Chinese-Style Censorship Threatens Twitter

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Elon Musk has 119 million followers on Twitter, the platform which he just bought for $44 billion. That’s more followers than Taylor Swift, whose concert tour ticket sales just broke Ticketmaster.

Getting similar mistreatment to what Donald Trump has endured for years, Elon Musk is now being bullied by Apple, which controls millions of iPhone users’ access to Twitter. First, Apple pulled advertising from Twitter, and now it is threatening to ban Twitter from its App Store, Musk says.

Musk tweeted at Apple CEO Tim Cook multiple times requesting an explanation, without success. Apple is perhaps the most liberal company in the world, and presumably it is doing the bidding of its own political sponsors, including China, where iPhones are made.

Apple is so tightly bound with communist China that Apple’s stock plummeted on news of unrest in China. A resurgence of a Covid-19 variant there has resulted in a return to tyrannical lockdowns, but the masses are resisting this time.

Unable to express themselves on Communist-controlled social media, Chinese citizens have resorted to waving blank sheets of white paper as the most they can say without being arrested. Such tyranny against freedom of speech here in the United States is not so far off.

Musk further tweeted on Monday morning that “Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?”

Musk properly complained that “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”

Without hearing any response by Apple, Musk tweeted again later the same day, “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.

Perhaps Apple is trying to exclude Twitter because the party bosses in China are telling Apple to crack down on freedom of speech here. Recall the outrage in China when an NBA executive merely tweeted a statement of support for freedom in Hong Kong two years ago.

Both Apple and Google banned the right-leaning Parler platform until Parler began moderating its content. Musk’s decision to reinstate Donald Trump and thousands of other users who had been banned from Twitter has raised the possibility of the California Leftist companies trying to ostracize Twitter.

“If there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone," Musk announced. Musk has the resources to develop and market his own new smartphone, and that would be welcome competition to the oligopoly in that industry.

At Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, which Musk should soon move to Texas, he found a cache of “#StayWoke” t-shirts in a closet. Musk shared his revelation with the world on Twitter, mocking them with “crying face” emojis.

Liberals were not amused, and Musk has been stuck too long in courthouses like the one in Biden's Delaware, where the lawsuit was filed against Musk over Twitter, and where he faces another lawsuit against him over his valuable stock in Tesla. Musk needs to consider filing some lawsuits of his own, and taking on Apple in Texas would be perfect.

There is no reason for Musk to keep the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco or maintain its state of incorporation in Delaware. Many red states would welcome Musk relocating his company, and courts there would not entertain frivolous lawsuits against him.

Texas courts protected its citizens from the Trump-hating Fulton County, Atlanta prosecutors who have harassed nearly everyone up and down the East Coast who was seen with Trump shortly after the last presidential election, including forcing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to answer questions. But a Texas resident went to Texas courts to successfully quash the Georgia subpoenas on her, and Musk should take note.

Texas podcaster Jacki Pick Deason was never subjected to the humiliation that Senator Graham was put through, because Texas judges stood up for her rights while the U.S. Supreme Court failed to stand up for Sen. Graham’s.

On November 14, Biden met in-person with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia, for the first time since Biden became president. Biden was also scheduled to meet with other world leaders on that same trip, but Biden abruptly “called a lid” which is his expression for retiring while others continue working.

Trump has repeatedly emphasized at his rallies that other world leaders are at the top of their game in mental acuity, unlike Biden. Now the China-Apple alliance is trying to bully Musk to return to the censorship of conservative viewpoints on Twitter that could include anti-China-regime tweets, too.

The liberal media continue to use Twitter both for their own tweets, and for making news out of other tweets. Musk mocked how quickly CBS News returned to the platform after announcing last week that it was suspending its participation.

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 PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Defund the DOJ as Courts Fail to Rein It In

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Biden and his Leftist administration have weaponized the Department of Justice (DOJ) for their political purposes to an intolerable extreme. The incoming Republican-controlled House of Representatives should end this abuse, by defunding the DOJ.

The latest of many political atrocities by the DOJ was the rushed announcement last Friday of the appointment of a special prosecutor, with unlimited funding, to harass Donald Trump and his supporters. Defunding the agency is the only effective way to stop its insatiable political desire to remove Trump from the 2024 campaign.

The naming of this special prosecutor, who was not even made available for the public announcement, was obviously rushed for political gain. Trump had declared his candidacy for president merely 3 days earlier, as late returns from the midterm elections assured the GOP of a majority in the House of Representatives.

Already there is Republican talk of defunding the special prosecutor himself, but that is not enough. DOJ would simply continue to bring abusive prosecutions through its regular staff of highly partisan attorneys, as the DOJ had already done in raiding Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago.

Even Republican appointees to the appellate courts, some of whom previously served as federal prosecutors, are unwilling to rein in the DOJ’s abuse of power. During the oral argument Tuesday before the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, a hostile panel of appellate judges seemed indifferent to the misuse of the DOJ by Biden against his own political rival, Donald Trump.

“Do you think it is rare for a target of a warrant to think it is overreaching?” was one of many naive questions by the Eleventh Circuit panel that implied it will let the DOJ do whatever it wants to Biden’s political rival. One panelist demanded that Trump prove the seizure of 2,900 mostly personal items from his home exhibited a “callous disregard” for his rights, using an undefined and thus inapplicable phrase.

The political wrongdoing by the DOJ has reached a crescendo and cannot be cured by the committee hearings that House Republicans are planning after the new year. The DOJ is so heavily populated now with liberal hacks that it is necessary to take away the meat on which it feeds.

DOJ does not police our streets, protect our homes, respond to 911 calls, or safeguard against the daily crime that has risen to a pandemic level. If the whopping budget that the House provides to the DOJ were redistributed to local police departments, it would help compensate for their dramatic loss of officers under the Defund the Police movement.

The House controls the purse strings as the Founders wanted, because only the House is elected every two years by the people. By electing a Republican House, the people voted against the rogue DOJ.

Every Republican prosecuted before a jury trial in Democrat-dominated Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia has been convicted, while every one of the few Democrat lobbyists prosecuted has been acquitted. There is nothing fair about this process and it needs to be defunded.

Heinous crimes of street violence unrelated to politics are occurring nearly everywhere as local law enforcement is understaffed to prevent or solve them. The suspect in the recent killing at a Colorado Springs nightclub had been previously arrested for menacing with extreme violence, but was released without punishment.

The DOJ looks for ways to charge criminals with “hate” or some other political spin. The DOJ lied in its rushed indictment of the intruder into Paul Pelosi’s home, making the crime seem politically motivated on the eve of the midterm election, as the bodycam video contradicted DOJ’s court filing about the crucial detail of who opened the door.

In announcing his candidacy for president on Tuesday, Trump pledged that “we will dismantle the Deep State and restore government by the people.” The timing of the Deep State striking back on Friday with the appointment of a special prosecutor is too close to deny the cause-and-effect.

DOJ has already had two years to investigate the First Amendment activities of Trump supporters following the 2020 election, and if the attorney general had anything legitimate to say about it he should have said so long ago. Instead, Garland apparently reacts to political pressure by those who want to stop Trump from winning reelection in 2024.

Billions of the DOJ’s budget is spent against conduct that most Americans do not consider criminal, such as fake environmental crimes like draining water on someone’s own property. The DOJ has spent millions on prosecuting our own Border Patrol agents who try to apprehend illegal aliens.

Trump rightly brags about how he cut off funding of Central American countries until they agreed to take back their own gang members. The new Republican House should likewise stop funding the DOJ.

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 PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Drop-box Dems Take Another Election

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The midterm election confirmed rampant ballot manipulation by Democrats to overcome their deficit in the polls. RealClearPolitics, the premier forecaster, predicted a 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate based on its careful analysis of all the polling and historical data.

States that maintain some election integrity, such as New York, Ohio, Texas, and Florida, reported outcomes consistent with polling. In Florida the top vote-getter was the Trump-supporting Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, at 61%, who sided with Trump in challenging the 2020 election.

But in states lacking election integrity, such as permitting dumps into drop-boxes totaling hundreds of thousands of ballots that are not verified in any meaningful way, the outcomes changed and Democrats claimed pivotal victories in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. “Drop-box Dems,” they might be called, stuff the ballot box without monitoring.

Rampant use of drop-boxes in Democrat-controlled states began in 2020, while states like Florida have since prohibited unmonitored drop-boxes. Unsupervised ballot boxes are allowed in Arizona, where two Senate Republicans joined with Democrats to defeat a bill there that would have established much-needed monitoring of ballot dumping.

Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland was quoted to imply that the DOJ might even investigate private citizens who monitor unsupervised drop-boxes. Unchecked ballot dumping in Arizona took the election for governor from conservative Kari Lake.

Two days after the election, the largest county in Arizona announced that it had not yet begun to count 290,000 ballots found in boxes on Election Day. Inadequate verification of those ballots added lopsided tallies in favor of Democrats who perpetuate open borders.

Pennsylvania does not verify signatures or do any meaningful screening of more than 2.5 million ballots dumped in by mail and drop-boxes. Until it restores election integrity, Republican presidential candidates might as well campaign elsewhere.

In Nevada the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Adam Laxalt, led by several percentage points in legitimate ballots, as predicted by many polls. But then 56,900 ballots were discovered in Las Vegas drop-boxes which then – surprise, surprise – took the election away from him.

In these key swing states, unverified paper ballots stuffed into unmonitored drop-boxes and by mail are changing the outcomes. In Georgia, a circus of vast early voting oddly reports the race of who has voted so that pressure can be applied by Democrat bullies to distort the outcome.

Early voting will begin for many in the Georgia runoff between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock by Sunday, November 27. This is part of the “souls to the polls” scheme of manipulated and intimidated voting used by Democrat bosses.

The misuse of early voting by the Democrat political machine is illustrated by a lawsuit just filed in Georgia. Democrats demand that a judge change the law and open up early voting on two Saturdays between now and its runoff.

Each election cycle Leftists get better at gaming the system and racking up their numbers in states that allow it. Polling numbers for Republicans have traditionally underestimated their votes on Election Day, but now ballot harvesting and other forms of manipulation boost Dems by many points in states that allow it.

In 2024, no Republican nominee will have a chance in states that allow so much voter shenanigans. Trump can still prevail by winning Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia, but election integrity needs to be restored there between now and the next election.

A long-time supporter of Phyllis Schlafly won as Attorney General in Kansas, achieving a remarkable political comeback that has left Democrats speechless. Kris Kobach, the leader against illegal immigration and election integrity with Phyllis before other Republicans joined them, won a stunning victory against intense liberal opposition.

Three Midwestern states rejected ballot initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana, despite tens of millions spent to fool the public about this issue. North Dakota, Arkansas, and South Dakota all rejected legalizing cannabis, and these states have more election integrity than most liberal states do.

But in Michigan where voter manipulation is rampant due to a 2018 ballot initiative, an abortion bill passed. This again demonstrated why Phyllis was right to oppose the enactment of new laws by popular vote that is so easily influenced by the liberal media and funding.

Ballotpedia reports that more a billion dollars were spent on ballot initiatives in this election, including nearly $46 million to enact the pro-abortion law in Michigan. In Nevada, nearly $20 million was spent to pass by a narrow 52%-48% the ranked-choice voting scheme for future elections, which has blocked the election of Sarah Palin in Alaska.

Donald Trump is the leader in calling for election integrity, and this recent election shows how much our Nation needs him. “We will restore the vital civic tradition of in-person voting on Election Day,” he pledged at the January 6 Capitol rally.

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 PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump Preempts Politicized Prosecutors

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump took center stage in Ohio and pre-announced that his reelection campaign will begin on November 15. This is a terrific preemptive strike against the politicized prosecutors.

Democrats are “persecuting their political opponents and silencing dissent,” Trump declared to the immense Ohio crowd. “Six straight years of witch-hunts, hoaxes and abuses” against him, as “they are coming after me because I am fighting for you,” Trump added.

“Complete and total corruption of our Justice Department and the rule of law. Turning our country into a police state,” Trump said about Democrats’ persecution of him and his supporters.

True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht spent last week in jail after her efforts to restore election integrity. Ambushed by lawfare and an ex parte injunction, issued without giving her an initial opportunity to oppose it, she was locked up for protecting a source against retaliation.

Trump admired Engelbrecht on Monday night in Ohio, appalled by her imprisonment. The Fifth Circuit freed her with a unanimous emergency order on Sunday.

Ted Cruz warns the Justice Department against attempting to prosecute Trump. “If Biden treats the Department of Justice as partisan stormtroopers, then Congress is justified in using whatever tools Congress has to stop that abuse of power” including defunding it, Cruz told The Hill.

Dems’ weaponized prosecutions are a form of voter suppression far worse than anything that they accuse Republicans of doing. Threatening to indict political candidates, such as Trump, interferes with the people’s right to elect their preferred candidate.

The Supreme Court shockingly allows a runaway county prosecution to interrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) under oath before an unprecedented grand jury in Atlanta. Apparently the Justices fail to recognize that liberals’ politicized persecutions are a form of voter suppression, which Democrats claim to oppose.

Atlanta has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the country, Trump pointed out Monday, but the political persecution of him there is what Democrats spend their time on. In Florida, “the raid of Mar-a-Lago in the document hoax case” never happened to any other president.

Dems insinuated that Trump may have had nuclear codes in the dusty boxes of documents taken by the hoard of federal agents who stormed his residence. Trump, the president who got us out of wars and made the world a safer place, was supposedly harboring nuclear codes from his time in office even though for security purposes those codes would have changed many times since he departed.

“Maybe our country would be better off if I actually had the nuclear codes,” Trump quipped, because then our enemies would actually fear us. Instead, Biden has placed us where we “could end up with another” nuclear war in the Russia-Ukraine conflict that never would have happened if Trump were president.

“The damage that Joe Biden has done to our nation in two short years” is worse than the five worst presidents in American history, Trump said. “Remember when Biden came here [to Ohio] and said it’s great to be with the people of Michigan?”

Dismayed, Trump stated that in foreign countries “we are dealing with people who are at the absolute top of their game,” who have nuclear weapons. Biden has made this “the most dangerous time in the history of our country.”

Meanwhile, Biden and Democrats have interfered with necessary local police work and thereby unleashed drug-related crime around the country. “We all agree: we’ve got to stop crime.”

“Let our police do their job,” Trump said. “We should deport every illegal alien that Joe Biden has unlawfully allowed to break into our country,” he added.

“Drug cartels have seen their revenue skyrocket” under the Biden Administration, Trump pointed out. “Democrats will defund the police; Republicans will defund the cartels.”

Trump “threw illegal gang members out of our country by the thousands.” Referring to the Central American countries from where these gangs come, Trump “got their countries to take them back” after they initially refused.

Trump recounted that MS-13 gang members in Massachusetts “lured a teenage boy to a playground” by pretending to befriend him, and then stabbed the helpless boy to death 32 times. An immigration judge had released one of these gang members into the United States and even helped him obtain a green card to stay here.

A drug dealer “will kill on average 500 people,” Trump observed. The “crime wave is caused by drug dealers” and Trump called for use of the death penalty to stop and deter these horrible crimes while “drugs are pouring in.”

“We will end catch-and-release,” and “end illegal immigration once and for all.” And “we will abolish all Covid mandates and lockdowns.”

“Best president we’ve ever had, President Trump,” declared Ohio congressman Jim Jordan when graciously called to the podium by Trump, who later wrapped up by urging support for the many dozens of Republicans he endorsed.

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 PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

San Fran Dems Should Release The Evidence

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

San Francisco is a den of GOP-hating Democrats, and now they are turning their own rampant crime and drug use into an ambush of Republicans nationwide. The evidence concerning the attack on Paul Pelosi should be released to the public before desperate Democrats spin it into their closing theme on the eve of the election.

“The whole thing is crazy,” Trump observed on a radio show on Tuesday. “The cops were standing there practically from the moment it all took place. So, you’re going to have to explain that to your audience, including me.”

Cops usually wear body cams, and 911 calls are always recorded. Release them to the public and then there can be an informed discussion about what really happened in the wee hours last Friday.

A neighbor familiar with the security systems there expressed dismay at the lack of an alarm going off, if indeed a window was smashed by David DePape as alleged. Meanwhile, the employer of DePape said he never heard DePape talk against Nancy Pelosi.

No, DePape was not part of the January 6 pro-Trump rally at the Capitol last year, nor was he a member of any MAGA political group. The misleading image posted of him on Instagram juxtaposed with a J6 rally photo was actually DePape filming a nude wedding outside San Francisco City Hall.

The Biden Administration rushed to file federal charges with a politicized narrative the first court day after the attack, while it has taken years to investigate Hunter Biden’s apparent misconduct. Meanwhile, the DOJ continues to conceal most of the affidavit it concocted for its surprise raid on Trump’s home.

Elon Musk, focusing on San Francisco as he cleans house at Twitter, tweeted Sunday morning that there is “a tiny possibility there may be more to this story” than Democrats want to admit. Immediately Leftists rebuked Musk for merely hinting that authorities may not be telling the full story, as they increasingly fail to do.

For starters, DePape is an illegal immigrant from Canada, having overstayed his visa many years ago, with serious mental problems according to those who know him. He was living like a California hippie, sometimes in a school bus near ultra-leftwing Berkeley, and has a long history of drug use.

If Democrats were not turning this incident into a late-breaking pre-election issue, it would be less important for the public to hear the whole sordid story to make up its own mind. But Democrats are running with this issue from now through voting next Tuesday, so a strong Republican response to the false finger-pointing is necessary.

The assailant is not someone whom Liz Cheney will subpoena to appear before her anti-Trump House committee before it is disbanded by the incoming GOP majority. Then again, perhaps Cheney will try to find some way to blame Donald Trump for San Francisco lawlessness.

Musk deleted his tweet on Sunday after liberals browbeat him, but on Monday Musk fired the entire Twitter Board of Directors. Many are grateful to Musk for allowing some skepticism to flourish amid the clampdown by the media and the Biden Administration against anyone who dares question their narrative.

Musk set a good precedent with his own tweet about the Pelosi incident, showing that speech should not be suppressed on Twitter as it is nearly everywhere else. Musk feels he has been cheated by Twitter officials, and newly released documents show that the Biden Administration has worked with social media to censor Americans.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media conceal the connection between drugs and DePape’s senseless attack on Paul Pelosi, which reportedly occurred in the presence of two police officers. This election cycle Democrats have been campaigning hard to expand the legalization of drugs.

Pro-Trump Kari Lake, the rising Republican star in Arizona on the verge of winning its governor’s race, shows the moxie that all Republicans should use rather than becoming defensive on the eve of this election.

“We have less safe streets, we’ve got the homeless population just exploding in huge numbers, we’ve got drugs flowing in, and the people are recognizing that it is the Left pushing terrible policies which make all of those bad things worse,” she said after the attack on Paul Pelosi.

DePape’s dysfunctional lifestyle was not that of a Trump supporter, and the political attempts by Democrats to exploit this attack on Pelosi should not sway voters. Rather than retreat, Republican candidates should point out that Democrats are the ones who are pro-drug and soft-on-crime.

Releasing the evidence concerning the attack on Paul Pelosi will help the public assess the Democrats’ politicized narrative about it. Trump and Musk are right to question whether there is more to this story than the government admits, and Republicans should demand that the evidence be made public.

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 PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.