THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly
“The Mooch,” as everyone calls President Trump’s new communications director Anthony Scaramucci, is a brilliant hire by Trump to reassert his authority in a fractious White House. In merely a few days, the charismatic but tough-talking Scaramucci has already impressed so much that there are calls for him to become Trump’s new chief of staff.
Scaramucci has shown that he’s ready, willing and able to enforce a new loyalty to the Trump agenda among Republicans both inside and outside the White House. Too many Republicans have been guilty of aiding and abetting the “fake news” industry (formerly known as the “mainstream media”) in its relentless campaign to bring down our president.
As Trump tweeted on Sunday, “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.” This is the result of some in the GOP taking advantage of Trump’s hospitality, and not being told by staff that there will be political consequences for disloyalty.
After Trump won the election last November, the Republican Establishment claimed more credit than it deserved and installed several GOP insiders in key positions in the White House. Reportedly those hires were demanded by Congress on the pretext that they would help to enact Trump’s agenda into law.
Now, after completing the most important six months of President Trump’s first term, we can see that Trump’s appeasement of Capitol Hill has resulted in a pitiful lack of achievement by Congress, and worse. The same senators who have failed to do their own jobs are working overtime to conduct a witch-hunt on behalf of the liberal media against Trump and members of his family.
On Monday, the Senate orchestrated a closed-door hearing to interrogate Jared Kushner, Trump’s highly capable son-in-law, about his exercise of his constitutional rights as a private citizen during the Trump campaign. The Senate would never have held such a hearing if Hillary Clinton had won, and it is an outrage that the Republican leaders allowed it to happen.
The Senate’s unjustified investigation of the president’s own family, including son Donald Trump Jr., who is not a government official, suggests a failure by Republicans around the president to fully defend him. One might say that the first obligation of all advisers to and appointees of a president is to protect him and his family against his political enemies.
Some senators have been deluded into thinking they are equal in stature to the president, and free to walk all over his family. Earlier this year they apparently persuaded Trump to adopt a strategy of cooperation with the Republican leadership in the Senate, supposedly in order to enact his agenda.
That approach has gotten our country nowhere, as the Senate wastes its time holding hearings to question Trump’s immediate family. Scaramucci and other appointees should bring a new approach to the White House that rejects appeasement of the GOP Establishment in D.C.
Some senators, such as the obscure Ben Sasse from Nebraska, have openly mocked Trump, despite their own constituents’ overwhelming support of our president. Other senators, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, still seem to hold a grudge for how Trump trounced him in the presidential primaries.
One Republican senator explained the Senate’s dismal performance by saying, “Look, I didn’t expect Donald Trump to win, I think most of my colleagues didn’t, so we didn’t expect to be in this situation.” Pat Toomey thereby proved himself clueless about the voters in his own state of Pennsylvania, which was pivotal to Trump’s victory.
It is time to unleash The Mooch, Anthony Scaramucci, to remind senators of whom the American people put in charge, and start to hold them accountable for how much they have let our country down. The failure of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to pass or rescind any major legislation in the first six months of this new Republican Administration, but to allow the witch-hunt against Trump’s family, is a disgrace.
Scaramucci’s inaugural press conference last Friday was a breath of fresh air. Gesticulating with his hands in perfect harmony with his remarks, he mesmerized even Trump’s toughest critics, while making clear that he is ready to shake things up.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has already proven her mettle amid hostile questioning, will take over the role of press secretary. That gives Scaramucci more time to put his New York City style to good use in exposing or driving out disloyalists, both at the White House and at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Too many Republicans have demonstrated that they are more interested in following “fake news” down the proverbial rabbit hole than in making America great again. The Mooch should signal that the President will no longer defer to Republican leadership in Congress, but will instead go directly to the American people to move the agenda they voted for.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Derrick and Orrick’s One-Two Punch Against Trump
Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
A new duo of Derrick and Orrick, whose names remind us of Shakespeare's Yorick as well as Barack, the president who appointed them, delivered a one-two punch against President Trump last week. Federal District Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii interfered again with Trump’s temporary travel ban, and federal Judge William Orrick of San Francisco perpetuated his injunction against Trump’s executive order that would cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities.
Somalia, Iran, and Libya – known for their terrorist, anti-American violence – are three of the six countries subjected to Trump’s temporary travel ban, which suspends entry from those countries into ours by strangers who have no right to be here. In May, a Navy SEAL was killed and two other American soldiers were wounded in Somalia by an attack from Muslim forces.
Most thought the U.S. Supreme Court had properly resolved the issue of the temporary travel ban in favor of President Trump. But the strategy of the Left is to repeatedly use litigation and judicial supremacy to interfere with and impede the pro-American agenda of Trump at every turn.
Try, try again is the modus operandi of the anti-Trumpers as they refuse to take “no” as an answer from the Supreme Court. The High Court implicitly but thoroughly rejected the liberal theory that Trump’s temporary travel ban was unconstitutional because he supposedly campaigned with some anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Enter Derrick Watson and William Orrick to pick up where they left off before the Supreme Court so rudely intervened. Both federal district judges essentially reverted to business-as-usual, despite how all nine Justices of the Supreme Court recently held that the lower courts had gone too far in tying Trump’s hands.
Judge Orrick’s name was already familiar to many conservatives for how he has gone after the pro-life David Daleiden for embarrassing Planned Parenthood with his famous videotaped interviews. Judge Orrick censored the videos and on Monday held Daleiden in contempt for allowing the public to view them; Trump should immediately pardon Daleiden and his attorneys.
Judge Derrick Watson, though presiding in Hawaii, is also known nationally for halting the President of the United States while sitting nearly 5,000 miles away. This unelected solitary judge appointed by President Obama already initially blocked President Trump and his temporary travel ban back in March.
Last Thursday, July 13, Judge Derrick Watson undermined Trump’s victory before the Supreme Court by ordering that the Leader of the Free World permissively allow into the United States anyone from a terrorist country who is a grandparent, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, cousin, or grandchild of anyone in the United States. And how, pray tell, can the State Department verify a claim by a potential terrorist that he is someone’s cousin, and thus should be allowed into America?
Trump had already agreed to allow in anyone who is an immediate relative of someone lawfully in the United States, such as siblings, children, parents, spouses, in-laws, and even fiancés.
Judge Derrick Watson was initially reluctant to re-interpret the Supreme Court ruling to allow almost anyone in, but on July 7th the overwhelmingly liberal Ninth Circuit egged him on with an order of its own. That appellate court declared that “although the district court may not have authority to clarify an order of the Supreme Court, it does possess the ability to interpret and enforce the Supreme Court’s order,” and “interpret” it Derrick did.
Meanwhile, back to Judge Orrick in San Francisco, where he had issued a temporary injunction in April that blocked President Trump from withholding any federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that harbor and protect illegal aliens, even those who commit horrible crimes. San Francisco’s insistence on being a sanctuary city has resulted in murders increasing 55% and rapes skyrocketing 370% between 2011 and 2015, and there was the brutal murder of Kathryn Steinle on its Pier 14 by a man who had previously been deported five times and convicted of seven felonies.
A day before Derrick ruled against President Trump’s temporary travel ban, Orrick heard oral argument about the need to lift his preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order cutting off funding for sanctuary cities. Speaking from his bench in court, Judge Orrick indicated that he was going to keep his ruling in place to continue blocking Trump’s much-needed action against sanctuary cities.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions explained to a group of law enforcement officials gathered in Las Vegas that “too often” local officials interfere with attempts by federal immigration agents to detain and deport the dangerous illegal aliens. Meanwhile, President Trump is appealing this recent ruling against his temporary travel ban back to the Supreme Court, again on an emergency basis.
Ironically, Hamlet’s beloved court jester was named “Yorick”, whom Shakespeare described as “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” There would also be much humor in this recent saga involving Derrick and Orrick, if our president’s ability to keep our nation safe were not at stake.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
by John and Andy Schlafly
A new duo of Derrick and Orrick, whose names remind us of Shakespeare's Yorick as well as Barack, the president who appointed them, delivered a one-two punch against President Trump last week. Federal District Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii interfered again with Trump’s temporary travel ban, and federal Judge William Orrick of San Francisco perpetuated his injunction against Trump’s executive order that would cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities.
Somalia, Iran, and Libya – known for their terrorist, anti-American violence – are three of the six countries subjected to Trump’s temporary travel ban, which suspends entry from those countries into ours by strangers who have no right to be here. In May, a Navy SEAL was killed and two other American soldiers were wounded in Somalia by an attack from Muslim forces.
Most thought the U.S. Supreme Court had properly resolved the issue of the temporary travel ban in favor of President Trump. But the strategy of the Left is to repeatedly use litigation and judicial supremacy to interfere with and impede the pro-American agenda of Trump at every turn.
Try, try again is the modus operandi of the anti-Trumpers as they refuse to take “no” as an answer from the Supreme Court. The High Court implicitly but thoroughly rejected the liberal theory that Trump’s temporary travel ban was unconstitutional because he supposedly campaigned with some anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Enter Derrick Watson and William Orrick to pick up where they left off before the Supreme Court so rudely intervened. Both federal district judges essentially reverted to business-as-usual, despite how all nine Justices of the Supreme Court recently held that the lower courts had gone too far in tying Trump’s hands.
Judge Orrick’s name was already familiar to many conservatives for how he has gone after the pro-life David Daleiden for embarrassing Planned Parenthood with his famous videotaped interviews. Judge Orrick censored the videos and on Monday held Daleiden in contempt for allowing the public to view them; Trump should immediately pardon Daleiden and his attorneys.
Judge Derrick Watson, though presiding in Hawaii, is also known nationally for halting the President of the United States while sitting nearly 5,000 miles away. This unelected solitary judge appointed by President Obama already initially blocked President Trump and his temporary travel ban back in March.
Last Thursday, July 13, Judge Derrick Watson undermined Trump’s victory before the Supreme Court by ordering that the Leader of the Free World permissively allow into the United States anyone from a terrorist country who is a grandparent, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, cousin, or grandchild of anyone in the United States. And how, pray tell, can the State Department verify a claim by a potential terrorist that he is someone’s cousin, and thus should be allowed into America?
Trump had already agreed to allow in anyone who is an immediate relative of someone lawfully in the United States, such as siblings, children, parents, spouses, in-laws, and even fiancés.
Judge Derrick Watson was initially reluctant to re-interpret the Supreme Court ruling to allow almost anyone in, but on July 7th the overwhelmingly liberal Ninth Circuit egged him on with an order of its own. That appellate court declared that “although the district court may not have authority to clarify an order of the Supreme Court, it does possess the ability to interpret and enforce the Supreme Court’s order,” and “interpret” it Derrick did.
Meanwhile, back to Judge Orrick in San Francisco, where he had issued a temporary injunction in April that blocked President Trump from withholding any federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that harbor and protect illegal aliens, even those who commit horrible crimes. San Francisco’s insistence on being a sanctuary city has resulted in murders increasing 55% and rapes skyrocketing 370% between 2011 and 2015, and there was the brutal murder of Kathryn Steinle on its Pier 14 by a man who had previously been deported five times and convicted of seven felonies.
A day before Derrick ruled against President Trump’s temporary travel ban, Orrick heard oral argument about the need to lift his preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order cutting off funding for sanctuary cities. Speaking from his bench in court, Judge Orrick indicated that he was going to keep his ruling in place to continue blocking Trump’s much-needed action against sanctuary cities.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions explained to a group of law enforcement officials gathered in Las Vegas that “too often” local officials interfere with attempts by federal immigration agents to detain and deport the dangerous illegal aliens. Meanwhile, President Trump is appealing this recent ruling against his temporary travel ban back to the Supreme Court, again on an emergency basis.
Ironically, Hamlet’s beloved court jester was named “Yorick”, whom Shakespeare described as “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” There would also be much humor in this recent saga involving Derrick and Orrick, if our president’s ability to keep our nation safe were not at stake.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Friday, July 14, 2017
Education Dept to hear both sides
Slate mag complains:
I thought that US federal policies have to be based on input from all interested parties. I guess Obama never did that.
Update: The NY Times reports on what DeVos promises to hear:
When Trump nominated Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education, [feminist] advocates worried about the damage she might do. The Obama administration had pushed universities ...The whole article is a complaint that the Dept. of Education is hearing from many groups on both sides of the issue. The article argues that just one side should be heard.
Now that she’s in office, DeVos has to choose: Will she let the Obama guidance, which lowered the burden of proof required in sexual assault cases, stand? ...
To help her decide, DeVos is meeting with several organizations that do work on this issue.
I thought that US federal policies have to be based on input from all interested parties. I guess Obama never did that.
Update: The NY Times reports on what DeVos promises to hear:
The letters have come in to her office by the hundreds, heartfelt missives from college students, mostly men, who had been accused of rape or sexual assault. Some had lost scholarships. Some had been expelled. A mother stumbled upon her son trying to take his own life, recalled Candice E. Jackson, the top civil rights official at the Department of Education.
“Listening to her talk about walking in and finding him in the middle of trying to kill himself because his life and his future were gone, and he was forever branded a rapist — that’s haunting,” said Ms. Jackson, describing a meeting with the mother of a young man who had been accused of sexual assault three months after his first sexual encounter.
The young man, who maintained he was innocent, had hoped to become a doctor.
In recent years, on campus after campus, from the University of Virginia to Columbia University, from Duke to Stanford, higher education has been roiled by high-profile cases of sexual assault accusations. Now Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is stepping into that maelstrom. ...
“Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right,’” Ms. Jackson said.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Still legal to accept information
Here is the latest nothing burger:
On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone wrote:Of there is no such thing as a "Crown prosecutor of Russia" and nothing wrong with receiving "some official documents and information" about a political rival. Apparently some British publicist/lawyer bluffed his way to arranging a meeting with Trump Jr, but no official documents or government support ever materialized, as far as we know. Even if it did, there would be nothing unusual or criminal about it, as explained by UCLA law prof Eugene Volokh. It would be a First Amendment violation to prohibit accepting political information.
Good morning
Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.
What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?
I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.
Best
Rob Goldstone
On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:53, Donald Trump Jr. wrote:
Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?
Best,
Don
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Can Trump Save Western Civilization?
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
Can Western civilization survive? Does it even still exist? Liberal intellectuals have already consigned that term to the proverbial “ash heap of history” along with such ailments as racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and colonialism.
The riches of our Western heritage are no longer taught in our public schools, studied in our colleges, or cited by our political leaders. The media insist on exaggerated gestures toward diversity and multiculturalism, denigrating “dead white males” and the English language, and constantly (but inaccurately) describing the United States as a “nation of immigrants.”
With one powerful speech, President Trump has changed the terms and tone of the entire discussion. He has made it not just acceptable, but necessary to speak and act in defense of the Western culture that made America.
Trump’s historic speech last week in Poland was of the same importance as Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, which marked the beginning of the Cold War, and Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall,” which led to America’s victory in that war.
It’s no accident that President Trump chose Poland as the place for his powerful speech about civilization, culture, and borders. At key points in world history, the Polish nation has been on the front line of the never-ending battle against barbarism.
Surviving members of the “greatest generation” will remember how Poland was divided and dismembered by the two monsters of the twentieth century, Hitler and Stalin, following their “non-aggression pact” of August 23, 1939. Hitler crossed Poland’s borders from the west while Stalin invaded from the east, starting a new world war in Europe.
Trump harkened back to the valiant effort by the Polish Home Army to revolt against the Nazi occupation in 1944, which ended with the Nazis mercilessly destroying Warsaw. That uprising followed several years after the Katyn Forest massacre, in which the Soviet secret police rounded up 22,000 Polish reserve officers, who included doctors, lawyers, and other educated professionals, tied their hands behind their backs, fired a bullet to the back of their heads and buried them in mass graves.
Even after the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945, Poland remained under Soviet domination for another 45 years. Poland threw off the Communist yoke in 1989, inspired by its native son, Pope John Paul II, who outmaneuvered official atheism to celebrate 1,000 years of Christianity in his homeland.
That was not the first time Poland helped to save Western civilization, also known as Christendom, against a barbarian invasion. Three centuries earlier, on September 11, 1683, an army led by the Polish king known as Jan III Sobieski defeated the Muslim invaders at the Gates of Vienna.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Trump challenged Europe and America, adding, “Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?” Poland, of all nations, knows that borders are essential and must be defended at all costs.
The crowd was so enthusiastic for President Trump that one might have thought he was back in the States leading one of his own campaign rallies. The flag-waving Poles frequently interrupted Trump’s speech with chants of “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!”
Trump’s speech was brilliant not only for what Trump said, but where he said it. The successful conservative leadership of pro-life Poland has become a model for the rest of Europe to follow, not abandon.
“Where are you going, Europe? Get up off your knees. Get out of your lethargy. Otherwise you will be crying every day for your children.” Those were not the words of President Trump, though they certainly could have been.
Instead, that quotation was from the conservative Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, in May in response to threats by the European Union to fine her country if she did not accept more refugees. Mrs. Szydło properly stood up against what she called blackmail, and the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have also taken strong stances against opening their borders to migration.
“We are confronted by another oppressive ideology – one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We’re going to get it to stop,” Trump pledged to applause.
“We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive,” Trump observed. He even praised innovation, which Phyllis Schlafly long recognized as essential to maintaining continued prosperity in the United States.
“Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield – it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.” Trump explained that “our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory.”
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
by John and Andy Schlafly
Can Western civilization survive? Does it even still exist? Liberal intellectuals have already consigned that term to the proverbial “ash heap of history” along with such ailments as racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and colonialism.
The riches of our Western heritage are no longer taught in our public schools, studied in our colleges, or cited by our political leaders. The media insist on exaggerated gestures toward diversity and multiculturalism, denigrating “dead white males” and the English language, and constantly (but inaccurately) describing the United States as a “nation of immigrants.”
With one powerful speech, President Trump has changed the terms and tone of the entire discussion. He has made it not just acceptable, but necessary to speak and act in defense of the Western culture that made America.
Trump’s historic speech last week in Poland was of the same importance as Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, which marked the beginning of the Cold War, and Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall,” which led to America’s victory in that war.
It’s no accident that President Trump chose Poland as the place for his powerful speech about civilization, culture, and borders. At key points in world history, the Polish nation has been on the front line of the never-ending battle against barbarism.
Surviving members of the “greatest generation” will remember how Poland was divided and dismembered by the two monsters of the twentieth century, Hitler and Stalin, following their “non-aggression pact” of August 23, 1939. Hitler crossed Poland’s borders from the west while Stalin invaded from the east, starting a new world war in Europe.
Trump harkened back to the valiant effort by the Polish Home Army to revolt against the Nazi occupation in 1944, which ended with the Nazis mercilessly destroying Warsaw. That uprising followed several years after the Katyn Forest massacre, in which the Soviet secret police rounded up 22,000 Polish reserve officers, who included doctors, lawyers, and other educated professionals, tied their hands behind their backs, fired a bullet to the back of their heads and buried them in mass graves.
Even after the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945, Poland remained under Soviet domination for another 45 years. Poland threw off the Communist yoke in 1989, inspired by its native son, Pope John Paul II, who outmaneuvered official atheism to celebrate 1,000 years of Christianity in his homeland.
That was not the first time Poland helped to save Western civilization, also known as Christendom, against a barbarian invasion. Three centuries earlier, on September 11, 1683, an army led by the Polish king known as Jan III Sobieski defeated the Muslim invaders at the Gates of Vienna.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Trump challenged Europe and America, adding, “Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?” Poland, of all nations, knows that borders are essential and must be defended at all costs.
The crowd was so enthusiastic for President Trump that one might have thought he was back in the States leading one of his own campaign rallies. The flag-waving Poles frequently interrupted Trump’s speech with chants of “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!”
Trump’s speech was brilliant not only for what Trump said, but where he said it. The successful conservative leadership of pro-life Poland has become a model for the rest of Europe to follow, not abandon.
“Where are you going, Europe? Get up off your knees. Get out of your lethargy. Otherwise you will be crying every day for your children.” Those were not the words of President Trump, though they certainly could have been.
Instead, that quotation was from the conservative Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, in May in response to threats by the European Union to fine her country if she did not accept more refugees. Mrs. Szydło properly stood up against what she called blackmail, and the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have also taken strong stances against opening their borders to migration.
“We are confronted by another oppressive ideology – one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We’re going to get it to stop,” Trump pledged to applause.
“We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive,” Trump observed. He even praised innovation, which Phyllis Schlafly long recognized as essential to maintaining continued prosperity in the United States.
“Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield – it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.” Trump explained that “our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory.”
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
How CNN bullies its critics
A problem with today's connected society is that jerks can threaten to dox you, and thereby coerce you into doing something they want. I thought that this was extortion, but now CNN is doing it!
Here is CNN's version of events surrounding the animated GIF that later became a Trump retweet:
This is after numerous stories about CNN broadcasting fake news about Trump and Russia.
The lesson is clear. If you say or do something on an anonymous forum that CNN does not like, it will hunt you down and threaten to dox you, unless you issue a CNN-approved apology.
Here is CNN's version of events surrounding the animated GIF that later became a Trump retweet:
"The meme was created purely as satire, it was not meant to be a call to violence against CNN or any other news affiliation, ... I have the highest respect for the journalist community ..."So CNN got the guy to say what CNN wanted, and CNN will hold him to that, because otherwise CNN will dox him.
After posting his apology, "HanA**holeSolo" called CNN's KFile and confirmed his identity. In the interview, "HanA**holeSolo" sounded nervous about his identity being revealed and asked to not be named out of fear for his personal safety and for the public embarrassment it would bring to him and his family.
CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.
CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
This is after numerous stories about CNN broadcasting fake news about Trump and Russia.
The lesson is clear. If you say or do something on an anonymous forum that CNN does not like, it will hunt you down and threaten to dox you, unless you issue a CNN-approved apology.
Monday, July 3, 2017
35 Years After the Defeat of ERA
THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John and Andy Schlafly
The Equal Rights Amendment died thirty-five years ago, on June 30, 1982, as its opponents gathered at a banquet with Phyllis Schlafly to celebrate its demise. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the time for its ratification had expired, and efforts to revive the amendment have gone nowhere.
Our Nation can be grateful for this victory in avoiding the unisex society that ERA unsuccessfully attempted to impose. The obligation to register for the military draft still applies only to young men, and Defense Secretary James Mattis has sensibly delayed entry by so-called transgendered individuals into our military until the impact on combat readiness can be fully evaluated.
Many of the arguments made by Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s against ERA were ridiculed by liberals at the time, yet here we are today dealing with court-imposed same-sex marriage, transgender bathrooms, and taxpayer-funded abortion. Bill and Hillary Clinton put ERA’s most prominent advocate on the U.S. Supreme Court, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has never been able to persuade a majority of the Court that our Constitution requires mindless gender equality.
Thirty-five years without ERA, we have thriving single-sex sports teams, sororities, fraternities, and even some flourishing public schools and classrooms that are all-boys or all-girls. As bad as judicial activism is now, if the Equal Rights Amendment were in the Constitution, federal courts would be spending their time deciding if Johnny has a constitutional right to play on an all-girls’ field hockey team, or if an all-boys public school is unconstitutional.
The defeat of ERA had an immense cultural impact in addition to these obvious legal and political benefits. It made it socially acceptable for mothers to spend time away from the workforce to raise their children, during a moment in our history when feminists were demonizing that traditional role.
During the 1970s, mothers were increasingly herded into the workforce and misled to think that was the only way they could have a fulfilling life. ERA was going to “seal the deal,” and render it impossible for our society ever to have a respectable role for the stay-at-home mom with a working husband.
Feminists even tried to restructure Social Security to eliminate the provisions that allow wives and widows to benefit from their husbands’ earnings. Those provisions were made sex-neutral in 1983, but homemakers still draw most of the benefits which their husbands earned.
The feminist ideology behind ERA sneered at any woman who would choose to stay at home while her husband advanced his career in the workplace. With the media and universities pushing this agenda hard alongside ERA, the percentage of stay-at-home moms with employed husbands did steadily decline.
But Phyllis Schlafly’s defeat of ERA permitted a new culture to emerge for the stay-at-home mom. Phyllis even instituted the innovative Homemaker Award in 1985 to honor a woman each year who exemplified this tried-and-true approach.
Her award was ridiculed by feminists, but like many of Phyllis’ ideas it is increasingly praised and imitated today. County fairs in states as diverse as Maryland, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Oregon give homemaker awards, and our First Lady Melania Trump is a homemaker who initially declined the glamour of the White House to stay at home while her son completed his school year.
By the mid-1980s the decline in the percentage of stay-at-home moms with working husbands began to level off, and remains today at about the same level it was then. Nearly a third of women with children and working husbands choose to stay at home rather than be employed, as made respectable by the defeat of ERA.
Many of those women do what Phyllis Schlafly herself did back more than half-century ago: give their children a head start on school by teaching them to read with phonics. Our society depends on homemakers to produce the next generation of inventors, writers, artists, teachers, and leaders.
This 35-year anniversary of the defeat of ERA commemorates an additional milestone: the emergence of the modern conservative movement, built on social values as much as economic and national security ones. The election of Donald Trump, which Phyllis Schlafly foresaw and supported from the beginning, was a triumph over feminist political correctness.
State authority over family and marriage would have been totally subsumed within federal law, if ERA were ratified. Everyday issues of divorce and custody could have become federal cases as Congress would have been empowered by ERA to pass new laws concerning custody and divorce.
Stopping a media-promoted constitutional amendment once it is presented to the states for ratification is as impossible as installing brakes on a runaway freight train. Our values and national security today owe much to the stunning defeat of ERA 35 years ago.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
by John and Andy Schlafly
The Equal Rights Amendment died thirty-five years ago, on June 30, 1982, as its opponents gathered at a banquet with Phyllis Schlafly to celebrate its demise. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the time for its ratification had expired, and efforts to revive the amendment have gone nowhere.
Our Nation can be grateful for this victory in avoiding the unisex society that ERA unsuccessfully attempted to impose. The obligation to register for the military draft still applies only to young men, and Defense Secretary James Mattis has sensibly delayed entry by so-called transgendered individuals into our military until the impact on combat readiness can be fully evaluated.
Many of the arguments made by Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s against ERA were ridiculed by liberals at the time, yet here we are today dealing with court-imposed same-sex marriage, transgender bathrooms, and taxpayer-funded abortion. Bill and Hillary Clinton put ERA’s most prominent advocate on the U.S. Supreme Court, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has never been able to persuade a majority of the Court that our Constitution requires mindless gender equality.
Thirty-five years without ERA, we have thriving single-sex sports teams, sororities, fraternities, and even some flourishing public schools and classrooms that are all-boys or all-girls. As bad as judicial activism is now, if the Equal Rights Amendment were in the Constitution, federal courts would be spending their time deciding if Johnny has a constitutional right to play on an all-girls’ field hockey team, or if an all-boys public school is unconstitutional.
The defeat of ERA had an immense cultural impact in addition to these obvious legal and political benefits. It made it socially acceptable for mothers to spend time away from the workforce to raise their children, during a moment in our history when feminists were demonizing that traditional role.
During the 1970s, mothers were increasingly herded into the workforce and misled to think that was the only way they could have a fulfilling life. ERA was going to “seal the deal,” and render it impossible for our society ever to have a respectable role for the stay-at-home mom with a working husband.
Feminists even tried to restructure Social Security to eliminate the provisions that allow wives and widows to benefit from their husbands’ earnings. Those provisions were made sex-neutral in 1983, but homemakers still draw most of the benefits which their husbands earned.
The feminist ideology behind ERA sneered at any woman who would choose to stay at home while her husband advanced his career in the workplace. With the media and universities pushing this agenda hard alongside ERA, the percentage of stay-at-home moms with employed husbands did steadily decline.
But Phyllis Schlafly’s defeat of ERA permitted a new culture to emerge for the stay-at-home mom. Phyllis even instituted the innovative Homemaker Award in 1985 to honor a woman each year who exemplified this tried-and-true approach.
Her award was ridiculed by feminists, but like many of Phyllis’ ideas it is increasingly praised and imitated today. County fairs in states as diverse as Maryland, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Oregon give homemaker awards, and our First Lady Melania Trump is a homemaker who initially declined the glamour of the White House to stay at home while her son completed his school year.
By the mid-1980s the decline in the percentage of stay-at-home moms with working husbands began to level off, and remains today at about the same level it was then. Nearly a third of women with children and working husbands choose to stay at home rather than be employed, as made respectable by the defeat of ERA.
Many of those women do what Phyllis Schlafly herself did back more than half-century ago: give their children a head start on school by teaching them to read with phonics. Our society depends on homemakers to produce the next generation of inventors, writers, artists, teachers, and leaders.
This 35-year anniversary of the defeat of ERA commemorates an additional milestone: the emergence of the modern conservative movement, built on social values as much as economic and national security ones. The election of Donald Trump, which Phyllis Schlafly foresaw and supported from the beginning, was a triumph over feminist political correctness.
State authority over family and marriage would have been totally subsumed within federal law, if ERA were ratified. Everyday issues of divorce and custody could have become federal cases as Congress would have been empowered by ERA to pass new laws concerning custody and divorce.
Stopping a media-promoted constitutional amendment once it is presented to the states for ratification is as impossible as installing brakes on a runaway freight train. Our values and national security today owe much to the stunning defeat of ERA 35 years ago.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.
These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
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