Foolish Impeachment Strengthens Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A dumber stunt by the Democrats than proceeding with impeachment is difficult to imagine. This will remind Americans that Trump remains the most powerful figure in America, while the ghost-like Joe Biden occupies the White House as a mere puppet for Leftists who direct him.

This will boost Trump’s standing within the Republican Party and among the general public. At least 45 Senate Republicans support Trump, as reflected by those who voted on January 26 to dismiss the impeachment entirely, and that is 11 votes more than he needs to win.

Trump’s inevitable victory at the end of this foolish impeachment will return him triumphantly to the center of the political world. Meanwhile, lame duck Joe Biden is diminished by this process, because the Senate Democrats would not be going after Trump unless they felt he still holds immense power.

There is no precedent for the Senate to attempt to remove a president after he leaves office, or attempt to prevent him from running for president again. The Chief Justice will not preside over this farce, thereby depriving the proceeding of the extra measure of dignity that ostensibly accrues to the impeachment of a sitting president.

Instead, the presiding officer will apparently be the partisan Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who is on record as having voted in favor of the prior failed attempt to remove Trump by impeachment. This would be as biased as if Hunter Biden himself made an official decision as to whether Hunter Biden broke any laws.

Some Democrats think they could vote to disqualify Trump from holding office again, but that notion is absurd. As a private citizen who meets the qualifications set by the Constitution, Trump remains free to run for president, be elected and serve a second term.

With so many legal and constitutional defects, the mystery is why Democrats would pursue the folly of impeachment at this late date. The inevitable result would be to unify and energize the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump – some say it was far more – and it is baffling that Democrats would want to antagonize that many voters.

Prosecuting the articles of impeachment will expose anti-Trump Republicans to scrutiny, which will be helpful to the Republican Party as it cleans house of the traitors from within. The ten House Republicans who inexplicably joined the Democrats to vote for the article of impeachment on January 13 should be censured by their local county and state Republican organizations, as Liz Cheney already has been.

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) parachuted into Trump country to claim a House seat on the strength of her father’s role in the now-discredited Bush administration. She should soon be removed from her position as third-ranking Republican, and back in Wyoming she should be defeated by a conservative opponent in her own upcoming primary next year.

The Oregon Republican Party, through its statewide executive committee, adopted a resolution expressing its “condemnation of the profound betrayal by the ten House Republicans who supported impeaching President Trump without any investigation, hearing, shred of due process, and in contradiction to the known and emerging facts.”

“Of equally grave concern,” Oregon Republicans continued, “is how Democrats and their enablers are trying to falsely assign blame to the peaceful protesters present that day, and to the tens of millions of Trump supporters. Any attempt to cancel or target anyone with deep concerns about the conduct of the 2020 election should be condemned and opposed.”

Trump will undoubtedly be campaigning for those congressmen and senators who stood with him, and against the political traitors who turned against him. This guarantees that Trump will remain the dominant force within the Republican Party, and not lend his name to a hopeless effort to start a new “Patriot Party.”

Essentially, House Democrats impeached Trump for expressing the political opinion that “we won this election” — an opinion shared by a large majority of the 74 million Americans who voted for him. By treating such an opinion as if it were “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the Democrats have severely undermined the very democracy that they sanctimoniously claim to defend.

It’s no accident that Nancy Pelosi, as her first order of business in the new Congress, is moving a bill to require all states to remain vulnerable to future election fraud. Among its many bad provisions, H.R. 1 would prohibit states from requiring voter ID, requiring signature authentication for mail-in ballots, or restricting the process of ballot harvesting and the use of unattended drop boxes.

State legislatures should exercise their constitutional authority to enact laws now to prevent election fraud in the future. Presidential electors in future elections should be selected based nearly entirely on in-person voting.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Americans Remain Convinced Trump Won

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Tens of millions of Americans remain convinced that Trump won the recent election, as confirmed by polling. This reinforces President Trump’s statement earlier this month to the huge crowd of more than 250,000 supporters who filled the large space from the White House to the Washington Monument that “we won this election.”

Last week a new report from the White House explains what many ordinary Americans already perceive. Peter Navarro, Ph.D., authored this report entitled “Yes, President Trump Won,” which was the latest installment in his 3-volume series demonstrating that the election was stolen.

Dr. Navarro has served the president since Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. As co-author of the 2011 book Death by China and co-producer of the 2012 film of the same name, Dr. Navarro is most responsible for improving the policy of the United States against the Chinese threat after a string of prior presidents appeased the communist country.

His three-part Report carefully describes the many irregularities and statistical improbabilities that were observed in the election. In the six disputed states studied by Dr. Navarro, the number of illegal or questionable ballots far exceeded the number needed to change the outcome and deliver the state’s electors to Trump.

In Georgia, for example, there were 51 times as many questionable ballots as the number of votes that separated Trump and Biden. In Wisconsin, the ratio was 26 times; in Arizona, 24 times; in Pennsylvania, 12 times; in Nevada, 6 times; and finally in Michigan, there were 3 times as many improper votes as the reported margin between the presidential candidates.

Since President Trump spoke to the massive crowd on January 6, several major polling organizations have surveyed the American people, and the polls all found that an overwhelming majority of Republican voters agree that Trump actually won the election. They recognize that enough votes in six key states were improperly allowed and counted in order to hand the Electoral College to Biden.

First up was the well-respected Quinnipiac poll, in which 73% of Republican voters answered Yes to the Question: “Do you believe there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election?”

Next was a CNN/SSRN poll, which reported that 71% of Republicans told its pollsters: “No, Biden did not legitimately win enough votes to win the presidency” — and 23% of Republicans said there was “solid evidence that he did not legitimately win.”

An even stronger result was found by the ABC News Washington Post poll, in which 65% of Republicans said they believe there is solid evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, while only 25% of Republicans disagreed.

As to the phony “insurrection” on Capitol Hill, the Quinnipiac poll confirmed that 80% of Republicans do not hold Trump responsible, while 71% disagree with those who characterize the incident as a “coup attempt.” Some 70% of Republicans believe that Republicans who objected to the Biden electors were “protecting” rather than “undermining” democracy.

The CNN/SSRN poll found similar results: 72% of Republicans said Trump was not responsible for those who “stormed” the Capitol. Nearly half of Republicans say that Capitol Police deserve a significant amount of blame for the disorderly conduct by a few visitors to the Capitol on January 6.

The CNN/SSRN poll also found that only 10% of Republicans were very confident, and only 14% were somewhat confident, that “elections in America today reflect the will of the people.” By comparison, an astounding 58% of Republicans said they were “not at all confident” that elections reflect the will of the people.

The Washington Post’s poll shows 66% of Republicans believing that Trump acted responsibly on January 6, and 78% say Trump bears little or no responsibility for the disorderly conduct of a few. Far from blaming the 139 Representatives and 8 Senators who challenged the electoral ballots, 51% of Republicans say GOP leaders didn’t go far enough to stop the steal, while only 16% said they went too far.

Fortunately, state legislatures and even Congress can get to work to prevent the recent election travesty from ever happening again. On January 15, Congressman Jim Banks (R-IN), as Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, introduced the “Save Democracy Act” which would ban ballot harvesting and other deviant methods by which liberals steal elections.

In nearly all of the battleground states, Republicans control a majority of the legislature which is solely authorized under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 1, to establish the process for selecting presidential electors. State governors, who are Democrats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, do not have any role in this process, and neither do courts.

These and all state legislatures should enact new rules for selecting presidential electors which are based entirely on in-person voting on Election Day, with the real winner announced soon after the closing of the polls.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Trump Administration Accomplishments

Here is the White House list of Trump Administration Accomplishments. Enjoy it while you can. This will memory-holed on Jan. 20, noon eastern time, so I am posting an archived copy.

Instead of the 25th Amendment, House Should Invoke 12th

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

While House Democrats improperly invoke the 25th Amendment to try to remove President Trump, House Republicans should be using the 12th Amendment to give him four more years. Last week 138 Representatives from 35 states voted in favor of Trump by objecting to the fraudulent Biden electors from Pennsylvania.

The significance of that vote in the wee hours last Thursday morning is that more than 2/3rds of the states, which is the quorum required by the 12th Amendment, objected to a central part of the election certification. That was after the electoral count was interrupted by the misnamed “insurrection,” so it is clear that the protests did not weaken GOP objections to Biden.

A total of 16 congressmen from Texas objected, 12 from Florida, 8 from Pennsylvania, and many more from 32 additional states. They objected specifically to certification of the Biden electors from Pennsylvania, but likely would have also objected to certifying the electors from more states, if given the opportunity.

Senators reneged on their promise to object to the Biden electors from Georgia and elsewhere, but senators have no role under the 12th Amendment to interfere with this process. They relied on the disputed Electoral Count Act of 1887, which even liberal scholars have condemned as unconstitutional.

The various senators who sanctimoniously speak out against Trump now have no constitutional authority to pick the next president, or certify electors. The 12th Amendment is clear: the House of Representatives, convening by state delegation, is required to pick the next president when no candidate has a legitimate majority of the Electoral College.

The same 138 Republicans who properly objected to certifying Biden electors could still meet under the Constitution to rectify the election of the next president. While Pelosi and Democrats are grasping for other provisions of the Constitution to try to destroy the Republican Party in the waning days of Trump’s first term, the 27-20 GOP majority by state delegation could re-elect him.

More Republicans would likely join the 138. The Republican states of North and South Dakota oddly failed to object to Biden’s electors from Pennsylvania, but they surely would not vote for Biden in a special session to elect the next president.

In politics, as in sports, the best defense is a good offense. When the other side attempts a full-court press in basketball, coaches know that the optimal response is a stepped-up offense to break down the press.

For nearly a week Democrats have misled the public and exploited the improper removal of Trump from Twitter. Liberal Politico ran a headline screaming “Second U.S. Capitol Police officer dies,” although that off-duty death had nothing to do with the protests last Wednesday.

Leftists have taken over the narrative of the rally at the Capitol last Wednesday and completely misrepresented what Trump said, and what his supporters did. Far from the liberal portrayal of a “riot,” which has a goal of stealing, vandalizing, and injuring, the unarmed protesters were akin to anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, and many similar ones ever since.

When four protesters were shot and killed at Kent State University in 1970, it was considered a national calamity. But the killing at the Capitol of the unarmed pro-Trump 14-year Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who had honorably served our country during four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is barely mentioned by liberals.

Pelosi and her minions are furious at how they were humiliated by the unarmed protesters. The scenes of rowdy folks occupying the Speaker’s chair and wielding her podium were reminiscent of the comic book character the Joker, who liked to ridicule the powers-that-be, as Jack Nicholson did in an art museum scene from the 1989 Batman movie.

Satire and mockery are not crimes, even when the target is Congress. Sit-ins which occupy legislators’ offices have long been a staple of political protests, for which punishment was little or nothing in recognition of the protesters’ First Amendment rights.

Yet Democrats are charging hard with a vengeance against Trump, anyone who supports him, and the entire Republican Party. The Lincoln Project, a virulently anti-Trump group, is setting up a database to identify people who worked in the Trump Administration, to subject them to retaliation.

Phyllis Schlafly once observed that it is impossible to achieve anything good in politics without leadership. Trump gave us that leadership for four years, and the last few days without him on Twitter have shown how dire the future would be without him.

The Founding Fathers gave America the means in the original Constitution and the 12th Amendment ratified in 1804 to right an election gone wrong. The Supreme Court has demonstrated that it does not want to intervene, so the House should convene by state delegation and exercise its full authority.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

The House Should Reelect Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

In our system of divided government, the Constitution vests the primary authority in the House of Representatives. Only the House may originate tax bills; only the House always consists entirely of members elected by their local constituents; and only the House selects the next president in times of crisis, as we have now.

We are not a democracy, and never have been. We are a constitutional republic, and the Founders were strongly opposed to democracy and the many severe problems it can create.

As a republic, we elect representatives who then pass laws or, in this case, elect the president. The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, based on its original text, explains that the House has the authority and duty to elect the president when no candidate has a majority of the electoral votes.

“But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.”

Enough congressmen have objected for establishing a quorum in the House, where each state delegation there has one vote. Nancy Pelosi cannot stop this process under the Constitution, and the House members should simply convene and elect the next president, with one vote per state.

The incoming House has 27 state delegations which are majority GOP and 20 which are majority Democrat. Three state delegations are tied in party representation: Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

The Twelfth Amendment does not say who counts the Electoral College votes, and the House is the entity having the most representative authority to do so while rejecting the Biden slates tainted by fraud and irregular procedures. Federal courts have already indicated that they will not intervene.

The suggestion by a few Republican House members that they should stand down and allow certification of a fraudulent election would be an abdication of their duty under the Constitution. It would be wrong to embrace and allow wrongdoing by a handful of state officials, who violated the election laws enacted by their legislatures.

In Georgia, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, there was no signature verification of millions of mailed-in ballots as required by laws there. If the laws had been applied as written, then President Trump won those states and enough elsewhere to prevail in the Electoral College.

In 1825 the House did not select the presidential candidate who won the most popular votes, who was Andrew Jackson. Instead, it chose John Quincy Adams as the House was authorized to do by the Twelfth Amendment, and that action by the House helped unify the country then, as it would now.

The Founders intended the House of Representatives to be more powerful than the presidency or the courts. As the body most representative of the American people, which was entirely elected just two months ago, the House is in the best position to decide who should become president now.

It was the House which selected Thomas Jefferson as president on the 37th ballot in 1801. Virtually no one denies the wisdom of that choice, as the runner-up Aaron Burr subsequently killed Founding Father Alexander Hamilton in a duel merely three years later.

Democrats can talk all they want in the House about a cowardly, secret recording of Trump’s conversation with a Georgia official who has failed to allow independent signature verification of vast numbers of mailed-in ballots there. Democrats can rant all they like in the House how counting every fraudulent vote should somehow decide who our next president is.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887, on which the Democrats rely, cannot take power away from the House as given to it by the Constitution. Likewise, House Republicans should fulfill their constitutional duty to ensure that the next president is not chosen by a few state officials who flagrantly violated election laws passed by their legislatures.

The Supreme Court has never upheld or even addressed the constitutional defects in the Electoral Count Act, and this reinforces the need for the House of Representatives to step up to the plate now and start swinging its powerful bat. The 1825 precedent of the House selecting the president should guide us through the turmoil today.

The House, voting by state, should make its own determination that the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional in diluting the authority of the House. The Constitution is clear: the House selects the next president when there is election failure.

In our constitutional republic, our elected representatives can and should vote to protect the integrity of the selection of our next president. That will establish a necessary precedent that fraud never be allowed to steal a presidential election.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.