Texas Stands Strong While Biden Retaliates

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“If they cut it, we will replace it,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared about the razor wire along the Texas border with Mexico, after Biden won a narrowly weak 5-4 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court authorizing him to cut it. Patrick holds an unusually powerful office because it commands the state senate, and his comments join the chorus of other top Texas officials taking a strong stand against Biden’s open border.

“We are putting up wire ... everywhere we can. We will continue. We will not stop,” Patrick told Fox News after visiting the border on Friday to be on hand in case Biden’s Border Patrol showed up with wire cutters. “Wisely, they did not,” Patrick added.

Biden apparently did retaliate against Texas on Friday in a different way by abruptly blocking all pending approvals for permission to export liquefied natural gas. Texas is America’s largest producer of clean-burning natural gas, which is essential to its economy and that of our entire nation.

The Texas Land Commissioner, Dr. Dawn Buckingham, observed that Biden’s unexpected order looks “more like retaliation than a sound policy decision,” coming as it did the day after “Texas took a bold stand in defending our border against foreign invaders.” The Land Commissioner oversees the oldest public agency in Texas, with authority over Texas’s immense natural resources and public lands.

In her article for the Daily Caller, Dr. Buckingham “calls on all Americans to stand up for our country. Politicians should put the interests of Americans in their hearts and send a loud and clear message to leaders in a far-off capitol in Washington, DC — keep your hands off the Texas National Guard.”

The Oklahoma GOP rebuked its U.S. Senator James Lankford for caving to the D.C. uniparty on a bill that would grant new authority to Biden, after he has opened our southern border for three years. Lankford and Democrats have hidden the details, but enough has leaked out for House Speaker Mike Johnson to declare the bill to be dead on arrival in the House.

Biden promised that he would close part of the border if given new authority by Congress, but he already has that power as he refuses to enforce existing immigration laws. Giving Biden new authority over the border is like giving an alcoholic the keys to the liquor cabinet.

Elon Musk piped up on Friday with his remarkably pointed criticism of Biden’s open border. “No laws need to be passed. All that is needed is an executive order to require proof before granting an asylum hearing,” Musk tweeted on his platform X.

“That is how it used to be,” Musk added. He could have included the words “under Trump,” and highlighted how Trump’s reelection would rescue us from this border crisis.

Biden is suing Texas for its newly enacted SB 4, which authorizes state officials to arrest and deport illegal aliens found in that state. The U.S. Border Patrol should already be doing that, but instead Biden and his minions are trying to block Texas from protecting its own residents.

There has been a staggering increase in crimes of all types by illegal aliens since Biden took office three years ago. Reported encounters for illegal drug possession and trafficking had declined each year of the Trump administration, but then skyrocketed to more than five times Trump’s 2020 level for every year of the Biden administration.

Biden’s henchmen may be rethinking their strategy after 25 Republican governors – everyone except from the ultra-liberal state of Vermont – stated their full support for Texas officials in resisting the demands by Biden to cut the wire fencing. The governors sided with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for “stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country.”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem even offered to personally drive to Texas more wire for concertina fencing if needed. Texas should consider closing its entire border with this barbed fencing now.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the globalist Minority Leader in the Senate, has been obsessed with sending another $60 billion to Ukraine, in exchange for allocating a small fraction of that sum to border security. He complains now about Trump’s influence over members of Congress, but it was Biden who defiantly allowed a record number of migrants to cross into Texas last month and repeatedly sued Texas, making any potential compromise a non-starter.

Biden has had three years to prove that he can secure our borders, but instead he has done the opposite, with devastating effects on Texas and our entire country. After rejecting many opportunities to protect our southern border throughout his administration, it is insulting for Biden and Democrats to pretend that they will finally reverse their open border policies on the eve of the presidential election.

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.

SCOTUS Worsens Migrant Crisis by Violating Texas Sovereignty

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Texans have never liked tyranny from D.C., and Monday’s 5-4 emergency ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court against the Lone Star State tosses fuel on a smoldering fire. Without explanation, five justices in D.C. authorized the Biden administration to destroy Texas-owned concertina fencing that stemmed the flow of illegal aliens near the border town of Eagle Pass.

Texas officials videoed federal agents cutting holes in the fencing last year on 20 occasions for no apparent reason other than to allow illegal aliens to enter our country. By authorizing the Biden administration to completely destroy this border fence now, this is the ninth time that the Supreme Court has granted an emergency application by Biden.

It is appalling how the Supreme Court dodges other issues to hurriedly accommodate Biden’s open-border agenda. Texas erected this barbed fencing to establish order against an overwhelming flood of illegal aliens, and the Fifth Circuit had sided with Texas pending its review.

More illegal migrants entered the United States last month than any other month in history, according to data obtained by CBS News from the Biden administration. Texas is bearing the brunt of this invasion, and merely a tiny fraction of these illegals have overwhelmed New York City where they leave their urine and poop on sidewalks, doorsteps, and near parked cars.

While paying lip service to private property and state sovereignty in other cases, two Republican appointees, John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, switched sides to join the 3-justice liberal voting bloc to rule for Biden. Chief Justice Roberts always sides with the liberal media in high-profile close votes, so this was no surprise, but Justice Barrett’s vote against Texans’ self-defense remains unexplained.

The recent promotion of fake news about Texas officials supposedly causing children to drown in the Rio Grande by blocking access by federal agents may have been intended to influence the pro-family Justice Barrett. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has explained that the drownings were on the Mexican side, and in a court filing the Biden administration admitted that these drownings occurred before the feds sought access.

Paxton, the finest Attorney General in our country, emphasizes that Biden’s open-border policy causes these tragedies, yet the Supreme Court unwisely opens the door to more of these catastrophes by deferring to Biden. Paxton responded last week to the Biden administration’s assertion that the U.S. Constitution confers authority on the federal government to secure our borders: “When were you planning to start?”

The Biden administration has repeatedly “claimed authority to destroy property that belongs to someone else based on their assurance that doing so is necessary to enforce federal immigration laws," Paxton told the Supreme Court. The evidence “amply demonstrates the utter failure of the Defendants to deter, prevent, and halt unlawful entry into the United States.”

In June 2022 and 2023, the Supreme Court held in favor of Biden’s refusal to enforce federal immigration laws in Texas. The high court allows Biden to violate immigration laws, but then blocks Texas from protecting its residents.

The failure of the majority on the Supreme Court to explain their most recent capitulation to Biden is divisive, harmful and insulting to Texas. Biden is also suing Texas to remove its orange buoys in the Rio Grande, which the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear en banc probably to rule against Biden, but then he will also appeal that issue to the same Supreme Court that just ruled for him.

“The Supreme Court’s temporary order allows Biden to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America,” Attorney General Paxton responded to the Court’s latest ruling. “The destruction of Texas’s border barriers will not help enforce the law or keep American citizens safe. This fight is not over, and I look forward to defending our state’s sovereignty.”

Paxton is right amid the escalating interference by the D.C. elite with local efforts to maintain law and order in Texas. Last week there was a conflict between armed Texas officials and federal agents when the Texans properly denied access by the feds to a border park.

Biden wrongly invokes federal power over the border not to implement law and order, but rather to open it to illegality that includes drug smuggling. A majority of the Supreme Court recognizes the individual right of self-defense to be armed under the Second Amendment, and they should likewise acknowledge state authority to protect itself against the lawless immigration with drugs that Biden is allowing.

Many Texans feel compelled to arm themselves in self-defense for routine trips to the grocery store, in fear of the hordes of illegals let in by Biden. Fortunately, the reelection of Trump would peacefully end this growing conflict between Texas and the D.C. elite, as Trump agrees with Texas in closing the border.

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’s Blowout Win Shows the Way

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Donald Trump more than doubled the tally of the runner-up in the Iowa caucuses, despite frigid temperatures 15 degrees colder than its prior record. Trump proved his mastery of grassroots politics better than his rivals, and this bodes well for him in the general election.

Trump won Iowa outright with 51% of the vote, which was really 59% when combined with the votes for Vivek Ramaswamy who promptly endorsed Trump. The globalist candidate Nikki Haley garnered a meager 19%, a pathetic voter showing for the Never-Trumpers despite nearly unlimited funding for their America Last agenda.

Trump has a far stronger campaign operation than in 2016, as his opponents begrudgingly concede now. To win Iowa so decisively, Trump developed a formidable boots-on-the-ground army of volunteers who are essential to winning elections today by getting out the vote.

Trump overcame both the popular Iowa Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, and the king of the evangelical grassroots there, Bob Vander Plaats, both of whom endorsed Ron DeSantis as he campaigned hard in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. Trump triumphed against the relentless barrage of Leftist lawfare, which has failed to deter anyone from voting for Trump.

Iowa was the Waterloo for the Never-Trumpers, who have failed miserably in their vindictive attempts to stop Trump. Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, Mitt Romney, and their comrades should accept their crushing defeat not only in Waterloo, Iowa, but virtually everywhere in this bellwether midwestern state.

Trump’s spectacular victory was also a triumph for grassroots politics against the overpaid political consultants who wasted millions of dollars on television ads and so-called messaging. Trump built a crackerjack ground game that enlisted precinct captains who could identify at least ten Trump supporters promising to show up and vote at the caucuses.

The Trump campaign provided training to his precinct captains, which other Republican candidates typically fail to do, with the honor of receiving gold-and-white “Trump Caucus Captain” hats. These volunteers were offered the opportunity to be invited to a special Trump event at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July.

Joe Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 33% in the recent ABC News/Ipsos poll, the lowest recorded in 15 years. Like an aging athlete whose performance sharply declines near retirement, there is no viable way for the 81-year-old Biden to improve and no incumbent would ordinarily be reelected with such a low rating.

But Biden Democrats are counting on exploiting early and mail-in voting to reelect him no matter how low his approval rating plummets along with his mental capacity. In his victory speech Monday night, Trump vowed to end the easily corrupted early voting and more than half the state legislatures could do this prior to the general election this fall.

A Democrat-appointed federal judge in Ohio recently upheld election integrity reforms enacted a year ago by that state’s legislature. On January 8, Judge Donald Nugent ruled in favor of a photo identification requirement, a reduction in the number of drop-boxes for ballot dumps, and a tightening of rules for in-person and mail-in voting, in Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless v. LaRose.

“That the State accommodates some voters by permitting (not requiring) the casting of absentee or provisional ballots, is an indulgence — not a constitutional imperative,” declared this federal judge while quoting the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia from the seminal decision upholding voter ID. Nothing requires states to allow the vast periods of early and mail-in voting and the use of numerous drop-boxes for ballot dumps, which blight elections.

“Maintaining confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy,” the federal Judge Nugent emphasized, again quoting precedent by the Supreme Court. States have a compelling “interest in deterring, preventing, and identifying voter fraud,” and proof of the occurrence of voter fraud is not necessary before a state legislature acts to prevent it.

Relying on a 6-3 Supreme Court decision from less than three years ago, the federal court noted that “Supreme Court precedent also instructs that States are not required to wait for voter fraud — and the ensuing damage to public confidence in the electoral process — to occur before taking efforts to protect their elections. States are permitted to regulate prophylactically to prevent voter fraud before it occurs, or public confidence in elections is damaged by it.”

All states should make their elections more like the just-concluded Iowa caucuses: in-person voting on the day of the election, with all ballots counted at the polling place so that results can be announced by 9 p.m. the same evening. Republican state legislators should act swiftly in their new sessions, many of which have just begun, to adopt voter integrity laws to safeguard the upcoming presidential election against fraud.

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.

Only Trump Can Unite Our Vast Country

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A strong president is essential to hold our vast country together, as President Andrew Jackson did amid regional conflict in the 1820s and 1830s. Joe Biden has just kicked off his presidential campaign with two extraordinarily divisive speeches in which he demonized and declared political war on Trump’s supporters, rather than try to persuade them.

Biden delivered these political speeches in Pennsylvania and in South Carolina, the former a must-win state for him in November and the latter a must-win state in his primary. In his remarks Biden demonstrated his discordant campaign strategy of defining MAGA Republicans as enemies of America, when it is Biden who is failing with his weak leadership.

Prominent Democrats are increasingly voicing doubts that Biden can win. Even Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who is credited with delivering the nomination to Biden in 2020, stated on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that his “problem is that we have not been able to break through that MAGA wall” of support for Trump.

Trump’s rivals candidly doubt whether an apparent election of the incompetent Biden would even be legitimate at this point. Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy all stated last week that they would not necessarily accept a reported election result declaring Biden to be the winner, to the dismay of the liberal media.

Yet Haley also says that she would wait until all the prosecutions of Trump have completed and all of the appeals are exhausted, which takes many years, before pardoning him if she were president. This ongoing circus of politicized prosecutions continues to divide our country at a time when we are vulnerable to a potential impasse in budget negotiations in Congress.

The latest fiscal cliff is January 19, by which Congress needs to agree on funding the federal government to avoid a shutdown. A framework of a mammoth $1.7 trillion spending deal was announced on Sunday but fails to make the cuts that conservatives seek.

Most Republicans continue to reject the liberal narrative about the protests at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which just had its three-year anniversary and on Sunday Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) accurately described those who remain imprisoned as “hostages.” Some 34% of Republican voters feel the disorderly conduct on that day was actually provoked by the FBI.

In the growing disunity under Biden, the mayor of New York City just sued bus companies for merely transporting illegal aliens from Texas to Manhattan. Since all these migrants were released on parole by the Biden administration to go wherever they wish, private buses should not be subject to this unprecedented retaliation for facilitating their travel.

The Biden Administration has demanded the U.S. Supreme Court allow it to remove a floating barrier erected by Texas down the middle of a stretch of the Rio Grande that separates Texas from Mexico. Texas is being forced by the D.C. elite to continue daily to accept many thousands of impoverished, illiterate illegal aliens into that conservative state.

This regional conflict is the worst we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Yet so far the U.S. Supreme Court has been missing in action despite the growing conflicts among the states, and between red states and the federal government.

The effort by blue states to keep Trump off the ballot dramatically ratchets up the dissonance. It is no longer a genuine national election if states can exclude the leading presidential candidate of the rival party from their ballot, as unfolds now.

Perhaps the Supreme Court has finally recognized its job to try to reduce regional conflicts. On Friday the High Court took swift action to intervene by accepting Trump’s request for review of the improper exclusion of him from the ballot by Democrat-controlled Colorado.

Yet the Supreme Court risks doing too little, too late on the many crises pulling our country apart. A biased conviction of Trump in the exceedingly unfair venue of D.C. would not be well-received by Republicans and red states, and the Supreme Court should not allow that divisive political manipulation to occur.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in eight weeks against Trump in the backyard of the Deep State. Violating the Obama-appointed presiding judge’s order placing this case on a temporary hold, prosecutor Jack Smith piled on with yet another distorted filing against Trump last week, to which Trump’s attorneys properly responded by requesting sanctions against Smith.

On Tuesday, a Democrat-majority panel of the D.C. Circuit indicated its desire to allow this extremely disruptive criminal trial to proceed against Trump in the stacked D.C. venue. CNN shows Trump ahead nationwide with more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, and a politically motivated criminal trial against Trump in the biased D.C. could trigger a national crisis.

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.

Override the Trans Travesty in Ohio

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Ohio is solidly Republican, thanks to Donald Trump’s success in winning over manufacturing workers and rural Americans, and it has a Republican governor with veto-proof majorities in its House and Senate. Yet on Friday Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that would have protected girls’ sports from invasion by biological males, and protected children from mutilation by transgender operations and treatments.

Ohio’s HB 68 is similar to what has already passed in about two dozen other states, including its neighbors of Indiana and Kentucky, each of which overrode its governor’s veto to enact a similar bill. Kentucky’s law has already been upheld by the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals which sits in Cincinnati and presides over Ohio, too.

The bill passed with more than the 60% threshold required to override a veto. While all those legislators should have immediately criticized DeWine’s veto, the strongest rebuke of DeWine came from Trump himself.

“DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left,” Trump observed on his platform Truth Social. “No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at Rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more. I’m finished with this ‘stiff,’” Trump added.

“What was he thinking,” Trump continued in reference to DeWine and his veto. “The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in women’s sports. Legislature will hopefully overturn. Do it FAST!!!”

Yet DeWine added insult to injury by adopting the style of flawed reasoning by the Left in order to justify his veto, as he caved into those who profit from these lucrative decisions. DeWine said he was deferring to the decision-making by a child’s medical team.

Life-changing operations on minors are not properly authorized by those who profit from performing them. As explained by Dr. Ben Carson, the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, “There’s a reason why they’re called minors. They don’t really know a lot of things, and they learn over the course of time as they become mature.”

“I would absolutely, adamantly refuse, in all circumstances,” Carson said about performing transgender procedures on minors. Carson added that “I suspect that in the future we will look back on this period of transgenderism and say, ‘How could those people be so foolish?’”

Gov. DeWine cited none of the eminent authorities who favor protecting minors against life-ruining treatment. Instead, he said that “parents have looked me in the eye and have told me that, but for this treatment, their child would be dead.”

No child has ever died for lack of a sex change, while on the other side of the ledger is the immense harm that Gov. DeWine ignored. Minors subjected to transgender procedures and treatments are deprived of ever having natural families of their own, and some who regretted their treatments have sued those who performed them.

“Ultimately I think this is about protecting human life,” DeWine declared with a straight face as he opened the floodgates to a billion-dollar industry to exploit mutilation of children. He then promised to issue new regulations, but they would not protect children in any meaningful way.

As to the sports issue, Gov. DeWine provided no justification for opening girls’ locker rooms and athletic competitions to boys. DeWine previously declared that decisions about sports should be left up to leagues like the NCAA, which profits from allowing transgenders to compete while pandering to the liberal media that controls its lucrative television contracts.

Three petitions for cert are pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on similar bills enacted in Tennessee and Kentucky, which have until early February to respond. The petition against the good Tennessee law states, “The Sixth Circuit’s decision deepens an existing split with the Eighth Circuit” over a similar law in Arkansas.

But the Eighth Circuit, which sits primarily in St. Louis while presiding over seven Midwestern states, subsequently agreed to a rare initial en banc hearing of the Arkansas law banning transgender operations. That suggests the Republican majority on the Eighth Circuit will agree with the Sixth Circuit and uphold this type of law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has dodged this issue when brought to it by the conservative side, and the Left may feel emboldened that it can win at the High Court. Amid so much judicial chaos over Trump-related issues, the annual end-of-year report by Chief Justice John Roberts was devoted to silly speculation about the future of artificial intelligence (AI).

Fortunately, several U.S. Courts of Appeals throughout the middle and southern regions of our country are upholding laws against transgender procedures and boys competing in girls sports. In addition to the Sixth and Eighth Circuits, the Eleventh Circuit ruled in favor of Alabama’s law protecting children from the trans industry.

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.