Trump’s Passion Propels GOP

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As we close the books on 2021, the award for worst prediction of the year was that Donald Trump would somehow fade from political influence. Anti-Trumper Karl Rove gushed last February 11 that Trump was “effectively tarnished for all time and incapable of running in 2024.”

Rep. Liz Cheney may have taken Rove’s advice or agreed with it, foolishly betting her political future on a banishment of Trump from the political stage. Instead, it is Cheney who is being shown the door and will likely be humiliated in her own upcoming primary.

Democrat John Kerry, whose presidential ambitions crashed in defeat to George W. Bush in 2004, declared in April that it will not “be possible for Trump to come back.” More wishful thinking from the man in charge of shutting down America’s energy industry, as Trump roars back to lead the Republican Party into the 2022 midterms.

In contrast with blander politicians, Trump’s heartfelt passion propels the GOP to a status that it has never had in our lifetimes. He and his outspoken supporters, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), have turned the tables on the bipartisan Establishment in Washington.

“Good morning Deputy Warden,” Rep. Greene tweeted on a Saturday earlier this month, “How’s the DC Gulag this morning?” The “DC Gulag” refers to the inhumane jail that continues to hold dozens of Trump supporters. Kathleen Landerkin, the deputy warden responsible for the brutal conditions there, had tweeted a string of vile anti-Trump comments, before deleting her account a few hours after Rep. Greene called her out.

Fourteen congressmen, including House Republican leader Andy Biggs (R-AZ), signed a letter sent on December 16 demanding that the biased deputy warden be fired. Meanwhile judges have not held a single trial of any of the more than 725 charged in connection with the January 6th rally in D.C., despite the Sixth Amendment requiring a speedy trial and the Speedy Trial Act guaranteeing one within 70 days.

Trump has endorsed 78 Republicans for the upcoming year, a number that will greatly expand. Trump had a near-perfect record of endorsements in 2021, with only a slight miss in Texas when no Democrat qualified for the runoff such that another Republican won with Democrat votes.

A slew of tremendous new candidates have entered races based on Trump's encouragement and endorsements. Trump is bringing bold, fresh, energetic candidates into the political arena, like Joe Kent, who is challenging an anti-Trump Republican incumbent in Washington’s 3rd district.

A combat veteran of 11 overseas deployments, Joe Kent has become a leading voice in opposition to needless foreign wars which are being fomented by those who failed to heed the lessons of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. Joe Kent will join a class of great Trump-endorsed Republicans who include Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO).

Trump deserves the credit for transforming the Republican Party from a perennial also-ran status into the side favored to win. Unlike Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, both of whom gave up, Trump has never backed down while withstanding far greater pressure.

Phantom votes, which are ballots cast in the names of people who never personally filled them out or are not legitimate residents, were not enough to save liberals in the recent Virginia elections. As redistricting gives Republicans the opportunity to win many new seats, including 6 of Arizona’s 9 districts, phantom votes will not enable Democrats to hold onto Congress either.

A year after the divisive 2020 election, Biden has failed to deliver on his promise to unite the country, or even extend an olive branch to the 75 or so million who voted for Trump and still support him. Biden’s lack of charity to his opponents has made it politically easier for Republicans to build momentum for the midterm elections next fall.

Biden should follow the example of our first president, whose authority was challenged by the anti-tax Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania in 1794. After he got on horseback and personally led troops to put down the armed riots, which the governor was unable to quell, President Washington pardoned the convicted offenders, although they had put him in personal danger.

It may be vindictiveness that is preventing Biden from pardoning his political opponents, in contrast with how Trump mercifully pardoned or commuted the prison sentence of Democrats including Rod Blagojevich. Or delusional House Democrats may think that their strategy of seeking revenge against Trump supporters will gain them votes next November.

Ratcheting up their sham investigations, House Democrats now demand that Republican leader Jim Jordan (R-OH) answer questions about January 6th. But the Democrat leaders are the ones who should be answering questions, starting with their inhumane continued imprisonment without a trial of Trump supporters in the DC Gulag.

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.

Voting and Vaccine Mandates

Rural America Stops Biden

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“Why are we allowing someone that makes $500,000 to get a discount on an electric vehicle? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) declared while stopping Biden’s $2 trillion boondoggle misnamed the Build Back Better (BBB) Act.

The socialists seeking to control our energy have no satisfactory answer to Senator Manchin’s criticism. Biden’s BBB would rob from the poor and middle class, to give to the elite under the guise of climate change.

The BBB includes a whopping $7,500 tax credit to purchase electric vehicles, which would mostly benefit the wealthy. The legislation also contains $5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations nationwide, plus $2.5 billion for grants to mostly liberal groups to construct charging stations in disadvantaged areas.

Another $900 tax credit, which could be doubled for couples earning up to $150,000, is for those who buy a battery-powered “e-bike” to avoid the strenuous exercise of pedaling a traditional bicycle.

Rural America, speaking through Sen. Joe Manchin, has asserted itself against this endless theft by the coastal elite. Democrats are apoplectic that one of their own has torpedoed Biden’s centerpiece legislation, but Manchin is speaking for all of rural America in blocking the BBB.

It is the 39-point margin by which Trump won West Virginia that doomed Biden’s agenda. A state that Bill Clinton carried 25 years ago has swung completely to the Republican side.

Sen. Manchin first won his seat in a special election by campaigning hard against Barack Obama’s anti-coal agenda in 2010. Manchin is up for reelection in 2024 and there is no Democratic presidential candidate who will help him win with rural voters.

Without a big-city Democratic machine to deliver votes, West Virginia’s elections can’t be stolen as they are in other states. There is no Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, or Atlanta in the Mountain State, as West Virginia is known.

Election results are tallied quickly after residents cast legitimate ballots. Returns are not withheld until after Election Day as done in Democratic strongholds.

National Democrats have tried to embarrass Sen. Manchin, but it only backfired. He observed that some of the tactics used by the White House staff against him have been “absolutely inexcusable."

The true embarrassment is by liberals who vowed to enact this bad legislation. Even now top Democrats plan to hold a vote on this bill early next year, to increase pressure on Manchin.

A vote should help the GOP, as rural regions including southern parts of Illinois and New Jersey have swung sharply pro-Trump. Big cities are what have kept these states in the Democrat column, while mostly rural West Virginia is free of dominance by machine and media-driven politics.

The rebellion by rural America against cities and their media is apparently behind Manchin’s stance as much as the energy issue is. He opposed the expanded child tax credits in the BBB legislation as strongly as he opposed the green energy handouts.

Taxpayer-funded child care amounts to taking from the rural poor and giving their money to wealthier people in the cities, where fewer parents raise their own kids. In rural West Virginia most parents raise their own children, so the massive child care credits in BBB would further redistribute wealth from Manchin’s constituents.

Rural America remains an untapped reservoir of support for Republicans. There is not much more in voter turnout that can be found in big cities, but statewide elections can be swung to the GOP column by increasing the historically low turnout among rural voters.

The avalanche of 23 retirements by Democratic congressmen, including three departures nearly announced earlier this week, suggest that Manchin’s approach is in line with the political future. Two years ago, only 9 Democrats had announced retirements by this time.

These are not merely politicians at the end of a long career who are calling it quits. Young Democrats thought to be emerging leaders are also leaving Congress, which increases the chances that the GOP will retake the House in ten months.

This giving up by Democrats occurs amid new polling that shows an historic defection of the youth from Biden. Without a strong turnout by young voters, his party has no chance of holding onto power in Congress and the White House.

An independent poll by YouGov/Economist confirms that the biggest drop in support of Biden is among young voters, of whom only 29% approve of his job performance. Fully half of young voters disapprove of Biden now, giving him a negative 21 point rating by this key demographic.

This is the worst rating for Biden among any age group. The party that was built on youthful enthusiasm by the likes of JFK and Bill Clinton has become an anachronistic dinosaur that Sen. Joe Manchin is prophetic to stand up against.

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.

Congress Shows Contempt for the Constitution

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As it votes to hold President Trump’s top aides in contempt of Congress, the Democrat-controlled House showed its own contempt for the separation-of-powers doctrine that makes a presidency co-equal rather than subservient to it. Contrary to the grandstanding congresswoman Liz Cheney, President Trump had no obligation to remove First Amendment-exercising Americans from the Capitol building on January 6th.

Cheney selectively released some private texts and emails involving Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and quickly distorted their meaning. She falsely insists that they show “supreme dereliction of duty” by Trump even though he was not the recipient of the communications.

Cheney, who is no longer recognized as a Republican by her own Wyoming Republican Party, is illustrating why feeding the Never-Trumpers by giving them texts and emails is a mistake. In generating some headlines in the liberal media, Cheney exaggerated their significance and violated privilege.

Cheney asserts that there were “dozens of texts” to Meadows on January 6th, but the smattering of texts that Cheney improperly read to the public show nothing illegal. Cheney should release to the public her own private communications against Trump, which would show how unfit she is to sit on a committee that falsely pretends to be impartial.

Cheney also released some private texts by a Trump family member and Fox News commentators, while concealing the identity of fellow lawmakers who texted Meadows. Apparently Cheney does not want to incur further wrath by Republicans for breaching their privacy, but she is fine with invading Trump family privacy.

These texts should be protected by executive privilege, a two-century-old doctrine first established by President George Washington. A lawyer who lives in the D.C. area with her big-firm lawyer husband, Cheney surely understands how important doctrines of privilege are to facilitate candid conversations.

As Meadows’ attorney has informed the House committee, the statute on which the House bases its authority was never intended to be used like this amid executive privilege, and never has. The House has not previously voted to hold a former member in contempt for any reason in nearly 200 years.

“The text messages leave no doubt that White House knew what was happening,” Cheney blustered, as though a building itself can have knowledge. Cheney-the-lawyer surely realizes that knowledge by one person is not imputed to another, and what Meadows knew is not proof of what Trump knew.

Moreover, Trump did not command the Capitol police force, or act as a custodian for House members who are fully capable of dealing with political protests without hand-holding by a president. Cheney is well-connected with liberals who run the House and she could have taken action herself to stifle the protests as she now insists Trump should have done.

Let’s see public disclosure of the texts by leading Dems in the House, and marvel at their obsession with criticizing Trump rather than doing their job. Let’s see public disclosure of texts and emails between Cheney and other Never-Trumpers, such as Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney.

None of the distortions by Never-Trumpers Cheney and others has worked against Trump, and none will. Nearly a year after the January 6th political rally, many Americans are angry at how Democrats and the Deep State continue to whine about it and even imprison peaceful participants without a trial.

The House committee lacked any legislative justification for recommending that Meadows be held in contempt for protecting the confidences of President Trump. The extent of House investigatory powers should not extend any further than what is related to potential legislation, yet the House has gone far beyond that concerning January 6th.

House Democrats and RINO Liz Cheney have so misused the Committee’s investigative powers that its finding of someone in contempt no longer has meaning with voters. First it was Steve Bannon, whose only “crime” is his friendship with Trump, next it is Mark Meadows, and ultimately Never-Trumpers will seek contempt against Trump himself.

As Meadows’ attorney points out, contempt has never before been rendered against high-level presidential staffers like Meadows who assert executive privilege. This right was established by none other than President George Washington himself, who could be found in contempt under the same approach taken by Cheney and Dems today.

Cheney ranted on Monday about texts sent to Meadows concerning the rally on January 6th, but there is nothing objectionable in those communications. A few wanted Trump to intervene in the rally in the Capitol, but that is not the job of a president.

The misleading portrayal of texts and emails provided by Meadows to the House committee, in a spirit of cooperation, illustrates that the Never-Trumpers will never be satisfied and will not stick to an honest characterization of what happened. Any evidence that departs from their anti-Trump narrative will be ignored, and every exaggeration to try to smear Trump will be attempted.

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.

Leftists Prefer Censorship over Democracy

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The Left’s promotion of censorship has shifted into high gear. Formerly in the vanguard of demanding freedom of speech, Leftists now openly advocate for censorship of views they dislike.

There is no First Amendment freedom in Europe, where new rules are being drafted by the European Union (EU) to punish disfavored online speech. There is nothing democratic about this push for censorship.

The European Commission is the unelected body of bureaucrats that governs the European Union, whose membership fell to 27 when Britain exited in January 2020. The Commission is expected this week to approve censorship of online speech critical of LGBTQ+, which can mean anything contrary to traditional gender norms.

These new rules against free speech on the internet have not yet been fully released, but they will take aim at vocal conservatives in Poland and Hungary unsupportive of the direction in which the EU is trying to take those pro-Trump countries. Economic pressure keeps those countries inside the liberal confederation.

In April, at the Istanbul Convention, the additional Eastern European countries of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic also pushed back against the attempt by the EU to erode family values. Like Russia, all of these formerly communist countries have seen firsthand the immense harm that liberals cause, and those countries are not returning to the bad old days.

There is nothing democratic about the European Union, as these and other rules are created by a handful of Leftists without any popular support. It is ironic how liberals clamor for democracy when it suits their agenda, while doing the opposite in overriding the will of the people who are supportive of family values in Eastern Europe.

Even Ireland recently heard a public call for it to consider leaving the EU for reasons of nationalism, as espoused by its champion MMA fighter Conor McGregor. A Dubliner, McGregor pointed out that being in the EU makes the Ireland government merely “messengers” and “lap dogs” rather than the independent sovereignty the Irish people sought when they broke away from the United Kingdom a century ago.

Totalitarian new Covid confinement rules imposed by the EU against its member nations, including Ireland, sparked McGregor’s ire. There seems little point in holding elections in Ireland and throughout Europe if an unelected commission of the EU can invent and impose whatever suffocating laws it likes.

Later this week Biden is holding an online Democracy Summit to which he invited more than 100 countries, many of which, like Ukraine, have too much corruption to qualify as functioning democracies. Biden snubbed Hungary, even though it is one of the most democratic countries in the world, and Hungary promptly retaliated by vetoing resulting decisions that would require unanimity by EU member states.

A third of Americans recognize that many elections in our own country are not honest. Democracy assumes that voters should fill out their own ballots without pressure for certain candidates, but liberal political operatives harvest and deliver ballots for a candidate like Joe Biden who does not even have full mental faculties.

Fortunately, pockets of remaining democracy in the United States are reflected in how voters continue to move right in reaction to the tactics by the Left. The highly respected Cook Political Report has just changed its assessment of 3 key governor races to describe them as toss-ups after they were previously listed as leaning toward reelection of the incumbent Democrats.

These are the battleground states of Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, all essential to the Democrats’ quest to win the next presidential election. Most notably in Michigan, with its prize of 15 electoral college votes, the incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faces continued dissatisfaction with her dictatorial lockdowns during the pandemic.

Remarkably, the Cook Report also updated its assessment of the Democrat strongholds of Oregon, New Mexico, and Maine in order to reflect growing Republican strength there. Longtime Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) surprisingly announced his retirement from Congress, rather than stand for reelection in 2022.

The real democracy in the United States is in Republican primaries, where elections are not stolen and people are willing to vote out incumbents who fail to accomplish what they promised. On Monday that was illustrated by the entry of former U.S. Senator David Perdue into the Republican primary race for the governor of Georgia, against the turncoat incumbent Brian Kemp.

Immediately Donald Trump endorsed David Perdue, who will bring a choice not an echo, which was sorely lacking in the anti-Trump governor’s bid for reelection. Governor Kemp presided over a takeover of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats by liberal Democrats, and then he obstructed restoration of election integrity there.

A sweep of the Georgia primaries by pro-Trump candidates would be a big step toward saving our country. If liberals truly supported democracy, they would be applauding.

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.

Fauci Speaking to Bill Clinton

(Original photo credit: US NIH)