the law must start there with Congress being held politically accountable for any attempts to shift benefits from American citizens to illegals.
By rolling out the new policy in this way, Trump has not revoked anyone’s legal status, nor is anyone in danger of being “rounded up” for deportation. DACA recipients still have the same rights they had before, no more and no less.
DACA was never supposed to be permanent. When President Obama unilaterally instituted the program in 2012 without Congressional approval, he promised recipients temporary protection for two years at a time — and President Trump is honoring that pledge.
Remember, all DACA recipients are illegal aliens — citizens of another country who came here illegally, even if they were brought here as children. Many of them actually came here on their own as teenagers, and many of the children were “brought” by smugglers or traffickers.
Among those who preemptively denounced Trump’s announcement were Apple and Microsoft, both of which said they have DACA recipients on their payrolls. The companies didn’t say how much the “Dreamers” were being paid or why no U.S. citizens or legal residents could be found to do those jobs.
Apple and Microsoft happen to be the biggest abusers of the system that allows U.S. technology corporations to avoid federal tax on earnings parked in overseas accounts. Apple’s untaxed cash hoard has reached an astounding $246 billion, while Microsoft is in second place with $131 billion overseas.
A group of CEOs signed a joint letter claiming that ending DACA would hurt the economy, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is not buying it, saying, “There’s a lot of people that left the workforce, and our objective is to bring them back into the workforce.” Mnuchin came from the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs, but he obviously gets the Trump doctrine to put Americans first.
In the furor over what to do about so-called Dreamers (illegal aliens who entered the United States as children), it’s important to remember that DACA was never lawfully instituted by President Obama in the first place. DACA’s companion program, known as DAPA, was thrown out by the federal courts last year, and DACA was likely to suffer the same fate.
Legislation to grant legal status to Dreamers was introduced in Congress as far back as 2001 and has been rejected many times since then, most recently in 2010 when Democrats controlled both Houses. In addition to defeating those stand-alone bills, public opposition killed “comprehensive immigration reform” in 2006, 2007, and 2013.
Before creating DACA in 2012, President Obama said that doing so “would be both unwise and unfair.” After changing his mind in an election year, he described DACA as “a temporary stopgap measure.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans now say they want DACA to continue, but many Democrats would go much further if they had the chance. A new Dream Act could extend legal status and provide benefits to millions of currently illegal residents, not just the 800,000 who signed up so far.
On at least 22 occasions, President Obama himself admitted that he lacked the authority as president to implement a DACA-like program. Then, under pressure from the Left, President Obama imposed one anyway.
By ending that unlawful action by Obama, President Trump properly restored the role of Congress over our immigration system. Congressmen are elected every two years in the House, and they will hear from their voters if they try to continue a program that prefers illegal aliens over American citizens.
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
President Trump has delivered again on a campaign promise, by ending the unlawful pandering to illegal aliens. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA for short, was an executive order by President Obama that prevented the deportation of adults who are unlawfully in our country.
Most of the beneficiaries of DACA are not children at all, but young, able-bodied adults who are taking jobs and benefits away from American citizens. Many states, whose budgets are burdened by illegal aliens, were planning to bring litigation to block DACA.
President Trump’s plan to phase out DACA, which granted amnesty for illegal aliens who claim they were brought to our country as children, restores the rule of law to immigration. President Obama’s executive actions had undermined both immigration law and congressional authority over it.
No new applications will be accepted under DACA without further action by Congress, but existing applications will continue to be processed, and DACA privileges will be honored until they expire. The government will continue issuing DACA renewals for another six months, which gives Congress plenty of time to consider a permanent law.
Trump’s decision to pass the responsibility to Congress, where it belongs, is the best part. The Constitution gives Congress the power to make our immigration policy, so any change in the law must start there with Congress being held politically accountable for any attempts to shift benefits from American citizens to illegals.
By rolling out the new policy in this way, Trump has not revoked anyone’s legal status, nor is anyone in danger of being “rounded up” for deportation. DACA recipients still have the same rights they had before, no more and no less.
DACA was never supposed to be permanent. When President Obama unilaterally instituted the program in 2012 without Congressional approval, he promised recipients temporary protection for two years at a time — and President Trump is honoring that pledge.
Remember, all DACA recipients are illegal aliens — citizens of another country who came here illegally, even if they were brought here as children. Many of them actually came here on their own as teenagers, and many of the children were “brought” by smugglers or traffickers.
Among those who preemptively denounced Trump’s announcement were Apple and Microsoft, both of which said they have DACA recipients on their payrolls. The companies didn’t say how much the “Dreamers” were being paid or why no U.S. citizens or legal residents could be found to do those jobs.
Apple and Microsoft happen to be the biggest abusers of the system that allows U.S. technology corporations to avoid federal tax on earnings parked in overseas accounts. Apple’s untaxed cash hoard has reached an astounding $246 billion, while Microsoft is in second place with $131 billion overseas.
A group of CEOs signed a joint letter claiming that ending DACA would hurt the economy, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is not buying it, saying, “There’s a lot of people that left the workforce, and our objective is to bring them back into the workforce.” Mnuchin came from the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs, but he obviously gets the Trump doctrine to put Americans first.
In the furor over what to do about so-called Dreamers (illegal aliens who entered the United States as children), it’s important to remember that DACA was never lawfully instituted by President Obama in the first place. DACA’s companion program, known as DAPA, was thrown out by the federal courts last year, and DACA was likely to suffer the same fate.
Legislation to grant legal status to Dreamers was introduced in Congress as far back as 2001 and has been rejected many times since then, most recently in 2010 when Democrats controlled both Houses. In addition to defeating those stand-alone bills, public opposition killed “comprehensive immigration reform” in 2006, 2007, and 2013.
Before creating DACA in 2012, President Obama said that doing so “would be both unwise and unfair.” After changing his mind in an election year, he described DACA as “a temporary stopgap measure.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans now say they want DACA to continue, but many Democrats would go much further if they had the chance. A new Dream Act could extend legal status and provide benefits to millions of currently illegal residents, not just the 800,000 who signed up so far.
On at least 22 occasions, President Obama himself admitted that he lacked the authority as president to implement a DACA-like program. Then, under pressure from the Left, President Obama imposed one anyway.
By ending that unlawful action by Obama, President Trump properly restored the role of Congress over our immigration system. Congressmen are elected every two years in the House, and they will hear from their voters if they try to continue a program that prefers illegal aliens over American citizens.
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.
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