Floyd Bill to Weaken Border and Towns

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Unjust trials have consequences, as stolen elections do. Deleterious effects can extend long afterward.

The Democrat-promoted George Floyd Act subjects police and border patrol agents to an increased risk of an unjust prosecution by lowering the burden of proof from willfulness to recklessness in 18 U.S.C. Section 242. Passed by the House, this imposes 10-year prison sentences on our border patrol if convicted of recklessly causing bodily harm to illegal aliens.

That is the same statute used to wrongly convict and imprison the good border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and José Alonso Compeán, whom Trump pardoned. The burden of proof about intent was at issue in that case, and by lowering it to recklessness the George Floyd Act would place all border patrol agents at risk of unjust prosecution.

This terrible legislation would also eliminate qualified immunity for local police, which is essential to prevent the looting of towns by liberal lawsuits. Minneapolis is forcing its taxpayers to pay $27 million for Floyd, an amount that would bankrupt most towns.

The result will be an end to effective law enforcement by the police and border patrol. Every use of force will become a potential prosecution of the officer, and a potential lawsuit against the town.

A generation ago American teenagers were taught not to resist arrest, but today it is common for criminals to fight the arresting officer. Forceful intervention by police is sometimes necessary to arrest someone or halt a crime.

Protests arose recently after a white police officer in Columbus, Ohio shot a belligerent black teenager, while video shows her in the process of stabbing another girl when cops arrived. The cops came because of a 911 call urgently requesting protection against a knife attack.

If the right to a fair jury trial were secure, then the quick-acting police officer would have nothing to worry about, and cops could continue to stop other crimes-in-progress. But the recent spectacle in Minneapolis casts doubt on whether cops or anyone else can expect a fair jury trial anymore.

In a parody of justice, Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder for kneeling on the shoulder blade of the much heavier George Floyd, a former football lineman. A wacky theory of “positional asphyxia” was presented by a so-called medical expert for the prosecution, contrary to the official autopsy results.

An alternate juror said that she was persuaded by bizarre medical testimony which pretended that the 140-pound officer murdered the muscular 230-pound George Floyd by kneeling on his upper body. This “shoulder blade murder” supposedly happened by blocking Floyd’s lungs from working.

Wrestlers, martial arts fighters, and football players endure far worse from opponents having greater weight, and the medical theory used to convict Chauvin is unknown in contact sports. But 9 out of the 14 jurors were women unaccustomed to such physical force, while probably fearful of harm if they ruled for Chauvin.

The crackpot medical testimony included having jurors self-examine themselves in the jury box. This and other prosecutorial tricks should never have been allowed in a court of law.

The likelihood of a fair trial for Chauvin vanished when the trial judge denied a motion routine in this type of case to transfer the trial location to a place free of prejudicial publicity and intimidating protests. The judge also refused to sequester the jury until deliberations, and the alternate juror said she had trouble getting back to her house from court because protesters were blocking the interstate.

Inevitably jurors had to worry about being “doxed” such that their names, residences, and employers might be revealed on the internet for possible retaliation. As an example of harm caused by doxing, a hacker caused the firing of a Virginia police officer who anonymously gave merely $25 to the defense fund of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager facing murder charges for his self-defense against a Leftist mob.

Meanwhile, many Trump supporters still remain in jail in D.C., illustrating that white cops are the not only target of vindictive legal proceedings.

Judge Emmet Sullivan cited a recent political statement by Donald Trump as a reason to continue to imprison a Trump supporter, who rallied for Trump on January 6 in D.C. Judge Sullivan is the one who persisted in refusing to allow charges to be dropped against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn prior to his pardon.

Meanwhile, Judge Royce Lamberth ordered another Trump supporter, a mother of eight, to explain why she was seen recently wearing a satirical mask. This judge indicated that he may hold her in contempt despite no medical expertise or legitimate authority by the court to demand mask-wearing elsewhere.

Is this Impeachment 3.0 by Trump-haters through unjust proceedings against cops and Trump supporters? Congress failed twice to bury Trump, but some courts continue to try.

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.

Gunfight for Election Integrity

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A gunfight for election integrity is raging in a few state legislatures, with our political future hanging in the balance. Whoever controls election procedures will control the outcome, and then be able to pass any laws they like.

According to the AP VoteCast survey of more than 110,000 voters across the nation, 67 percent of ballots submitted by mail were marked for Joe Biden, while 65 percent of citizens who voted in person on Election Day voted for Donald Trump.

Earlier this year, the liberal media breathlessly warned that hundreds of bills to improve election security had been introduced in 47 state legislatures. But as sessions are winding down in many states, not enough has been achieved yet.

The Texas legislature adjourns in six weeks and does not meet next year, but so far has accomplished nothing on this issue. In contrast with Georgia, which at least requires a weak form of voter ID for mail-in voting, the pending Texas legislation falls short of even that.

The Lone Star State has mottos like “Remember the Alamo!” and “Come and Take It” (aside an image of a cannon), but its lack of safeguards against fraud enabled Democrats to improve their presidential results by 3.4% in 2020 compared with 2016. This ballot-harvesting trend, if not reversed, puts the state on track for a Democrat takeover in presidential elections later this decade.

Without winning Texas, no Republican can win the White House. Yet the margin of victory by Trump in Texas in 2020 was among his narrowest anywhere, less than 6 points, amid increasing ballot stuffing there that even included drive-through voting by Democrats who never left their car while casting ballots.

Only Georgia and Iowa have passed election integrity laws since the fiasco of the last election, and their laws merely nibble at the margins of the vast fraud of ballot harvesting to stuff ballot boxes by mail and drop boxes. The Iowa law shortens the early voting period from 29 to 20 days, requires most (not all) mailed-in ballots to be received by Election Day, and prohibits mailing unrequested absentee ballot forms.

That is a far cry from the essential reforms outlined by Trump in his speech on February 28th. But some Texas Republican leaders mistakenly think that insignificant changes like those enacted in Iowa will be enough to mollify Trump supporters who are outraged by voting shenanigans.

In the last election nearly 70% of voters cast their ballots prior to Election Day, many prior to the final debate when Joe Biden vowed to shut down the traditional energy industry on which millions of jobs rely. When Biden terminated the Keystone pipeline shortly after he took office, some early voters were surprised but of course there is no practical way for millions of early voters to change their votes.

Last week a large group of conservatives sent a coalition letter to Governor Greg Abbott, complaining that both Texas election bills (HB6 and SB7) fail to stop the obvious means by which elections are stolen: mail-in voting. The Texas bills do not require meaningful identification for mail-in ballots, despite how Georgia recently plugged that gap in part.

Georgia required inclusion of a voter’s driver’s license number on mail-in ballots. It is unclear how much this will reduce ballot harvesting, because well-funded liberal groups may be able to obtain lists of driver’s license numbers to pre-fill ballots and then vote improperly for others anyway.

Strict signature verification was once required in states that allow mail-in voting, but Georgia, Pennsylvania, and other states dropped those requirements through judicial activism or collusive settlements with liberal election officials. Democrats argue that some elderly people have irregular signatures, but banks require signatures on checks and voting is just as important.

Anyone who dislikes extra requirements for mail-in voting has the option to vote in person, as was customary. The notion that verification of mail-in ballots is unfair should be flatly rejected.

Nearly 10% of the ballots cast in Texas were by mail in the last election, an increase of five times over the last decade. That far exceeds the diminishing margin in Texas separating Republican and Democrat presidential candidates.

Without verifying the authenticity of mail-in ballots, more elections will be stolen. The best approach, as Trump stated, is to prohibit nearly all mail-in voting, and if allowed then there must be strict verification of identification and signatures.

Texas Governor Abbott can expect a challenge from both his right and his left next year, including a possible campaign by the popular Oscar-winning Matthew McConaughey, who led Abbott in a recent poll. Supporting ineffective election integrity legislation which does nothing to halt election fraud could doom Abbott’s political future.

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.

Transgender Travesty by Dems

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Proving again that Trump’s Republican critics are closet liberals, outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson shockingly sided with the Left to endorse transgender operations on minors. “Asa Hutchinson, the lightweight RINO Governor of Arkansas, just vetoed a Bill that banned the CHEMICAL CASTRATION OF CHILDREN,” Trump observed.

“'Bye-bye Asa,’ that’s the end of him! Fortunately for the Great State of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders will do a fantastic job as your next Governor!” Trump added. Sanders was the standout conservative press secretary of Trump who courageously defended him against the media onslaught.

In merely one day the governor was repudiated by his own legislature, which voted in a landslide to override his veto. But Hutchinson defiantly defended the now-prohibited practices, complaining that Arkansas kids might be taken out of state to have them performed anyway.

Arkansas’s neighboring states, also Republican, should pass similar legislation. Children cannot properly give their consent to such life-changing procedures, and liberal parents should not be playing God with their kids.

The transgender movement has seemingly come out of nowhere to ride the social revolution that powered Joe Biden’s otherwise lethargic presidential campaign. Last year Biden’s Twitter account posted, “Let’s be clear: Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time.”

“There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights,” Biden’s tweet continued. True to form, his administration is pushing the transgender revolution with the zeal of religious conviction.

Biden’s no-compromise position is getting a pass from liberal media outlets like CNN. Masquerading as news, one of its journalists pontificated that “it’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.”

Biden even claimed in a speech last month that “There’s not a single thing a man can do that a woman can’t do as well or better. Not a single thing.” The reality, of course, is the opposite in competitive sports, and it is unfair to allow male-bodied athletes to invade female sports.

In his re-entry speech at CPAC in February, Trump declared that “young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males. That is not good for women.”

Trump continued, “I think it’s crazy what is happening, we must protect the integrity of women’s sports.” He pointed out that “If this is not changed women’s sports as we know it will die and end.”

Sports Illustrated has joined the mob, absurdly featuring a transgender person in its annual swimsuit issue. Men pretending to be women are swarming into women’s sports with unfair results.

Girls’ sports records are being shattered, not by girls who work harder to surpass a goal that motivated them, but by boys going through a phase where they would rather wear a dress. Most transgender tendencies resolve themselves naturally as a youngster matures, and medical intervention to obstruct that outcome is inhumane.

As on many issues, Trump’s comments were stronger than that of Republicans in Congress who should be taking the lead. Rather than meekly objecting, the GOP should champion this issue and tap into the support of most Americans against liberals about this.

The transgender invasion is jeopardizing the GOP, as the Olympic champion-turned-transgender-woman Caitlyn Jenner considers running for California governor as a Republican. Many Republicans may salivate at the opportunity of capturing the governor’s seat, as Arnold Schwarzenegger famously did nearly two decades ago, hoping that Jenner could appeal to cross-over voters (pun intended) in La-La Land.

In January, a bill signed into law by California’s soon-to-be-recalled Gov. Gavin Newsom began requiring the state prison system to ask every individual entering its custody to specify their personal pronouns and gender identity. Jumping at the invitation, 261 California prison inmates have requested transfers to prisons aligning with their gender identity, 255 of them biological males who say they identify as women.

California requires that prisons process these requests, as do laws in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In addition, California Democrats are pushing legislation (AB 2826) that would impose fines against department stores which separate clothing and toys by gender.

Meanwhile, the NCAA should be defending the integrity of women’s sports, but instead it is doing the opposite by threatening to punish states which pass laws against transgenderism. The NCAA is as beholden to the advertiser-driven liberal media for television revenue as professional sports leagues are.

Transsexual, the original name for transgender, was promoted in public school curricula as early as 1978, when Phyllis Schlafly was almost alone in speaking out against it. Now, a generation later, what was taught in public school is on the verge of becoming mainstream, but this issue should be a slam dunk for the Republican Party to win on.

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's vaccine promise is realized

Intellectuals attacked Donald Trump for COVID-19 more than anything else, with everyone claiming that he was lying about it. They all said that Gov. Cuomo and Newson showed excellent science-based leadership.

Those governors were so terrible that they are being run out of office.

But how does Trump's record hold up?

The Wash. Post attacked Trump, 6 weeks before the election:

Trump says, without evidence, every American will get coronavirus vaccine by April https://t.co/PdkoQyaagX — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 18, 2020

President Trump said Friday that every American would have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April, contradicting his own statement of two days earlier and sowing deeper confusion about the process and timing of vaccine approval and distribution.

When Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said earlier in the week that the general public was unlikely to get access to a vaccine until the second and third quarters of 2021, echoing other scientific leaders in the administration, Trump said he’d misspoken.

“I think he made a mistake with that statement,” Trump said Wednesday. “When he said it, I believe he was confused. I’m just telling you we’re ready to go.”

Trump then said a vaccine would be ready in weeks and swiftly made available, despite the fact that no one knows yet when sufficient data will be collected from clinical trials to show that one of the vaccines in late-stage trials is effective or safe.

We now know that Trump was telling the truth, and the FDA, CDC, and vaccine companies conspired to conceal the trial data until after the election.

And his promise of universal vaccination by April was right on target:

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that all adults in the U.S. should be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by April 19 … The new deadline to expand eligibility — which is two weeks earlier than Biden had previously targeted — should not be difficult to meet since several states have already begun administering the vaccine to anyone over 16 who wants it.

This Wash. Post lie probably cost Trump the election. There were a fair number of centrist voters who only voted against Trump because of the coronavirus.

Major League Baseball Strikes Out

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Major League Baseball shamefully pandered to Leftists by pulling the All-Star game out of Georgia. Trump’s strong response in calling for a boycott of MLB deserves a standing ovation, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that Texas will no longer seek to host MLB events.

Baseball should remain the timeless sport which unified America ever since the Civil War. The armies of the North and the South would take breaks to play a friendly game of baseball with each other.

Healthy rivalries between the National and American Leagues, and other professional baseball leagues, subsequently kept the game on track for more than a century as fans found refuge in it from real conflicts. Millions of boys, like the future governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, developed character and fitness playing in the Little League.

Liberals have hijacked MLB to misuse it “to stop what happened in Georgia from happening in other states,” as Democrat Stacey Abrams admitted. Election integrity bills similar to Georgia’s are being considered in other states, and Leftists are enlisting executives to try to stop enactment of this good legislation.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred belongs to the ultra-exclusive Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters Tournament in Georgia this week. Rather than grandstand to the detriment of baseball, Manfred could have looked in his own mirror instead.

Stadiums are built for sports leagues at taxpayer expense, and some impoverished cities such as St. Louis are burdened with the debt long after a football team abandons the town for another stadium somewhere else. Billionaire team owners milk taxpayers to fund stadiums and arenas for the owners’ enrichment.

Over-hyped sports events, such as the All-Star game or Super Bowl, can actually cause a net loss to the local region in security costs and declines in revenue to small businesses. It is common for local businesses to complain about how little benefit they actually receive from high-profile games like the Super Bowl.

Liberals absurdly claim that the pullout of the All-Star game will cost Georgia’s Cobb County $100 million, although only 8,000 hotel room nights were booked for the event. Visitors would have to spend in excess of $10,000 apiece to reach that estimated loss, when the average sports fan probably spends far less.

Moreover, most of the revenue is to hotel chains like Marriott that have already pushed the liberal agenda by announcing that they will not donate to Republicans who voted against fraud in the last election. Local spending on professional sports events rarely reaches the pockets of the little guy.

State legislators should be examining how much professional sports leagues are really costing their residents, rather than worrying about a retaliatory cancellation of an event. Georgia and other states should ban gambling on sports, which has become a driver of the otherwise declining television ratings for the leagues.

Congress should also examine how professional baseball has filled nearly 30% of its rosters with immigrants, while the percentage of black players has dropped from 19% in 1981 to only 8% last year. High-paying positions that should be filled by Americans are instead given to immigrants having less inspirational value to American youth.

MLB has built a “development center” in China as part of the globalist push by pro sports, so why doesn’t it move its All-Star game there? The game is ironically being moved to Denver, which is only 9.2% black compared with Atlanta which is 51% black.

No one would be surprised if the Denver stadium has many empty seats when the game is played there. Fan attendance at baseball and football games has long been declining, and stadiums were nearly empty all last year.

The successful Atlanta Braves team, which has repeatedly won its division, properly repudiated the pullout of the All-Star game from Georgia. “It just stinks,” declared veteran Atlanta pitcher Charlie Morton in criticism of the pullout.

The Braves organization said it was “deeply disappointed” by the pullout decision, and that “businesses, employees, and fans in Georgia are the victims of this decision.” Its manager further criticized the decision.

“It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight back – we have more people than they do – by far!” declared Trump. “Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorganChase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS, and Merck. Don’t go back to their products.”

No politician before has ever had the guts of Trump in taking on corporations and crony capitalism. Not even Teddy Roosevelt stood up against so many powerful, entrenched corporate interests as Trump does.

Baseball does not belong to a few overpaid executives, and its Commissioner Manfred should resign. The sport belongs to fans, volunteers, and the grassroots, and we should take the sport back without the liberal agenda and gambling and abuse of immigration, before its executives completely ruin it.

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.