Dems Try to Censor Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Democratic presidential candidates are trying to censor President Trump and his spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, to prevent Trump from communicating with the American people. Kamala Harris is demanding that Trump’s Twitter account be suspended.

A half-century ago liberals pretended to be supporters of free speech, but now they are its biggest enemy. “His Twitter account should be suspended,” Democratic presidential wannabe Kamala Harris told CNN on Monday.

“I think there is plenty of new evidence to suggest that he is irresponsible with his words in a way that could result in harm to other people. And so the privilege of using those words in that way should probably be taken from him,” she added.

Censorship is central to the liberal playbook to try to regain power, and then reshape America as the Far Left wants. Harris is echoing the views of Big Tech in California, which already censors ordinary Americans expressing conservative views.

Joe Biden just took that liberal censorship a step further by demanding that television networks refuse to allow Rudy Giuliani to speak in favor of Trump anymore. Even the leftwing Daily Beast admits that “rarely, if ever, has one campaign made an affirmative demand that a top aide to a rival candidate no longer be given a platform," as Biden desperately insists.

Giuliani tweeted in response, “Think of the Biden arrogance and entitlement to protection. They believe they own the media and they are demanding that they silence me.”

“They know I have incriminating facts, not hearsay, because they know what they did in selling Joe’s office to a Ukrainian crook,” he added in reference to Biden, who has the most to lose in this brouhaha.

President Trump released the transcript of his phone call with the President of Ukraine, and yet Joe Biden continues to hide behind the concealment of transcripts of his conversations with Ukraine officials during which he may have improperly intervened on behalf of his son Hunter.

The Republican National Committee has called on Biden to release his call transcripts, so that the public can decide for itself how Biden misused his position of power for financial gain for his family. But there is no transparency by the Left while it demands answers by others.

Ukraine, which has been independent for more than a quarter century, should no longer be referred to as “the Ukraine” as though it were still a vassal state of the communist Soviet Union. Ukraine’s president has fully exonerated President Trump amid the false accusations by House Democrats.

But Trump is receiving less due process and constitutional rights here at home. “Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called ‘Whistleblower,’ represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way,” he tweeted.

The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees the basic right of an accused to confront someone who makes accusations against him. Yet Trump is being denied this fundamental right while the Deep State circles its wagons to attain its goal of bringing down the president.

It does not matter to the Trump haters that a nothing-burger is at the center of this phony scandal. In this power struggle, Trump’s enemies care little about what the facts are, and instead try to use the process to swing public opinion in their direction.

But Trump’s political base remains rock solid, and smears from the Left are not going to alienate his longtime supporters. Trump himself shows no signs of backing down, and he is often at his best when under political attack.

The liberal Democrats have given Trump the means by which he can galvanize the American people, who are already fed up with the inside-the-Beltway mentality that prevails in the halls of Congress. Trump tweeted out a map of American counties which voted for him in 2016, and it is a massive sea of red showing his broad support.

Yet little can stop the insatiable desire of a lynch mob, which is what House Democrats have become. Ironically the biggest victim of their renewed witch hunt may be the only person thought to have a chance to defeat Trump next year: Joe Biden.

Biden’s political fortunes are being badly sullied by the mud that splatters backward onto him. It is a sign of desperation that his campaign feels the need to censor Rudy Giuliani on television, lest he embarrass Biden further with revelations about Biden’s misconduct in connection with Ukraine.

Giuliani is making up for all his prior missteps in fending off the same sharks who previously circled Trump for prior non-issues. Censorship of one’s political opponents is not something Trump would ever do, but his Democratic rivals think that censorship is the only way they can win.

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.

Phyllis Schlafly's dying request

In early 2016, Phyllis Schlafly told this to family and friends:

I have participated in Republican national conventions for 60 years, usually as a delegate and often active with the platorm writing committee. It is the common thread to my political life, and some say that influencing the platform was my most important accomplishment.

There have been three Choice-Not-An-Echo candidates in my lifetime, and Donald Trump is the third.

I was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer 2.5 years ago, and given 6 months to live. I am living on borrowed time. All I want to do before I die to attend the Cleveland convention, support Donald Trump, and maintain the conservative planks in the platform. If I can do that, I can die in peace.

Not all of this was said explicitly, but it was all understood by everyone who knew her well. Only close family and friends knew that she was dying.

A gang of six ("G6") Eagle Forum c4 ("EFc4") dissidents had other ideas. They consisted of her daughter Anne Schlafly Cori, and longtime friends Eunie Smith, Cathie Adams, Carolyn McLarty, Rosina Kovar, and Shirley Curry. They repeatedly did everything they could to pressure Phyllis to stop making positive comments about Trump, and tried to get her to promise not to endorse Trump. She refused, of course, and endorsed Trump on the eve of the Missouri primary in March 2016.

The G6 then sought legal action to muzzle Phyllis. They had a law office teleconference that supposedly seized control of EFc4, the political organization that Phyllis founded 40 years earlier. When that did not silence her, they filed a lawsuit to confirm her ouster, remove her from the bank accounts, and fire her right-hand man, Ed Martin. It was subsequently amended with nastier claims, such as alleging Phyllis lacked the capacity to understand her actions, and that she owed the G6 millions in damages because she violated her duty to carry out their anti-Trump agenda.

Phyllis offered to comply with all of their demands on one condition -- that they allow her to keep Ed Martin thru the Cleveland convention, and then effect their takeover after that. They refused. Furthermore, they treated her as if she were yesterday's garbage.

Phyllis recognized the action as a political hit and a personal betrayal. She hired a lawyer to defend the lawsuit. She persuaded Ed Martin to help her become a Trump delegate to the Cleveland convention.

When Anne got control of Eagle Forum bank accounts, Phyllis started another organization, PSAE, that could act as a sponsor to Cleveland political activities, and that could support Trump. The G6 then tried to block that by suing PSAE.

Despite all the difficulties, Phyllis attended the Cleveland convention, helped Trump get the Republican nomination, used the assistance of Ed Martin and others, used PSAE to sponsor political events, and helped maintain the conservative planks in the platform. She died at home about a month later.

Several lawsuits remain. The court has ruled that the telephone takeover of EFc4 was invalid, and that all the claims from the G6 must be dismissed. The court has also ruled against their trick of naming EFc4 as a "nominal defendant", so that they could control the lawyers on both sides of the lawsuit. Some issues remain for a Nov. 2019 trial.

Thus the G6 lawsuits have been shown to be almost entirely bogus. Their only gripes against Phyllis personally were that she supported Trump, and that she resisted their hostile takeover.

Separately Anne has a lawsuit challenging Phyllis's decision to designate Anne's inheritance to help defray to costs of her bogus lawsuits. Trial is scheduled for Jan. 2020. Anne's chief witness is a psychiatrist whom she is paying $200k to review some hearsay opinions that Phyllis should not have been endorsing Trump. The psychiatrist had never met Phyllis, and refused to even watch video recordings of her. One of those opinions came from Eunie Smith, but she now testifies that Phyllis was right about Trump.

In the course of that lawsuit, it was revealed that Anne used her own lawyer to try to trick Phyllis into disinherit me in 2014. This will all become public, if Anne insists on taking the case to trial. The whole situation is going to get uglier before it gets resolved.

Trump Debunks Globalism at UN

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Trump’s third speech to the United Nations in as many years was a stirring rebuke of globalism. He made the compelling case for an end to the push for a borderless world.

At the 74th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Trump explained how nationalism is good for everyone. By focusing on the people within their own countries, leaders around the globe can bring prosperity worldwide while preserving what is cherished about each nation.

“The future does not belong to globalists – the future belongs to patriots,” Trump explained. “The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.”

He is the first American President to call out the pernicious influence of globalism: “Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders, causing them to ignore their own national interests.” That harmful pull by the “religion” of globalism has misguided past Democratic and Republican presidents alike, he could have added.

One of the harms of globalism, Trump explained, has been the support for perpetual or endless wars. Instead, he observed, “The United States has never believed in permanent enemies.”

“Many of America’s closest friends today were once our gravest foes.” Included in the list of the “gravest foes” would be England, Germany and Japan, all of which are now among our closest friends.

Trump lambasted mass migration, by which illegal immigrants flood a peaceful nation and overrun it with crime, demands for entitlements, and hardships. “Mass illegal migration is unfair, unsafe, and unsustainable for everyone involved,” Trump pointed out.

“The sending countries and the depleted countries – and they’ve become depleted very fast – their youth is not taken care of and human capital goes to waste,” he added. In the United States, “we have taken very unprecedented action to stop the flow of illegal immigration.”

Trump sent a strong message against migration as prior presidents of both parties should have stood for, but none did. “To anyone considering crossing our border illegally, please hear these words: Do not pay the smugglers.”

Trump’s political foes already mischaracterize his speech as somehow being “aggressive” or “red meat” for Trump’s base, as Politico.com put it. But there was nothing aggressive or politicized about Trump’s remarks, which reflect his long-held views and what he was elected to do.

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, profusely praised Trump at a massive rally of 50,000 people in a football stadium in Houston on Sunday. Modi is one of many world leaders who support Trump.

Trump’s rejection of globalism included a warning to China about how it handles unrest in Hong Kong. “How China chooses to handle the situation will say a great deal about its role in the world in the future.”

Likewise, Trump mentioned the despair in Venezuela as an illustration “that socialism and communism are not about justice, they are not about equality, they are not about lifting up the poor, and they are certainly not about the good of the nation. Socialism and Communism are about one thing only: power for the ruling class.”

The largest neighbor of Venezuela is Brazil, which is led by another outspoken supporter of Trump. Jair Bolsonaro, who addressed the UN before Trump, has previously praised Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration and wants “to have a great Brazil just like Trump wants to have a great America.”

Trump found time during his speech to call out the media and liberal universities. “Media and academic institutions push flat-out assaults on our histories, traditions and values,” Trump rightly observed.

The Deep State, too, received recognition by Trump, and not in a complimentary way. “A faceless bureaucracy operates in secret and weakens democratic rule,” he declared.

Trump again exceeded expectations by being the finest advocate for the unborn to ever reside in the White House. He told the UN that “Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life,” and criticized how “many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand – right up until the moment of delivery.”

While Trump says and does what he promised as a candidate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has meanwhile caved into the far left of the Democratic Party. The same day Trump was speaking to world leaders at the UN, Pelosi opened an impeachment investigation to improperly try to weaken his authority.

The timing of Pelosi’s unpatriotic act could not have been more inappropriate. She chose the same day as Trump’s speech to the UN to try to undermine him with the politically motivated impeachment inquiry.

Globalism is a stepchild of communism, and neither should be the future. All nations should take Trump’s words to heart about making their own countries great again, and some already are.

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.

Statehood for the Swamp?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Constitution Day, September 17, marks the day in 1787 when representatives of the newly independent states along the Atlantic seacoast agreed to form a new Constitution on behalf of “We the People of the United States.” George Washington, who had presided over the contentious convention in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, transmitted the finished document to the states for ratification.

A 2005 federal law sponsored by the most senior Democrat in the Senate, Robert C. Byrd, requires all federal agencies and schools that receive federal funds to teach about the Constitution on this day. Yet many agencies and schools have defied that law by criticizing, attacking and undermining the fundamental document that was dedicated “to form a more perfect union.”

One such lawless federal agency is the District of Columbia itself, the wholly owned enclave on the Potomac River which comprises the seat of our national government. The mayor, delegate, and other officials, whose high salaries are indirectly paid by taxpayers throughout the nation, are celebrating Constitution Day by trying to overturn the very provision that created Washington, D.C.

H.R. 51, a bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st state, was introduced on the first day of the new Democrat-controlled Congress by Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has been D.C.’s non-voting Delegate for the past 29 years. The House Oversight and Reform Committee, chaired by Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, plans to hear testimony this week from Mayor Muriel Bowser and other D.C. officials.

The partisan purpose of such a move is to give Democrats in Congress two new liberal senators and one new seat in the House. The territory cast 93 percent of its votes for Hillary Clinton and only 4 percent for Donald Trump, and the Democratic Party would ensure that only very liberal politicians would represent it in Congress.

The decision to put our national government in its own separate territory, outside the boundaries of any state, was one of the pivotal compromises essential to reaching agreement at the Philadelphia convention in 1787. Perhaps James Madison foresaw the dangers of giving the “swamp” power when he wrote in Federalist No. 43 that it was an “indispensable necessity” to prevent U.S. government officials from becoming dependent on local residents who would wield too much influence.

Statehood for D.C. is not a new idea. One prior effort sought to rename D.C. as the State of New Columbia, but political correctness today prevents naming anything after Christopher Columbus anymore!

As the longstanding “delegate” from D.C. to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton can already serve on committees and speak on the House floor. She has federally funded offices and an official website at house.gov just like the real congressmen who represent the 50 states.

She already calls herself a “Congresswoman” and she takes positions on pending legislation, such as working against a pro-life bill introduced by Congressman Chris Smith to limit the funding of abortion in D.C. Her background includes signing the “Black Woman’s Manifesto,” which in 1970 expressed views of radical feminism and blamed capitalism for oppressing women and minorities.

She has been a supporter of legislation expanding abortion and even prohibiting states from limiting it. She has received the endorsement of EMILY’s List, a PAC that supports the election of politicians who want unrestricted, taxpayer-funded access to abortion.

Eleanor Holmes Norton is not a full voting member of Congress, at least not yet. But she would probably become one, perhaps even in the U.S. Senate, if H.R. 51 ever became law.

More than 200 congressmen, all Democrats, co-sponsor her bill to create a new state called the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. The proposed name does not even sound like a real state, but political correctness run amok.

Many of the arguments for making D.C. a new state could apply to Puerto Rico and other commonwealths and territories of the United States. But the case for D.C. statehood is much weaker, because the Constitution specifically envisioned a neutral location for the federal government.

Washington’s 68 square miles were voluntarily conceded by Maryland to the United States for use as our nation’s capital, not to create a new state having equal power as itself. If the real desire is to provide representation in Congress for those who live within D.C., then the Maryland delegation could represent the people of D.C., too.

But such representation is not what the drive for D.C. statehood is really about. Instead, Democrats want two more senators to shift the balance of power to their side in the U.S. Senate.

Following the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states, the Democratic senators from Hawaii are offset by Republican senators from Alaska. Empowering the Swamp with two partisan Democratic senators by making D.C. a state is both unconstitutional and contrary to the interests of all 50 states.

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.

Break Up the Tech Behemoths

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Monopoly is the popular board game where players win by monopolizing property and overcharging rivals who land there. A monopoly in business has a similar effect by stamping out competition which would benefit consumers.

Google has more than 92% of the worldwide market for internet searches, far above what constitutes a monopoly. Most people on the internet see only what Google puts before them.

Google’s monopoly power is greater than that of John D. Rockefeller’s oil trust of a century ago, and in some ways worse because of its control of information. The landmark Sherman Act, passed by a Republican Congress in 1890, is the tool that authorized busting up the Rockefeller trust and modern ones like it.

If you’re wondering what happened to your daily newspaper or your access to online conservative videos and websites, the reason is Google and its Silicon Valley neighbor, Facebook. Those two companies, which also own YouTube and Instagram, soak up advertiser dollars that once supported thousands of independent newspapers and magazines.

The 1911 breakup of John D. Rockefeller’s monopoly over the oil business boosted our economy, creating competition among over a dozen newly formed rivals. Record-breaking prosperity then followed for our country in the Roaring Twenties.

The conservative approach is not to regulate corporations, but to break up monopolies and then get out of their way. Let competition thrive and perform its magic, as it has in driving down airline ticket prices.

Fifty Attorneys General representing 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have just launched an overdue, bipartisan probe into Google’s monopoly practices. Google responded, “We have always worked constructively with regulators and we will continue to do so.”

But Google misses the point. Attorneys General do not and should not be looking to regulate Google, but simply to end its monopoly.

When AT&T controlled 80 percent of local telephone service and nearly 100 percent of intercity communications, it was broken into 7 “Baby Bells,” each serving a different region of the country. The spin-offs added up to much more than the whole, and experts were astounded when the regional Baby Bells soon outperformed the original, national telephone company.

Verizon, for example, was one of the Baby Bells which excelled in the growing wireless market, doing better than its parent. Hard work and innovation created rewards for managers and staff alike, which would never have happened if the old “Ma Bell” had not been dissolved.

Similarly, Google and Facebook could be broken into pieces by region or functionality. A southern Google would add healthy competition to the California Google by not discriminating against conservative videos and websites.

James Damore, the talented engineer fired by Google for expressing his conservative views in a manifesto criticizing “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” could then take his innovative ideas to a southern Google and look forward to competing against his former employer.

Or Google could be split based on functionality, allowing rivals to compete with it for mapping, consumer reviews, and other services. Advertising dollars could then be spread around, rather than all flowing into a black hole in California.

Dismantling Google and other Big Tech behemoths would enable tech wages to start rising again, after decades of stagnation. Silicon Valley companies had an improper secret agreement not to compete for high-tech talent, which has kept salaries lower than they would be in a competitive market.

Facebook should be dismantled too, after demonstrating that it will censor viewpoints to appease its liberal California base. Last week eight states plus D.C. declared that they have launched an investigation into possible antitrust violations by Facebook.

Libertarian ideologues cringe at such investigations, arguing that antitrust law is an improper intrusion by government into the free market. But competition is the oxygen for free enterprise, and prohibiting anti-competitive business practices which rob consumers of choices is as important as stopping burglary.

Notably absent from the nearly unanimous coalition of states and territories investigating Google is the attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra, who has brought over two dozen lawsuits against President Trump. He should take note of how the tech industry has created a two-tier society of haves and have-nots in his state.

Monopolies like Google cause a vast disparity between the rich and the middle class, a gap which liberals like to criticize everywhere except in their own backyard. Without the suffocating Big Tech monopolies, Texas and other red states have a growing middle class with affordable housing and schools.

Google and Facebook executives openly regretted how their platforms helped to elect Donald Trump in 2016, and they are determined to prevent that from happening again in 2020. We wouldn’t let AT&T control who can use the telephone, and we can’t allow Google and Facebook to shut Trump supporters out of their networks.

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.

Judge rules Eagle Forum was unlawfully taken

The gang of six dissidents who organized a hostile takeover of the Eagle Forum 501(c)(4) just issued this press release:

On September 3, 2019, the Circuit Court of Madison County unsealed an Order, dated July 11, 2019, which ruled that on April 11, 2016 the Eagle Forum Board of Directors was not able to conduct a meeting via telephone under the Bylaws of Eagle Forum, as they existed at that time. The Court determined that unless the Bylaws specifically stated otherwise, the Board of Directors had to meet face-to-face. The Court entered this ruling notwithstanding evidence that Phyllis Schlafly had conducted telephone board meetings in the past and that Phyllis Schlafly had consented and agreed to proceed with the meeting on April 11, 2016. Importantly, the Court declined to make the July 11 Order final. This means that under Illinois law, the July 11 Order is both unenforceable and subject to revision at any time.

This is a confusing explanation, but the truth is simple.

The six dissidents claimed that their April 11, 2016 teleconference allowed them to take control of Eagle Forum away from its founder and leader, Phyllis Schlafly. They were upset that she had just endorsed Donald Trump for President, and they sought to silence her. When she denied the legality of their maneuver, they filed a lawsuit against Eagle Forum and her in order to enforce their takeover.

Now the judge has now ruled that the telephone takeover was invalid.

The litigation does continue, and the case is schedule for trial this fall on the remaining issues, if there are any.

The press release concludes:

The July 11 Order will no doubt be mischaracterized by those whose refusal to support the mission of Eagle Forum began before the April 11, 2016 meeting with outlandish public attacks on many Eagle Forum directors, whose volunteer work alongside Phyllis Schlafly spans more than two-hundred-and-twenty (220) years collectively.

Those dissident directors did support the mission before 2016, but in April 2016 they decided to do everything in their power to block Phyllis Schlafly and her political activities, including a bogus board meeting and a bogus lawsuit.

Indoctrination Runs Aground in California

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As millions go back to school, students across the nation (and their parents) hope to acquire the knowledge and skills they need for a successful life. Many teachers enter the profession with a mission to inspire young people toward excellence and personal growth.

But for thousands of school administrators and other non-teaching personnel who draw big salaries in our public schools, the new academic year has a different meaning. In the education establishment, known as the Blob, the new school year is a time to indoctrinate young people with notions of diversity, oppression, social justice, and the canons of political correctness.

Nowhere was this better illustrated that a firestorm that blazed in California just before school started last week. A new statewide curriculum for Ethnic Studies was posted for public comment, and the deafening uproar from parents and even politicians was enough to cause a postponement of its implementation.

California has continued to lurch leftward politically while most of the country has been growing increasingly conservative. Trump won the presidency by a majority of the popular vote in the 49 states other than California, while Hillary won by millions of votes there.

In 2016, California passed a law requiring the development of an ethnic studies curriculum, as though that were a legitimate academic subject. The curriculum is required to “include information on the ethnic studies movement, specifically the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), and its significance in the establishment of ethnic studies as a discipline and work in promoting diversity and inclusion within higher education.”

The curriculum is supposed to “promote critical thinking and rigorous analysis of history, systems of oppression, and the status quo in an effort to generate discussions on futurity, and imagine new possibilities.” But the “futurity” to discuss is not one of capitalism, freedom, and prosperity.

The proposed new curriculum is loaded with liberal jargon and describes capitalism as a “form of power and oppression.” Capitalism has brought higher standards of living to people of all ethnicities, but students in California would be taught the opposite.

Governor Jerry Brown, who is no conservative, actually vetoed a prior version of the bill mandating new ethnic studies standards. His objection was that the bill would have made the curriculum a requirement for graduating from high school in California.

Governor Brown then signed a modified version of the bill, and his successor, Gavin Newsom, is more liberal than even Brown was. The objections now are not being led by the governor, but primarily by the public.

A torrent of opposition to this new curriculum has caused its supporters to delay it. Some look to private schools, homeschooling, and charter schools as a way to escape this new indoctrination.

Jewish critics complain that the curriculum condemns some forms of ethnic animosity, but not anti-Semitism. A lead supporter of this new curriculum, Democratic Assemblyman Jose Medina, then delayed by a year a bill making this mandatory.

The bizarre jargon used in the draft curriculum opens a window into how far out of the mainstream advocates of this approach have gone. Terms unfamiliar to most people have been developed for this, and scrutiny of these terms which you will probably not find in your dictionary is enlightening.

“Misogynoir” is a term invented to mean hatred against black women in particular, as though that exists. It is not the often-imagined hatred of women, or even hatred of blacks, but hatred of black women that is the problem described by this term.

A glossary released with the draft curriculum explains its many bizarre terms. “Hxrstory” is another term it uses, and it is not a typo as most people would infer.

Instead, it is a deliberate misspelling of “history” in order to “x” out the “his” in “history”. “Throughout this model curriculum, language is used that deliberately offers an alternative to traditional wording that could have a particular context within the dominant culture.”

So the curriculum deliberately misspells certain words in order to advance its ideology of contorted logic. “As such, it can grow its original language to serve these needs with purposeful respelling of terms,” the draft brazenly declares.

The curriculum is not kinder to parents than it is to history. Rather than try to engage parents in education, parents are disparaged by California curriculum as part of the problem.

“Here are some dynamics an Ethnic Studies educator might consider,” the curriculum counsels. “Is the course being taught in a district where parents or community members are hostile to the field?”

A generation ago, what started in California then spread to the rest of the country, such as no-fault divorce, hippies, the drug culture, and Hollywood values. But perhaps a humorous slogan from nearby Las Vegas should apply to the Left Coast: what happens in California should stay in California.

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.

Finally, a President Stands Up to China!

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Trump is the first to stand up to Communist China in almost 50 years. Beginning with President Nixon, who was then under the spell of Henry Kissinger, presidents of both parties have appeased China.
Once known as “Red China” to distinguish the mainland regime from the anti-communist Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949, the communist dictators have stolen our intellectual property for decades. This is the same tyrannical China against which millions of people in Hong Kong are protesting now.

Starting with George H.W. Bush, who began his rise to the presidency by acting as Ford’s liaison to China, politicians in both political parties embraced a phony “free trade” with China. Millions of American manufacturing jobs were lost, and China used its growing trade surplus to build a massive arsenal against which we must defend.

China exported a staggering amount of goods to the United States in 2018, totaling $539.5 billion, while allowing only $120.3 billion of American goods to be sold there. That created a record trade deficit of more than $400 billion.

Despite our massive patronage of Chinese companies, in 2018 the communist Chinese government cut back on the small amount of American goods allowed to be sold there. There was a nearly 10% drop in its purchases of American farm products, particularly corn and soybeans.

Like the weather in Mark Twain’s famous quip, everyone complains about China’s abusive trade practices but nobody does anything about them. No one, that is, until Donald J. Trump became president.

Trump adviser Peter Navarro explains that tariffs against China are needed to end its “cyber intrusion into our business networks, forced technology transfer in exchange for market access, intellectual property theft, dumping into our markets state-owned enterprises which are heavily subsidized, currency manipulation and killing Americans with fentanyl.” Fentanyl is a drug imported from China which causes half of all American deaths from overdoses.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both promised to take action against China’s exploitation of us in trade, but neither did. Both ex-presidents are now enjoying a comfortable retirement, with Obama having just purchased a $15 million beach house on Martha’s Vineyard as merely a summer vacation home.
But American workers have continued to lose ground in the global economy, and China is a big reason why wages have not improved in decades. The average American family is worse off as a result, due to the loss of better-paying middle class jobs.

China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, over the opposition of Phyllis Schlafly and others who defended American sovereignty against that international tribunal. The WTO has repeatedly ruled against the United States, and China has used the WTO to advance its anti-American goals.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is releasing his new film exposing the treachery of China, called “Claws of the Red Dragon.” It describes how Huawei, the communist-funded technology leader, is poised to dominate world telecommunications for “5G” and “6G,” which are the next-generation internet connectivity services.
The Trump Administration has prohibited federal agencies from doing business with Huawei, which Trump recognizes to be a national security threat to the United States. This Chinese company has so infiltrated the American economy that an additional 90 days had to be allowed to wind down business arrangements with Huawei.

Trump tweeted: “The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP.” When China announced last Friday that it is imposing $75 billion in new tariffs on American goods, Trump responded by tweeting, “This is a GREAT opportunity for the United States.”

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, complained to Trump that Apple’s exporting of iPhones will be hurt by a so-called tariff war, because Apple’s Korean competitor Samsung will not have to pay the tariffs. But Apple employs relatively few American employees compared with other large corporations, so it is difficult to see why Apple should be dictating our trade policy.

Apple has been making an estimated 50% of its iPhones in China, and earlier it announced moving a portion of this manufacturing to India instead. These are not American jobs that are at stake, but Asian ones.

Indeed, Silicon Valley where Apple is headquartered has enriched a few billionaires but largely failed to hold onto American technology secrets. Now China can manufacture smartphones using technology stolen from the West, probably using some engineers who returned to Asia after working in Silicon Valley on H-1B visas.

Liberals ridiculed Trump for saying he is “the chosen one,” but the American people did choose him to stand up to China. To make America great again requires, at a minimum, ending how China takes advantage of our massive consumer market while stealing our secrets.

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.

Time magazine has an article on ERA history:

In passing the Equal Rights Amendment, Congress had set a seven-year deadline for ratification. At first, ratification seemed to be a given, with states quickly approving the amendment, but those ratifications slowed to a trickle. Crucially, the amendment’s passage had had a major consequence: mobilizing anti-feminists, including its arch-opponent Phyllis Schlafly, to defeat it.

In many ways, Schlafly was deeply contradictory. Although she praised stay-at-home mothers, Schlafly — a mother of six — dedicated much of her life to political organizing and traveled the country giving lectures. She believed that the ERA would do away with much of the special status granted to women, including the right to be supported by their husbands, and would damage the traditional American family. Schlafly founded the organization “STOP ERA” (an acronym for “stop taking away our privileges”) to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment.

“What I am defending is the real rights of women,” Schlafly once said. “A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.”

Telling her audiences that the ERA would eventually lead to a future of gender-neutral bathrooms and women being drafted into the military, she successfully made many people think twice about what Constitutionally mandated equality of the sexes would mean. Deirdre Condit, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, notes that in fact Schlafly was right that the future would include such things — but they came to pass even without the amendment.

“Well, if you fast forward to 2019, without the Equal Rights Amendment having passed, we’re trying to figure out how to deal with bathrooms in a multi-gendered universe. And we’re trying to figure out, should in fact women be drafted if men are drafted?” says Condit. ”And while we were are unsettled as a culture about these new questions, they did not fail to emerge because we didn’t have an Equal Rights Amendment.”

That's right, those questions did not fail to emerge. Defeating ERA did not cure the problems of feminism.

Trump Defeats Planned Parenthood in Ninth Circuit

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last month the first physician to run Planned Parenthood in nearly a half-century was forced out because she actually wanted to focus on women’s health. Her firing proved what many Americans already knew, which is that Planned Parenthood exists primarily to promote abortion rather than women’s health.

Taxpayers should not be required to fund this pro-abortion organization, and in a remarkable series of rulings even the Ninth Circuit agreed, for now. With seven new Trump judges on that court, the Ninth Circuit is no longer the liberal playground where Planned Parenthood has been able to snap its fingers and get everything it wanted.

Apparently Planned Parenthood did not see the memo about changes at the Ninth Circuit. Planned Parenthood sued in that jurisdiction to block new rules by the Trump Administration which limit the use of taxpayer dollars by abortion advocacy groups.

These new rules improve upon restrictions installed during the Reagan Administration, but which Clinton repealed and George W. Bush failed to reinstate. From the inception of the family planning program known as Title X, the federal government has been prohibited from spending money to promote abortion as a method of family planning, but that limit has mostly been ignored.

Trump’s fabulous new rules reinstate the original goals of Title X, by banning use of its money to refer for abortions. These rules require separating any affiliated abortion clinics, ending the standard requirement of abortion counseling, and restricting which employees can promote abortions while receiving federal dollars.

Planned Parenthood wants to continue to receive the $60 million in handouts from the federal government under Title X, but without complying with the new rules. Imagine how far that amount would stretch if it were spent on lifesaving medical care for the poor, rather than on abortion advocacy.

Before Trump began appointing judges to the federal bench, Planned Parenthood could have quickly persuaded a federal court to block the new rules, and prevailed on appeal.

Even now, Planned Parenthood won as it always has at the district court level, which issued an injunction upon demand by Planned Parenthood against the Trump Administration. The appeal went to the Ninth Circuit, where Planned Parenthood has won so often before.

Assignment is random to three-judge appellate panels in the U.S. Court of Appeals. In the Ninth Circuit, that means a random pick from among 16 active judges appointed by Presidents Clinton and Obama, 12 active judges appointed by Presidents George W. Bush and Trump, and 18 mostly liberal judges who have senior status, including 4 appointed by President Jimmy Carter.

But in a statistically unlikely assignment, three Republican-appointed judges were picked for the panel. They unanimously blocked the district court decision, allowing the Trump Administration rules to go into effect during the pendency of the litigation.

Planned Parenthood then sought rehearing “en banc,” which in most U.S. Courts of Appeal would include a full sitting of all the active judges. But only 11 random judges out of 28 sit en banc in the Ninth Circuit, because its court is so large.

Planned Parenthood came up with the short end of the stick again. It drew an en banc panel that was 7 Republican-appointed judges, and 4 Democrat-appointed ones; Planned Parenthood lost 7-4.

All four of the votes for Planned Parenthood were by judges appointed to the Ninth Circuit by President Clinton. All seven of the votes against Planned Parenthood were by Republican appointees, including two nominees by Trump who provided the margin of victory, and Planned Parenthood’s unusual attempt to convene a new sitting of all 28 active judges was too much even for Democrat appointees who still hold a majority there.

Planned Parenthood has since declared that it will pull out of the Title X funding program if it does not persuade another court to enjoin the new rules. Apparently the organization would rather forgo the $60 million in taxpayer funding than have to limit some of its abortion advocacy and referrals.

There is plenty of money among wealthy liberals who support Planned Parenthood, so do not expect it to close its doors any time soon. Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires could easily fill that funding gap without making much of a dent in their own fortunes.

But what this battle is really about is the credibility of Planned Parenthood, and whether it can force its opponents to pay its bills while it promotes abortion. Prior Republican administrations and Congresses have promised to do this, but the Trump Administration is the first to actually achieve it.

Two unusually Republican draws of judicial panels in the Ninth Circuit resulted in this tremendous victory. Four more years of President Trump will ensure more of these wins without relying on the luck of the draw.

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.

#MeToo Takes on the Deep State

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The #MeToo movement takes on the Deep State over the Epstein scandal, and the shadow government may have finally met its match. The outrage by feminists against Jeffrey Epstein for evading justice while allegedly providing underage girls to powerful men has even the New York Times demanding answers.

Epstein was apparently protected by the Deep State for more than a decade, receiving extraordinary favoritism right up until his final moments of life in jail. At first the liberal media reacted to his death by calling anyone who questioned the circumstances a “conspiracy theorist,” but the media has since flipped amid pressure by liberals themselves not to let Epstein’s scheme off the hook.

No one can pretend that Epstein “acted alone” all those years, which is the favorite refrain of the Deep State when it wants to close the lid on investigatory failures about other famous crimes. Epstein obviously had powerful allies, starting with Bill Clinton, as well as pilots to fly them and others on the “Lolita Express” staffed by underage girls to serve for their satisfaction.

There are surely dozens, if not hundreds, who must have been in on Epstein’s illicit activities and unexplained accumulation of massive wealth. Bill Clinton himself traveled numerous times on Epstein’s private airplane, which included a bedroom for the pleasure of his travelers.

This former high school teacher who became the billionaire owner of luxurious properties and even his own island in the Caribbean evidently had much he could have said about Clinton and other favorites of the Left. Perhaps Epstein’s cohorts think his death should close the case, but instead it should make getting the truth easier without his army of lawyers hiding behind a plea bargain which can be voided now.

The Department of Justice was prosecuting Epstein a decade ago when special intervention apparently let him off. Attorney General Bill Barr should unseal all those records in his department now that Epstein is dead.

It has been reported that someone then called the U.S. Attorney and told him that Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and to drop the investigation and prosecution, which the U.S. Attorney immediately did. As a result, Epstein received a plea bargain that was so unusual that some have even called it illegal.
Ah, so that is how the Deep State obtains favoritism for its own. It can stop investigations of itself by insisting – or pretending – that the perpetrator is a member of “intelligence” and thus cannot be prosecuted.

James Clapper, once the Director of National Intelligence, famously lied under oath to Congress and yet was never prosecuted for it. It appears that anyone who “belonged to intelligence” is considered above the law, and that using those magic words can get a U.S. Attorney to drop even the strongest of cases.
Meanwhile, millions of ordinary folk languish in federal prisons, many even dying there, while no friend of the Deep State is ever held accountable. But this time the #MeToo crowd is on the case, as they may consider the alleged crimes of Jeffrey Epstein to be comparable to capital offenses.

Alexander Acosta, who was the U.S. Attorney, has refused to confirm or deny the published account of why the Epstein case was compromised. No one has explained why the plea bargain given to Epstein was so preferential that it even protected his accomplices against being brought to justice.

Now Attorney General Barr has identified “serious irregularities” at the jail where Epstein was allowed to commit suicide despite being under a suicide watch. Barr promises a full and thorough investigation, and for once liberals seem to be supportive of this Trump nominee.

But the investigation should not be limited merely to the Manhattan jail cell where Epstein died. Rather, Barr should release to the public all the files on the federal investigation and cover-up of Epstein a decade ago.

Peeling back the layers of cover-up for Jeffrey Epstein could finally bring down the Deep State and its own perverse way of protecting some while destroying others. Was the preferential treatment of Epstein motivated in part to protect Bill Clinton?

Like Epstein, Clinton has been able to get away for decades with conduct that would have landed any Republican in prison long ago. But the Epstein scandal and the clamor by all sides of the political spectrum may finally bring some accountability to Bill Clinton, after all these years.

Important revelations could also result from a full probe into Epstein’s unexplained accumulation of wealth. There are reports that Epstein handled the $29.3 million jackpot on behalf of the still undisclosed winner of the Oklahoma Powerball lottery in July 2008.

If Attorney General Barr digs deep, state lotteries or other government corruption might be brought down, too. And not a moment too soon.

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.

We Choose Truth Over Facts

This is Joe Biden's new campaign slogan.

This was probably just a slip of the tongue, but it does symbolize his extreme leftward political shift. Right-wingers deal in facts. Left-wingers have ideological concepts that they promote as truths. Biden has stumbled across a good insight into political thinking.

Leftist vitriol is getting worse

I thought that RedState.com was a bunch of Republican Trump-haters, but it now says:

While the press continues to blame Republicans for their “rhetoric,” there’s no question that the vitriol we’ve seen from the left this week dwarfs anything anyone on the mainstream right has ever said or done in a political setting. Period. Calling entire voting blocks white supremacists, doxxing donors, yelling for the death of a Senator, asserting Republicans want mass shootings to occur, threatening people for their political activities, asserting the President wants to exterminate a race – these are not the rantings of sane people looking for de-escalation of rhetoric. They are the drivers of escalation in our rhetoric and it’s reaching dangerous levels.

There’s no coming back from this for the media. There will never be a time when a majority of the country trusts them again. They will always now be looked on with scorn by far more people than those who approve of their actions. No amount of rehabilitation post-Trump is going to save this current generation of journalists and cable news pundits from the credibility death spiral they chose to enter.

These people have lost it. They are so caught up in their bubbles that they can’t even function with any sense of rationality. As the press as an institution finally burns to the ground, they have no one to blame but themselves and things are only going to get worse.

The leftist game plan is to keep accelerating the name-calling until Pres. Trump and his supporters cave into their demands.

“Soulless” Gamer Shot Up El Paso

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The 21-year-old who shot up the El Paso Walmart was a “soulless” video game player. He cooperated with authorities during his interrogation afterward, and officials should release to the public his answers to many important questions.

It is unlikely that the killer’s motives fit the narrative of “white nationalism” that is being pushed by the national media. For starters, the accused shooter, Patrick Crusius, is a registered Democrat who was critical of Republicans.

The British press is often the best source of information when these tragedies occur, because the American media try to spin and suppress the news to fit their political narrative. The shooting was not domestic terrorism, but was the product of a loner who grew up on video games rather than healthy relationships.

In a manifesto he apparently posted shortly before opening fire on a crowd of back-to-school shoppers, Crusius refers to “Call of Duty,” which trains boys to kill and kill again. People who knew him in high school described him as a “gamer” for his devotion to playing video games.

One of his few friends was of Egyptian descent, and it is implausible that the killer was a “white nationalist.” Another student who knew him in school said “he never spoke of anything political or talked about guns or had any hatred toward minorities,” as reported by the Daily Mail.

Instead, the real problem is that he is “soulless,” as another high-school acquaintance characterized him. His crime might be described as one of nihilism, which is an ideology of despair that has motivated rootless young men toward violent crimes throughout human history.

He had no girlfriends and participated in no extracurricular activities in high school, recalled one classmate who knew him there. He apparently did not have any genetic psychiatric disorder, as his twin sister was considered to be well-adjusted.

Nearly four times as many young men are avid video game players compared with young women, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study. The average gamer spends more than 7 hours each week playing video games, and many boys spend more than 40 per week consumed by the impersonal games which impede their social development.

Crusius became unemployed and it is not yet known how he passed his time each day. Politically, he was not “right wing” or pro-Trump by any stretch of the imagination.

On the same weekend as the El Paso and Dayton shootings, 55 people were shot in Chicago, of whom 7 died. The grim total included two mass shootings: one in which 8 people were shot by the same gunman, and another in which 7 were shot by the same gunman.

Liberals do not want to talk about the massacre in Dayton because it was by a supporter of Elizabeth Warren. Connor Betts, who was killed by police near the outset of his rampage, had posted that he did not think socialism was being adopted quickly enough.

Betts does not fit the “white supremacist” narrative either. Betts described himself as a “leftist,” and is seen in a photograph wearing the patch “Against all Gods.”

He killed 9 people and injured 27 in a mere 30 seconds, which suggests that he got his training on violent video games, too. It is unfathomable that someone could inflict such rapid, deadly harm so quickly without practicing to kill.

Liberals predictably call for gun control after every mass shooting, but they are silent about how these young killers became desensitized to murdering people. It is dangerous to addict unemployed young men on games similar to what the Army uses to desensitize soldiers to killing.

Democrat frontrunner Joe Biden acknowledged the video game problem, to the dismay of Anderson Cooper during a CNN interview on Monday. “It is not healthy to have these games teaching kids this dispassionate notion that you can shoot somebody and just sort of blow their brains out,” Biden observed.

Studies show that playing violent video games increases aggressive behavior. This is found to be true across ages and cultures, which is hardly surprising.

The Supreme Court would not likely strike down new bipartisan legislation to protect minors against addiction to violent video games, as it did in 2011 when five Justices said the “publishers” of such games have a First Amendment right to sell their products to children. Since then one Justice in the majority (Kagan) has expressed regret for her decision, and two others have been replaced.

Just 10 days before the weekend shootings, a U.S. House committee conducted a hearing into what was called the “youth vaping epidemic” in which the founder of Juul was harshly condemned for making his products so attractive to teens. It is time for a similar spotlight to be cast on the dangerous video game industry.

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 Wins by Framing the Debate

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Prior Republican presidents allowed their opponents and the media to set the agenda. The more liberal the past GOP president, the more he took his daily cues from television and newspapers controlled by the Left.

But not Trump. He tweets out what he wants people to talk about, and he has his adversaries scrambling to respond to what Trump says, not vice-versa.

The best defense is a good offense, as every sports fan knows. Trump has mastered this better than anyone in the history of American politics.

No one on the national stage was talking about the problems of Democrat-controlled Baltimore prior to last week. Now everyone is talking about it, thanks to Trump’s spot-on tweets about it.

Baltimore is ranked as one of the ten least livable cities in the United States. Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings represents much of the city, and he is one of the most powerful congressmen on Capitol Hill.

But recently he spent his time attacking the conditions in a detention center, even shouting at acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan during a hearing about it. Rep. Cummings expressed outrage about how illegal aliens are held, which caught President Trump’s eye and he contrasted it with the deplorable conditions in Rep. Cummings’ own district.
“Baltimore, under the leadership of Elijah Cummings, has the worst Crime Statistics in the Nation,” Trump tweeted. “25 years of all talk, no action!”

It is ironic how Democrats focus so much on the conditions of illegal aliens rather than spending more time and effort helping people in their own districts. Trump would work with the Democrat-controlled House to improve inner cities, but the Pelosi crew seems uninterested in doing that.

So Trump directs national attention to Baltimore, where help is badly needed. A few years ago the Baltimore Orioles even played a baseball game without allowing fans to attend, because it was too dangerous outside of the stadium.
Other cities face similar crises. Downtown St. Louis has been on a downward spiral for years, also under Democrat leadership.

While liberals are quick to resort to the “racist” label, they did not react that way when Bernie Sanders compared West Baltimore to a Third World Country during his last campaign for president. How is it that Trump’s criticisms are considered to be racist, when Sanders’ similar comments were not?

Trump did not back down, nor should he. On Monday he tweeted, “Nothing will get done for the people in need … Sad!”
Trump’s comments create the opportunity for something to be done, as he embarrassed Democrats who spend more time worrying about the cleanliness of centers for illegal aliens than the rampant violence and poverty among their own constituents.

Every week, and nearly every day, President Trump frames the issues for the press with his early morning tweets. This is far more effective than other Republican politicians who wait for criticism by the other side, and then merely react to it.

For years the Washington Post and the New York Times set the agenda for the White House, even when there was a Republican president. White House staff were assigned to read those newspapers each morning and then reports would be given to the president and vice president so they could plan their statements accordingly.

After four or eight years of that process, it was difficult to point to any long-term accomplishments by several past Republican administrations. But Trump is showing us how important it is to take initiative in dealing with a hostile Congress and media.

Phyllis Schlafly often emphasized the importance of being able to define the terms of a debate. Trump is successfully taking a similar approach..

Michael Moore, who made a conspiracy theory movie against George W. Bush, wants Trump to lose but predicts that he will win reelection. He has been critical of the Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden as an opponent of Trump next fall.

Moore lambasted his fellow Dems for trying to set an agenda based on Robert Mueller. “A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions,” Moore said after Mueller’s testimony to Congress last week.

“All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller,” Moore lamented. Trump retweeted Moore’s comments, chuckling about how even Michael Moore agrees with him.

There is no one among the roughly two-dozen candidates vying for the Democratic nomination who can match Trump’s ability to reach and connect with the American public. Instead, the Democrats are relegated to the second-class status of responding to issues that Trump raises, starting with Baltimore and the deplorable conditions of many of our Democrat-controlled inner cities.

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

Questions to Ask Mueller

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“Just the facts, ma’am,” Detective Joe Friday was known for telling witnesses in the 1960s television series Dragnet. Trivia buffs point out that actor Jack Webb’s character never used those precise words, but he did focus like a laser beam on getting the facts when interrogating witnesses.

So should the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees when they question Robert Mueller on Wednesday. There should be no softball, open-ended questions by Democrats designed to invite baseless speculation by Mueller against President Trump.

Mueller reportedly requested that the Department of Justice send him a cautionary letter of instructions to limit the scope of testimony. The letter emphasized the longstanding policy of the Justice Department not to discuss behavior by persons who have not been charged with a crime.

That means Mueller should not be discussing President Donald Trump, who has not been charged with any crime. Mueller would be violating the Justice Department policy if he disparages President Trump.

The Justice Department told Mueller that it “generally does not permit prosecutors such as you to appear and testify before Congress regarding their investigative and prosecutorial activity.”

This does not mean that Mueller cannot answer any questions. There are multiple mysteries about his fruitless boondoggle which Mueller should address, and about which congressmen should thoroughly interrogate him.

The first question Mueller should answer is how much taxpayer money he wasted on his multiyear investigation into non-existent crimes. Then he should be required to estimate how much collateral damage he imposed on others in the course of his rampage.

A recent report says that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who spent decades serving our Nation in the Army, incurred at least $4.6 million in legal fees due to Mueller’s investigation. Gen. Flynn was the victim of an unusual sting operation whereby the since-discredited Peter Strzok oversaw the interrogation of Flynn about the contents of a phone call about which Strzok had access to a secret recording of what was said.

Next, Mueller should be asked about a report that his liberal deputy, the overzealous Andrew Weissmann, attempted to cut a deal with a notorious Ukrainian oligarch, Dmytro Firtash, if the Ukrainian would provide some dirt about Trump. If Mueller pretends not to know the details about that, then there should be vigorous follow-up questioning because surely he knew what his deputy was doing.

Mueller should also be asked about reports that his immediate supervisor, Rod Rosenstein, considered an attempt to remove Trump from power based on the 25th Amendment. That amendment, which provides for a scenario in which the president loses his mental capacity, obviously has no relevance to the current administration.

Then questions should be asked about why Mueller, with much fanfare, indicted foreigners outside of the jurisdiction of the United States. Why did Mueller waste time and money making accusations against defendants who would never receive due process to exonerate themselves here?

Attorney General William Barr, in a letter he publicly released on March 24, observed (on behalf of himself and Rod Rosenstein) that Mueller “identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct” by the president. Democrats have falsely called this statement misleading even though it is exactly correct.

Mueller himself should be asked repeatedly about Barr’s letter. Why did Mueller allow the media to push for weeks the false narrative that he was preparing a collusion or obstruction case against Trump?

Next there is the unexplained delay in Mueller waiting until after the 2018 midterm elections to exonerate Trump. Mueller should be asked why he did not wrap up his investigation in an expeditious manner.

Mueller has accused Russians of manipulating the 2016 presidential election, but why did Mueller himself manipulate the 2018 midterm elections by allowing false media reports about Trump to persist? Why didn’t he release his findings earlier to prevent voters from being misled by the false accusations against Trump?

Mueller should be asked about his bizarre statement on May 29 that “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Mueller should explain why he acted contrary to the Department of Justice policy not to comment about people who are not charged with crimes.

Mueller stated publicly that the Russians who were indicted should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and there will be no trial to establish any guilt. Isn’t the president also worth the same presumption of innocence until proven guilty?

In Dragnet, one of the most popular law enforcement television dramas ever, Sergeant Joe Friday was solving violent crimes that happened, rather than searching for non-existent crimes. If it was so important to stick to the facts in Hollywood, it is even more important to stick to the facts when Democrats want to smear our president over fictitious crimes.

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 Demolishes the “Squad”

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

On Monday, President Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to increase their purchases of products made in America. Using his authority under the Buy American Act, Trump commanded agencies to increase their purchase of American-made goods from 50 to 75 percent.

Purchases of domestic steel and iron products will increase to 95 percent under Trump’s command. As our infrastructure is rebuilt, this will give an important boost to our manufacturers.

At the same time, the Trump administration took action to sharply limit the flow of illegal aliens who seek asylum by crossing our southern border. In response to an explosion in such applications, the Department of Justice issued a new rule to prohibit applications for asylum by someone who has migrated through another country which could have granted asylum, namely Mexico.

These are all necessary steps to restore American sovereignty and jobs for our citizens. But the anti-Trumpers show little interest in these sensible new policies, and instead try to falsely label Trump as a racist.

Americans already knew Trump as a celebrity and entertainer before liberals began smearing him, which gives him the same Teflon quality that Ronald Reagan had. Critics have to pretend that Trump has somehow changed, when everyone knows he has not.

The new blizzard of false accusations of racism are for Trump’s tweets suggesting that those who dislike the United States should return to their country of origin. Trump’s comments were reminiscent of a popular bumper sticker in the 1970s, which said “America: Love it or Leave it.”

Trump tweeted on Sunday that some should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” On Monday, he retweeted that a small group of leftist congresswomen are “a bunch of communists” and “anti-America.”

Trump’s tweets were in response to the inflammatory rhetoric of the “Squad,” as the four congresswomen have become known, who have been more than disrespectful of the president. In order of notoriety, the Squad consists of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), who in a joint press conference on Monday referred to President Trump as “blatantly racist.”

They also insist that the President is somehow lawless as he tries to secure the border and seek the removal of criminal aliens. But Trump’s policies have at various times been supported by Democrats in the past, even by some of the current Democratic presidential candidates.

The Squad derisively refers to our Commander-in-Chief as the mere “occupant” in the White House. The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has tried to rein in these out-of-control Democrats, only to receive a stinging rebuke from them in response.

One of the most prominent members of the Squad is an immigrant from Somalia, where American soldiers were killed and dragged through the streets while Bill Clinton was president. Americans have long been urged to leave that country rather than stay there.

But tens of thousands of Somalis were transplanted to Minnesota, creating a community large enough to elect a congresswoman from their native land, Ilhan Omar. President Trump quipped, “I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements” for her return to Somalia.

Humorous, but certainly not racist. Omar has been highly critical of American policies on multiple issues, as is her right, but her outspokenness makes it fair game for Trump to criticize her in return.

Her colleague in the Squad, the already famous rookie congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was quick to accuse her fellow Democrat Nancy Pelosi of racism just last week. Trump himself felt compelled to defend Speaker Pelosi against the smear.

Disputes about immigration policy are not about racism. It is not racist to try to Make America Great Again, or to urge someone to leave America if she does not like it here.

Of course, virtually everyone does like it here, and billions of people around the world want to come here. President Trump is right to call out the opponents of border security and our free market system that gives us liberty and prosperity.

Ayanna Pressley may be the least famous member of the Squad, but her recent comments about race were the most startling. “We don’t need black faces that don't want to be a black voice,” she said, and “We don’t need queers that don't want to be a queer voice.”

Later, her spokeswoman clarified these remarks by saying, “Diversity at the table doesn’t matter if there’s not real diversity in policy.” But policy diversity as advocated by President Trump is apparently not what the Squad is looking for.

Trump was elected by the American people to implement these policies. When the Squad and the media hurl insults at President Trump, they insult the American people too.

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.

Amid Gender Hype, What About Chappaquiddick 50 Years Later?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The biggest record broken by the national women’s soccer team was not on the field, but in the hype they received from the media. No sports team has benefited from so much free publicity, despite how Americans have always been disinterested in soccer as a spectator sport.

Empty seats plagued the French stadium where the matches were played for the Women’s World Cup, and the American television audience for the finals was 38% lower than four years ago. Some attribute the viewership decline in the finals to its scheduling midday on a Sunday, but American football draws well then.

There were strikingly few minority players in the World Cup from the quarterfinals through the finals, in contrast with the racial diversity in other competitive sports. The many photographs of the American women’s soccer team are of nearly all-white players, unlike the men’s team.

But let’s not allow facts to stand in the way of the liberals’ narrative for this. Their real game here is for “pay equity,” a demand that women be paid as much as men not for doing the same job, but for doing different jobs.
On March 8, the women soccer players sued the United States Soccer Federation in order to be paid as much as men. The men are faster, stronger, and more athletic in playing soccer, but the women demand to be paid as much.

That would mean reducing the pay of men’s soccer players based on a judge setting salaries, rather than the free market doing that. From there it is an easy corner kick to have judges change the salaries across the United States for everyone, with men taking the hit.

There is a political goal line for team feminist on this, too. They want the White House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to be run by women, and they do not mean conservative women.

Amid all this gender talk, how about an observance of the 50th anniversary of Chappaquiddick? On that island one of the most powerful men of the last half-century, Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, apparently had a late-night tryst with an attractive young blonde who had worked for his brother.

They left alone together on July 18, 1969, from a cottage where six young women staffers were brought to party with six married men, including Kennedy. The arrangement was the type of setup that #MeTooers complain about today.
But nary a word by liberals in speaking out for the young woman who left with Ted Kennedy and ended up dead, without her underwear on. Sen. Kennedy repeatedly lied about the circumstances resulting in Mary Jo Kopechne being found lifeless in a submerged car that Kennedy said he was driving.

Kennedy never obtained help for her, did not timely report the accident to the police, and did not even seem particularly bothered by it. Many feminists, then and now, seem just fine with Kennedy’s conduct as they have been with Bill Clinton’s.
If Ted Kennedy had been a Republican politician or even a Hollywood director, then his career would have been over. There would be an immense hue and cry about how powerful men exploit young women for their personal pleasure, and get away with it.

Yet for the next four decades, Kennedy reigned supreme over the Democratic Party. In 1980 many feminists even supported Kennedy’s bid for president, which fell narrowly short.

There was no justice for Kennedy’s crime at Chappaquiddick, which by his own admission included leaving the scene of a fatal accident and allowing a young woman to die there. Yet he avoided any jail time or even having to answer tough questions about what he had done.

Kennedy wore a phony neck brace to the funeral as though he had been seriously injured as part of an accident, when he had not. The movie “Chappaquiddick” (titled “The Senator” for its release in England) portrayed the deception of the neck brace by Kennedy but was unable to tell the full story because so many defended Kennedy then, and still do.

The director of “Chappaquiddick” stated that he felt the scandal would have been a bigger story today, and would have surpassed in publicity even the lunar landing which occurred two days later. Had a powerful Republican politician been involved in a similar scandal, that observation is surely correct as the media would have used the incident to promote their false narrative of Republicans exploiting women.

But the media hype about gender issues is selective. The 50-year anniversary of a powerful Democrat evading justice for his role in the death of a young blonde who left a party alone with him attracts none of the same attention that relatively minor accusations against Republicans and their conservative Supreme Court nominees receive.

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.

Eunie Smith is not Phyllis's chosen successor

A web site controlled by Eagle Forum c4 claims:

Phyllis Schlafly was president of Eagle Forum from 1975-2016. Eagle Forum is now led by her chosen successor, Eunie Smith.

No, that is not correct.

Eunie Smith was one of six women who filed an April 2016 lawsuit to implement a hostile takeover of Eagle Forum c4. The stated purposes were:

• to strip authority from Phyllis Schlafly, the founder and leader
• to fire the guy who was supporting Donald Trump
• to pay plaintiffs' million dollar legal fees from Eagle Forum c4 bank accounts
• to put the plaintiffs in charge of the organization

The judge has still not ruled on the validity of the takeover. A ruling is expected this summer.

Phyllis Schlafly was dying at the time, and died a few months later. She fought the lawsuit, and everything Eunie Smith was doing, as she thought that Eunie Smith was ruining Eagle Forum c4.

Even if Eunie Smith wins the court ruling, it will only mean that she forced her way in, over the strenuous objections of Phyllis Schlafly. It is extremely dishonest to call Eunie Smith a "chosen successor".

The principal political difference was that Phyllis Schlafly supported Donald Trump, while Eunie Smith opposed him. The takeover was initiated immediately after Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Donald Trump. The takeover was by Never-Trumpers. The Eagle Forum c4 organization is now led by those who rejected Phyllis Schlafly's political beliefs, and it is not the same organization that it was for 40 previous years.

Update: The web page is archived here.

Liberal Phobia against Tanks in the Parade

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Independence Day this week will feature fireworks, barbecues, and Nathan’s annual hot-dog eating contest on Coney Island. Spectacular flying performances, including the Blue Angels, will adorn the skies.

Yet a strange phobia by liberals against including tanks in the festivities erupts again. President Trump would like to have a few tanks in his upcoming “Salute to America” parade on July 4th, but his opponents have gone hysterical in blocking it.

Why the shrieking protest against tanks in particular, while ceremonial use of military aircraft seems just fine to the Left? After all, it was the Democrats’ own nominee for president in 1988, Michael Dukakis, who famously posed for a photo-op while riding in a tank during his unsuccessful campaign.

President Trump has long wanted to have a military parade in D.C., proposing it for Veterans’ Day, but he was stymied by exaggerated cost estimates. This time the phony argument against including tanks is that they might somehow cause harm to our infrastructure, a fancy word for roads.

In Michigan, trucks can weigh as much as 164,000 pounds, which is tens of thousands of pounds heavier than the Abrams tank that Trump wants to include in the parade. Funny how the Democrats have not been howling about the weight of big trucks on our roads, but instead stridently object to Trump displaying tanks without any evidence of harm by them.

The tanks are being delivered to D.C. by the Army’s own railroad system, which is a legacy of the Civil War when the Union took control of all the railroad tracks and bridges in the South. Any interference with that transportation system was a crime punished by execution, as featured in the classic American short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” later made into a television drama by Alfred Hitchcock.

Last spring in Europe a massive deployment of tanks and other military vehicles traveled hundreds of miles on ordinary roads without difficulty, in an important test of readiness. France and other countries regularly feature tanks in their military parades, again without untoward consequences.

But liberals stridently oppose the powerful image of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue while Trump is president, lest American voters become enthralled by the show of force. The tank symbolizes military might, and the entire world should see the military hardware that is under President Trump’s command lest anyone think of challenging us.

Nuclear weapons are within the president’s control too, but they do not seem to deter wrongdoing by two-bit dictators around the world. Military aircraft can be shot down by our enemies, as Iran just did to one of our drones.

In 2017, Trump observed tanks being used in a parade in Paris as part of its celebration of Bastille Day, which is the French equivalent of our Independence Day. The tanks did not seem to cause any problems for the roads there, so all the fuss by anti-Trumpers here is merely political.

The Abrams tank is manufactured by the Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio, which Trump visited in March. If the treads on this tank somehow damage ordinary roads, which seems unlikely, the manufacturer could surely put softer treads on a few for occasional use in military parades.

Our high-tech aircraft, such as the stealth bomber, are fun to watch and learn about. But air power alone cannot deter all aggression, as we continue to see countries around the world from North Korea to Iran repeatedly defy us.

The millions of children of World War II veterans do not forget how instrumental the American tank was in winning back Europe from the grip of the Nazis and their “blitzkrieg” style of warfare. The unforgettable symbolism of the tank, under the direction of President Trump, is the real reason that liberals are doing everything they can to prevent Trump from invoking that image under his leadership.

The tools of Trump’s opponents are fake news, endless lawsuits, and gender politics. But none of that will seem significant if tanks roll down a wide boulevard adjoining the Mall in D.C, to a salute by President Trump and millions watching on television.

A parade of American tanks might have a sobering effect on rogue nations who want to shoot down our planes or harm our soldiers. A stealth bomber may not scare a communist tyrant, but the sight of massive tanks driving quickly down a familiar city street is something he would immediately understand.

But Anti-Trumpers have prevailed in blocking tanks from being part of any parade this Independence Day, and may appear only stationary as if they were relics of a bygone era. The American public should be allowed to see our powerful Abrams tank surging at highway-like speeds, and the rest of the world should see it too.

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.