Supreme Court’s Getting Busy

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Suddenly the Supreme Court has a pile of cases that could decide the future of the MAGA movement, on everything from deportation to transgender policy to firing federal workers. The queue stacks up at the High Court with appeals of judicial activist rulings against Trump.

Liberals are shrewd enough to file their lawsuits against Trump in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth, First, and D.C. Circuits, which rule for them nearly every time. The anti-Trumpers then hedge their bet by filing multiple identical lawsuits within additional left-leaning Circuits, while meticulously avoiding the Republican-dominated Fifth and Eighth Circuits.

While a candidate, Trump heroically overcame lawfare against him which has blocked presidential candidates in Brazil, Romania, and most recently in France. “That sounds like this country,” Trump complained about the French judge who recently banned Marine Le Pen from running for president while “she was the leading candidate.”

The Ninth Circuit just ordered Trump to allow transgender soldiers to remain in our military. The Democrat-majority Ninth Circuit denied a request by Trump to stay a ruling by a federal court in Tacoma, Washington, that blocks Trump from eradicating the transgender culture that has crept into our Armed Services.

San Francisco is a venue favored by liberals for their lawfare against Trump, and one of the many Democrat-appointed judges there just blocked the revocation of temporary protected status (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelans. Through this TPS status, which should never have been granted by the Biden Administration, Trump is being prevented from deporting these non-citizens back to their homes.

It is onward from these activist courts to the Supreme Court, which traditionally has deferred to the president on military issues, as he is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. But the Supreme Court has been wobbly on the transgender issue, and Chief Justice Roberts may seek a compromise middle ground where there is none.

On Tuesday, Democrats controlling 23 states and Washington, D.C., filed a new lawsuit against Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Secretary, RFK Jr., over their cancellation of $12 billion in funding. “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” HHS announced.

RFK Jr. has proven to be one of Trump’s finest Cabinet picks, firing 10,000 employees from the bloated HHS bureaucracy while shifting it away from its hidden agenda to promote the pharmaceutical industry. Vaccine stocks fell on Monday after the departure last Friday of the FDA official who oversaw the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines.

This week the Court is already tackling the issue of deporting illegal aliens to Venezuela, as Chief Justice Roberts ordered a speedy response by 10 a.m. on Tuesday from the plaintiffs who persuaded Judge James Boasberg to block deportations by Trump. Already before the High Court are cases concerning Trump’s suspension of funding of DEI programs in schools, his termination of birthright citizenship, and his firing of probationary federal employees.

The acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris, who formerly clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote in her brief to the Supreme Court, “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) millions in taxpayer dollars?”

“This court should put a swift end to federal district courts’ unconstitutional reign as self-appointed managers of executive branch funding and grant-disbursement decisions,” she argued.

Meanwhile, the abortion shield law enacted by the State of New York has resulted in a court clerk there refusing to register a judgment obtained by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against a New York abortion provider. The judgment is based on a New York physician prescribing chemical abortion pills to someone in Texas contrary to Texas law.

The blue states of California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington have all enacted laws to shield their abortionists who expand their services into red states that restrict abortion. When there is enforcement of pro-life laws against out-of-state abortion providers, the blue states refuse to allow the registration of judgments from other states.

Louisiana has issued a criminal indictment against the same New York abortionist on charges of illegally prescribing chemical abortion to a teenager in Louisiana. The Democrat New York Governor refuses to extradite the defendant to Louisiana.

These pro-abortion shield laws violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which commands states to recognize each other’s court rulings. Not since before the Civil War has there been such open defiance by one group of states against another, and the Supreme Court will be asked to resolve this, 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 PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Election Integrity Gains at State Level

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

With many elections decided today by fewer than 1% of votes, election integrity has become more important than ever. Republican state legislatures should be taking decisive action to end opportunities for election fraud.

Wyoming leads the way by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, as Trump seeks. Previously Kansas and Arizona enacted similar laws but those have been blocked or tied up in court, and Wyoming should prepare to provide evidence of election fraud in court when its new law is challenged.

On Thursday, Wyoming HB 156 became law to ensure that voters there have presented proof of their American citizenship and residency before casting a ballot. Wyoming’s Republican Gov. Mark Gordon feebly declined to add his signature to this legislation, which became law regardless.

But also on Thursday in Texas, a liberal federal judge tossed out an election integrity law enacted in 2021 to reduce fraud in connection with mail-in ballots. Voters over 65, which is a large percentage of the voting public, and those with disabilities are allowed to cast their votes by mail in Texas without giving a reason.

The Texas legislature added a requirement that voters include an ID number to ensure that the ballots were legitimately mailed in by the person listed on it. The good law also required anyone assisting the voter to sign an oath under penalty of perjury to ensure its integrity.

In states having Republican trifectas, where Republicans control both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office, a total of 66 election-related laws have been enacted. Nearly three times that many are working their way through the legislatures this spring.

In addition to Wyoming, other states leading on this issue are Arkansas, Utah, Mississippi, and South Dakota. The Arkansas Senate deserves particular credit for recently passing bills to improve the integrity of the process for putting an issue on the ballot for voter approval to become a law.

The Arkansas Secretary of State observed that out-of-state groups having lots of money “are able to get almost any issue on Arkansas ballots.” Nearly half the states continue to be vulnerable to the misuse of their ballot initiative process by out-of-state and even foreign billionaires to enact laws.

On the fundamental issues of abortion, marijuana, and gambling, liberals are enacting their agenda in predominantly conservative states by using hired petition gatherers to obtain signatures to qualify for the ballot. Then liberals outspend conservatives by 10-to-1 or more to pass these measures as new laws with a flood of television and internet advertising.

The conservative states need to reform this process, which is a relic from the Progressive Era early in the 20th century when state legislatures were overly influenced by corporate interests. The ballot initiative process was supposed to be a counterweight for the people to push back against corporate spending to enact laws in the legislatures.

Today, ballot measures have become the opposite, whereby big money by liberals is buying the laws they want and lining their own pockets by legalizing gambling and other bad behavior. Online sports gambling was legalized in Missouri last November by a margin of less than 3,000 votes, based on $43 million spent in support and only $9 million in opposition.

Arkansas Senate Bill 207 requires petition signature-gathering canvassers to inform, verbally or in writing, potential signatories that petition fraud is a Class A misdemeanor. This would help reduce the fraudulent collection of signatures to place a proposed law on the ballot.

Arkansas SB 208 requires that petition signers show a photo ID, which the canvassers must use to verify a signatory’s identity. Otherwise, signatures may not be gathered and included toward the minimum amount needed to place the measure on the ballot.

Arkansas SB 209 commands that the Secretary of State not recognize and count signatures on a petition for which there is a preponderance of evidence that the canvasser violated any law in collecting signatures. SB 210 requires that signatories read or have the title read to them, before signing a petition.

Finally, Arkansas SB 211 requires the canvasser to submit a sworn statement indicating compliance with all the signature-gathering laws. Without the sworn statement, the Secretary of State is ordered not to count the signatures gathered by that canvasser.

The Republican supermajorities in the legislatures in Ohio, Missouri, and elsewhere should follow this lead taken by the Arkansas Senate. Marijuana was recently legalized by ballot initiatives in Ohio and Missouri over objection by the elected representatives of the people, but the legislatures and courts in conservative states could end this misuse of the initiative process.

The Arkansas Supreme Court set the example last fall concerning harmful ballot initiatives. It properly excluded from the ballot both the marijuana and abortion-on-demand ballot initiatives that Missouri and Ohio allowed.

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 Has Options Against Judicial Overreach

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

On Tuesday President Trump called for the impeachment of a federal judge, to which Chief Justice Roberts retorted by urging an appeal instead. Roberts is apparently panicked about the prospect of many impeachments raining down on federal judges based on shocking decisions.

The recent interference by a federal court in D.C. with President Trump’s deportation of Venezuelan gang members is an egregious overreach by the federal judiciary. Presidents, not judges, are elected to protect national security against a foreign invasion.

Impeachment is not the only option available to Trump and Republicans in Congress to provide a check-and-balance against the federal judiciary as established by our Constitution. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton described the judiciary as the “least dangerous” branch because the other two branches decide what power to give it, and what rulings to enforce.

Congress has defunded the enforcement of improper judicial decisions in the past, and has withdrawn jurisdiction entirely from federal courts over many topics. Why should a federal court even have authority over a decision by a president to deport dangerous illegal aliens?

Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78 that federal judges have “no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.”

In other words, it is entirely up to President Trump whether and how to enforce a decision by a federal court. It is also entirely up to Congress whether and how to fund federal courts, define the scope of their jurisdiction, and finance the implementation of any judicial decisions.

Yet District Court Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the Trump Administration to provide details by noon on Tuesday about the deportation of Venezuelan gang members, including flight information. But the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday that it would not comply with Judge Boasberg’s demand for more information.

Newly confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi and other DOJ attorneys told Boasberg “there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate” because DOJ feels Boasberg’s “oral statements were not independently enforceable.” Trump’s DOJ has already appealed and stated they “should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations until that motion is resolved.”

Trump’s DOJ had requested immediate reassignment to another judge because of his “highly unusual and improper procedures—e.g. certification of a class action involving members of a designated foreign terrorist organization in less than 18 hours with no discovery and no briefing from the Government.”

DOJ’s appeal has gone to the D.C. Circuit, which is dominated by Democrat-appointed judges likely to rule against Trump. From there, it will go to the U.S. Supreme Court as part of the appellate process that Chief Justice Roberts requests be followed.

The Federalist Papers as quoted above are the best source for interpreting the Constitution because its ratification was achieved based on these writings. House Republicans would do well to quote and act on what Alexander Hamilton said about how to curb the federal judiciary.

On Tuesday Congressman Brandon Gill (R-TX) immediately filed articles of impeachment against federal Judge Boasberg for interfering with this deportation of Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. They are reportedly being held in a prison there under a contract with the United States to take illegal aliens.

Impeachment of federal judges was the approach used by President Thomas Jefferson, but it was unsuccessful. President Andrew Jackson adopted a different style of simply declining to enforce a court ruling he considered improper, as Alexander Hamilton envisioned.

The Constitution does not require the executive branch, over which the president presides, to enforce decisions that he feels are improper or unconstitutional. Our Founders intentionally dispersed power among the three branches of government as a safeguard against the judiciary or any other branch of government asserting more power than it should.

President Abraham Lincoln said, “If the opinion of the Supreme court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the executive and the court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution.”

That was Lincoln’s response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case that sided with slave owners and denied all rights to blacks. “Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others,” Lincoln said while repudiating that horrible decision.

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.

DOJ: Investigate the Unexplained 6.3M Dem 2020 Votes

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The Department of Justice has more than 10,000 attorneys standing around looking for something legitimate to do, now that the Trump Administration has shut down their liberal lawfare against conservatives. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cost-cutters in every federal agency except, apparently, the DOJ.

Some of the high-flying DOJ projects, including prosecuting candidate Trump and two of his loyal employees in Florida, have been properly cancelled. This and other dismissals, including calling off the time-consuming DOJ prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, have left an army of DOJ attorneys with little to do.

So here’s an idea for something DOJ should investigate: the unexplained spike in 6.3 million votes that magically appeared out of nowhere to be counted for Joe Biden in 2020, which disappeared again in 2024.

Trump was credited with 74.2 million votes in 2020, which increased to 77.3 million in 2024. That 4% growth in votes reflects the overwhelming crowds and enormous enthusiasm that he generated.

But the Democrat nominee for president reportedly received 65.9 million votes in 2016, unexpectedly claimed 81.3 million votes in 2020 (an implausible 23% increase in four years), and yet only 75.0 million votes four years later in 2024. Trump has correctly pointed out that mail-in voting, which was its highest in 2020, is particularly vulnerable to election fraud.

“Anytime you have a mail-in ballot, there is going to be massive fraud,” Trump said to Dr. Phil McGraw during last year’s campaign. The Utah legislature recently enacted a bill to end the irresponsible practice of mailing a ballot to every registered voter, which large Democrat-controlled states exploit.

While the unexplained 2020 surge in Democrat votes may not by itself prove fraud, it is a big enough spike to be suspicious. 6.3 million unexplained votes exceed the total vote count for both sides in our largest city.

It is not as though the DOJ lacks the time or resources to investigate potential election fraud. Its overfunded $46 billion annual budget is being protected and replenished by Republicans’ Continuing Resolution this week.

Election integrity should be a priority in this spending. Investing merely one-tenth of 1% of DOJ’s annual budget on getting real answers about the bizarre spurt in Democrat votes in 2020 is needed.

Some attribute this sharp rise in Democrat ballots in 2020 to relaxed voting requirements due to Covid. But only if that were combined with substantial fraud could a 6.3M surge for the Democrat side be attained, and that fraud needs to be uncovered and prosecuted.

Americans need to be assured that 6.3 million unexplained votes won’t be counted for a future Democrat presidential candidate. Indeed, making sure that such phantom votes do not magically reappear from nowhere in a future election should be first on the priority list of Trump's DOJ.

Yet here we are, nearly a half-year after the 2024 results have been counted and compared to the 2020 numbers, and no analysis explains this mystery. While the media insist that no specific evidence of fraud was proved in the 2020 election, Democrats blocked independent signature verification of mail-in ballots and instead are prosecuting citizens who challenged the reported results.

While campaigning in Pennsylvania last fall, Elon Musk was asked if he believed there was election fraud in 2020. He indicated yes by observing that there were anomalies that remain unexplained.

An AI program could check for handwriting similarities on the flood of mail-in ballots included in the 2020 results, of which state officials refused to allow a transparent independent audit. It did not take long for Musk’s team to find Social Security recipients who are absurdly 160 years old, and just as quickly Musk’s team could find fraudulent ballots counted for Dems in 2020.

Private citizens and Trump's presidential advisors in 2020 should not continue to face criminal trials by Democrat prosecutors while DOJ looks the other way and does nothing about this.

Some say the overvotes were mostly in blue states like California and New York, which do not matter to the Electoral College outcome. But central to the goal of election integrity is to stamp out fraud everywhere, including fraud that falsely tilts the popular vote.

DOJ sits on its hands while Republicans continue to be prosecuted in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan for questioning the 2020 election. Only DOJ has the authority to supersede the Democrat prosecutors in those swing states, to get the evidence that defendants need.

Even the weak Georgia Senate is stronger than the DOJ on this issue today. That body recently passed a bill allowing defendants to recover attorneys’ fees when wrongly prosecuted, as Republican objectors to Georgia’s 2020 election results have been, including Trump himself.

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.

Some Federal Workers already Work in Person

If you missed the Pres. Trump speech, read the read the CNN transcript with embedded fact checks:

We ordered all federal workers to return to the office. They will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job.

[CNN fact check] More than half of federal workers were already working from the office full- or part-time when Trump took office,

That is reassuring. At least half of them do work in the office, at least part-time.

World Realigns Based on Social Issues

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The stunning realignment of world powers unfolding before our eyes is largely due to social issues, not economic or geopolitical ones. Europe and NATO are run by liberals who want to embrace the transgender ideology and hold gay pride parades, while Russia has said “nyet” to that while enacting pro-life laws instead.

The liberal hatred of Russia predates the war in Ukraine, and many of the thousand-strong anti-JD Vance protesters who lined narrow snow-covered Vermont roads on Saturday were motivated by social issues. Some waved LGBTQ flags while others were part of transgender activism, both of which Russia prohibits and would exclude from territory it annexes.

In 2020, Russians amended their Constitution to ensure that marriage remains only “the union of a man and a woman,” and in 2022 Russia broadened its ban on “LGBT propaganda” to include adults. Transgender treatment is not allowed in Russia, while transgender adults cannot adopt children.

On November 30, 2023, the Supreme Court of Russia held that the “international public LGBT movement” is “extremist.” Displaying the LGBTQ rainbow flag in Russia can result in fines and imprisonment.

Pandering to liberals’ hatred of Russia’s social policies, Obama refused to attend its Winter Olympics in 2014 and spoke disparagingly of the country. In December 2016 Obama insulted Russia as a “smaller” and “weaker country,” which fails to “produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil and gas and arms.”

Democrats falsely insisted that Trump’s presidential victory over Hillary Clinton was due to Russia, and Democrats used their fiction to disrupt two years of Trump’s first administration. Ukrainian president Zelensky, who refuses to allow an election to replace him, campaigned in Pennsylvania for Democrat Kamala Harris against Trump last fall.

The Left cannot accept any victory by Russia. When Vice President JD Vance told Zelensky at the White House that his regime is “going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems,” Zelensky did not deny it.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is the only member of Congress born in Ukraine. She recently described Zelensky’s government as “worthless,” and observed that “the American people want to see what we’re getting in return” for the hundreds of billions of dollars we’ve sent there.

We should stop arming Ukraine to fight for NATO’s liberal social agenda. On Sunday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wisely declared, “If NATO’s moving on without the U.S., we should move on without NATO. Time to leave.”

This echoes what Phyllis Schlafly said against NATO in 2016, when she wrote that NATO repudiates George Washington’s advice “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Phyllis repeatedly warned against our entanglement through NATO in foreign wars in 1996, 1998, and 1999, during the wars of NATO aggression in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia.

It is not the moral duty of the United States to intervene in every foreign war. As Trump says, the Ukraine-Russia war would have been over quickly if the United States had not propped Zelensky up with aid that thereby prolonged it.

On Monday, Trump properly halted the delivery of military aid by the U.S. to Ukraine, after Zelensky harmfully declared that peace with Russia is “still very, very far away.” “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” the president responded on TruthSocial.

There was in excess of $1 billion in arms and ammunition scheduled for delivery to Ukraine. Trump was right to withhold that, at least until Zelensky makes a good-faith effort toward ending a war that has killed or wounded more than a million people.

“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country - So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.

Russia is more like conservative states in the U.S. on social issues than Europe and Zelensky are, as Russian laws reject the trans agenda and abortion-on-demand as many states here do. Yet on Friday, Zelensky warned Trump that our country “will feel it in the future” as the next victim of Russia if we decline to continue fighting it in Ukraine.

That warning of our American president by a foreign official was both unjustified and insulting, and Trump properly admonished Zelensky for it. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem,” Trump responded.

Trump continued, “You’re in no position to dictate that. Remember this, you’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel good. We’re gonna feel very good and very strong,” and Trump’s right due to his strong leadership.

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 Trounces Liberal Gov on Transgender Issue

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The federal government has been sending billions in taxpayer dollars to states for their public schools, including Maine. Maine does not have to accept this money but if it does, then it has to comply with the conditions attached just as households can place conditions on charities that receive their donations, or donate the money elsewhere.

At the recent governors’ meeting at the White House, President Trump politely asked Maine’s Gov. Janet Mills if she is “not going to comply with” his executive order protecting girls’ sports against boys viewing themselves as transgendered, as he had heard from the media. She indicated that she would not comply, and argued instead that she is “complying with state and federal law” by allowing transgendered teenagers, born as male, to play in girls’ sports.

Trump responded that “we are the federal law” in reference to how the executive authority under the Constitution is vested in the president, and how Trump had cited the federal statute enacted by Congress. Trump then continued, “you better do it, you better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”

“And, by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports.” Mills interrupted Trump by brusquely saying, “See you in court,” and was photographed smiling smugly at her table.

“Good, I’ll see you in court, I look forward to that, that should be a real easy one,” said Trump. Then Trump added one of his trademark zingers that infuriates the Left, “And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”

This 57-second confrontation in which Trump rebuked the entrenched liberal Maine Governor illustrated how much better Trump is than any other Republican politician. Who else would have stood up against a tough, bossy liberal woman attorney as Trump just did?

At issue is whether federal transgender policy should be carried out and enforced by elected leaders – or whether a small dissenting minority can use the courts to overcome the will of the majority. The federal government headed by Trump can and should use funding as a lever to enforce compliance by states and schools that receive the funding.

Trump’s Department of Education immediately opened an investigation into Maine schools, showing that he will follow through on this and all his campaign pledges. Nine days earlier, on February 12, Trump’s Education Department announced that it will also investigate the interscholastic athletic leagues in Minnesota and California for violating Trump’s ban on allowing boys to compete unfairly in girls’ sports.

A week earlier, Trump’s Education Department gave notice that it is investigating the Massachusetts interscholastic league and the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University, about this same issue. Virtually every state has an association that governs high school sports, and the league in Washington State has been considering setting up a program separate from girls’ sports for transgender athletes.

On February 20 Trump’s Department of Education also issued a statement applauding the conformance by the interscholastic athletic leagues in New Hampshire and Wisconsin with Trump’s executive order banning men in women’s sports. These are two important presidential swing states, and New Hampshire holds the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Trump’s shutting down of the “transgender insanity,” as he accurately describes this, is part of his overall block on federal funding of woke ideologies. On Feb. 13 Trump’s Education Department announced the termination of over $350 million in grants to promote wokeness.

The amount of federal spending on boondoggles in public education is staggering. In the small state of Maine alone, the federal government wastes more than $280 million annually in funding its public schools, which “ranked dead last on a list compiled by U.S. News comparing the quality of public high schools between states.”

Liberals have run Maine public schools into the ground. “During the 1990s, Maine typically ranked first or second on the NAEP” exams, but school policies in Maine have ruined its public schools since then, reports The Maine Wire.

Maine Gov. Mills remains defiant. The day after the public confrontation, Gov. Mills issued a written statement claiming that Trump is violating the Constitution by using federal funds to enforce compliance with his executive order, and that she is standing up for the “rights of transgender Mainers” based on the Maine Human Rights Act passed in 2021.

But missing from Mills’ statement is any recognition of the rights of girls to fair competition in school sports, as thousands of girls are being denied the right to a level playing field by the transgender invasion. Once popular, Mills’ disapproval rating surpassed her approval rating even prior to her meeting with Trump.

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.

Planes Collide with DEI

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

After Delta Airlines reaffirmed its full commitment to the DEI ideology, one of its planes crash-landed, flipped upside down, and burst into flames at Toronto Airport. Everyone miraculously survived this latest plane crash that happened once the plane was oddly cleared to land amid a crosswind having gusts up to 40 mph on its approach to the airport.

DEI means that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are the priority in hiring and promotion, and protection against firing inept workers. President Trump has issued two Executive Orders against DEI, and many large corporations have recently rescinded or rolled back their DEI programs, including Amazon, Disney, Google, GE, GM, and Pepsi, while major banks are taking DEI off their websites.

Donald Trump’s trademark phrase was “You’re fired!” long before he ran for president. Now, as president for the second time, he’s been refreshingly firing everyone who stands in the way of transforming the federal government from DEI to a merit-based system.

Trump should consider firing those in charge of air travel safety, including investigators of these crashes. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) asserts exclusive authority over analyzing such crashes in the United States, but this federal agency is liberal like other federal agencies.

The initial statements by the NTSB chairwoman last Friday seemed to avoid holding anyone accountable for the mid-air collision last month in D.C., despite how it killed all 67 people on the American Airlines plane and a military helicopter. No collision of this magnitude should happen today, and any suggestion that no one was severely at fault is grounds for firing the investigators.

Yet at this rate no air traffic controller will be fired for this deadly collision near Reagan National Airport, even though the day before a similar mid-air collision near the same airport was averted only by an alert pilot aborting his landing and recircling. Air traffic controllers are federal employees and they adopted a policy a decade ago to make it nearly impossible to fire any of them, no matter how incompetent.

During the Obama Administration the use of a merit and skills-based exam, the AT-SAT, was deemphasized in hiring air traffic controllers. Instead a biographical test based on DEI became more important in hiring decisions in this occupation on which the lives of thousands depend daily.

An air traffic control expert, Michael Pearson, told Just the News that the numerous errors made by air traffic control in the recent D.C. crash included failing to “tell the jet that the helicopter was in sight” and failing to give timely “safety advisories” when alerted about the impending collision in the sky. In addition, the “helicopter route was horrible” while “the controller didn’t apply the rules properly,” Pearson said.

But the air traffic controllers’ association, which functions like a union in impeding the ability to fire workers, has immunized the federal employees against being fired by adopting the Air Traffic Safety Action Program. Under this policy “employees are promised that no punitive or disciplinary actions will be taken as a result of reporting errors that could impact safety, provided those errors are not the result of gross negligence or illegal activity.”

The NTSB is already protecting its fellow federal government workers by speculating that the altitude meter in the military helicopter may have somehow malfunctioned, and that a belated warning was “stepped on” by an interruption and hence may not have been heard. But air traffic controllers should ensure their messages are timely heard and acted upon, or else take immediate action to warn others as the DC controllers failed to do.

Missing from the NTSB statements is criticism of air traffic control for not alerting the helicopter pilots to divert their course until less than 30 seconds before the collision. Subsequently the air traffic controller told the helicopter pilot to fly “behind” the landing aircraft, which lacked an urgent altitude change needed.

Pete Buttigieg, who oversaw the air traffic controllers for four years in the Biden Administration, is turning the tables by demanding, “The flying public needs answers.” So while the biased NTSB withholds real answers, Buttigieg blames Trump to boost his campaign for U.S. Senate in his adopted state of Michigan.

A lawsuit has been pending for many years in federal court challenging how air traffic control hiring practices have disadvantaged qualified candidates from the leading training program, called the Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative. This lawsuit, captioned Brigida v. US Dept of Transportation, was certified as a class action in February 2022 in federal court in DC.

Several hundred employees of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been fired by Trump, but not any air traffic controllers or their supervisors. The recent two crashes, one in Canada, suggest that replacing DEI with a merit-based system for air traffic control is badly needed.

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.

Half-Trans, Half-Free: Blue States Defy Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Democrat-majority states are defying President Trump on the transgender issue, and dividing our Nation into half-trans and half-free. The free half are the states that protect girls’ sports from males invading as transgenders, and which protect both boys and girls against mutilating transgender surgeries.

This country endured “half-slave, half-free” until it became impossible to co-exist that way, as the half-slave portion insisted on complicity by the half-free portion until it was no longer willing to go along. President Trump has already put an end to federal workers signing their emails with pronoun commands to recipients for how they address the senders.

On January 28, Trump signed an Executive Order that commanded every federal agency “that provides research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals” to “immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

President Trump further ordered the Attorney General to “prioritize enforcement of protections against female genital mutilation.” Trump has also ended the transgender policies of our Armed Services.

On Feb. 7 and as made public on Monday, newly confirmed (by Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended all future military promotions of soldiers who have “a history of gender dysphoria.” He canceled “all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for Service members.”

As to boys and young men invading girls’ school sports and locker rooms, Trump issued another Executive Order terminating that for all schools receiving federal funds. Only private high schools and a few private colleges do not receive federal funding.

“The war on women’s sports is over,” President Trump announced at his White House signing of this protection against unfair competition. He thereby rescinded a Biden policy encouraging boys to compete as transgender athletes in girls’ sports, as many have.

The NCAA, which governs college sports, immediately issued a new policy in partial compliance with President Trump’s orders. The NCAA immediately disallows men, as defined not by Trump’s definition based on reproductive potential at conception but by birth certificates (which could be inaccurate) from competing in women’s sporting events while still allowing men to practice with women and thus enter their locker rooms.

Blue states including New York and Minnesota are already flatly defying Trump’s directives. Democrat New York officials have advised the many hospitals in New York City and throughout the state to continue to perform transgender surgeries on children even if that means they will lose federal funding.

A total of 23 Attorneys General from blue states have obtained a temporary restraining order (TRO) from a federal court in the blue state of Rhode Island against Trump’s freezing of federal funding of hospitals and other institutions that are performing transgender operations on children. California and 14 other blue states have told hospitals not to cancel transgender procedures or else they would be in violation of state laws against discrimination.

A few hospitals had reportedly canceled a few transgender procedures, while the ACLU and others have sued to seek an injunction blocking Trump’s order against transgender surgeries and treatments from taking effect. Federal power is at its zenith on the issue of how it spends its money, and thus Trump should ultimately prevail at the Supreme Court, but that Court may not resolve this anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota State High School League has told schools there to continue to allow boys to compete as transgender athletes in girls’ sports. In Virginia, which has a Republican governor, schools will comply with Trump’s order against boys invading girls’ sports.

Planned Parenthood is in the business of transgender treatments, so every Democrat-appointed judge sides with that agenda. Blue state judges rule entirely for transgender activists.

On Sunday the New York Times Editorial Board stated their opinion entitled “Trump’s Shameful Campaign Against Transgender Americans,” and asserted that Trump is siding with “the worst of” U.S. history. Yet grassroots politics are confirming the opposite.

In Pennsylvania, where the Democrat voter registration advantage over Republicans exceeded 800,000 voters in 2020, that margin has fallen to less than 200,000 and continues to plummet even after the recent election. Outspoken Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who will face reelection there in the presidential year of 2028, observed in November that Trump’s victory may have resulted from ads saying, “Kamala is for ‘they/them.’ President Trump is for you."

More recently Fetterman described the overall political approach by Democrats today as “toxic,” particularly for the young men who shifted to vote Republican in the last election. Fetterman assessed Trump’s election victory as a “gut-check kind of vote” about which side would protect voters’ “personal view of the American way of life,” and that is President Trump.

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.

Billions to Be Lost in Super Bowl Gambling

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The embrace and promotion of gambling by the NFL make this Super Bowl week the worst of the year for those susceptible to being victimized. And next month features March Madness, when an estimated 68 million Americans bet on the annual college basketball tournament.

Many billions are wagered on the Super Bowl, basketball games, and nearly everything else. The easy availability of gambling on phone apps and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to promote individualized betting have vastly expanded this vice far beyond the limited horse racing of a generation ago.

Young adults, and particularly young men, are the biggest victims, according to a survey released a few months ago by Fairleigh Dickinson University. It found that 10% of men and 7% of women between ages 18 and 30 have a gambling addiction today.

Gambling causes suicides and cognitive disorders even more than other addictions, including substance abuse. A study in Sweden found that gamblers were 15 times more likely to commit suicide than the overall population.

College basketball is particularly vulnerable to corruption by gambling, as players desperate for income can alter their performance to enable gamblers to win big by betting on aspects of a game. ESPN reported on Monday that three college basketball programs are under a federal investigation into gambling rings.

Major League Baseball fired its top balls-and-strikes umpire after his gambling app account was being used by someone else to place substantial bets on baseball. Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s ex-interpreter faces federal sentencing for allegedly stealing $17 million to gamble and, while Ohtani himself was cleared, last year there was an NBA player who pled guilty to a scheme to depart games early with a phony injury and then an illness so that bets could win.

Delta Airlines recently announced its new partnership with DraftKings, a sports gambling company, to offer free gaming to passengers while in-flight. Apparently money will not be wagered through this program, but hooking idle travelers on this addiction can result.

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the floodgates to sports gambling in 2018, the sums wagered have increased. Missouri, through a ballot initiative, will soon join the 38 states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, that allow sports betting.

More people seek help for their gambling addiction at this time of year, during NFL playoffs through the Super Bowl, according to the executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania Josh Ercole. “A lot of this has to do with the ease of access and the continued increased availability,” he said, which has sharply increased through phone apps.

These bets are not merely on the outcome of a game, but throughout the game on predictions like what the next play will be or how well a particular player performs. “Prop wagers,” short for “proposition wagers,” are pervasive now in betting on sports.

A prop wager is a bet on something within a game, such as who scores the first touchdown or kicks the longest field goal. There are nearly endless varieties of prop bets promoted to someone using a gambling app during a game, and the potential for corruption with players, particularly unpaid ones at the college level, is severe.

The longtime NFL Commissioner who built the NFL into the world’s premier sports league was Pete Rozelle, a conservative and a big fan of Phyllis Schlafly. Rozelle banned NFL games on Christmas Day, and said in 1975 that “the NFL is firmly opposed to the concept of legalized gambling on professional football.”

That is not the NFL today, as it welcomes gambling to boost its television ratings among those who place bets. The NFL insists on playing on Christmas too, so this holy day has been transformed into a day of gambling for many.

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit may even allow gambling on election outcomes, in a case that was argued on January 17 captioned KalshiEX v. CFTC. The plaintiff seeks to offer trading in political event futures contracts, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission so far prohibits under its interpretation of a federal statute.

Texas, which recently opened its biennial legislative session, has admirably resisted pressure to allow sports gambling in the Lone Star State. Texas also properly prohibits ballot initiatives like the one that gambling companies just passed in Missouri.

The revered longtime Mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, who built the Big Apple during the Great Depression, worked hard to keep gambling out and was even photographed destroying slot machines with a sledgehammer. He dumped them into the river rather than allow harm from gambling.

Congress could and should prohibit sports betting, and has the authority to do so under the Commerce Clause. States, too, should prohibit sports betting as nearly a dozen have done.

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.