RFK Jr. Cleans House as MAGA Hoped

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.), Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), cleared the deck on Monday of Big Pharma’s control over vaccine policy. RFK Jr. fired everyone on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has never recommended against any vaccine, including those later withdrawn as unsafe.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” RFK Jr. wrote in the Wall St. Journal, which itself has been a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry. OpenSecrets.org identifies Big Pharma as the most influential group in Washington, D.C., and more than two-thirds of the U.S. Senate receives Big Pharma donations.

Many Americans have no idea what ACIP is, or understand that ACIP’s vaccine recommendations automatically become vaccine requirements for children to attend public schools. Private schools also require the same laundry list of ACIP-recommended vaccines, and Illinois this year considered legislation to require homeschool children to receive all these vaccines too.

Big Pharma’s lobbyists have cleverly obtained legal requirements in every state that automatically impose on children whatever ACIP approves. So although it appears that ACIP is merely making recommendations, in fact its recommendations become requirements for children unable to refuse the injections.

It used to be that nearly every state had a religious exemption to vaccination, and large states like California even had a philosophical exemption that did not require any religion. But Big Pharma has diligently worked to remove exemptions, such that California has neither a religious nor a philosophical exemption, while several other blue states including New York have eliminated their religious exemption.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) is an important part or partner of the MAGA movement that helped elect Trump along with a strong 53-47 GOP majority in the Senate. Among many stunning achievements by Trump’s Cabinet and special advisers, RFK Jr.’s overhaul of ACIP is one of the biggest and boldest reforms.

Personal observations of children after vaccination have led many to suspect that they are being harmed by injections they do not need. An alarming increase in autism, allergies, heart problems, and cancer cries out for an explanation, and one difference between younger and older Americans is that younger generations have had far more vaccines.

Covid was relatively safe in children and yet the Covid vaccine was pushed on them by ACIP, and has been required by many colleges as a condition of enrollment. In some cases children were injected with the Covid vaccine without their parents’ approval.

Hospitals give most infants the Hepatitis B vaccine soon after birth, although its purpose is to protect against a sexually transmitted disease. New Jersey, where the pharmaceutical industry has many offices, requires 3 doses of this and many other vaccines in children as a condition of merely entering kindergarten.

The liberal media understood immediately the significance of RFK Jr.’s housecleaning move, and some websites featured headlines about this with greater priority than news about the Los Angeles riots. When Tucker Carlson and James O’Keefe previously took on Big Pharma, they were soon forced out of their jobs.

The blowback against RFK Jr. will be intense, and it appears that Big Pharma already controls Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) who was initially planning to vote against RFK Jr.’s confirmation. Only a grassroots outpouring by MAHA in support of RFK Jr. caused Tillis to eventually vote in favor of him.

CNN quoted one of the fired members of ACIP as blustering that “I’ve never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime.” The adviser asserted, “This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America.”

Instead, it might end vaccine tyranny in the United States, where children are forced to receive more vaccines than anywhere else in the world. American children typically receive 30 doses of vaccines by the age of one, due to how ACIP has relentlessly recommended virtually every vaccine.

Every member of ACIP whom RFK Jr. fired had been appointed by Biden, who famously abused his power by ordering all large employers to require Covid vaccination of their employees. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened on an emergency basis to block Biden’s vaccine mandate as unjustified by any law.

There has been a chorus of complaints about RFK Jr.’s mass firing from those who feed at the trough of Big Pharma. As an advisory committee, ACIP should be a diverse group that includes people who are skeptical about vaccine mandates.

RFK Jr. vows that the replacements he picks for ACIP “won’t directly work for the vaccine industry” and “will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry — unafraid to ask hard questions.” This is just what a good doctor would want for MAHA vaccine policy.

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 Will Punish California for Trans Travesty

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

California just gave first-place awards to a transgender athlete in a girls’ state track championship. “A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump retorted on Tuesday on Truth Social.

“As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!” Trump continued. Democrats are allowing this trans invasion of girls’ sports in multiple blue states, and it is typically not disclosed or reported unless someone speaks out.

Males are usually taller, faster, and stronger than females, and these differences are substantial in track and field events. The world record in the men’s long jump is nearly 5 feet longer than that of women’s, while the men’s high jump world record is more than a foot higher than women’s.

Hurdles for boys’ races are a half-foot higher than hurdles for girls in high school, which creates an additional incentive for boys to cross over to compete in the girls’ races. In 2023, a Massachusetts high school won the state title with points awarded to its transgender hurdler in a girls’ race.

Oregon allows any biological male to “access athletics and activities” by asserting that his gender identity is that of a girl. Only some of the competitors themselves know who the transgender athletes are, as this can be concealed from parents, spectators, and conservative media.

The second and third-place finishers in a recent Oregon high school girls’ track event protested awarding first place to a transgender, by declining to stand on the awards podium. “I just want everyone to know that this isn’t just about me or the other girl to step down. It’s about the girl in ninth place who should have had a place on that podium,” Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School told ABC’s local affiliate, KATU.

“It’s about the girl who didn’t qualify for state because they were beat by a biological male in districts,” she added. “It’s about the integrity and fairness of women’s sports.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited out in 2026 while eyeing a longshot bid for the Democrat nomination for president in 2028, admits that this is unfair. “It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,” Newsom told Trump-supporting Charlie Kirk, adding that “I totally agree with you.”

Yet Newsom has failed to protect girls’ sports in California, and let a transgender athlete win girls’ championships. The California school sports association did allow for the podium to be shared by the top girl competitors under a hasty rule change, but only after Trump objected.

While Democrats oppose protecting girls’ sports from the transgender invasion, they are funding a $20 million project to study why young men are shifting from Democrat to Republican. The shift in this demographic has steadily progressed since beginning in 2016, continuing through 2020, and then helping propel Trump to his victory by a wide margin in 2024, at the same time that the transgender invasion has increased.

Democrat politicians are doing what Planned Parenthood wants, as they have for more than half a century. Every House Democrat recently voted against removal of the $792.2 million in federal taxpayer money that has been flowing to Planned Parenthood, and Democrat senators will do everything they can to try to reinsert that funding back into the “big, beautiful bill” that has reached the Senate.

An analysis by the Heritage Foundation of Planned Parenthood in 2023 found that the abortion giant is “trying to corner the market in so-called transgender services,” and that its transgender approach likely “makes up the bulk of the dramatic rise” in its revenue and multi-billion-dollar assets.

More than a decade ago, Planned Parenthood first mentioned providing “hormone treatments for transgender patients,” disclosing 26 centers in 10 states for these treatments in its 2014-2015 annual report. By its 2021-2022 report, Planned Parenthood had “41 affiliates provide gender-affirming hormone therapy.”

Surgical abortions in clinics have been declining in the United States, for a variety of reasons. But Planned Parenthood has grown its revenue in the transgender world to more than make up for the shortfall.

An all-out attempt to change one’s gender can rack up bills easily exceeding $100,000 per person, which some attempt to shift to taxpayers to pay for. Last year the American Principles Project estimated that overall revenues for transgender drugs and surgeries exceeded $4.4 billion in 2023.

Harmeet Dhillon, the tough and savvy new head of the Civil Rights Division of Trump’s Department of Justice, has threatened to sue California for allowing transgender athletes to win top prizes in girls’ sports competitions. At its championship track and field meet over the weekend, two first-place awards and one second-place award were given to a transgender athlete.

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 Whacks the Deep State

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last Friday the Trump Administration notified many employees of the National Security Council (NSC) that they were being dismissed, as its bloated staff of 395 is being chopped in half. This downsizing is long overdue, and the need for reductions at the NSC is recognized by even the liberal media.

But employees had already left work early for the weekend so some did not initially see these notices. This illustrates again the general lack of productivity in D.C., and how government employees there pay more attention to the media than to their jobs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio who, since May 1, is also the National Security Advisor, has urged Trump to take control over the career government workers in D.C., and Trump is doing that. “What you’ve committed to do on Cuba, what you want to do on Cuba, is never going to come from career staff,” Rubio advised Trump.

“It’s going to have to come from the top down. You're going to have to tell them what to do,” Rubio added. Rubio holds the same position that Henry Kissinger held during the Nixon Administration, when Kissinger met multiple times every day with President Nixon.

A White House official observed that “the NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State.” In support of this downsizing of the NSC, the White House official stated further that “we’re gutting the Deep State.”

An example of that was Ukrainian-born (then the USSR) Alexander Vindman and his twin brother Eugene, who were in key positions on the NSC during the first Trump Administration. Eugene complained about Trump’s perfect conversation with Zelensky and his brother Alexander then testified against Trump during the first impeachment hearings.

Now Eugene is a newly elected Democrat congressman in Virginia, while Alexander is reportedly considering a run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Ashley Moody in Florida.

During the Revolutionary War in 1777, General Washington reportedly commanded, “Put none but Americans on guard tonight.” Historians clarify that Washington’s actual quote was this: “You will therefore send me none but Natives, and Men of some property, if you have them.”

Trump should have staff who are supportive and loyal to him working in his administration, as President Ronald Reagan did. California Supreme Court Justice William P. Clark turned down an opportunity to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court to help Reagan win the Cold War as his National Security Advisor.

But the Cold War has been over for more than a quarter-century, and the NSC has been a failure under Democrat Administrations by not keeping us out of war. Within weeks of Trump taking office, the NSC orchestrated a bombing attack that Vice President JD Vance properly opposed.

Vance explained in early March that only 3% of American trade flows through the Suez Canal, while 40% of European trade does. It was not in America’s interest to bomb anyone there, but the NSC refused to listen to Vance and instead approved an attack on the Houthis.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wryly shouted in a column headline, “The $7 Billion We Wasted Bombing a Country We Couldn’t Find on a Map.” We lost not one but two F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jets which cost $67 million each, one of which literally fell off its carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman.

Mike Waltz was initially appointed as National Security Advisor but quickly MAGA grassroots howled in protest over placing a neocon in this key role. On May 1, Trump astutely reassigned Waltz to be Ambassador to the United Nations, where he cannot entangle America in foreign wars.

The NSC is the nerve center of the resistance in D.C. to conservative leadership. President Reagan wisely downgraded the NSC to force it to report to his Chief of Staff, rather than allow it to continue as though it ranked above everyone else including a president.

Trump could shut down the NSC entirely and nothing would be missed. The Deep State no longer protects Americans against foreign enemies, but instead protects the bureaucracy against the will of the American People.

Trump’s bold action to fire most of the NSC staff comes at the same time that Elon Musk has announced his quiet exit from the political stage. Musk declared earlier this month that he feels he has given enough already toward elections, and instead plans to focus more on his businesses.

This creates a void, and politics abhors a vacuum. Musk was effective in framing the debate around the need to downsize the federal government, including firing thousands of employees, and he was instrumental in blocking overregulation by a new requirement that 30 million Americans register their private information with the Treasury Department’s FinCEN.

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.

Regulation of AI Is Not the Answer

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Government regulators are champing at the bit to enact new rules to control artificial intelligence (AI) programs. The impact will be censorship of conservative speech, particularly by Democrat judges and blue states, and harm to the competitiveness of American AI just as overregulation in Europe has hindered AI development there.

Go onto Google's AI Mode and ask, "what is birthright citizenship"? Google AI responds by falsely saying it is a guaranteed right under the Fourteenth Amendment to automatically acquire U.S. citizenship if born here; the opposite of Trump’s executive order on this topic. Google is led by a foreigner who came to the U.S. on a student visa and never left.

Google's AI misleadingly declares, "Birthright citizenship is typically granted regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of the parents." The U.S. Supreme Court has never accepted this view for children of illegal aliens and those here temporarily, sometimes for the purpose of giving birth here to assert citizenship.

When asked, “Are student visas good for America?”, Google’s AI omits how these visas displace Americans from top schools. Instead, it emphasizes that “it’s crucial to address potential challenges and ensure that international students are treated fairly and have clear pathways to success in the U.S.,” as though that should be Americans’ concern.

Only robust freedom of speech can correct such bias, which requires preventing state regulators from infringing on unfettered speech by AI bots. Trump's legislative team has proposed a 10-year moratorium against state regulation of AI, a necessary measure to protect our First Amendment right to speech.

Any AI program that suggests non-”gender-affirming” therapy to offset attempts to change a minor’s gender will be quickly prohibited, and even criminalized, by Democrat regulation of AI. Already most Democrat-controlled states prohibit providing counseling to minors against transgender transitions, and this censorship will extend to AI programs unless Congress intervenes.

When ChatGPT is asked, “Is the abortion pill reversible?”, it gives a misleading pro-abortion answer in bold highlighting that “there is no scientifically proven method to reliably reverse the effects of the abortion pill.”

ChatGPT cites the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology as support for its biased statement without disclosing that the same group adamantly opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. Omitted by the left-leaning ChatGPT is that the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends treatment to reverse the abortion pill.

Ask Google’s AI Mode, “Are transgender treatments safe?” Its misleading response is, “Generally, transgender medical treatments, also known as gender-affirming care, are considered safe and effective when provided under the guidance of qualified healthcare professionals.”

In fact, European leaders discontinued children’s transgender programs, recognizing the harm caused by transgender medical treatments to children. The Cass Review in England was critical of these treatments and was cited by Supreme Court Justice Alito in the pending Skrmetti case, which is expected to uphold a ban on transgender treatments of children as enacted in half the States.

Liberal judges will declare First Amendment protections for the speech they prefer, while upholding censorship of conservative speech on topics such as transgender treatments and abortion. A letter joined by the anti-Trump New York Attorney General Letitia James, 20 other Democrat attorneys general, and 3 territorial attorneys general opposes a proposed federal moratorium of ten years on state AI regulation.

A smaller total of 16 Republican attorneys general, with some notable absences such as conservative Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, also signed onto this pro-regulation letter. This letter is vague about any legitimate regulatory goals, and relies on meaningless platitudes to “protect consumers” or safeguard “data privacy.”

The examples provided by the letter are predominantly of legislation enacted by liberal states including California and Colorado. This letter refers to the desire of these mostly Democratic jurisdictions to ban “deep-fakes designed to mislead voters and consumers” and to prohibit algorithms “used to set rent.”

Many Democrat politicians seek to preserve their power, weaponize government against Republicans, and censor conservative speech. Under the pretext of prohibiting speech that might “mislead voters,” the regulation sought by these predominantly Democrat attorneys general will censor conservatives as Big Tech does in its AI answers.

What liberals seek today concerning AI is what they sought in the 1990s for the internet: a "gatekeeper", as Hillary Clinton put it, to prevent unfiltered information from reaching the public. Liberals control most channels of communication, and an unregulated AI is necessary for conservative political candidates and causes to have a chance.

Conservatives fought successfully against regulation of the internet, such that Trump could repeatedly win presidential elections despite the bias in the liberal media. But if allowed to regulate AI, blue states will omit or marginalize conservative responses.

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 Can Limit Birthright Citizenship

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

When the first oral argument before the Supreme Court on a Trump policy is held on Thursday, May 15, all eyes will be on the divided nine Justices. Trump has asked the high court to rein in the power of district court judges to issue nationwide or universal injunctions against the president’s policies.

Over 100 temporary or preliminary injunctions have been issued by district judges, most of whom were appointed by Democratic Presidents Biden, Obama, or Clinton. The underlying substantive dispute is over the claim to birthright citizenship by which foreigners who give birth here then assert citizenship based on the location of the childbirth.

Our Founders would be dismayed by the theory that merely being born on U.S. soil is enough to automatically qualify for citizenship. Christians know that Jesus and his 12 Apostles were born in the Roman Empire, yet none was a Roman citizen.

Only Paul among the early Christian disciples was a Roman citizen, which he inherited from his parents who were citizens. Others earned or acquired citizenship, but no one became a Roman citizen merely by being born in the empire.

Within hours of Trump becoming president, he issued an Executive Order entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” which clarifies that American citizenship is not bestowed on people simply because they may have been born on American soil. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” Trump stated.

Trump’s brilliant executive order clarifies that children born to a mother unlawfully present in the United States and to a father who was not an American citizen or lawful permanent resident are not entitled to American citizenship. Perhaps those children can become citizens one day as other foreigners can, but merely being born here does not entitle a child to citizenship here.

Likewise, when a child’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but merely temporary, and the father was not an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident, then childbirth does not bestow American citizenship. This executive order took effect for anyone born 30 days after it was entered on January 20, 2025.

There has been a cottage industry of bringing pregnant Chinese mothers to California for them to give birth in a hospital here, go back to China and then claim American citizenship when their children grow up. This racket needs to stop, and the Supreme Court could end it as Trump has commanded with one of his first executive orders.

Children born to foreign diplomats in the United States are not eligible to be American citizens. Citizenship is what defines a country and its future, and must be carefully limited to those who personally or through their families have a long commitment to our values and way of life.

American Indians were not automatically citizens for nearly the first 140 years of our country, because they had not assimilated into American communities but retained loyalties to their tribes. The same is true for many of the illegal aliens brought in by Biden, Obama, and Clinton.

Children born to American parents are American citizens if they are born in the United States, and can claim citizenship here if they were born while in another country. Children born to lawful permanent residents of the United States are American citizens because they are born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, as the Supreme Court held in 1898.

Persons temporarily present (such as tourists, workers, students, and diplomats) and persons unlawfully present (who could be removed without notice) are expected to go back home. Their children, though born here, retain the citizenship of their parents’ country of origin.

The Supreme Court is divided on the issue of birthright citizenship, and it may try to duck the issue for now. Instead it may confine itself to the procedural question presented: “Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.”

Several justices, including Thomas and Gorsuch, have expressed strong opposition to nationwide injunctions that extend beyond the plaintiffs in a case. But it is unclear whether they can muster a majority of the Court to end this practice that is being used frequently by liberals now against many aspects of Trump’s agenda.

Limiting the scope of the injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order to only the plaintiffs in the lawsuits would enable his order to go into effect against everyone else. That would mean the “Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commissioner of Social Security shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the regulations and policies of their respective departments” implement this order.

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 Victory for Trump as Lawfare Worsens

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A 6-3 Supreme Court win for Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers came on Tuesday just as the deluge of liberal lawsuits was worsening. Improper court injunctions have been piling up like cars crashing in a fog on a crowded highway.

Under Trump’s order that the Court just allowed to go into effect, “service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service.” This reverses the disastrous pro-transgender policy of Biden.

Lower courts had blocked Trump’s ban on transgenders in the military, just as liberal judges have been enjoining nearly every other initiative by Trump. “By allowing single, unelected federal judges to co-opt entire executive-branch policies at the drop of the hat, they create needless interbranch friction and perpetrate a truly lupine encroachment by the Judiciary on the President’s Article II authority,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the High Court.

By “lupine” the brilliant Sauer, who alone signs many Trump Administration briefs, refers to wolf-like behavior while disguised in sheep’s clothing. The victim of the overreaching judiciary is the American people trying to redirect our country toward prosperity.

John Sauer alerted the Supreme Court that there was “a dramatic upsurge in 2017, followed by an explosion in the last three months” of nationwide injunctions by solitary federal judges against Trump. These injunctions were nearly unheard of for the first 170 years of American history, Sauer points out.

In the short month of February alone, there were 15 nationwide injunctions entered by Democrat-appointed judges against the Trump Administration. This stymies the will of American voters who gave Trump his mandate last November to Make America Great Again.

On Monday, nearly two dozen Democrat state attorneys general filed three new lawsuits against Trump. Despite how these states span our country from coast-to-coast, they filed all of their lawsuits in federal district courts in New England where the district and appellate judges are nearly entirely Democrat-appointed, making this the most one-sided legal venue in our Nation.

The northeast venue is even more partisan than the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit, where at least Trump was able to appoint ten of its 29 appellate judges during his first term. The lower district courts in all the Left Coast states are still reliably Democrat, but the Ninth Circuit could reverse them in up to a third of cases filed there against Trump.

One of the Democrats’ recent lawsuits is to block Trump’s executive orders protecting our environment against clanky offshore windmill boondoggles. While Democrat states refuse to allow offshore drilling for oil, as California has banned for decades, Democrats insist on constructing hundreds of wind turbines within sight of our beaches in the false promise they will produce efficient energy.

Maryland and other liberal states want to construct ugly wind turbines off their coasts, which blight the beautiful views and become a giant killing machine for birds. Trump’s executive order wisely suspends permits for these inefficient monstrosities pending review as to their high costs compared with their dubious benefits.

Twenty Democrat states filed suit in Rhode Island to block the Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., from downsizing HHS and laying off federal employees. Rhode Island is hundreds of miles away from where the HHS employees work, and the Democrats’ selection of this court is blatant forum-shopping by the Left.

Federal workers are overwhelmingly Democrat and there is no constitutional or other right for them to be immune from layoffs common in the private sector. If laid-off federal workers cannot find another job, then it raises questions as to why taxpayers were being required to pay them to do nothing productive.

The Fourth Circuit, which presides over states including Maryland and Virginia, has issued four recent rulings in favor of Trump, each of which blocked an anti-Trump order by a separate Democrat-appointed district judge. Two of the district court judges were appointed by Obama and two by Biden.

These hopeful appellate decisions restored Trump’s power to fire probationary workers at 20 federal agencies, terminate federally funded teacher and contractor DEI programs, and reinstate much-needed oversight of USAID programs by Elon Musk and DOGE.

An Obama-appointed judge was assigned to a new lawsuit brought by Harvard University in Boston against Trump to unfreeze $2 billion in federal funds that were flowing to that institution. Harvard requested and received the appointment of this judge to its case, by citing her role in what Harvard asserted was a similar matter.

The third new case brought by many Democrat states on Monday was to block Trump’s executive order improving election integrity. Trump properly ordered that federal funding be withheld from states that count mail-in ballots not received until after Election Day, which delays counting and reporting of election results.

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 Steps on the Gas Pedal for English

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump just accomplished what his Republican predecessor George W. Bush refused to do: make understanding of English a requirement for truck drivers’ licenses. In 2002 Phyllis Schlafly urged GWB to repeal Clinton’s extension of commercial licenses to non-English-speaking truckers, but GWB refused to act.

Clinton opened the southern border to Mexican truckers to carry long loads, potentially including drugs, deep into the U.S. without knowing English. Not only did this take jobs away from Americans and create havoc at checkpoints, but it also resulted in horrific highway accidents that Phyllis wrote about two decades ago.

Trump just delivered again for American workers and highway safety: truck drivers must understand English to drive big rigs across America. In the split-second decisions made by truckers on congested highways, they need to understand road signs without difficulty.

Road signs are commonly in English, and the driver of an 18-wheeler must be able to read what he sees. If there is a shortage of English-speaking drivers then wages should increase to attract more, rather than endangering other travelers with truck drivers who cannot read the signs.

On Monday, Trump signed an Executive Order stating that truck drivers “should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers. Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”

“Every day, truckers perform the demanding and dangerous work of transporting the Nation’s goods to businesses, customers, and communities safely, reliably, and efficiently,” Trump stated. In March Trump also made English our official language, which other Republicans failed to do for decades.

To the dismay of liberals opposed to English as our official language, the president of an association of 150,000 truckers immediately applauded Trump’s Executive Order. Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer stated, “Basic English skills are essential for reading critical road signs, understanding emergency instructions, and interacting with law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Democrat-appointed federal judges in California continue to drive the wrong way on immigration-related issues. San Francisco Federal Judge William Orrick, known for spending years pushing the abortion industry agenda against the young man David Daleiden for exposing its alleged trafficking in fetal tissue, recently ordered Trump not to withhold funds from sanctuary cities.

On Trump’s first day he signed an Executive Order commanding that his incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stop the flow of federal taxpayer funds to sanctuary cities that defy federal law by harboring illegal aliens. The unlawfulness of these cities results in heinous crimes against innocent Americans.

“Here we are again,” Judge Orrick brazenly declared in issuing an injunction last Friday against Trump to keep the gravy train flowing to many cities that sued in his courtroom, including faraway Santa Fe, New Mexico. Numerous cities picked this San Francisco venue to sue because its judicial bench is composed nearly entirely of Democrat appointees.

But an appeal by the Trump Administration will go immediately to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where Trump appointed 10 judges during his first term out of 29 active judges today. The Ninth Circuit is no longer the Leftist paradise it once was, and even Democrat-appointed judges have already reined in a nationwide anti-Trump injunction emanating from Seattle.

Democrat-appointed Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle blocked Trump’s suspension of the refugee program with a nationwide injunction in February. But on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, a 2-1 Democrat majority stayed most of that by allowing Trump’s suspension to go into effect against all refugees who did not already have confirmed travel tickets by January 20, when Trump was inaugurated and issued his Executive Order.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Trump’s ban on travel from seven specific countries during his first administration, in a lawsuit liberals filed in Democrat-dominated Hawaii. The Supreme Court confirmed that the president has broad authority over matters related to foreign policy and national security, in which courts should rarely interfere.

Almost immediately after Trump began issuing these Executive Orders upon his inauguration, the crisis at our southern border evaporated. News photos of long lines of migrants have disappeared, and migrants are staying in their native countries where they should remain.

The same liberals who complained about Trump separating families during his first term now whine that children are being deported with their mothers. At her mother’s request, a 2-year-old child born in Louisiana was sent back to Honduras with her mother as she was being deported, and the child was not given a hearing on the issue.

Trump officials acted properly in keeping this family together as much as possible, and federal courts should not try to act like family courts when issues of deporting illegal aliens with children arise.

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.

Fred Schlafly, Class of 1925

Time to Elect a Conservative Pope

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The 20-day clock began running on Easter Monday for a conclave to convene to select a successor to Pope Francis. Liberals around the world are intensely focused on this process, and conservatives should be too.

Fortunately, the conclave meets, discusses, and votes entirely in secret, just as our Constitutional Convention was in 1787 to write our U.S. Constitution. This denies the liberal media the exaggerated influence that it has over nearly everything else.

The convening cardinals take an oath of confidentiality and seclusion in the Sistine Chapel, below the depiction by Michelangelo of God’s creation of Adam on the ceiling. None of our Founding Fathers breached their oath of secrecy during our Constitutional Convention, and none of the cardinals in a modern conclave has, despite leakers in every government today.

The deliberations are face-to-face and the casting of ballots is in-person, not by proxy or mail-in voting that have recently undermined American elections.

Only twice in this century has there been a conclave, which is comprised of cardinals who are less than 80 years old. They total 120 now, most of whom were appointed by Pope Francis himself.

The rules of the conclave are to cast one ballot the first evening to gauge initial preferences, without expecting anyone to prevail immediately. Then balloting is done multiple times each day, with a new pope typically announced within a few days.

Ballots are burned with only their smoke emanating for public view from the rickety chimney: black smoke means no winner has yet prevailed, while white smoke announces to the world that a new pope has been chosen.

A two-thirds majority is required to elect a new pope. The cardinals are housed in the same spartan quarters where the ascetic Pope Francis lived, which has been compared to a mere three-star hotel with modest meals to prevent them from getting too comfy.

President Trump announced that he and First Lady Melania will attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican, which is scheduled for Saturday. In further exercise of his leadership, President Trump has also ordered flags to be flown at half-mast in respect for the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

President Emmanuel Macron of France announced that he too will attend, as will the Chancellor of Germany. Prince William will represent the King of England, along with the U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

The conclave follows within two weeks of this funeral, and could be a make-or-break moment for the traditional dominance by Italians who had been selected as pope for 450 years until Pope John Paul II, who was surprisingly picked as the first Polish pope in 1978. Pope Francis was an Argentinian of Italian descent.

Pope John Paul II was a shining example that the conclave should follow today. Picked for his strong values and immense charisma, he then became instrumental in overcoming communism in all of Eastern Europe and was an invaluable ally of President Ronald Reagan.

Today’s crises of transgender activism, rampant immorality, and an imploding birth rate threaten the entire world, including the Catholic Church. Atheism and other rivals to Christianity are growing faster in some communities, and religion has all but disappeared in many aspects of the Western world.

Pundits expect a more conservative successor to Pope Francis to be chosen. The Catholic Church is booming throughout Africa, where the cardinals are so conservative that some openly criticized liberal statements by Pope Francis at the risk of being disciplined by him, which he declined to do in light of their tremendous success in evangelizing there.

The Latin Mass, a favorite of many conservative Catholics, was marginalized under Pope Francis but could find a resurgence under his successor. The word “conclave” itself comes from the Latin for “with a key.”

Africa has surpassed North America in its number of cardinals who will participate in this conclave, and it is unlikely that an American will be chosen as the next pope. Conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke, once the archbishop of St. Louis, would be an excellent choice.

The presiding cardinal will be the Italian Pietro Parolin, having an optimal age of 70, who was sharply critical of same-sex marriage in Italy. But African cardinals, such as Robert Sarah (age 79) from Guinea, are more conservative and could be a bolder choice as Pope John Paul II successfully was.

Cardinal Sarah vocally opposed blessings on same-sex couples, in defiance of Pope Francis. The 76-year-old African Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, is also a leading contender.

A sentiment in the last conclave was to pick a pope from South America, which resulted in the election of Pope Francis. This time, it might be Africa’s turn and that would result in a turn to the right, too.

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

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

More Trump than Trump at the White House

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A surprise visit by the president of El Salvador to the White House on Monday was like a breath of fresh air from south of our border. Nayib Bukele, recently reelected by a landslide as Latin America’s most popular leader, was more Trump than Trump in defying media demands to return to the U.S. a Salvadoran whom Trump recently deported.

Federal judge Paula Xinis had ordered the return to the U.S. of the deported Salvadoran, to which Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi replied that it is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him.” Identified as Kilmar Abrego García, he had been allowed in 2019 to remain in the U.S. based on his alleged fear of retaliation by a gang in his homeland.

“How can I return him to the United States?” El Salvador President Bukele responded to the liberal media. “I smuggle him into the United States or what do I do? Of course, I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”

Bukele’s charming graciousness at the White House stood in stark contrast with other foreign visitors. Bukele declared that it is an “honor to be here” and that “we’re very eager to help” President Trump reduce terrorism and all crime.

Bukele praised Trump’s work on the border as “remarkable.” Bukele himself has achieved a sharp reduction in crime in El Salvador, which he attributes in part to prayer.

Trump effusively praised Bukele prior to their meeting, in a posting on Truth Social. “President Bukele has graciously accepted into his Nation’s custody some of the most violent alien enemies of the World and, in particular, the United States,” Mr. Trump posted.

Trump’s Department of Justice has informed Judge Xinis of El Salvador’s unwillingness to return this illegal alien to the United States. Attorney General Bondi pointed out to the press that this alien was in our country unlawfully, so what’s the big fuss about trying to return him to his homeland?

It is unclear what Judge Xinis’ next move will be, and she held a hearing late Tuesday afternoon to indicate that she would elaborate on her court order for the Trump Administration to “facilitate” the return of Garcia from El Salvador. Courts rarely order a president to do something, particularly something that may not even be within the president’s power to do, and whatever she orders will surely be appealed back to the Supreme Court.

Courts do not have any way to enforce their orders without the support and cooperation of the Executive Branch, as run now by President Trump. So far he has promised to obey the law, but many federal courts have been continuing to issue orders that test Trump’s willingness to cooperate, and deportation pits federal courts directly against Trump’s authority as president.

Last weekend in Maine, a federal court ordered Trump to restart federal funding of Maine schools despite how they are defying his Executive Order against transgender athletes playing in girls’ sports. This was the focus of a sharp exchange between Trump and the Democrat Maine governor during a luncheon at the White House seven weeks ago.

Subsequently a federal judge ordered Trump to jump through some bureaucratic hoops before even trying to cut off this federal money from Maine schools. Neither Trump nor our country has the time for that as transgender activism swiftly marches ahead.

A total of 11 states have announced that they will not comply with directives from Trump’s Department of Education to stop using DEI or else lose federal funding, which sets up additional lawsuits against presidential authority.

In Ecuador, voters just elected their own conservative equivalent of Trump on Sunday. The liberal media laments how successful the conservative movement is in sweeping across Central and South America today.

Less than a generation ago, the countries south of our border were fertile ground for the spread of communism. Hugo Chavez rose to become a communist dictator in 1998 in Venezuela and ruined it before succumbing at a young age to cancer, as hospitals in communist countries including Cuba were ill-equipped from the poverty that communism causes.

The news show 60 Minutes analyzed the backgrounds of the group of Venezuelans and El Salvadorans deported by Trump to El Salvador, and about a dozen have been charged with murder, rape, assault, or kidnapping. More than one-fifth of the group has a criminal record somewhere, although mostly for non-violent crimes.

Courts are forcing our president to spend an inordinate amount of time on the fate of a few hundred illegal aliens who never should have been here in the first place. Recent surveys show that most American citizens are concerned about the economy, and it is not helping to keep illegal aliens here when jobs are scarce for Americans.

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.