Shut It Down, Already!

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Both the Right and Left seem fine with a government shutdown, so let the drama unfold. Republicans in Congress have proposed a clean funding bill that continues the Biden-era spending levels through November with no additional expenditures, while Democrats demand far more.

With Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) retiring next year and no longer acting as a Senate leader, his Chicken Little predictions of political disaster for Republicans from a shutdown ring hollow. Many in MAGA supported the reelection of Trump for the purpose of shutting down the government, and this appears to have been the primary goal of mega-donor Elon Musk.

Liberals use false spin for their benefit by insisting that a shutdown always hurts the Republican Party the most. The Republican Congress shut down the government for 21 days in late 1995 through early 1996, and in fact gained two Senate seats in the subsequent election, despite the Democrat Clinton prevailing over the weak Republican nominee Bob Dole at the top of the ticket.

Clinton failed to garner a majority in the popular vote after that shutdown, and Republicans held onto their majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans also maintained their large majority in state governorships, without any net loss.

Google AI says that Republicans received most of the blame for that 1995-96 shutdown but, even if true, that was decades before MAGA and the growing public opinion that the federal government needs to be shut down. The federal debt at the end of the 1995 fiscal year was only $5 trillion, while today it is grotesquely more than 7 times that amount, at a monstrous $37.5 trillion.

Public contempt for the federal government and officials in Congress is sky high. The leadership of both political parties on Capitol Hill has disapproval ratings greater than their approval ratings, in another indication that the American public would be just fine with unplugging their lavish salaries and benefits.

A recent Gallup poll found that only 23% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the federal government, while 61% have a negative view. These approval and disapproval ratings are worse than those of every other sector, including pharmaceuticals, oil, and utilities.

The federal government is plainly broken in many other ways, too. Federal workers are almost unanimously anti-Trump, and their one-sided verdicts against Trump supporters in court cases in D.C. have been appalling.

Foreign aid has continued to flow to prop up regimes in faraway lands and to fund warfare. Trump has taken laudable steps to end USAID and other foreign spending that spreads liberal harm around the world, but shutting down the federal government may be the only foolproof way to end this.

Eight months into the Trump Administration, many in MAGA conclude that it is impossible to clean house in the Swamp. Shutting down the federal government is the only viable way to end injustices wrought by the Feds.

Democrat leaders in Congress may be supporting a shutdown to appease their base of the far Left. Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, is leading by a landslide in the polling for the next New York City mayor to be elected in five weeks.

Progressives complained loudly and bitterly about the Democrat leadership who agreed to the Republican bill last March to continue federal spending, because it led to trimming Medicaid funding. Progressives indicate that they may challenge the Democrat establishment next year based on their capitulation to Trump.

Meanwhile Trump’s brilliant Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has devised a clever plan to lay off much of the federal workforce permanently, in what is called a reduction in force (RIF), if Democrats force a shutdown. Democrats are squawking because these federal workers are overwhelmingly anti-Trump, but this has not yet caused the Dems to budge on their unreasonable demands.

Liberals fulminate about how it is unprecedented to conduct RIFs during a government shutdown, but this ingenious approach is likely to succeed. While federal agencies have not traditionally implemented RIFs during shutdowns, the law is clear that they have the discretion to do this if they abide by the rules as Vought is explaining to them.

Democrats can keep the government open by enacting a clean funding bill, but instead insist that Republicans provide free health care to migrants whom Biden wrongly reclassified as “lawfully present.” Trump properly revoked that special status, which appropriately renders them ineligible for free health care, and Republicans are right to protect Americans against the medical costs of illegal aliens.

Given the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, eight Democrats must join the Republicans to keep the federal government going. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has vowed to vote Nay because the spending is too high under the Republican bill, even without tacking on the additional Democrat spending demands.

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.

Phyllis was right about the ERA

Ted Meehan writes:

In the late 1960’s and early 70’s, as the feminist movement was rising in influence, its leaders wrote and promoted passage of an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) presumably to guarantee the rights of women. Very few people saw any problem with agreeing that women and men should be equal under the law.

The prescient Phyllis Schlafly led opposition to passage of the ERA, and took plenty of abuse for doing so. What objection could justify opposing such a nice gesture that codified what nearly everyone already believed?

Phyllis recognized this as a legislative Trojan Horse that could force upon America, a number of unintended results that very few people approved. She feared passage would open the door to legalizing abortion. She warned that some people could use the ERA to justify men entering women’s bathrooms or locker rooms. She also believed that ERA could remove some legal protections for women – like Title IX. She was called an alarmist and was ridiculed. But a look at America in 2025 shows her to be the visionary she was.

Some public service jobs have physical requirements. A fire department or police candidate may be required to lift and carry a 200-pound man for 100 yards in under 45 seconds. If women firefighters are physically unable to perform such a task, are they disqualified? Well, no. Recognizing the unequal physical attributes of men and women, some physical qualifications were lowered – only for women – to allow some women to qualify. Discrimination lawsuits by men have not been noted. But a strict interpretation of the ERA would certainly prohibit lowering physical standards to favor one gender over the other.

The pseudo-scientific transgender movement has had nearly no effect at all on men’s sports. Can anyone recall reports of men feeling threatened by a transitioning female displacing male athletes on any sports teams? There have been none! But we regularly see controversy over female records being broken by biological males. Or females being displaced or injured after being physically overmatched by a post-pubescent biological male. We read reports of trans-identifying biological males entering female locker rooms, or bathrooms – with some even sexually assaulting the females! Once again, score this one for Phyllis Schlafly.

What about abortion? How could something like that possibly be justified by the ERA? Well, today three pro-abortion judges – Christine Donahue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht (up for retention) — are citing ERA to argue that a “gender-based law” is unconstitutional. They argue that since only mothers (females) are prohibited from having abortions, then laws regulating abortion, discriminate only against women, and so they are unconstitutional. So, for these judges, the ERA contradicts and supersedes basic laws of nature! Imagine the outcry from feminists if the same abuse of logic was directed at them!

The Equal Rights Amendment is not a part of our federal Constitution, but the passage of a state version in Pennsylvania in 1971 should not be cited to declare abortion to be a constitutional right — or to require taxpayers to fund elective abortions. Our elected legislature — with approval by our elected governors — has passed laws to regulate abortion – as had been required by the since-overturned Roe v. Wade decision, with the recent Dobbs decision. Absent Roe, no federal law imposes abortion on states. Roe’s overturning should teach us that laws passed by legislators – not lawsuits by profit-motivated abortion businesses, decided by pro-abortion judges – should be the basis for governance.

Haul Jack Smith before a Miami Grand Jury

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Eight months of all talk and no action in prosecuting Leftists has left President Trump frustrated. On Saturday night, Trump publicly criticized his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, for achieving so little so far.

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done,’” Trump posted. He added that the Left “impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING.”

Last week Trump posted, “Why was the wonderful Turning Point under INVESTIGATION by ‘Deranged’ Jack Smith and the Corrupt & Incompetent Biden Administration. They tried to force Charlie, and many other people and movements, out of business.”

And yet the response has been radio silence from Trump’s top advisors in holding Trump-haters responsible for their weaponization of government. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently pointed out that when Democrats return to power, they will continue where they left off by weaponizing government further against Republicans.

The man who wrongly indicted Trump more than anyone, Jack Smith, is an apparatchik of the Deep State, and he may be impossible to indict in the anti-Trump swamp of Washington, D.C. The grand jury pool in that venue, where 95% of the residents voted against Trump in 2020, has already refused to deliver indictments in multiple smaller prosecutions there.

Jack Smith’s principal wrongdoing was committed not in D.C., but in the Southern District of Florida, where the federal court is based in Miami. It was in that judicial district where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was wrongfully raided, and where an unjustified indictment was filed against Trump to try to derail his reelection campaign.

Ultimately, federal Judge Aileen Cannon tossed out the indictment because Jack Smith was acting in violation of the Constitution. In other words, it was Jack Smith who violated the law by indicting Trump, and it does not matter whether then-Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized it because the Constitution is supreme.

Under federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 371, the crime of conspiracy is when two or more persons agree to do an unlawful act against the United States. Jack Smith agreed with others in his office to indict Trump, contrary to the Constitution as later held by Judge Cannon.

Neither Jack Smith nor anyone associated with the Deep State in D.C. would obtain the favoritism in Miami that they have been receiving from judges and juries in D.C. Miami-Dade County voted 55-44% for Trump in 2024, and Trump enjoys enthusiastic support from Cuban immigrants who are leaders in that community.

It is difficult to view Jack Smith’s actions against candidate Trump last year as anything other than election interference, as Trump said in his winning campaign. By re-electing Trump, American voters agreed with him that he was innocent and the prosecutions of him were improper.

On Saturday Trump replaced the U.S. Attorney for the all-important Eastern District of Virginia, where federal workers have commonly been prosecuted in the past. This district includes the federal court in Alexandria, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., with a reputation of convicting nearly every time.

That is the pro-conviction venue where liberals prosecuted Trump advisor Paul Manafort, but the charges were so bogus that the jury deadlocked on most of them such that complete verdicts could not be reached. Ultimately President Trump pardoned Manafort for everything.

Contrast the ferocity with which the DOJ went after Trump, Manafort, and many other advisors to Trump with the inaction by the DOJ in investigating and prosecuting liberals. Trump’s newly appointed U.S. Attorney for eastern Virginia, which includes D.C. suburbs, is hopeful.

Historians should notice the similarity with President Abraham Lincoln’s frustration over the inaction by his first Commanding General during the Civil War, George B. McClellan. Lincoln finally quipped in a letter, “If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time.”

Ultimately Lincoln found an outsider from Missouri, Ulysses S. Grant, to replace McClellan to lead the Union Army. As an outcast, Grant was what Lincoln needed to win the Civil War as Grant then fully used all available resources to accomplish the mission at hand.

Neither Jack Smith nor others on his team who indicted Trump in Florida were pardoned by President Biden’s autopen. And while a doctrine of immunity protects prosecutors in their advocacy role, immunity does not protect them from accountability for their investigative and administrative work, as the Supreme Court held in Buckley v. Fitzsimmons (1993), and the Court could likewise deny immunity to Smith.

Prosecutors are the first to declare that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Jack Smith’s team insisted that no one is above the law, and neither are they.

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.

Memorial to Charlie Kirk

Here is an AI-generated tribute to Charlie Kirk.

Charlie Kirk was a bold and steadfast leader whose voice rang clear in defense of American values. As the founder of *Turning Point USA*, he led a new generation of young conservatives toward understanding the importance of traditional American principles. Charlie was unwavering in his commitment to the values that built this great nation—faith, family, and freedom. He was a tireless advocate for conservative ideas, especially in the education system, where liberal ideologies have long held sway. With grace and conviction, Charlie stood against the tide of political correctness, speaking truth to power even when it was unpopular. His courage inspired countless young Americans to take a stand and fight for the future of this country.

His passing leaves a void, but Charlie's legacy endures in the hearts of those he inspired. Just as Phyllis Schlafly fought to defend American institutions and the sanctity of the family, Charlie understood that the future of our nation rests in the hands of the next generation. His work was never about the accolades or the spotlight—it was about the fight for freedom, a fight he believed every American should join. Charlie’s passion for our country and his dedication to the principles of limited government and personal responsibility will continue to inspire. His influence on the conservative movement will never fade, and his memory will live on in the work of those who carry on his mission.

You can ask AI-Phyllis questions here.

Seek the Death Penalty Against Kirk’s Assassin

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The assassination of Charlie Kirk cries out for the death penalty, which is rarely imposed by Utah courts. This murder was premeditated and executed with vengeance, against an innocent victim merely for exercising his constitutional right of freedom of speech.

This crime struck at the heart of our republic, and has terrorized Americans from expressing their views in public. Like the assassination of President William McKinley by an anarchist on September 6, 1901, for which the assassin received full due process and then was executed on October 29, retribution by seeking the death penalty against Kirk’s assassin is needed.

Before the suspected Kirk assassin was arrested, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox pointed out that Utah still has the death penalty, but Utah law makes it nearly impossible to apply. Utah has executed only one person (an American Indian) in the last 15 years, and there are only four criminals on Utah’s death row, each of whom has been supported there at taxpayer expense for more than 29 years.

A murderer cannot be punished by the death penalty in Utah state courts unless there is an aggravating factor as narrowly defined by Utah law, such as killing a police officer or shooting in a way that creates a “grave risk” to bystanders in a crowd. Kirk’s assassin allegedly fired one shot from a high-precision rifle at Kirk while he was seated on stage, so it is unclear if Utah’s death penalty even applies to this crime.

In addition, Utah has a pro-transgender culture, contrary to every other Republican state. Codifying a pro-transgender administrative rule promulgated in 2020, Utah in 2023 became the only Republican state with a law that prevents parents from seeking professional counseling to straighten out gender dysphoria in their children. In 2022, Gov. Cox also vetoed legislation protecting girls’ sports against transgender athletes.

The suspect, Tyler Robinson, was living with his transgender partner, whom Gov. Cox praised as being “incredibly cooperative” with investigators. Robinson reportedly had a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate.

Bullet casings found with the murder weapon contained markings demonstrating that this assassination was carefully planned and carried out with vengeance. These inscriptions included a merciless “CATCH,” along with positive references from online communities, including the sexually deviant furry subculture.

Afterward Robinson reportedly sent electronic messages to his transgender lover about the murder. Robinson also exchanged messages among more than 20 people in the online platform Discord soon after the assassination, apparently without anyone rebuking him or telling him to turn himself in to authorities.

The FBI reports that Robinson’s DNA has been linked to the crime scene, where a high-powered hunting rifle with a 500-yard shooting range was found nearby. It is alleged that Robinson shot Kirk from a rooftop merely 150 yards away.

Tyler Robinson has so far been charged only in state court with three crimes for assassinating Charlie Kirk: aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, and obstruction of justice. In state court Robinson will benefit from a system that is more lenient than federal court, and less likely to impose the death penalty.

As President Trump vows a full federal investigation, his Attorney General Pam Bondi needs to file federal charges that carry the death penalty. The FBI should not be relegated merely to a supporting role in Utah, which is notorious for its Trump-haters and for favoring residents against outsiders.

Tyler Robinson admittedly hated Charlie Kirk, who frequently professed his Christian faith and was outspoken against the transgender ideology, as President Trump has been. Robinson’s love interest is transgender, and Kirk’s close association with Trump made Kirk a proxy of Trump and a target for Trump-haters, of whom there are many in Utah.

The federal death penalty is triggered by hate crime murders when motivated by animus towards one’s perceived race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. If it is a capital offense to murder a transgender person, then it should be a capital offense for a transgender’s lover to murder a prominent Christian critic of the transgender movement.

The federal hate crime statute – and the federal death penalty – should be applied to prosecute this assassination of an outspoken Christian. The Trump Administration should ensure that Americans are fully informed about what encouragement the assassin may have received from well-funded Leftist organizations before and after this crime.

On Tuesday FBI Director Kash Patel was subjected to rants by Senate Democrats and liberal Republicans in a hearing on Capitol Hill, but little of it had to do with this shocking assassination that has terrorized millions of Americans. Instead, Democrats were more concerned about preventing unproductive federal workers from being fired.

Kirk’s death is a watershed moment for our country, and freedom of speech depends on how thoroughly this heinous crime is prosecuted.

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 18-0 Winning Streak in SCOTUS

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

No NFL team in the last 50 years has attained perfection without a loss, but this is Trump’s record in the U.S. Supreme Court: 18-0. His splendid Solicitor General, John Sauer, has racked up 18 wins this year, in staying lower court decisions against Trump and thereby allowing the President to exercise the full “executive power” granted by Article II of the Constitution.

These victories have been on emergency applications to the Supreme Court, where it is difficult to obtain the Justices’ attention and even more challenging to prevail. Also called the “shadow docket,” these wins by Trump have come quickly, without oral argument, often by a 6-3 or greater margin.

Seven of these wins have been on deporting illegal aliens, five on firing unnecessary federal workers, four on terminating wasteful federal spending, one on ending transgender personnel in the military, and one on stopping the epidemic of nationwide injunctions by district court judges.

On Monday, Chief Justice Roberts granted a stay to Trump, as requested by Sauer, of a D.C. Circuit ruling that had blocked Trump from removing a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. Despite being on the Court’s traditional summer vacation until it returns later this month, Roberts granted Trump’s request on the second business day after it was filed.

An even bigger victory for Trump came on Monday from the Supreme Court when it stayed a Ninth Circuit ruling that had blocked Trump’s deportation campaign in Los Angeles County, where an estimated 10 percent of its 10 million residents are illegal. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence agreeing with Sauer’s argument that ethnicity can be relevant in deciding whether to investigate someone’s immigration status.

Kavanaugh explained that Supreme Court precedent and common sense allow “apparent ethnicity” to be a “relevant factor” to be considered by immigration officials, not alone but in conjunction with other relevant factors, in forming a “reasonable suspicion” sufficient to justify a so-called Terry stop. Further investigation is then required before arresting or deporting a suspect.

This does not mean that Hispanics or any other group can be deported based on their ethnicity, but merely that ethnicity can be one of several factors justifying further investigation. “Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status,” Kavanaugh explained.

Indeed, a recent immigration raid occurred at a Hyundai electric vehicle plant in Georgia, where illegal aliens from South Korea were caught, identified, and detained. Congress should investigate how hundreds of these Asian illegal aliens migrated here illegally.

The Hyundai raid also cast doubt on the premise that foreign car manufacturers are helping Americans by locating a few plants here. In this case, the manufacturing jobs were going to illegal aliens from the country of the foreign competitor.

Trump has been winning in federal appellate courts, too. On Monday a 2-1 Republican majority on a panel in the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of Trump on his authority “to lay off thousands of probationary employees across multiple federal agencies.” The Democrat on the panel dissented, in Maryland v. USDA.

Many more lawsuits against Trump are percolating through the federal court system on the road to ultimate review by the Supreme Court. There are signs that justices on the High Court are growing impatient with the defiance by liberal lower court judges of precedents in favor of Trump, which has burdened the Supreme Court throughout these summer months to stay the anti-Trump decisions.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the less conservative justices, expressed his exasperation on August 21 while the justices were on summer vacation. “So this is now the third time in a matter of weeks this Court has had to intercede in a case squarely controlled by one of its precedents.”

“All these interventions should have been unnecessary, but together they underscore a basic tenet of our judicial system: Whatever their own views, judges are duty-bound to respect the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress,” Gorsuch wrote while quoting precedent, in this victory for Trump in NIH v. American Public Health Association to allow him to terminate research grants.

After being forced to work all summer to block anti-Trump rulings by federal judges in district and appellate courts, mostly in the First and DC Circuits where liberals have forum-shopped their cases to obtain Democrat-appointed judges, the Supreme Court returns on Monday, September 29, 2025. Then it will hold its traditional “long conference” to dispose of hundreds of petitions for certiorari that accumulated while they were away.

The following week, the Supreme Court begins its oral arguments for its “2025 Term” that will last until the end of June next year. Trump can expect to win many more reversals of flawed lower court rulings that liberal judges are rendering against him.

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.

Fire the Rest of the CDC Staff, Too

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last Thursday dozens of staffers, both low- and high-level, walked off their jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), protesting the firing of the CDC director and the subsequent resignation of three senior-level executives. This defiant walkout illustrated the dangerous arrogance of this federal agency that thinks it is above accountability to the president and the American people.

In a pitiful op-ed published by the New York Times on Monday, prior CDC directors whine about the shake-up at the agency by RFK Jr., as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Notably, the CDC directors under the George W. Bush and first Trump Administrations did not sign onto this protest.

This op-ed by former CDC officials absurdly tries to take credit for the CDC for an American lifespan that increased over half a century, which is due to improved hygiene and medical technology, and fewer accident fatalities. The CDC performance during Covid was so abysmal that poor countries managed the disease better than the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did.

The former CDC directors sarcastically put the word “treatments” in quotation marks as though that cannot be a viable alternative to vaccination. Measles is known to be worse in those who have a vitamin A deficiency, as the CDC admits on its website, and RFK Jr. should be praised for promoting greater awareness about this vitamin.

RFK Jr., to whom Trump refers as Bobby, then appointed successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim O’Neill as the acting director of the CDC. His first public statement right out of the gate on X was spot on: “Public health is a noble calling. When it is driven by transparent data and rigorous science, it earns public trust and keeps the world safe.”

Contrary to the measles fearmongering by former CDC officials, O’Neill implied that it was “new screening technology to detect infections from foreign travelers,” as developed by the Trump Administration, which partly “stopped the Texas measles outbreak.” He added that RFK Jr.’s good appointments have “ended the misuse of the childhood immunization schedule for Covid vaccine mandates.”

This perspective of Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) is refreshing. On Monday morning, President Trump signaled his support for RFK Jr.’s incoming new CDC leadership by saying, “It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs.”

“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump added.

By asking for more transparency about what really happened in Big Pharma’s response to Covid, “I want them to … clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!! I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???” Trump stated.

This punctured the appeal to Trump by the Old Guard at the CDC, who tried to get on his good side by praising the first Trump Administration’s support of Operation Warp Speed. It “produced highly effective and safe vaccines that saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the former CDC officials asserted.

But what about the interference by Big Pharma, the CDC, and the FDA with access by Americans to inexpensive early Covid treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine? Congress funded the use of treatments other than vaccines during Covid, and several states have made ivermectin, for which a Nobel Prize was granted, available over-the-counter as is common in foreign countries.

But Big Pharma does not profit from ivermectin as it makes billions of dollars from mandatory vaccination, and every official who misled the public by disparaging ivermectin should be fired. During the Biden Administration, on Aug. 26, 2021, the CDC issued an emergency CDC Health Advisory through its Alert Network by declaring that “Ivermectin is not authorized or approved by FDA for prevention or treatment of COVID-19.”

CDC officials know that 25% of all prescriptions are for “off-label” uses that have never been specifically approved by the FDA, and never will be. It was deliberately misleading for the CDC to emphasize that the FDA had not approved ivermectin for treating Covid, because generic medication is rarely approved for additional uses, as that is costly and unnecessary.

Yet this deception by the CDC and FDA was then invoked by hospitals to deny ivermectin to patients dying from Covid, and when some courts ordered hospitals to allow the treatment to save the patients, hospitals fought for reversal on appeal. It is welcome that RFK Jr. has fired leadership at the CDC, and the mass walkout there last week shows that more house-cleaning is needed at this Big Pharma-controlled agency.

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.