Wanted: An Unconfirmable Attorney General

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

With the sudden departure of Pam Bondi last week, President Trump is searching for a new Attorney General. He may be looking for a new Deputy AG as well.

Under current Federal law, President Trump has the power to appoint an attorney to fill these crucial offices in an interim or “acting” capacity for up to 210 days without Senate confirmation.

A glance at the calendar reveals that this year’s midterm elections are set for November 3, 2026, which is exactly 210 days from today. Coincidence? We think not.

The next Attorney General and Deputy AG should be someone who is willing and able to accomplish the MAGA goals within that 210-day time frame, or he’ll be another failure. These 210 days (30 weeks) could be virtually all the time that remains on the clock for the second Trump administration.

No one passes a basketball to a player who ignores dwindling time on a shot clock. No coach installs a quarterback after the final two-minute warning who ignores the game clock.

The liberal media and even some of Trump’s advisers are telling him that he needs to choose a new Attorney General who is confirmable by the Senate, but that is malarkey. Trump needs an Attorney General who will get the job done before the midterms, such as someone who could not be confirmed by the weak sisters in the Senate.

Before a nominee could even be voted on by the full Senate, he would have to pass the gauntlet of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Republicans hold a 1-vote margin that several of Trump’s best nominees have failed to clear. The RINO lame duck Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is on that committee, and he should not be allowed to block a strong nominee.

Certain types of attorneys should be ruled out of consideration immediately. The next Attorney General should not come from a major Establishment law firm, should not be a former lobbyist or lobbyist wannabe, and should not be a former federal prosecutor.

If the next Attorney General is afraid of liberals, Congress, or the media, then he will fail to make badly needed changes at the Justice Department. MAGA still awaits a prosecution of ringleaders among more than 200 Justice Department employees who wrongfully persecuted Trump.

Many excellent candidates would do a terrific job at saving our country from the Swamp. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Ed Martin, Mike Davis, and Sidney Powell would be superb choices without worrying about Tillis and other RINOs.

President Abraham Lincoln did not win the Civil War by appointing an insider to lead the Union Army. After D.C.-favored generals like George McClellan failed to get the job done, it was the outcast, probably unconfirmable U.S. Grant who ultimately won the war.

Even if eventual confirmation could be assured, we don’t have time to waste on a long and agonizing confirmation process, with the clock winding down for the midterms. The next Attorney General should not subject himself to browbeating by liberals, as when Markwayne Mullin had to make a damaging retreat from Trump’s deportation agenda before he could be confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security (which includes ICE).

The ideal candidate would be someone who views D.C. and the liberal media with contempt, as Trump does. Anyone who seeks praise on Capitol Hill or by the press should not apply for this job that requires wrestling with Swamp creatures.

If the next Attorney General cannot get the job done for MAGA in 210 days, then he should not be appointed. Coaches do not give the ball to players who ignore the game clock as it winds down to zero.

There is probably no confirmable candidate for the top two positions in the Justice Department who will fulfill the MAGA goals that Trump promised in 2024. If a majority of the senators approve of a candidate, then he is unacceptable to MAGA.

In 2020, the Senate-approved Attorney General Bill Barr abruptly quit his office early to avoid post-election issues, and then obtained a book deal for his memoir entitled “One Damn Thing After Another.” That failure would probably happen again if Trump picks a confirmable candidate to lead the DOJ.

Nearly everyone liked by senators in D.C. is angling to make a buck for himself, as many senators themselves are, too. Several have left the Senate to cash in with private equity firms, while others take lucrative corporate jobs as Barr did after being Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush.

Installing MAGA leadership at DOJ was one of the key pledges made to the American people in 2024, which helped elect Trump and other Republicans. The vacancy at the position of Attorney General makes it possible now to honor that pledge.

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.

Conversion Therapy Wins Big in SCOTUS

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Do physicians and counselors have the right to speak freely to their patients and clients? One would think that licensed professionals enjoy the First Amendment as much as anyone else, but 23 Democrat-controlled states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making it illegal for counselors to help young people go straight, in the face of confusions about sexual orientation or gender identity.

These state laws ban what is known as “conversion therapy,” a scary term that Wikipedia falsely contends is a form of child abuse. More than 100 cities and counties have also banned conversion therapy for minors, despite how local ordinances are not typically so political.

But today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all such laws are almost certainly invalid, because the First Amendment protects the right of professional counselors to give advice without viewpoint discrimination, even on controversial topics like sexual orientation.

In his ringing opinion in favor of the Colorado Christian counselor who brought the case, Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote: “The Constitution does not protect the right of some to speak freely; it protects the right of all. It safeguards not only popular ideas; it secures, even and especially, the right to voice dissenting views.”

It is not surprising that Gorsuch was assigned to write this decision, as he is from Colorado and presided on the Tenth Circuit in Denver before going to the Supreme Court. But the strength of his opinion is refreshing, particularly given how he had declined to support granting certiorari in similar prior appeals.

Kaley Chiles, the licensed mental health counselor who challenged Colorado’s ban on so-called conversion therapy, is indeed a committed Christian, but six Justices ruled in her favor in a strong endorsement of freedom of speech regardless of religion. By a 6-3 margin the Court held that “every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”

Concurring with the Republican majority, Obama-appointed Justice Elena Kagan agreed that “because the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward.”

The single dissenting opinion was authored by Biden-appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who, during her memorable confirmation hearing, was unable to say what a woman is. In her overwrought, cliche-ridden opinion, Justice Jackson said “the majority plays with fire in this case,” “opens a dangerous can of worms” and “we could now be standing on the edge of a precipitous drop in the quality of healthcare services in America.”

In his response to Jackson’s heated dissent, Justice Gorsuch wrote that Justice Jackson “may believe that state-imposed orthodoxies in speech pose few dangers and many benefits in this field (and who knows what others). But their policy is not the First Amendment’s.”

Although the speech ban at issue in this case attracted only one vote on the Supreme Court, it is frightening that such an onerous restriction on free speech has been passed by legislatures of nearly half our states. The gist of those state laws, which Joe Biden’s appointee to the Court would have upheld, is that doctors and other licensed professionals have no right to give their own best advice, but must convey state-approved messages to their clients or patients.

The lobbyists for those laws argue that conversion therapy has a low success rate. However there is no evidence that the rate is any worse than for other common therapies, such as for losing weight or stopping addictions.

The decision in favor of free speech is now the law of the land in the United States, but the battle is not over, because many professional societies still oppose the use of talk therapy or counseling to guide young people struggling with issues of sexual orientation or gender identity. You can expect professional counselors like Kaley Chiles to be harassed by some state licensing boards if they dare to fully exercise their free speech.

Colorado, which has become one of the most liberal states despite formerly being conservative, may not give up in its attempt to censor conversion therapy. Justice Kagan invited it and other opponents of conversion therapy to try again with a content-based restriction, rather than a viewpoint-based limitation, although it is far from clear what Justice Kagan has in mind.

A viewpoint-neutral limitation on counseling would require liberals to cut back on their grooming campaigns. Most conversion therapy bans, including Colorado’s, allow therapy to encourage transitioning to become transgendered.

Speech bans similar to Colorado’s are still the law in countries that don’t have a First Amendment, such as Canada. Originally drafted in the 1980s to ban counseling about sexual orientation, most of these laws were subsequently expanded to ban counseling about gender identity, 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.

Billionaire Tax Act Rattles Golden State

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Billionaires have been fleeing California because of a ballot measure seeking to impose a one-time tax of 5% on their wealth. Promoted by unions, endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), and doing well in gathering signatures to be on the November ballot, this citizen-initiated ballot measure has support by 50% of voters plus another 14% who are undecided but lean “yes,” according to an early poll.

This Billionaire Tax Act would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026, and many billionaires are not waiting around for the election results. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the top five wealthiest persons in the world who founded Facebook which is headquartered in California, has reportedly already decided to move to Florida, where there is not even an income or estate tax.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick have also reportedly moved out of California. There are more than 200 billionaires in California, the most of any state, and their total wealth exceeds $2 trillion.

Wealth, including unrealized capital gains on stock ownership, has never been taxed before. But the California ballot measure would both revise its state constitution and enact a new law imposing this tax, which could have cost Zuckerberg more than $10 billion dollars had he remained a resident of California.

California has the largest homeless population of any state, totalling nearly 200,000 people, and 50% of our country’s unsheltered population lives in California. It is projected to have a budget deficit of $18 billion this year, and then have future annual deficits of $20 to $35 billion.

This red ink cannot flow forever, and states are not allowed to file for bankruptcy. Unlike the federal government, California cannot print its own money to pay off its debts.

Suddenly there is a sharp uptick of interest in super-luxury homes in Wyoming, reports the New York Post, with the explanation that more California billionaires are looking to flee to that mostly tax-free state. Several centibillionaires, including Elon Musk and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, previously left California; Musk moved to Texas and Ellison moved to a Hawaiian island that he purchased.

Roughly 20 states allow citizen-initiated ballot measures, as California does. Over the years other ballot measures, like raising the minimum wage, were enacted by landslide margins in California and Oregon and then spread to many other states in imitation.

One of the easiest states to place a new law on the ballot for majority vote is Colorado, where liberals have run up a $1.5 billion annual deficit that is forcing cuts in programs and which could impact Medicaid services for the poor. Half the states face budget shortfalls as federal funding for them dries up.

Democrat-controlled legislatures in blue states like New York and New Jersey, which lack a process for citizen-initiated ballot measures, can put wealth taxes up for a vote by the people. Wealthy individuals can also flee from these states to low-tax alternatives like Florida, Texas, and Wyoming.

Backers of the California billionaire’s tax predict that it will raise $100 billion, of which 90% would be allocated to public health services. The remaining 10% would go toward education and food assistance programs.

Public health services in California include coverage for costly transgender operations and treatments. The California Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, requires coverage of this and prohibits any discrimination based on transgender issues.

Billionaires are donating money to try to defeat this ballot measure in California, and usually the side that spends the most is the side that prevails. Already $35 million has been pledged or donated by billionaires against this.

But the retroactive effect of this billionaire tax is designed to prevent anyone from escaping its bite by moving shortly before or after the election. Someone worth $10 billion would be taking a $500 million risk by staying in California while hoping to defeat this ballot measure by popular vote.

It appears that many Big Tech billionaires are not big fans of direct democracy after all. Common expressions like “the people have spoken” or “pro-democracy” are not how they really feel when it comes to holding onto their own wealth, which in most cases is from gains in the stock market during deficit-spending by the federal government.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who aspires to become the people’s president, is against this billionaire’s tax. It does not look like Bernie Sanders or most progressives will be endorsing Newsom in light of his position.

A permanent national income tax did not exist until the 16th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1913. As with proposals for a wealth tax, the original federal income tax was imposed only on the richest Americans, but then inevitably expanded to tax most workers.

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.

Most Significant American Women

Newsmax has posted a List of the Most Significant Women in U.S. History, including:

Phyllis Schlafly (Aug. 15, 1924 – Sept. 5, 2016):

Schlafly was a prominent conservative activist, attorney, author, and political activist. She became one of the most influential figures in modern U.S. conservatism, especially for her successful grassroots campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

Schlafly argued it would eliminate protections for women (like military draft exemptions, alimony preferences, and Social Security benefits for dependent wives) and force unwanted changes. The ERA fell short of the required state ratifications by 1982, largely due to her efforts.

Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum in 1972, a conservative organization focused on "pro-family" issues. She opposed feminism, abortion, gay rights, and comprehensive sex education, arguing for traditional gender roles and "family values."

Progress on Returning Refugees

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A bright spot in immigration policy, the issue on which President Trump polls the best, is the progress being made toward removing unwanted refugees from our country. On Monday Trump won the second of two court victories in March in favor of his policy to roll back Democrat practices to import massive numbers of refugees from the third world.

Ten days after taking office, President Trump ended the misuse of the refugee program by issuing Executive Order No. 14163, “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program.” Biden had brought in more than 100,000 so-called refugees in fiscal year 2024, which was the highest level in 30 years.

Trump has properly sought to revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of whole communities of Haitians and Syrians who were brought into our country under the fiction that they were being politically persecuted back home. Haitians famously settled mostly in Springfield and Columbus, Ohio, totaling about 350,000 people nationwide, and Trump won the election by campaigning on sending them and other mislabeled refugees back home.

Haiti is a poor country victimized by crime, but has strict gun control that impedes the ability of law-abiding residents to defend themselves, and no death penalty to deter murder. Visitors who have valid U.S. gun permits are not allowed to carry their arms in self-defense in Haiti.

As to Syria, the Biden Administration and liberals supported the toppling of the Syrian regime in December 2024 while Biden was still president. The theory that allowed thousands of Syrians to remain in our country as refugees from the former Assad regime no longer applies, and it’s time for them to go home.

Yet lower federal courts in liberal New York, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., have stymied the Trump Administration’s revocation of the “temporary” status that Biden conferred, in order to prevent Trump from sending refugees back home. Trump’s phenomenal Solicitor General, John Sauer, applied for emergency relief with the U.S. Supreme Court to stay two of these lower court decisions against Trump, and the Ninth Circuit ruled directly for Trump in the third case.

On Monday, the Supreme Court mostly granted Trump’s requested relief, by scheduling oral argument on this issue by late April and thereby signaling that a full decision will be rendered by the end of June. While the Court did not authorize the immediate removal of these refugees, it appears that their return will become possible by summer.

Earlier this month, in Pacito v. Trump, the Ninth Circuit held in favor of Trump’s Executive Order that halted the flow of so-called refugees into our country. That court recognized the nearly unlimited authority granted by Congress to the President to halt this misguided program.

More good news came from the First Circuit concerning the deportation of illegal aliens. Two of the three judges on the panel, including a Republican and a Democrat-appointed judge, ruled that Trump may be allowed to deport an illegal alien to a third country if his homeland refuses to accept him.

As a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explained in response, “the Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and the Trump Administration has the authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare.”

The DHS spokesman said that if “activist judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets.”

Last year Trump prevailed on this issue in the U.S. Supreme Court, but then the district judge said the facts had changed and continued to block Trump’s deportations to third countries. The district judge wanted a process by which the illegal alien would have a “meaningful opportunity” to object to being deported to another country after his homeland rejects his return.

But the ongoing campaign of deporting illegals has slowed, and there are reports that someone in the White House has told Republicans not to use the phrase “mass deportation.” Other than a few reposts on his X account, White House Border Czar Tom Homan has been quiet for several weeks now.

The self-deportation campaign, by which DHS was paying illegal aliens $2,600 each to voluntarily leave through the use of a government phone app, depends on involuntary deportations to be effective. A total of 2.2 million people had self-deported through January of this year, and Democrats were furious about an ad campaign encouraging more illegal aliens to self-deport.

Democrats view illegal aliens as their future voters, as many Somalis have become in Minnesota after obtaining citizenship. Realistically, this is the last opportunity to deport illegals, while Republicans control all branches of the federal government and public opinion strongly favors border control.

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.

SAVE Act Lifted by Paxton-Cornyn Race

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The tight GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Texas has suddenly cast the SAVE Act into the spotlight, and Trump vows not to sign any other legislation into law until this passes. The SAVE Act is short for Save America Act, and its longer name before that was the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.

The SAVE Act would require U.S. citizenship to register to vote, and presentation of photo ID in order to cast a ballot. The House narrowly passed the SAVE Act in early February: Republicans unanimously voted for it, plus one Democrat from Texas (Henry Cuellar).

Last Tuesday, Ken Paxton came within 2 percentage points of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), despite how Cornyn’s candidacy was propped up with $70 million in spending. They proceed next to a runoff on May 26 where traditionally the more conservative candidate, who is Paxton, would prevail.

Senate Republicans, favoring their own, have been lobbying Trump to endorse Cornyn. Trump said that the candidate he declines to endorse should exit the race.

But Paxton then pulled a rabbit out of his hat last week by promising to withdraw only if the Senate Republicans pass the SAVE Act, which they can do by ending or modifying the traditional filibuster. Paxton was right in expecting Trump to make the SAVE Act more important than the Texas race.

Trump subsequently stated not only that he wants the SAVE Act enacted, but that he wants more provisions added to it. He wants the law to prohibit transgender surgeries on children, and to ban participation in women’s sports by men who say they are transgender women.

Trump also properly demands an end to mail-in ballots, with reasonable exceptions for illness, disability, service in the military, and travel. Mail-in balloting is particularly vulnerable to fraud, as found by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, which was co-chaired by former Democrat President Jimmy Carter.

Republican congressmen rarely lose in their own primary, and senators even less so. The only Republican incumbent congressman defeated last week in his own primary was Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who had falsely accused Trump of contributing to the death of a Capitol Police officer on January 6, 2021.

A combat veteran who lost an eye serving our country, Crenshaw had posed as an independent-minded Republican like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a generation ago. Crenshaw even appeared once on Saturday Night Live, and was considered by many to be unbeatable.

Yet the more conservative state legislator Steve Toth defeated Crenshaw last Tuesday by a stunning 15-point upset, in what he said was a battle for the future of the Republican Party. President Trump stayed out of the race and did not endorse either candidate.

Trump racked up a perfect 124-0 record last week when he did endorse, of which he reminded House members at their meeting in Doral, Florida. Trump does not want to endorse a candidate who is likely to be defeated, or who is not strongly MAGA.

Cornyn’s lackluster performance after spending more than $100 per vote – and more than ten times what Paxton spent – may be weighing on Trump’s decision. A selling point for choosing Cornyn over Paxton is that Cornyn would supposedly fare better against the Democrat nominee this fall, but recent polling is not showing Cornyn with any significant advantage.

Indeed, a Newsweek poll released on Tuesday showed Paxton leading Cornyn by 44-43% in the runoff, even if Trump endorses Cornyn. A Texas Politics Project poll last month showed that Paxton has a stronger net favorability among GOP-registered voters than Cornyn has.

For an incumbent to fare so poorly in his own primary is reminiscent of President Lyndon B. Johnson barely winning the first 1968 Democrat presidential primary in New Hampshire, and then pulling out of the race as a result. Given that the immense power of incumbency and an enormous monetary advantage were unable to make Cornyn a clear winner in his own primary, his candidacy has weaknesses.

Frustration with Congress is growing. Senate Republicans have refused to move on the SAVE Act because of the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes in order to end debate and enact it.

The U.S. Senate has been called the world’s most exclusive club, and collegiality among the 100 senators is legendary as they allow a single member to block nominations, and merely 41 senators can prevent a vote on legislation. Senators also favor their own as nominees to other offices.

Senate Republicans persuaded Trump to appoint fellow Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to become the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in replacement of Kristi Noem. Days have gone by without any comment by conservative Tom Homan, who is in charge of deportations, on the selection of Mullin as his new colleague.

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.

Shooting, Stabbing, and Wrong-Way Trucking

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Within 24 hours of U.S. military action against Iran, a 53-year-old Muslim from Senegal allegedly shot up a bar early Sunday morning in Austin, Texas. Three were killed and more than a dozen were wounded, some critically.

Nearly two-thirds of public shootings are perpetrated by gunmen under the age of 40, so the age and timing of this massacre suggest an uncommon motive. It seems likely that this massacre was in response to developments in the Middle East, but the FBI says that it is embarking on an extensive investigation and refuses to release any information about the shooter’s motive.

The suspected assailant, Ndiaga Diagne, never entered the bar, but instead shot into it from outside. Students from the nearby University of Texas, which is one of the largest colleges in our country, had filled the bar to enjoy some weekend socializing in Austin’s entertainment district.

President Bill Clinton admitted this suspect into our country as a tourist on a B-2 visa in 2000, and then President Obama naturalized him as a citizen despite how he had multiple arrests. The reasons for those arrests remain sealed, but local authorities vow to release details about them later this week.

Ndiaga Diagne continued shooting into the bar until he was gunned down and killed by police, within one minute of their being called. The bloodshed would have been far worse in the absence of the remarkably quick and decisive action taken by the police.

Meanwhile, the State Department urged Americans to immediately leave Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Yemen, and even Israel. But Obama and Biden had a virtually open-border policy for the U.S. for twelve years, allowing many enemies to enter freely and remain without being deported.

This horrifying shooting in Austin transpired during the final weekend before election day in the Texas primary on Tuesday, with the potential to rattle hotly contested races. Republican candidates were quick to condemn the prior immigration policies of Democrat presidents that have led to this.

Casualties continue to climb from other violent attacks on defenseless American citizens by foreigners here from hostile nations. Abdul Jalloh, a 32-year-old native of Sierra Leone, viciously stabbed Stephanie Minter, 41, to death in her neck as she stood at a bus stop at 7pm in Fairfax County, Virginia, on February 23, 2026.

Jalloh illegally entered the United States in 2012, and had an immigration detainer and a final order of removal pending against him. Because of judicial interference with deportations to Sierra Leona, Jalloh was scheduled to be lawfully deported to another third-world country.

Jalloh had previously been arrested more than 30 times. The murder charge should finally keep him off the streets, but to be sure ICE has called “on Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and Virginia’s sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this murderer and violent career criminal from their jail without notifying ICE.”

Jalloh’s arrest record included being charged with “rape, malicious wounding, assault, drug possession, identity theft, trespassing, larceny, firing a weapon, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and pickpocketing,” reported the New York Post.

Yet despite all this crime, Democrat-controlled Fairfax County failed to detain Jalloh to protect the public. Like other sanctuary jurisdictions, wealthy Fairfax refuses to notify ICE before it releases violent illegal aliens in custody, in order to deliberately prevent ICE from deporting them.

The obituary for the victim Stephanie Minter said that “Stephanie will be sorely and dearly missed, with the world missing out on that beam of light we came to know so well.” She is survived by her son and her mother.

Meanwhile, an 18-wheel tractor-trailer was spotted driving the wrong way on a highway near Troy, Missouri. An alarmed observer, who had to swerve to narrowly avert a head-on collision, then filmed this and contacted police, who arrived and asked the driver some basic questions about English as it appears on road signs.

The wrong-way driver was unable to demonstrate English proficiency to the Missouri officer. Wrong-way driving is inevitable by someone who cannot understand our highway road signs. This driver was Abdiasis Ibrahim Ali from Minnesota, who is thought to be from Somalia.

When Minnesota issues a commercial driver’s license that authorizes the driving of big trucks without understanding English, it jeopardizes the safety of everyone nationwide. Fortunately, the Missouri police did not allow this driver to continue behind the wheel of this truck, but he was not arrested either.

Illinois, another state controlled by Democrats, has illegally issued one out of every five of its commercial driver’s licenses, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. A bill to punish truckers who cannot understand basic road signs, HB 2741, is moving through the Missouri legislature.

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.

“Show Cause” Tyranny by Anti-Trump Judges

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Liberal judges have found a tool for browbeating Trump’s attorneys at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the issue of detaining illegal aliens. Akin to an unpleasant toy in the hands of idle children, the legal hammer of a “show cause” order is being overused by judges opposed to Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens.

In the last six months, “show cause” orders have emanated from dozens of judges unhappy with how the Trump Administration detains illegal aliens without bail. Leftist judges are just fine with denying bail to Trump supporters accused of a crime, as done to hundreds of J6-ers in order to imprison them in the D.C. Gulag without a trial, and yet Democrat-appointed judges object to detaining illegal aliens without bail.

Trump’s policy is a sensible one: anyone who is in the United States unlawfully is not entitled to be released on bail from their detention. Many might “jump bail” never to be caught again, and there is no legitimate defense to being unlawfully in our country.

The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) confirmed the validity of Trump’s policy on Sept. 5, 2025, in the Matter of Jonathan Javier Yajure Hurtado. In rejecting a request for release on bail, the BIA held that under applicable federal law illegal aliens caught in the United States are subject to mandatory detention without bail.

This is not a civil rights issue, any more than removing someone from trespassing on private property would be a civil rights issue. Their very presence in defiant trespass is unlawful and indefensible; releasing them on bail would simply facilitate continuation of the very crime itself.

Yet mostly Democrat-appointed federal district judges are demanding that DOJ attorneys “show cause,” which means explain in sworn statements, why they should not be held in contempt for implementing Trump’s policy. No federal judge can hold President Trump in contempt, so instead they are seeking to make an example of junior attorneys within the DOJ.

Under Supreme Court rulings and federal law, illegal aliens are deemed to be “applicants for admission” to the United States regardless of whether they formally applied to be admitted here. Federal law requires that such aliens “shall be detained,” without any allowance for bail to release them back into the public prior to their deportation.

Despite the clarity of the law and President Trump’s sensible policy against bail for illegal aliens, Biden-appointed Judge Sunshine Sykes in Los Angeles issued on Feb. 18 a one-sided ruling against Trump’s policy. Judge Sykes is the first Navajo Nation citizen to become a federal judge, and she was confirmed by Democrats in a narrow, nearly party-line vote of only 51–45 less than four years ago.

Judge Sykes held in favor of Plaintiff Lazaro Maldonado Bautista, who is not an American citizen and yet has lived in Los Angeles for roughly four years. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Bautista on June 6, 2025, after deciding that he is here illegally, and denied Bautista release on bond.

Bautista was detained by DHS and ICE at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, California. His request for a bond redetermination hearing was denied by an immigration judge.

Judge Sykes complained that Bautista “is but one of hundreds, if not thousands, of noncitizens with no criminal background that have been arrested and detained by the Government for being in the country without admission.” She relied on Justice Kennedy’s 5-3 decision in Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 407 (2012) – which should be overturned – that generally “it is not a crime for a removable [illegal alien] to remain present in the United States.”

The orders by this solitary Biden-appointed, Los Angeles-based judge against the Trump Administration are breathtakingly broad and burdensome, and are contrary to the outcome of the last presidential election. This district judge demands that Trump provide a bond hearing to detained illegal aliens who request one, and that Trump post notices in English and Spanish about this on numerous government websites identified by the court.

The Trump Administration has since complied with the court order to post these notices on government websites, but is also appealing this decision to the Ninth Circuit. If necessary, the Trump Administration will surely seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court to confirm that illegal aliens do not have a right to be released on bail.

The American people voted in the last presidential election against allowing illegal aliens to roam freely in our country despite typically having broken the law in coming and staying here. This sweeping ruling by one Biden-appointed judge in Los Angeles, along with similar decisions rendered by dozens of additional Democrat-appointed judges, constitute judicial activism which the Supreme Court should swiftly shut down.

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.

AI Companies Aren’t Our Masters, Yet

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump’s spectacular capture in January of Nicolás Maduro, the Communist dictator of Venezuela, was reportedly assisted by artificial intelligence (AI). Specifically, the AI program Claude is used in our military, and in 8 of the 10 largest companies.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made decisions based on multiple scenarios presented by Palantir using Claude. And this was not the first time that the U.S. Army has benefited from this AI tool.

The stunning success of this military operation involved fewer than 200 American troops, of whom 7 were injured, and several of them were visited by President Trump last Friday at Fort Bragg. Three helicopter pilots were badly wounded in their legs by machine gun fire, Trump said, while 83 soldiers defending Maduro were killed, according to Venezuela.

AI company Anthropic licenses Claude under an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that limits how it can be used. In rejection of these limitations, War Secretary Pete Hegseth threatens to eradicate it not just from our military, but from every vendor that sells products and services to our military by labeling Claude a “supply chain risk.”

This is a type of exclusion usually invoked only for foreign adversaries of the United States. But the irritation by Hegseth and the top brass in our military at Anthropic’s restrictions on the use of its product has worsened to the point where this harsh punishment of a complete banishment is being considered.

Just imagine if the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb had placed restrictions on its use by the military. The military should be able to use unrestricted AI to advance our national security as our elected president thinks best.

Anthropic is not the only AI company placing restrictions on the use of its tools. Other AI companies have also attempted to limit the military applications of their programs.

Several competitors to Anthropic, including OpenAI, Google, and xAI, are chomping at the bit to secure a contract with the U.S. Armed Services and may be willing to drop the restrictions Anthropic currently insists on maintaining. But the Trump Administration complains that it would be enormously difficult to eradicate all current uses of Claude, including those by contractors like Palantir, to switch to another AI tool.

Military spokesman Sean Parnell stated, “The Department of War’s relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed. Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight. Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people.”

Our military’s contract with Anthropic is worth only about $200 million, a mere pittance of Anthropic’s total $14 billion in annual revenue. Anthropic may be concerned about losing more sizable business if its tool becomes associated with military attacks.

The Vatican released a statement a year ago entitled “Antiqua et Nova” which warned that “autonomous weapons systems, which are capable of identifying and striking targets without direct human intervention, are a cause for grave ethical concern. ... No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”

But there is no guarantee that China would play by the rules of Western Civilization. Our military’s AI needs to be advanced enough to defend against China’s AI in a war, while it is reasonable to limit AI to prevent it from making any unsupervised decisions to kill.

Meanwhile, an improved Chinese AI program created a video of a fistfight between actors Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, which looks as realistic as a Hollywood movie. Despite possibly violating the copyrights on the movies with which the AI program was trained, it has gone viral and thrown Hollywood into a tailspin.

The New York Times described this 15-second clip as “more cinematic than anything so far” from AI. “In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases,” commented Rhett Reese, screenwriter of “Deadpool” and other movies.

The instigator of this video fistfight on a rooftop between Pitt and Cruise was the Irishman Ruairi Robinson. He said on X that this was generated by merely “a 2 line prompt in Seedance 2,” which is an AI film-generating tool by the Chinese company ByteDance.

ByteDance is the same Chinese company that developed TikTok, which upended social media platforms in the U.S. with popular short-reel videos.

Suddenly, a flood of potentially copyright-infringing material created by this Chinese AI tool is going viral online, using characters and scenes copied from popular movies. Those who would like to change a movie's ending may be able to do so privately using AI, but posting new endings could violate copyrights.

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.

Freezing Deaths, Garbage Piles in Largest Sanctuary City

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The largest sanctuary city that defies federal immigration laws is the Big Apple in New York. Its newly elected socialist Indian-Ugandan mayor, Zohran Mamdani, just issued his 13th Executive Order, which forbids city agencies from sharing information with federal officials including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), except as may be required by law.

“ICE is more than a rogue agency — it is a manifestation of the abuse of power,” Mamdani pompously declared. New York is currently holding 7,113 criminal illegal aliens for whom detainers have been issued by federal officials to deport them, yet Mamdani is not cooperating to turn these lawbreakers over to ICE.

Mamdani and other big city Democrat mayors are the ones most responsible for the delays in removing the criminals who never should have been here in the first place. Mamdani has prohibited ICE from entering any city property, which includes parking garages, schools, shelters, public spaces, hospitals, and absurdly even vacant lots, unless ICE has a warrant which is difficult to obtain from liberal judges.

The sanctuary policy in New York City is so strict that it prevents the police from sharing information with ICE about illegal aliens who have been arrested. New York City prohibits transferring these criminals into the custody of federal officials.

Last July the Trump Administration sued New York City officials to end their sanctuary city policy, and to enjoin local administrative regulations that interfere with the apprehension and deportation of criminals. But this lawsuit languishes before the Biden-appointed Judge Ramon Reyes in the Eastern District of New York, without a ruling that could then be appealed.

Mamdani is anticipating the arrival of ICE agents similar to the crackdown on illegal aliens that has been occurring in Minneapolis. But rather than cooperate with law enforcement, Mamdani is ramping up his resistance by creating an “Interagency Response Committee” to oppose Trump’s valiant efforts.

This committee will include the city’s chief immigration officer, the first deputy mayor, the city’s chief counsel, and senior operations managers representing all city agencies. Mamdani is commanding several of the agencies, including those overseeing its jails, to conduct an audit of their compliance with the city’s sanctuary policies against cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

“When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with DHS, our law enforcement officers have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities,” DHS stated through a spokesman.

Resisting immigration laws is an odd priority for Mamdani during his first two months in office, when he’s done a terrible job addressing a snowstorm and cold snap. Keeping the streets clean and residents warm should be Mamdani’s focus, rather than obstructing the deportation program on which Trump was elected.

Since January 24, 18 people have been discovered frozen to death outside in New York City. Last December, its former Mayor Eric Adams sharply criticized Mamdani’s plan to be more permissive toward homelessness, and now many homeless people are freezing to death because they are not in shelters.

“They don’t believe there should be any prisons in our city. They don’t believe that you should do encampment enforcement. … They believe in decriminalizing prostitution after all that we’ve done,” Adams said in his rebuke of Mamdani and his agenda.

Mamdani’s plan has been to allow scores of homeless people to camp out on the streets in New York City. “I went and visited those camps — stale food, human waste, drug paraphernalia, schizophrenic behavior,” Adams observed.

Mamdani’s most recent response has been to arrange for heating buses to be placed in various locations in the city, but people are reportedly having a hard time finding them. Often, they are not where people expect them to be.

Meanwhile, huge piles of garbage have been stacking up uncollected for weeks on New York City streets. Television news programs have posted videos of mountains of garbage-filled bags, along with interviews of residents outraged at how the city officials have failed to do their job of removing trash that is blocking sidewalks and attracting rats.

A heating crisis caused a record-breaking 80,000 New Yorkers to place emergency calls to 311 in January due to a lack of residential heat and hot water. As sub-zero temperatures descended on the Big Apple — whatever happened to global warming? — many were nearly frozen in their apartments because of these energy failures.

Across the country in California, there is some good news as a federal judge struck down Gov. Newsom’s law requiring ICE agents to work without masks that protect them against retaliation. The judge pointed out that this law unfairly targeted federal agents, and that it was unconstitutional because it did not also apply to California officials.

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.