Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Sessions Warns Sanctuary Cities

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

The sanctuary city movement, which gained momentum and arrogance during the eight years of the Obama administration, has finally met its match. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that cities, counties and states will soon lose billions of dollars of federal assistance if they refuse to assist federal officials charged with enforcing our immigration laws.

The new policy was no surprise, because Donald Trump often spoke out against sanctuary cities throughout his 18-month campaign for president. By announcing the new policy at the White House, using the same podium used for daily press briefings, Sessions confirmed that the president supports his determination to end the lawlessness of local officials.

“Sanctuary cities” are Democrat-controlled places which harbor dangerous illegal aliens and fail to detain them for deportation by the federal government. At least 118 jurisdictions in the United States consider themselves to be sanctuary cities for illegal aliens, and many of these cities fail to cooperate with the federal government when a violent illegal alien is apprehended.

“Such policies cannot continue,” Sessions announced on Monday to the public. “They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.”

Sessions declared that there will be a new policy of lawfulness concerning sanctuary cities, and that state and local jurisdictions must certify that they are complying with immigration laws in order to continue receiving funding from the federal government. Cities that fail to comply could receive an invoice from the federal government demanding a refund of grants they previously received.

The former Alabama Senator was Phyllis Schlafly’s favorite member of the U.S. Senate, and he was the first senator to endorse President Trump. Trump recognized early how truly valuable Sessions is, and made him the first major nomination for the new Trump administration.

As head of the Department of Justice, Sessions has the authority and means to enforce our immigration laws which have been ignored for so long. The Justice Department doles out billions of dollars of grants to assist local law enforcement, and that money should not be given to local governments that defy federal law.

Most sanctuary cities would go bankrupt without the federal subsidies they receive. There is no constitutional right for cities to continue to take handouts from federal taxpayers while also defying federal law.

Despite the clear legality of Attorney General Sessions’ statement, the mayors of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco all issued statements reaffirming their sanctuary policies. “President Trump’s latest threat changes nothing,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared, vowing that he “won’t back down” from protecting his illegal residents “from an overzealous administration fixated on xenophobia and needless division.”

In 2016, approximately 279 counties and cities were uncooperative with the federal government in detaining illegal aliens to allow deportation of them, as confirmed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). President Trump has ordered the release of this information, and on the list for lack of cooperation in early 2017 are jails in Boulder County, Colorado, Sioux County, Iowa, Hennepin County, Minnesota, and Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Many of the non-compliant jails are located in Texas, to the dismay of its Republican Governor Greg Abbott. “I applaud today’s bold action by Attorney General Sessions that aims to end sanctuary city policies that endanger American lives,” Governor Abbott declared.

But mayors are preparing lawsuits, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, against the U.S. Attorney General. The ACLU recently conducted a nationwide campaign of “Resistance Training” with the goal of turning cities into “safe havens” for illegal aliens and refugees.

The federal courts are packed with activist judges appointed by Democratic presidents, and one of them could order the federal government to continue funding sanctuary cities. This could lead to a showdown that ends the overreach in power by the federal judiciary, as the Trump Administration could simply stop signing checks payable to the defiant cities.

While liberal mayors defend sanctuary policies, Americans are overwhelmingly opposed. In a survey of 2,148 registered voters by the Harvard-Harris Poll, 80 percent of Americans agreed with the statement: “Cities that arrest illegal immigrants for crimes should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities.”

The Rasmussen survey phrased the question somewhat differently by asking 1,000 likely voters if they wanted their own city to become a sanctuary city. It’s no surprise that a majority said no, and 52 percent also said that sanctuary cities should have their federal funds cut off.

The Harvard-Harris survey also found that most Americans still support a temporary ban on visitors from seven “Muslim majority countries” even after Trump’s executive order was blocked by an activist federal judge. Most of those polled said the federal judge’s ruling made the nation less safe and the number of refugees we accept should be reduced.

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, March 26, 2017

Lawsuit slanders Phyllis Schlafly

I mentioned the lawsuit by Anne Schlafly Cori to get a bigger share of the Phyllis Schlafly estate, but is not the only one. Cori and five other ex-Eagles had also sued to take over Eagle Forum c4 from Phyllis Schlafly while she was still alive, and they have now amended the lawsuit to say:
12, 205. At all times relevant hereto, Phyllis Schlafly lacked the capacity to understand and appreciate the nature and extent of her actions and/or her actions were the product of manipulation and undue influence perpetrated by John Schlafly, Andy Schlafly, Martin, Sullivan and others.
The evidence for this, they say, is that she endorsed Donald Trump, and she once forgot the name of a doctor with whom she had an appointment.

No, she was not manipulated by anyone.

I thought that Cori's group mainly wanted to raid the money that Phyllis Schlafly raised, but now their motives are shown to be much darker. They want to claim to be the bearers of the Phyllis Schlafly legacy, but they also want to discredit what she stood for.

Why do they want to claim the legacy of someone they disparage so much?

I am stunned that they would have the nerve to complain that Phyllis Schlafly violated her "duty of care and loyalty" to the "Majority Directors", by "undertaking a campaign to defame, malign and disparage" them! [para 201-202]

She was much too loyal to them, and did not disparage them enough, considering the terrible ways they double-crossed and badmouthed her.

Friday, March 24, 2017

Another anti-Schlafly lawsuit

ABC News reports:
The daughter of outspoken conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly alleges in a new lawsuit that several of her brothers effectively diminished her inheritance by influencing their mother to amend a family trust before her death.

The amendment means all legal bills in ongoing litigation between the siblings will come out of Anne Schlafly Cori's share of the inheritance, according to the suit filed week in St. Louis County Circuit Court. Schlafly, who was 92 when she died in September, helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group.

One of her sons, Andrew Schlafly, described the most recent lawsuit as "frivolous," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ( http://bit.ly/2nVeO4l ) reports. The New Jersey lawyer said in a statement Wednesday that Cori has "caused the waste of more than $1 million in legal fees, and she wants someone else to bear those massive costs."

The siblings and others were already entangled in litigation stemming from a fight over Phyllis Schlafly's political legacy. That fight came to a head last year, when the siblings split over support for Trump in the Republican primary. Phyllis Schlafly publicly backed Trump, a position at odds with Cori and other board members of the Eagle Forum, Schlafly's Alton-based conservative think tank.
Here is an online comment on the story:
JoAnn Schmitzer Jouett · Works at Eagle Trust Fund
Phyllis Schlafly was NOT a litigious person. In fact, she pointed out the egregious abuses by runaway courts and liberal judges, such as legislating from the bench and attempting to rewrite the Constitution. Phyllis asked her daughter NUMEROUS times to drop the original nonsensical lawsuit, but she, and the other five board members, refused. Phyllis was not unduly influenced by Ms. Cori's brothers, nor did she have some kind of failing mental capacity. She was doing live radio interviews up until one month before her death on the election, the Constitution, illegal immigration and other topics trending last summer, and I defy anyone to do a live interview without sounding like an idiot. Phyllis had to call the police to stop Ms. Cori's harrassing telephone calls to her home in the last months of her life. Who does Ms. Cori think is going to pay all the legal fees associated with the various lawsuits she keeps filing? Does she expect the money raised by her mother to fight for conservative causes to be used, in violation of the trust of the donors? Ms. Cori made her own bed, and now she must lie in it. Besides, she is supposedly a successful businesswoman in her own right and she married a man old enough to be her father who apparently has a lot of money. Why does she care? If she doesn't want her "inheritance" reduced, then she should drop the lawsuits and take her lumps as any of us would be expected to do.
I agree that the lawsuit is frivolous. Apparently has some sort of personal grudge, but she will not explain it to me.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Trump Puts Economic Nationalism on the Agenda

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

When President Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January, he was fulfilling a campaign promise. During last year’s campaign, Trump had repeatedly called the TPP a “disaster” for American workers, while ridiculing Hillary Clinton for calling it the “gold standard.”

“This wave of globalization has wiped out totally, totally our middle class,” Trump said last June to blue-collar workers at a scrap yard near Pittsburgh. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can turn it around and we can turn it around fast.”

Despite Trump’s tough talk on trade during the campaign, many thought it would be back to business as usual for the “shadow government” of bureaucrats who run the government no matter who is elected. The multinational companies and international financial institutions have dominated our nation’s economic policy since the end of World War II.

The recently concluded meeting of G20 finance ministers shows just how different the Trump administration is going to be. The G20, or group of 19 industrialized countries plus the European Union, has been meeting annually since the 2008 financial crisis in an effort to decide economic policies for the whole world.

Representing the United States at the G20 meeting was newly installed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The former Goldman Sachs executive was not previously thought to be an economic nationalist, but he effectively delivered the president’s views to startled finance ministers of the other G20 countries.

The other members of the G20 wanted the United States to sign a joint statement declaring that “We will resist all forms of protectionism.” That sentence had been included in previous joint statements, and everyone thought it would be non-controversial.

Everyone, that is, except Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, who recognized the word “protectionism” as a slap at the president’s pro-American policies, and would not stand for it. The message Mnuchin delivered was that the new administration intended to follow through on Trump’s campaign-trail promises.

“I understand what the president’s desire is and his policies and I negotiated them from here,” Mnuchin said at a news conference at the conclusion of the G20 meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany. “And we couldn’t be happier with the outcome.”
While Mnuchin was meeting German officials in Germany, President Trump was receiving German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington. “The United States has been treated very, very unfairly by many countries over the years,” Mr. Trump said before meeting with Merkel. “That’s going to stop.”

Trump tweeted, “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”

At the G20 meeting, Mnuchin succeeded on behalf of Trump in replacing the offending sentence, “We will resist all forms of protectionism,” with this improvement: “We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies.”

Germany’s finance minister expressed his frustration: “Sometimes you have to limit yourself at such a meeting to not asking too much of one partner. You cannot force partners to go along with wording they are not okay with. You can’t ask too much of him because he would then simply not agree to it.”

One of the most vocal advocates for preserving the anti-protectionism language was China, which is by far the most protectionist member of the G20. China does not obey the rules of free trade, but is perfectly willing to dump its merchandise on the United States as the world’s consumer of last resort.

The G20 finance ministers’ meeting is the precursor to another G20 meeting this summer in Hamburg, which President Trump is expected to attend in person. By that time, the United States will have reexamined old trade agreements that Steven Mnuchin said “need to be renegotiated.”

We got a clue about the Trump administration’s agenda when the president’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, spoke to the annual CPAC conference last month. Bannon said that the president’s goal is “deconstruction of the administrative state” consisting of the bureaucrats who set policy no matter which party is elected.

The “corporatist, globalist media are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has,” Bannon said. “I think if you look at the opposition party and how they portray the campaign, how they portrayed the transition and now they’re portraying the administration, it’s always wrong,”

Contrary to the globalist ideology, Bannon told CPAC, “we’re a nation with an economy — not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders, but we are a nation with a culture and a reason for being.”

“If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken,” Bannon said in reference to the media and opposition forces. “Every day, it is going to be a fight.”

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, March 14, 2017

Making American Civilization Great Again

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

Donald Trump’s effective use of Twitter has often dominated the news cycle, but a new tweet from Representative Steve King (R-IA) is giving the president a run for his money. On Sunday the 8-term Congressman from northwest Iowa tweeted, “culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

The liberal media reacted in horror, which briefly distracted them from their “day job” of nonstop criticism of President Trump. A columnist for the Washington Post objected to King’s reference to “our” civilization as being distinct from “others,” while feminists predictably took offense at the suggestion that American women should have more babies.

Steve King’s belief that Americans have a distinct civilization, which is better than others and worth preserving, has a long and distinguished history. Alexis de Tocqueville noted it during his nine-month tour of America in 1831-32, which he summarized in his 1835 book Democracy in America: “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional.”

A half century before Tocqueville’s tour, a French immigrant named Crèvecœur asked, “What is the American, this new man?” Crèvecœur’s Letters from an American Farmer, published in 1782 and widely circulated in Europe, explained that Americans were in the process of creating a remarkable new civilization.

Yet another Frenchman who recognized the preeminence of “our civilization” was the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi, who created what the poet Emma Lazarus called “a mighty woman with a torch.” But Bartholdi never intended his Statue of Liberty to invite the world’s “huddled masses” to come here, and he would have been horrified that his masterpiece was hijacked to symbolize immigration.

Far from immigration, the statue’s title and theme is “Liberty Enlightening the World.” In other words, the statue means that other nations should learn from America’s success and try to replicate it in their own countries, not move here to share in its benefits without working for them.

Immigrants can be valuable members of our nation if they come in small numbers and assimilate to the culture, values, and civilization that our ancestors created for us. That doesn’t happen much anymore because so many powerful forces promote multiculturalism and separatism of immigrant groups, encouraging new immigrants to indulge in grievances and resentment for their alleged oppression by the white male patriarchy.

Unlike the great wave of immigration a century ago, today’s immigrants from poor countries tend to maintain their language, religion, and culture, even into the second and third generations. This is illustrated by a new report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which said that “most foreign-born, U.S.-based violent extremists likely radicalized several years after their entry to the United States.”

As the DHS report concludes, that has the effect of “limiting the ability of screening and vetting officials to prevent their entry because of National Security concerns.” Orlando, Chattanooga, and the Boston Marathon are just a few examples of first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants who became radicalized and committed terror attacks in our country or left to join the fight overseas.

Steve King is not backing down in the face of criticism, including the second part of his tweet which said that we can’t build a civilization with “somebody else’s babies.”

Speaking the next day on CNN, King elaborated: “You’ve got to keep your birth rate up, and you need to teach your children your values. “In doing so, you can grow your population, you can strengthen your culture, and you can strengthen your way of life.”

After the postwar baby boom collapsed around 1970, some began to think that immigrants could somehow substitute for the babies that Americans stopped having. The idea that immigrants will save Social Security has been debunked by research showing that low-skill, low-wage immigrants inevitably consume more benefits than they contribute to the system.

Steve King’s comments are especially timely as Congress considers a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. One of the most pernicious aspects of Obamacare was its insistence on defining abortion and contraception as “preventive care” which all health plans must provide to women with no co-pay or deductible.

“Preventing babies from being born is not medicine,” Steve King said in 2011, when Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate was being challenged by Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor. “That’s not constructive to our culture and our civilization. If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we’re a dying civilization.”

Without backing down, Steve King tweeted “Let’s Make Western Civilization Great Again!” No one should take offense at that goal, given how much Western Civilization has achieved for the immense benefit of the entire world.

Immigration policy should build on the values of our culture, not change them. Immigration is no substitute for producing the next generation of Americans to carry on our great country.

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, 2016.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Trump Battles the ‘Shadow Government’

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly

The president of the United States is often called the most powerful man in the world, but the forces arrayed against Donald Trump are unprecedented. To the 63 million Americans who voted for him, the campaign to undermine President Trump is downright frightening.

The first sign of trouble came when the President’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, was forced to resign. A telephone call between General Flynn and the Russian ambassador was wiretapped by one of our intelligence agencies, and its contents were leaked to the press.

We still don’t know if the Flynn wiretap was properly authorized by a court order, and Judicial Watch is suing to find out. But we do know that whoever leaked its secret contents to the press is guilty of a felony.

With blood in the water, the so-called deep state went to work to against Trump’s other appointees, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions. As Rush Limbaugh commented, “They’re trying to isolate Trump from the people he trusts ... from the best people around him.”

The term “deep state” was coined to mean the permanent governing class, the people who really exercise power regardless of who is elected. Also known as the shadow government, the deep state includes our intelligence-collecting agencies such as the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI.

On his way out the door in January, Barack Obama made a drastic change in the way these intelligence agencies operate. As reported by the New York Times, Obama wanted to make sure that raw intelligence was widely shared across many government agencies, where it could then be easily leaked to the press.

With Obama’s support, according to the Times, “there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible, and to keep the reports at a relatively low level of classification, to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government.” This had the effect of leaving a “trail of bread crumbs,” a term borrowed from the children’s story of Hansel and Gretel, which “could be easily unearthed by investigators.”

The “bread crumbs” of unverified information were then leaked to the mainstream media, a vast industry devoted to generating “fake news” against President Trump and his supporters. As Steve Bannon said to the White House press corps, the media have become “the opposition party” to this president.

Barack Obama did not leave Washington for private life, as all of his recent predecessors have done. He remains on the scene to help lead the insurgency against Trump.

Barack and Michelle Obama moved into a $5 million mansion at 2446 Belmont Road, N.W., two miles from the White House. The house, which has 9 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms, is owned by Joe Lockhart, who was White House press secretary when Bill Clinton was impeached by the House in 1998.

Before moving in, contractors built a beautiful brick wall between the house and the street. The wall will protect the Obamas from anyone illegally entering their new home as they work to stop President Trump from building a “big, beautiful wall” on our southern border.

The Obamas’ new neighbors include Tony Podesta, brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, who lives two doors away at 2438 Belmont, N.W. The Islamic Center of Washington, one of the largest mosques in the Western hemisphere, is a block and a half away.

Then came the news that Valerie Jarrett has also moved in with the Obamas. She has been living in the White House for the last eight years, and President Obama reportedly didn’t make a major decision without her input.

As the centerpiece of his post-presidential life of leading the resistance to Trump, Obama has restarted Organizing for Action, which was formed out of his 2012 reelection campaign. With its stated mission of “mobilizing and training the next generation of progressive organizers,” OFA claims 32,525 volunteers operating from more than 250 offices nationwide.

“OFA is dedicated to empowering progressive talent at every level. From first-time student organizers to organizing professionals and community leaders, we’re here to equip folks with the skills and tools that can help them turn their passion into action.”

We’ve seen what happens when leftwing community agitators “turn their passion into action.” On college campuses from Berkeley, California to Middlebury, Vermont, conservative scholars have been assaulted and property has been damaged by mask-wearing anarchists.

OFA apparently helped disrupt town hall meetings held by Republican members of Congress last month. According to a training manual uncovered by journalist Paul Sperry, OFA advised young progressives “do not all sit together” but spread out in pairs in order to “reinforce the impression of broad consensus” of constituents opposed to Republican ideas.

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, 2016.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Trump has more support among Republicans

The NY Times reports:
Mr. Trump has more support among Republicans at this point in office than any president other than George W. Bush.

“While there were deep divisions in the Republican Party during the campaign, it is clear that the G.O.P. rank and file are well unified behind Trump,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll.