Trump Cracks California’s Egg Regulations

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

No one had the guts until Trump to place the blame for higher egg prices right where they belong: on California’s animal rights regulations that add enormous costs to poultry farms nationwide. California has been misusing its ballot initiative process to regulate farmers in other states, and it’s costing everyone when we buy eggs at our local grocery stores.

Egg prices have declined recently under Trump, but they are still far higher than they should be. Some blame the avian flu, yet even after that flu has subsided, egg prices remain 69% higher today than they were a year ago.

California regulations require that all eggs sold in the Golden State, which is America’s largest consumer market, be laid only by cage-free hens. This is an enormously costly burden on poultry farmers nationwide, as some of their eggs are inevitably sold in California and thus poultry farmers in Iowa and elsewhere are forced by California to conform to its regulations.

At first, it seems impossible for animal rights zealots in California to dictate how chickens are housed in Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas, which are the top five egg-producing states in our country, in that order. Trump carried all five states in 2024, most by double-digits.

California imports up to 70% of its eggs from other states, while California is our largest consumer of eggs and nearly every other product. The U.S. Supreme Court has so far allowed California to regulate the production of goods produced elsewhere but sold in California, despite how those regulations burden farmers and residents of the other 49 states.

New automobiles today contain ugly warnings based on overregulation by California of out-of-state car manufacturers. California dictates that silly statements must be provided for virtually every product to caution about trace carcinogen levels that the federal government has found too low to worry about.

California provides for lawsuits in California state court against any out-of-state supplier, such as a farmer in Iowa, whose products might find their way to customers in California. Midwestern farmers cannot survive lawfare brought against them in California for violating its ridiculous regulations.

The Supreme Court has refused to stop this racket, ruling against one legal challenge in 2023, and on June 30 denying a petition by Iowa pork producers whom California has ordered to maintain their pigs with a minimum amount of spacing between them. Only one Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, voted in favor of Iowa pig farmers against the California regulators.

Enter Donald Trump, who criticized high egg prices during his campaign. His Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court on July 9 seeking an injunction against California laws dictating how egg-producing chickens must be housed in the Midwest and elsewhere.

This lawsuit properly challenges two ballot initiatives funded by liberals in California, known as Proposition 2, which went into effect beginning in 2015, and Proposition 12, which took full effect beginning in 2024. Egg prices shot up as these laws, including a similar one passed by the California legislature, are enforced by private lawsuits seeking big judgments.

Proposition 2, as enforced against egg-producers by a California statute enacted in 2010, prohibits the sale of eggs in California unless the chickens have mobility for a majority of the day in “(a) Laying down, standing up, and fully extending his or her limbs; and (b) Turning around freely.” California punishes violators with fines, imprisonment, and private lawfare that would bankrupt any Iowa farmer.

Trump’s new lawsuit against California points out that egg production there sharply declined by 35% within a year and a half after this measure and a similar California statute took effect. Within two years, the average cost of eggs to Americans was 20% higher than it would have been without those laws, Trump’s DOJ explains.

In 2018 California made this suffocating regulation even worse by enacting Proposition 12. This proposition requires full mobility by the egg-laying hen without constant contact with other chickens or any restraint at all times of the day and night.

The hen must be able to roam freely, where it might be snatched by a chicken hawk, or reside in an expensive “cage-free housing system.” This law incorporates guidelines requiring each hen to have “a minimum of 1 square foot of usable floorspace per hen in multitiered aviaries and partially slatted systems,” while “providing a minimum of 1.5 square foot of usable floorspace per hen in single-level floor systems.”

Trump’s winning argument is that federal law preempts these bizarre California regulations. We have a national economy, and no single state should be able to regulate producers in the other 49 states.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom complains that Trump is picking on California. But Newsom and his fellow liberals have been picking on the Midwest, and Trump’s lawsuit protects poultry farmers.

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.

Unhappiness of today's women shows the folly of feminism

Opinion: Unhappiness of today's women shows the folly of feminism

by Anne Schlafly

Fewer American women are married and more women are anxious and depressed. So many are uncoupled and unmarried. Did feminism lead American women to an unhappy state of mind?

In a recent op-ed in the Post-Dispatch (“Once again, women are told they ‘can’t have it all.’ Why not?,” July 10 print edition), Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian defends feminism and attacks conservative women.

Today, a record 25% of all Americans at age 40 have never been married, compared to a mere 6% in 1980, according to the Pew Research Center. Women have almost twice the rate of depression compared to men, according to the Mayo Clinic. Young women are binge drinking more than their male peers, according to JAMA.

Today the opportunities for women seem limitless. There are no barriers to female achievement. So why are so many women tired, frustrated and alone?

The most important thing that anyone can do in life is to have a successful marriage. The fulfillment that comes from a partner in life is far better than any financial or career success. Marriage does not just happen; success in marriage requires time and attention. For marriage to be a success, the marriage needs to be the priority.

The problem with feminism is that it discounts the meaning of marriage. Feminist ideology told young women that they need a man like “a fish needed a bicycle” — a famous slogan from Gloria Steinem in the 1970s.

But women do need men — and men need women. Humans are social animals who want and need to make the ultimate connection to another person. Do we want an independent life or do we crave a connected life? Of course we want connection and for any connection to happen, women would have to make room in their lives for marriage and children.

Feminism also posits that males and females are interchangeable, but that philosophy denies biology and desire. For example, women and men experience sex in different ways. Most women do not enjoy meaningless sex, but prefer sexual relations in the context of love and romance. Most women desire children. Despite the actress Charlize Theron celebrating her string of one-night stands, most women do not find pleasure in being mistreated and abandoned by a man.

When males started to masquerade as females and invade female spaces, many feminists applauded the transitions. The promotion of transgenderism is proof that feminism is not pro-woman but pro-progressive. Progressives have attacked the few famous feminists (such as Martina Navratilova and J.K. Rowling) who have stood up for women and spoken out against men pretending to be women.

Feminism pushes a one-size-fits-all ideology on young women to abandon their emotional desires. Feminism discounts the importance of men in the lives of women. Feminism is not mainstream, but a far left ideology that seeks to crush the individual in favor of the collective.

Feminism blames “the patriarchy” for all problems, but “the patriarchy” is a straw man that does not exist. Today, nearly half of American women ages 25-34 have a college degree, but only 37% of men in the same age bracket have one, according to the Pew Research Center. No one is holding women back from career success. But feminism still counsels young women not to invest in marriage and family.

Fifty years ago, my mother, Phyllis Schlafly, had to gumption to reject feminism and to speak and write about how feminism leads to unhappy women. Phyllis did “have it all,” but she did it sequentially. Most importantly, she made space in her life for marriage and family. She was very happy.

No one is telling young women that they cannot “have it all”, but no one can possibly have it all at the same time. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. The best advice for young women is recognize that as we age, our priorities life will change.

Schlafly is chairman of Eagle Forum.

From the St. Loius Post-Dispatch

Record-breaking Victories for Trump at SCOTUS

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Another day, another headline-grabbing victory by President Trump in the U.S. Supreme Court. A string of injunctions issued against him by liberal district court judges, as typically affirmed by Democrat-majority appellate panels, has resulted in a string of rulings in favor of Trump by a 6-3 majority at the SCOTUS.

Each time there has been a strongly worded dissent by one of the three liberal justices on the Court, usually Justice Sotomayor or Jackson, as joined by colleagues in their voting bloc. The long-winded dissents are not making any difference in the outcome.

Trump’s attorney in the High Court is the Missourian John Sauer, who has set a record for quickly and repeatedly prevailing there. Sauer wrote in his emergency application in this case of Linda McMahon v. New York, “For the second time in three months, the same district court has thwarted the Executive Branch’s authority to manage the Department of Education despite lacking jurisdiction to second-guess the Executive’s internal management decisions.”

The Court then held in Sauer’s favor and authorized Trump to proceed with his firing 1,378 employees at the Education Department, which will gut this harmful federal agency as Trump promised. Within two hours of this unsigned decision by the Court, agency employees received the equivalent of pink slips.

“The Federal Government has been running our Education System into the ground, but we are going to turn it all around by giving the Power back to the PEOPLE,” Trump posted on Truth Social, while thanking the Supreme Court for his latest win.

President Jimmy Carter established the Education Department nearly 50 years ago, and conservatives led by Phyllis Schlafly have been trying to shut it down ever since. Local school boards and state legislators need the flexibility to adopt standards and curricula that are best for students, based on input from families and accountability in local elections.

There have been 24 years of Republican presidents since Carter, during which the Education Department has continued to interfere with local control over schools. Every federal initiative for education, even those by Republican presidents, has been a failure as reading and math test scores have plummeted.

In recent years, the Department of Education has become a way for liberals to require schools to embrace transgender ideology and woke indoctrination. For decades this federal agency and liberal judges have imposed a misinterpretation of Title IX to require colleges to cancel men’s sports teams to satisfy senseless numeric quotas relative to women’s sports, and to deny men due process when subjected to accusations by women.

The disbanding of the Education Department began with an executive order issued by Trump on March 20, 2025. He correctly and boldly explained that “closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.”

“Today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows. This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math. The Federal education bureaucracy is not working,” Trump added.

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor complained in her lengthy dissent on Monday that the Court’s decision in favor of Trump “hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out.” But she left out that the election of Trump last November gave him the mandate to do this, and that until 1979 education was under local control.

Justice Sotomayor quoted from Trump’s campaign last year during which he promised (as slightly edited by the Court) to “close up the Department of Education” and “send all education and education work ... back to the states” “early in the administration.” Promises made, promises kept.

Some staff at these agencies are needed to reverse the weaponization of the federal government by liberals, but that is already being accomplished. Linda McMahon as Trump’s Education Secretary has declared that the “final mission” is to return authority to the states.

Last week the Supreme Court also held in favor of Trump on a different challenge to his authority to downsize the federal workforce at other agencies. Combined with Monday’s ruling, Trump can move full steam ahead on the D.O.G.E. mass firing goals that began with Elon Musk.

The Department of Justice should rank high on the list of federal agencies where thousands of employees should be laid off or fired. To this day, prosecutions continue by the DOJ that never should have been in federal court.

Fortunately, Attorney General Pam Bondi has recently dismissed one of those prosecutions, against a Utah physician who helped families avoid the Covid vaccine that they did not want. Bondi has also recently fired DOJ attorneys in a refreshing attempt to clean house.

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.

Still No Accountability for Lawfare by DoJ

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Prosecutions by the Department of Justice (DOJ) continue relentlessly as they did under Biden, overfunded without any accountability. While a few particularly unjustified prosecutions were quickly dismissed after Trump took office and a few prosecutors were fired, the recent imprisonment of Sean “Diddy” Combs after his acquittal on all serious charges demonstrates that the federal police state remains fully in power.

Congressmen continue to be terrified of the DOJ and have failed to cut its budget. While there have been attempts at downsizing other federal agencies, which the Supreme Court greenlighted by an order on Tuesday, DOJ continues with full funding and 10,000 attorneys who are all dressed up with nowhere productive to go.

The biggest trial of this year was DOJ’s recent prosecution of Diddy Combs, as initiated last year by the Biden Administration. DOJ recently spent seven weeks prosecuting Diddy at trial in a federal courtroom in Manhattan, calling 34 witnesses to testify.

The contrived basis for federal jurisdiction was the assertion that Diddy Combs, who has recorded 11 No. 1 songs while winning 3 Grammy Awards, was somehow a racketeer who violated the anti-racketeering federal law (RICO) designed for prosecuting the Mafia. DOJ’s case against the music celebrity Diddy turned on his partying and sexual activities, which are plainly not mob-related racketeering.

Misuse of a racketeering statute was the same approach taken by Georgia Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis to wrongly charge Trump and 18 others with imaginary crimes for objecting to the reported 2020 election results there. Those improper racketeering charges remain pending against our president, although Willis was removed from the case and is appealing her removal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

In the Diddy Combs trial, the jury deliberated carefully for more than two days and found the successful rapper not guilty on all of the racketeering-related charges. While awaiting the verdict on charges that carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison, the former altar boy and Catholic school-educated Diddy remarkably prayed with his many supporters in the courtroom.

The liberal media was furious at the not-guilty verdicts, illustrating that this was a political play against so-called toxic masculinity all along. The Biden-appointed judge then sent Diddy Combs back to prison despite his exoneration on the primary charges.

One of the jurors spoke to ABC News last week against the media blowback to the “not guilty” verdicts. The juror said the “decision was based solely on the evidence presented and how the law is stated,” and that the criticism of the jury’s decision is “highly insulting and belittling to the jury and the deliberation process.”

New York lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented the famed mobster John Gotti Jr., said that Combs is “a guy that lived a questionable lifestyle and ran a music empire” and that “the RICO charges were so out of place here.” Anna Cominsky, who runs New York Law School’s Criminal Defense Clinic, observed that “it did seem like a stretch to charge Combs with the RICO statute.”

When one legal critic of this prosecution exercised his right of free speech to point out on a podcast that the prosecutors consisted of a “six-pack of white women” against the Harlem-born black rapper, the Biden-appointed judge scolded the critic. The judge vowed to monitor the lawyer’s future podcasts, to which the attorney retorted, “As long as you subscribe, I’m all for it.”

Three times prior to the verdict the judge denied requests for bail by Combs, which is ordinarily allowed for a defendant not charged with any violence and even many who are. After Combs was mostly acquitted, the judge again denied releasing him on bail.

The same tyranny that was inflicted on many J6 defendants by imprisoning them for years in D.C. without justification is being inflicted by DOJ now against Diddy Combs, who offered to post a bond of $1 million. Diddy received a standing ovation upon his return to prison after the jury sided with him.

This imprisonment is hardly the American liberty we just celebrated on Independence Day, when a man continues to be jailed despite prevailing before a jury in federal court where almost no defendant ever wins. While some may be unsympathetic to Diddy based on allegations mostly rejected by the jury, a similar misuse of racketeering laws by prosecutors remains pending against President Trump and his supporters in Georgia.

The overbearing and overfunded DOJ that spent tens of millions of dollars trying to prosecute Trump has evidently not changed. While the J6 defendants have been pardoned for the imaginary “crime” of setting foot inside the Capitol, the tyranny by the DOJ continues.

There is no federal police power authorized by the U.S. Constitution. States, not the federal government, have authority over these issues, and the DOJ still needs to be reined in.

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.

Fireworks in SCOTUS End-of-Term Decisions

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The U.S. Supreme Court adjourns at the end of June each year for its summer break. To do so the Justices push out every pending decision and then merrily head out of town.

Well, almost every decision. This year the Court quietly punted a contentious redistricting dispute from Louisiana to next fall, despite having already held oral argument on it. The Court also punted on the issue of boys playing in girls’ sports, despite pending appeals from Arizona, Idaho and West Virginia.

Several cases on the Court’s so-called “shadow docket” also remain undecided. Justice Alito criticizes that pejorative term for applications brought to the Court on an emergency basis in which no oral argument is held and decisions are rendered without explanation.

Many important cases resolved by the Supreme Court are from its shadow docket, such as the recent ruling allowing Trump to deport illegal aliens to South Sudan. Trump asserts the right to deport illegals to a third country when their home country refuses to take them back, and the Supreme Court held in favor of Trump on this.

But after the High Court issued its decision on June 23, the district court continued to interfere with these deportations. Trump’s marvelous Solicitor General John Sauer is back with an extraordinary request of the Supreme Court to, in essence, discipline the district court for its defiance.

With all the talk of potential defiance by Trump against the federal judiciary, district courts are the ones declining to comply with many recent rulings by the Supreme Court in favor of Trump. On Friday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett penned a decision in favor of Trump that shuts down nationwide injunctions being issued by district courts against him.

“During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, district courts issued approximately 25 universal injunctions,” Justice Barrett observed on behalf of the 6-3 Court majority in Trump v. CASA. Yet “the universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history,” she added.

In ruling for Trump, Justice Barrett pointed out that the dissent by the Biden-appointed Justice Jackson “is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

Viewed in light of other zingers rendered recently by Justice Barrett, including her rejection of special constitutional rights for transgender persons, she may emerge as the future leader MAGA hoped for. Neither Justice Thomas nor Alito can do it all by themselves.

The ink was barely dry on this victory for Trump when Leftists began scheming how to circumvent it in the lower district courts. Their plan is to seek an unprecedented class certification of illegal aliens born in our country in order to demand birthright citizenship for them.

On Monday, Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland interrogated Trump’s Department of Justice attorney Brad Rosenberg as to whether Trump plans to deport babies born in our country. When Rosenberg properly responded that this question was purely hypothetical and thus premature, the judge gave him only 24 hours to file a written response with the court.

Rosenberg filed a two-page response on Tuesday that mostly quoted the recent Supreme Court decision, and did not add any commitments by the Trump Administration. His response did not discuss babies, who should be deported with their parents in order to keep families together as Trump has been doing.

District judges in liberal regions of our country have lashed out against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. Federal district judge John Coughenour in Seattle declared earlier this year that “this is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” with which the Supreme Court did not agree, while Judge Boardman has incorrectly stated that “the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected” Trump’s view of birthright citizenship.

News reports and liberal pundits commonly repeat the falsehood that birthright citizenship is guaranteed to everyone including temporary visitors by the Civil War-era 14th Amendment. That is disproven by the fact that American Indians did not have birthright citizenship until it was established by a federal statute in 1924, more than half a century after the 14th Amendment was enacted.

Most countries, in fact, reject birthright citizenship. Israel, for example, grants citizenship to a baby born in Israel only if one of the parents is already an Israeli citizen.

The United Kingdom, long admired as setting the gold standard for a civilized society with its British Empire, likewise rejects birthright citizenship. A baby born in the United Kingdom has a right to citizenship only if a parent was already a British citizen or has permanent residency there.

Another Trump-appointed justice, Brett Kavanaugh, sparkled with his end-of-term decision in Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA to allow fuel producers to challenge liberal California regulations banning the sale of gasoline-powered automobiles.

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.

Skrmetti and More Transgender Cases

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The 6-3 affirmance by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Skrmetti on June 18 was a decisive defeat for the transgender movement. The Court fully upheld a good Tennessee law banning transgender operations and treatments in children, and this conservative decision went further than it had to by declaring the law constitutional.

The pro-transgender side brought this appeal, apparently hoping for a Supreme Court ruling that would invalidate the Tennessee law and similar laws in at least 24 other states. Instead, the Court opens the door to additional states banning these surgeries and drug treatments.

Strident dissents by liberal justices on the Supreme Court are becoming a familiar pattern as 6-3 conservative decisions become the norm. On Monday, the same 3 liberal justices dissented with extreme dismay at a brief order by the Court majority that allows Trump to deport criminal migrants to other countries when their own country of origin won’t take them back.

The last election resolved the transgender and immigration issues as Trump campaigned on them at every rally. The Democrat Party ran and lost as the party that is pro-transgender and pro-illegal immigration, and no one should be genuinely surprised that the majority on the Supreme Court is rejecting the Democrats’ positions now.

Some liberals have been hopeful of bringing Justice Amy Coney Barrett to their side, after she ruled against Trump a couple of times. But her concurring opinion in Skrmetti last week was a complete rejection of the notion that there is any constitutional right that protects being transgender or transitioning to the opposite sex.

As a result of the Civil War and the 14th Amendment, racial discrimination gets special scrutiny from the courts. Justice Barrett flatly rejected giving that sort of scrutiny to laws touching on transgender issues, and Justices Thomas and Alito agreed with her.

On Friday, the Eleventh Circuit, while considering the issue of court-ordered taxpayer funding of transgender treatments for a county employee in Lange v. Houston County, immediately requested supplemental briefing on the impact of the Skrmetti decision on this case from Georgia. An initial panel of that court had ordered the county, and thus the taxpayers, to fund these medical procedures, but that ruling is being reconsidered by the full court on which Republicans have a 7-5 majority.

Skrmetti is not even the only transgender case being decided by the Supreme Court this month. The case of Mahmoud v. Taylor has proven to be as contentious for the High Court to decide.

In Mahmoud, a group of Muslim and Christian parents object to the indoctrination of their children in public school about transgender and sexuality issues without the parents’ consent, and without the parents even receiving advance notice. This is where the transgender issue is resolved long-term: whether schools can brainwash kids about it, rewarding pro-transgender answers with an “A” while penalizing students who disagree.

There should be an even larger majority of Justices on the side of parents who object on religious grounds to LGBTQ+ indoctrination in this upcoming Mahmoud decision as there was on the side of Tennessee in Skrmetti. During an exhausting oral argument that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours in April, none of the Justices could point to any harm in letting parents opt out of this indoctrination.

But parents need advance notice before they can opt out, and public schools are not doing that. One of the objectionable books being taught was about a puppy who got lost during a Pride Parade, which is a clever way to make students comfortable with these parades that promote transgender lifestyles.

Ordinarily very few parents exercise the existing rights that they have today in many states to pull their children out of objectionable instruction relating to sex or health. The opt-out process can be cumbersome and parents who object the most have already taken their kids out of public schools.

Requiring public schools to give the community notice of these objectionable materials would be helpful, as then taxpayers could see what their high property taxes are being spent on. Lower reading and math scores in schools should be of concern to taxpayers, and so should high amounts of objectionable indoctrination.

Biden-appointed Ninth Circuit Judge Jennifer Sung wrote a decision for that left-leaning court in favor of Oregon schoolteachers who had been fired for objecting to the transgender ideology being imposed in schools there. The district court had dismissed the lawsuit by these schoolteachers, but the Ninth Circuit held in their favor and reinstated the case, captioned Damiano and Medart v. Grants Pass School District No. 7.

The school board later reinstated the teachers to different positions that were inferior to the ones they had before they spoke out. The courageous teachers had used their own electronic devices, on their own time, to promote the “I Resolve” campaign with resolutions for ending restroom access by the opposite anatomical sex and stopping the practice of schools using a gender-different name for a child without parental consent.

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.

Illegal Alien Crisis Compels ICE Raids

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, was employing nearly 80 illegal aliens, as uncovered by a much-publicized raid on June 10 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Americans have since flooded the company with applications for these jobs, according to Breitbart.

Included among these illegal aliens is a man who had a final order of removal issued against him in 2019, yet he remained in our country. Another had been previously deported four times, and a third had three DUI arrests plus an illegal reentry conviction.

Omitted from most stories is that an illegal alien from Honduras carrying a weapon assaulted officers and agents while they were doing their job to enforce the law and protect Americans. Additional crimes by these illegal aliens include fraud and misuse of visas and permits, resisting arrest, illegal reentry, and misuse of Social Security numbers.

Raids have become necessary because state and local authorities, particularly in California but also in other states, are refusing to allow ICE access to arrested criminals for deportation purposes. Earlier this year the California legislature rejected a bill introduced by a Republican to overturn the California sanctuary law, signed by liberal Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA), which prevents such cooperation.

ICE released a statement about its June 10th raid in Omaha that it “executed a federal search warrant at Glenn Valley Foods based on an ongoing criminal investigation into the large-scale employment of aliens without authorization to work in the United States.” Their only punishment will be deportation back to their home countries, and three of them have already agreed to return to Mexico voluntarily.

Omaha is located in a conservative Midwestern state but is represented by the anti-Trump Republican Rep. Don Bacon. Omaha’s public school board invites illegal aliens by announcing that it will not inquire or share the illegal status of students who are enrolled in its schools.

The Omaha Public School Board issued this statement in response to the raid: “Omaha Public Schools serves students and families regardless of immigration status. We do not ask about or share a student or family’s immigration status.”

Most illegal aliens do not speak English at home, and thus their children are not learning the official language of the United States or assimilating into our culture. Our public schools should not be allocating scarce educational resources towards non-English-speakers, while American children are not acquiring basic reading and math skills.

President Trump confirmed his deportation program on Sunday night on Truth Social. He observed that “the Brave Men and Women of ICE are subjected to violence, harassment, and even threats from Radical Democrat Politicians,” but Trump vowed that “nothing will stop us from executing our mission, and fulfilling our Mandate to the American People.”

Trump resolved a pitched battle among his advisers as to whether these raids would continue at farms, food processing facilities, and the hospitality industry of hotels and restaurants. Trump’s Agriculture Secretary had briefly persuaded Trump to exempt these employers of illegal aliens, but Stephen Miller and a backlash by MAGA led to the reversal of these exemptions.

Jobs in the hospitality industry will soon become more attractive with the promised elimination of the taxation of tips, about which Trump campaigned and Senate Democrats have already approved. These benefits should flow to hardworking American workers rather than to illegal aliens.

The meatpacking industry, which was the focus of the raid in Omaha, pays more than the minimum wage in most places. But employers can pay illegal aliens less than Americans, which is why some businessmen look the other way as illegal aliens fill jobs in their companies.

Trump vows to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.”

Trump linked this to the transgender travesty by criticizing those who “believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports — And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role.”

In words that describe Omaha and similar towns, Trump said he has “directed my entire Administration to put every resource possible behind this effort, and reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia.” Rather than calling this deportation, Trump correctly calls this a “REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came.”

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.

RFK Jr. Cleans House as MAGA Hoped

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.), Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), cleared the deck on Monday of Big Pharma’s control over vaccine policy. RFK Jr. fired everyone on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has never recommended against any vaccine, including those later withdrawn as unsafe.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” RFK Jr. wrote in the Wall St. Journal, which itself has been a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry. OpenSecrets.org identifies Big Pharma as the most influential group in Washington, D.C., and more than two-thirds of the U.S. Senate receives Big Pharma donations.

Many Americans have no idea what ACIP is, or understand that ACIP’s vaccine recommendations automatically become vaccine requirements for children to attend public schools. Private schools also require the same laundry list of ACIP-recommended vaccines, and Illinois this year considered legislation to require homeschool children to receive all these vaccines too.

Big Pharma’s lobbyists have cleverly obtained legal requirements in every state that automatically impose on children whatever ACIP approves. So although it appears that ACIP is merely making recommendations, in fact its recommendations become requirements for children unable to refuse the injections.

It used to be that nearly every state had a religious exemption to vaccination, and large states like California even had a philosophical exemption that did not require any religion. But Big Pharma has diligently worked to remove exemptions, such that California has neither a religious nor a philosophical exemption, while several other blue states including New York have eliminated their religious exemption.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) is an important part or partner of the MAGA movement that helped elect Trump along with a strong 53-47 GOP majority in the Senate. Among many stunning achievements by Trump’s Cabinet and special advisers, RFK Jr.’s overhaul of ACIP is one of the biggest and boldest reforms.

Personal observations of children after vaccination have led many to suspect that they are being harmed by injections they do not need. An alarming increase in autism, allergies, heart problems, and cancer cries out for an explanation, and one difference between younger and older Americans is that younger generations have had far more vaccines.

Covid was relatively safe in children and yet the Covid vaccine was pushed on them by ACIP, and has been required by many colleges as a condition of enrollment. In some cases children were injected with the Covid vaccine without their parents’ approval.

Hospitals give most infants the Hepatitis B vaccine soon after birth, although its purpose is to protect against a sexually transmitted disease. New Jersey, where the pharmaceutical industry has many offices, requires 3 doses of this and many other vaccines in children as a condition of merely entering kindergarten.

The liberal media understood immediately the significance of RFK Jr.’s housecleaning move, and some websites featured headlines about this with greater priority than news about the Los Angeles riots. When Tucker Carlson and James O’Keefe previously took on Big Pharma, they were soon forced out of their jobs.

The blowback against RFK Jr. will be intense, and it appears that Big Pharma already controls Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) who was initially planning to vote against RFK Jr.’s confirmation. Only a grassroots outpouring by MAHA in support of RFK Jr. caused Tillis to eventually vote in favor of him.

CNN quoted one of the fired members of ACIP as blustering that “I’ve never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime.” The adviser asserted, “This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America.”

Instead, it might end vaccine tyranny in the United States, where children are forced to receive more vaccines than anywhere else in the world. American children typically receive 30 doses of vaccines by the age of one, due to how ACIP has relentlessly recommended virtually every vaccine.

Every member of ACIP whom RFK Jr. fired had been appointed by Biden, who famously abused his power by ordering all large employers to require Covid vaccination of their employees. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened on an emergency basis to block Biden’s vaccine mandate as unjustified by any law.

There has been a chorus of complaints about RFK Jr.’s mass firing from those who feed at the trough of Big Pharma. As an advisory committee, ACIP should be a diverse group that includes people who are skeptical about vaccine mandates.

RFK Jr. vows that the replacements he picks for ACIP “won’t directly work for the vaccine industry” and “will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry — unafraid to ask hard questions.” This is just what a good doctor would want for MAHA vaccine policy.

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 Will Punish California for Trans Travesty

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

California just gave first-place awards to a transgender athlete in a girls’ state track championship. “A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump retorted on Tuesday on Truth Social.

“As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!” Trump continued. Democrats are allowing this trans invasion of girls’ sports in multiple blue states, and it is typically not disclosed or reported unless someone speaks out.

Males are usually taller, faster, and stronger than females, and these differences are substantial in track and field events. The world record in the men’s long jump is nearly 5 feet longer than that of women’s, while the men’s high jump world record is more than a foot higher than women’s.

Hurdles for boys’ races are a half-foot higher than hurdles for girls in high school, which creates an additional incentive for boys to cross over to compete in the girls’ races. In 2023, a Massachusetts high school won the state title with points awarded to its transgender hurdler in a girls’ race.

Oregon allows any biological male to “access athletics and activities” by asserting that his gender identity is that of a girl. Only some of the competitors themselves know who the transgender athletes are, as this can be concealed from parents, spectators, and conservative media.

The second and third-place finishers in a recent Oregon high school girls’ track event protested awarding first place to a transgender, by declining to stand on the awards podium. “I just want everyone to know that this isn’t just about me or the other girl to step down. It’s about the girl in ninth place who should have had a place on that podium,” Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School told ABC’s local affiliate, KATU.

“It’s about the girl who didn’t qualify for state because they were beat by a biological male in districts,” she added. “It’s about the integrity and fairness of women’s sports.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited out in 2026 while eyeing a longshot bid for the Democrat nomination for president in 2028, admits that this is unfair. “It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,” Newsom told Trump-supporting Charlie Kirk, adding that “I totally agree with you.”

Yet Newsom has failed to protect girls’ sports in California, and let a transgender athlete win girls’ championships. The California school sports association did allow for the podium to be shared by the top girl competitors under a hasty rule change, but only after Trump objected.

While Democrats oppose protecting girls’ sports from the transgender invasion, they are funding a $20 million project to study why young men are shifting from Democrat to Republican. The shift in this demographic has steadily progressed since beginning in 2016, continuing through 2020, and then helping propel Trump to his victory by a wide margin in 2024, at the same time that the transgender invasion has increased.

Democrat politicians are doing what Planned Parenthood wants, as they have for more than half a century. Every House Democrat recently voted against removal of the $792.2 million in federal taxpayer money that has been flowing to Planned Parenthood, and Democrat senators will do everything they can to try to reinsert that funding back into the “big, beautiful bill” that has reached the Senate.

An analysis by the Heritage Foundation of Planned Parenthood in 2023 found that the abortion giant is “trying to corner the market in so-called transgender services,” and that its transgender approach likely “makes up the bulk of the dramatic rise” in its revenue and multi-billion-dollar assets.

More than a decade ago, Planned Parenthood first mentioned providing “hormone treatments for transgender patients,” disclosing 26 centers in 10 states for these treatments in its 2014-2015 annual report. By its 2021-2022 report, Planned Parenthood had “41 affiliates provide gender-affirming hormone therapy.”

Surgical abortions in clinics have been declining in the United States, for a variety of reasons. But Planned Parenthood has grown its revenue in the transgender world to more than make up for the shortfall.

An all-out attempt to change one’s gender can rack up bills easily exceeding $100,000 per person, which some attempt to shift to taxpayers to pay for. Last year the American Principles Project estimated that overall revenues for transgender drugs and surgeries exceeded $4.4 billion in 2023.

Harmeet Dhillon, the tough and savvy new head of the Civil Rights Division of Trump’s Department of Justice, has threatened to sue California for allowing transgender athletes to win top prizes in girls’ sports competitions. At its championship track and field meet over the weekend, two first-place awards and one second-place award were given to a transgender athlete.

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.