Conservatives of the Year

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The best test of an effective conservative is the ability to take incoming fire from the media and survive. With that in mind, let’s take a moment to recognize and thank the most courageous and effective conservatives of 2023.

Standout Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was targeted by the media and Republican power brokers like Karl Rove, yet Paxton survived the ambush sham impeachment by his own Republican Party. Back in office, Paxton has resumed his valiant efforts to secure our southern border despite litigation by the Biden Administration to keep illegals flooding into our country.

The new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) earns our praise for shutting off the funding of foreign wars for the remainder of 2023, despite intense pressure from the Senate uniparty led by Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Speaker Johnson set up a January showdown over continued funding of the federal government, while his leverage improves as Biden’s declines.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is the courageous congressman who made the election of Speaker Johnson possible. By moving to “vacate the chair” occupied by Kevin McCarthy, who has since quit Congress, Gaetz overcame naysayers to enable the election of the most conservative Speaker ever.

Marine veteran Harrison Floyd has accomplished the most among the 19 unfairly indicted by the politically motivated Fulton County prosecutor in Atlanta, Georgia. Floyd overcame his wrongful imprisonment as the only black defendant, and has vigorously contested the charges by subpoenaing Fulton County’s mail-in ballots, with their envelopes, and information about its electronic voting tabulation concerning the 2020 election.

Floyd looked dapper when he appeared in court as the unhinged prosecutor Fani Willis, seething with resentment against the black Trump supporter, improperly attempted to revoke his bail merely because Floyd spoke out on social media against the injustice. While the deck remains stacked against him and all 19 defendants there, Floyd has flummoxed Willis such that she has not made any progress against Trump as liberals hoped.

House Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who is not even a member of the Judiciary Committee, outshone the Republicans on that committee by calling out the tyrannical D.C. federal judges. She filed a stinging ethics complaint against district court Judge Beryl Howell for the judge’s appallingly biased statements against Trump and his supporters while their cases are pending.

Elon Musk earns a shout-out for his outspokenness against censorship and his restoration of banned users from X, formerly known as Twitter. Musk also criticized globalists, and his ambitious plan to establish a new, non-Woke college in liberal Austin, Texas, surpasses all the liberal philanthropy combined.

In Hollywood, Kelsey Grammer overcame opposition to achieve smashing success for the Jesus Revolution film, grossing nearly four times its production cost. Grammer merits further applause for reaffirming his support of Trump in an interview with the anti-Trump BBC earlier this month.

Two musicians scored conservative triumphs this year, to the consternation of the Left in the music industry. Jason Aldean recorded the #1 hit song “Try That in a Small Town,” which extols conservative small-town values and achieved the most weekly sales for any country tune in a decade.

Oliver Anthony would win the conservative Grammy of the year, if such an award were given, for his hilarious, self-released song the “Rich Men North of Richmond.” His lyrics include “I wish politicians would look out for miners / And not just minors on an island somewhere,” referring to the liberal-controlled Jeffrey Epstein cover-up.

Not to leave out the foreign conservative stars of 2023, Javier Milei stormed to a landslide win as the new president of Argentina. He is a pro-life economist who recognizes global warming as a “lie of socialism,” while he praises Trump.

Many additional Trump-like foreign conservatives prevailed in 2023. Kyriakos Mitsotakis won as prime minister in Greece, Geert Wilders won in the Netherlands, Christopher Luxon won in New Zealand, and Robert Fico prevailed in Slovakia, all making their countries great again while rejecting globalist immigration.

Let’s not overlook courageous conservatism in sports in 2023. Twelve-time NCAA All-American swimmer Riley Gaines gave up a dental career to defend women and girls against the invasion of transgender, biological males into their sports.

“Where are the feminists?” Riley Gaines pointed out as she fights to preserve the integrity of college sports for women. “We felt violated. We felt humiliated. We felt betrayed. We felt belittled,” she said about liberal colleges allowing biological males to ruin women’s sports.

Finally, our list would be incomplete without praising the hundreds of political prisoners being unfairly punished by the tyrannical elite in D.C., for the “crime” of humiliating the Deep State on January 6. The show trials and biased D.C. judges, whose own statements reveal their partisan anti-Trump agenda, have created American heroes in those who peacefully continue to oppose this abuse of power.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump Takes Big Leads in Michigan, Ohio

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump takes a commanding lead in Michigan, as reported by Bloomberg and CNN polls showing Trump ahead of Biden by 4 to 10 points there. Even if Biden were to win several other swing states, realistically Biden cannot be reelected if he loses Michigan.

A headline in liberal Newsweek refers to this big shift in Michigan as a “nightmare” for Biden. The recent auto-workers strike was supposed to help Biden as he joined its picket line, but instead it boosted Trump by establishing him as the true champion of workers for opposing electric vehicles.

General Motors announced more layoffs on Friday of 1,300 auto-workers in Michigan, including those assembling its soon-to-be-discontinued Camaro muscle car, because of the push to electric cars. Liberals’ regulatory-driven shift to electric vehicles, which Trump opposes, is predicted to end an estimated 40% of auto-worker jobs.

Michigan’s economy is heavily dependent on auto manufacturing, and Biden’s destruction of it is similar to liberals’ war on coal in West Virginia, which has rendered that state unwinnable by Biden or any Democrat. Its incumbent U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he will not seek reelection because, thanks to Trump, a Democrat can no longer be elected statewide in West Virginia.

Trump is winning over many union and women voters in Michigan, leaping to a 50-point lead there over his Republican primary challengers. The Michigan primary is pivotal because it has moved up to fifth position, after Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, and is the last to define the race shortly before the mammoth 16-state, Super Tuesday primary in early March.

Michigan has a robust third-party system, which in 2016 drew nearly 6% of the votes as Trump then defeated Hillary Clinton. In 2020, there was a weak field of third-party candidates who garnered only 2% of the vote there.

This time, a strong field of third-party candidates led by the famous Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the progressive activist Cornel West, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, is expected to surpass the combined third-party vote total in 2016. Many in Michigan are from the Middle East, and have turned against Biden for his mishandling of the Gaza crisis.

The odds of a criminal trial of Trump prior to the election have diminished due to Trump’s recent halting (for now) of the biased federal proceeding against him in D.C. In addition, the Wall Street Journal reported new polling last week which suggests that even a federal conviction of Trump would have only a marginal effect of a few points in voting, not enough for Biden to overcome his immense deficit that he has now in Michigan.

Democrats lack a replacement for Biden, as DeSantis destroyed Newsom in their recent debate on Fox which included DeSantis holding up a “poop map” of human waste from the homeless which litters San Francisco under Newsom’s leadership. Michelle Obama lacks the temperament to run for president, and would seem too much like Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful campaign on her husband’s popularity.

Democrats have controlled Michigan’s government since 2022 and have ramped up cannabis sales with unlimited licensure and low pot taxes such that it has the highest per capita spending on marijuana, more than three times greater than California. Marijuana sales are expected to surpass $3 billion in Michigan this year on a population of only 10 million people, averaging $300 per adult in annual spending on pot.

Residents are moving out in droves, making Michigan so desperate to stem population losses that its Democratic leadership proposes paying people to move there. Nearly 40% of young adults in Michigan plan to move out within the next decade.

In response, a population council was convened under Democrat leadership to try to stem the exodus. Last week its liberal proposals were chock-full of failed Democrat approaches, and only one Republican legislator on the council voted against it.

Another Republican, a legislator from the Upper Peninsula where residents are referred to as “Yoopers,” said that the Democratic population proposals were so misguided that Yoopers might consider “closing the bridge and exploring statehood.” Obama won the Upper Peninsula in 2008 but it voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

“Grocery prices are high; electric bills are high; Democrats are actively fighting to raise income taxes; and now the governor is using these proposals to rationalize tax hikes and force regular people to foot the bill for unnecessary new programs,” said Rep. Gary Prestin (R-Cedar River).

Next-door Ohio, which like Michigan depends on auto industry jobs, has Trump surging to a 12-14% point lead over Biden in an Emerson College poll. A Trump landslide in Ohio could cost Democrats a U.S. Senate and two Ohio Supreme Court seats.

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.

Jack Smith's Desperate Gamble at SCOTUS

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

After falsely pretending that Trump is being prosecuted like any other defendant, Biden's henchman Jack Smith just proved what a liar he is. On Monday Smith filed an unusual emergency appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would be laughed out of court if Smith were treated like any other litigant there.

The motivation for Smith’s desperate gamble is that Trump-haters want an expedited, biased criminal trial against Trump in order to sway the outcome of the presidential election. This is an egregious misuse of prosecutorial power by Smith, and it should be harshly rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Smith’s latest abuse of the legal system landed on the desk of Chief Justice John Roberts, who is long known for senselessly pandering to the liberal media as he did during Covid and in the big Obamacare and abortion cases. Roberts granted Smith’s request for a special briefing schedule that requires a response by Trump’s attorneys by December 20.

While the 3-justice liberal wing of the Supreme Court will surely grant whatever Smith wants, and perhaps Roberts will too, that totals only 4 votes when he needs 5 to obtain fast-track review in bypass of the intermediate appellate court. Smith appears to be one vote short, which liberals recognize by baselessly demanding recusal of conservative Justice Thomas.

Several conservative Supreme Court justices have a markedly dim view of Roberts. None of them has any kinship with prosecutors either, except Justice Sam Alito but he has become the most courageous leader against the Biden agenda.

Justice Alito was the sole dissent on Monday to a request by another presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to intervene in a pending case about internet censorship by the Biden Administration. RFK Jr. has been victimized more than anyone by that censorship, but the eight other justices refused to acknowledge him.

Smith wants the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s defense of legal immunity, but a president cannot be subordinated to the judiciary and Trump was president on January 6 during the protests at the Capitol. Trump also has a double jeopardy defense based on his Senate impeachment acquittal.

If Trump were treated like any other criminal defendant, as Smith and the Obama-appointed trial judge Tanya Chutkan have repeatedly pretended, there would not be this leap-frogging by Smith of the appellate court. Nor would Judge Chutkan have ordered a faster-than-usual briefing for a response deadline of Sunday, in reaction to the routine request by Trump’s attorneys for her to stay her ruling.

The more Smith flails away, the higher Trump rises in the polls. A new CNN poll shows Trump leading Biden in battleground states by 5 points in Georgia and 10 points in Michigan.

Meanwhile, it was just revealed that Smith intruded on Trump’s private cell phone records from when Trump was conducting his duties as president. Smith never sought or obtained approval by the Supreme Court for this shocking, unprecedented interference with the presidential office, which is likely to offend Supreme Court justices.

The perpetrators of Jack Smith’s charade seek to hold a show trial against Trump to try to tilt the election outcome against him. The D.C.-based judge and prosecutor feign treating Trump like everyone else, yet insist on railroading him in an unusual way before the upcoming presidential election.

The Deep State Dems thought the surprise raid of Mar-a-Lago would knock Trump out of contention for the White House. Then they hoped the county indictment of Trump by Alvin Bragg in New York City would end Trump’s political career, but it obviously has not.

The Mar-a-Lago case was assigned to a federal judge who has correctly sized up Jack Smith’s team as a gang of fools, and she doesn’t suffer fools lightly. Smith got the federal appellate court in Atlanta to roll over for him, as it does for all prosecutors, but Smith has made no progress since then in the Mar-a-Lago case, and no trial concerning it is likely in 2024.

Failing all that, liberals misusing prosecutorial power thought the indictments by a Democrat county prosecutor in Atlanta would be the cherry on the sundae – 91 felony counts in all, as the media keep reminding us. But it, too, has stalled amid too many absurd claims against too many innocent people, while its mugshot of Trump has become a rallying cry for millions of Americans fed up with the Left.

Yet Biden and Democrats still delusionally hope that if Trump were convicted and sentenced to prison, then enough voters would be swayed by that to defeat him on Election Day. Jack Smith’s case in D.C. is their last chance for this, but if the Supreme Court treats Mr. Smith like everyone else then he’ll become the biggest liberal flop ever.

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.

Judicial Tyranny Worsens in D.C.

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The judicial pile-up against President Trump, led by Obama-appointed federal judges in D.C., has become increasingly brazen. Comments by these judges reveal a shocking level of political bias by people whose job requires them to be strictly nonpartisan.

Judicial bias was on full display last week at a posh D.C. hotel where the Women’s White Collar Defense Association gave its “champion” award to a sitting federal judge, Beryl Howell. With almost no Republicans on hand to deter them, the powerful Democratic women lawyers felt free to let down their hair and say what they think about Trump.

As chief judge on the D.C. district court until earlier this year, Howell issued a series of one-sided rulings that included ordering Trump’s attorney to turn over his confidential notes to federal prosecutors. Most criminal defense attorneys would have howled in protest at her defiance of the traditional attorney-client privilege, but these liberal Democratic women lawyers gave her a high award instead.

In remarks accepting her undeserved award, Judge Howell bragged that she and her D.C. colleagues were, in effect, saving America from Donald Trump, whom she falsely accused of pushing our country to the “brink of authoritarianism.” She incorrectly referred to our country as a “democracy” when we are a republic in which our laws are made by elected representatives restrained by checks and balances, not by a direct popular vote.

Judge Howell avoided mentioning Trump’s name, but the context of her remarks left no doubt that her comments were directed at Trump and his supporters, as the media reported. She went on in her speech to claim that she and her fellow federal judges in D.C. see “the impact of big lies” by Trump in cases arising from the January 6 protest.

When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made partisan comments against Trump in 2016, even the New York Times called her out in an editorial entitled, “Donald Trump Is Right About Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Trump had said “I think it’s highly inappropriate that a United States Supreme Court judge gets involved in a political campaign, frankly. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”

Howell’s comments were particularly objectionable because her court is presiding over ongoing cases against Trump and hundreds of people who rallied to support him on January 6, 2021. Another Obama appointee, Judge Tanya Chutkan, continues to preside over Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump despite making a string of biased comments in her courtroom.

Chutkan has overseen convictions of more than 30 defendants in cases related to the January 6 rally, and has not acquitted a single defendant. According to The Washington Post, she has been the harshest sentencing judge, ordering at least some jail or prison time in all cases while sometimes exceeding the cruel sentences demanded by prosecutors.

Last Friday Judge Chutkan issued a 48-page diatribe against Trump, who is the frontrunner to be reelected president next year. The Jamaican-born federal judge made strained analogies to the founder of our country, George Washington, while imposing tyranny from the bench in her courtroom.

All that was missing from her narrative was a claim that she and other D.C. judges are courageously crossing the Delaware River as Washington did. The real tyranny is from crossing the Potomac River, where these judges have ruled against Trump and his supporters on every legal issue, while making absurd historical allusions.

The American people are turning against what Julie Kelly has called “January 6 jurisprudence,” confirmed by the reputable Pew Research in a recent survey about declining trust in government. Pew found that only 15% of Americans feel that the federal government is right “most of the time,” while a rock-bottom 1% say that the Feds are right “just about always.”

These liberal federal judges should read what Thomas Jefferson said 200 years ago about tyranny from the bench. As the author of the eloquent manifesto against the tyranny of King George III in 1776, Jefferson later recognized tyranny when he saw it coming from federal judges.

“As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam,” Jefferson wrote, referring to the notorious English insane asylum, “so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may, indeed, injure them in fame or in fortune,” Jefferson continued, “but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.”

The nearby Supreme Court should rein in the judges presiding over Trump-related cases in D.C., which have become show trials used by Biden supporters to crush his opposition. But instead the High Court wasted weeks pandering to liberal demands for a new code of ethics, and last Friday the Justices gave themselves a three-day weekend based on the death of long-forgotten former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who resigned nearly two decades ago.

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.