AI Companies Aren’t Our Masters, Yet

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump’s spectacular capture in January of Nicolás Maduro, the Communist dictator of Venezuela, was reportedly assisted by artificial intelligence (AI). Specifically, the AI program Claude is used in our military, and in 8 of the 10 largest companies.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made decisions based on multiple scenarios presented by Palantir using Claude. And this was not the first time that the U.S. Army has benefited from this AI tool.

The stunning success of this military operation involved fewer than 200 American troops, of whom 7 were injured, and several of them were visited by President Trump last Friday at Fort Bragg. Three helicopter pilots were badly wounded in their legs by machine gun fire, Trump said, while 83 soldiers defending Maduro were killed, according to Venezuela.

AI company Anthropic licenses Claude under an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that limits how it can be used. In rejection of these limitations, War Secretary Pete Hegseth threatens to eradicate it not just from our military, but from every vendor that sells products and services to our military by labeling Claude a “supply chain risk.”

This is a type of exclusion usually invoked only for foreign adversaries of the United States. But the irritation by Hegseth and the top brass in our military at Anthropic’s restrictions on the use of its product has worsened to the point where this harsh punishment of a complete banishment is being considered.

Just imagine if the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb had placed restrictions on its use by the military. The military should be able to use unrestricted AI to advance our national security as our elected president thinks best.

Anthropic is not the only AI company placing restrictions on the use of its tools. Other AI companies have also attempted to limit the military applications of their programs.

Several competitors to Anthropic, including OpenAI, Google, and xAI, are chomping at the bit to secure a contract with the U.S. Armed Services and may be willing to drop the restrictions Anthropic currently insists on maintaining. But the Trump Administration complains that it would be enormously difficult to eradicate all current uses of Claude, including those by contractors like Palantir, to switch to another AI tool.

Military spokesman Sean Parnell stated, “The Department of War’s relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed. Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight. Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people.”

Our military’s contract with Anthropic is worth only about $200 million, a mere pittance of Anthropic’s total $14 billion in annual revenue. Anthropic may be concerned about losing more sizable business if its tool becomes associated with military attacks.

The Vatican released a statement a year ago entitled “Antiqua et Nova” which warned that “autonomous weapons systems, which are capable of identifying and striking targets without direct human intervention, are a cause for grave ethical concern. ... No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”

But there is no guarantee that China would play by the rules of Western Civilization. Our military’s AI needs to be advanced enough to defend against China’s AI in a war, while it is reasonable to limit AI to prevent it from making any unsupervised decisions to kill.

Meanwhile, an improved Chinese AI program created a video of a fistfight between actors Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, which looks as realistic as a Hollywood movie. Despite possibly violating the copyrights on the movies with which the AI program was trained, it has gone viral and thrown Hollywood into a tailspin.

The New York Times described this 15-second clip as “more cinematic than anything so far” from AI. “In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases,” commented Rhett Reese, screenwriter of “Deadpool” and other movies.

The instigator of this video fistfight on a rooftop between Pitt and Cruise was the Irishman Ruairi Robinson. He said on X that this was generated by merely “a 2 line prompt in Seedance 2,” which is an AI film-generating tool by the Chinese company ByteDance.

ByteDance is the same Chinese company that developed TikTok, which upended social media platforms in the U.S. with popular short-reel videos.

Suddenly, a flood of potentially copyright-infringing material created by this Chinese AI tool is going viral online, using characters and scenes copied from popular movies. Those who would like to change a movie's ending may be able to do so privately using AI, but posting new endings could violate copyrights.

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.

World Realigns Based on Social Issues

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The stunning realignment of world powers unfolding before our eyes is largely due to social issues, not economic or geopolitical ones. Europe and NATO are run by liberals who want to embrace the transgender ideology and hold gay pride parades, while Russia has said “nyet” to that while enacting pro-life laws instead.

The liberal hatred of Russia predates the war in Ukraine, and many of the thousand-strong anti-JD Vance protesters who lined narrow snow-covered Vermont roads on Saturday were motivated by social issues. Some waved LGBTQ flags while others were part of transgender activism, both of which Russia prohibits and would exclude from territory it annexes.

In 2020, Russians amended their Constitution to ensure that marriage remains only “the union of a man and a woman,” and in 2022 Russia broadened its ban on “LGBT propaganda” to include adults. Transgender treatment is not allowed in Russia, while transgender adults cannot adopt children.

On November 30, 2023, the Supreme Court of Russia held that the “international public LGBT movement” is “extremist.” Displaying the LGBTQ rainbow flag in Russia can result in fines and imprisonment.

Pandering to liberals’ hatred of Russia’s social policies, Obama refused to attend its Winter Olympics in 2014 and spoke disparagingly of the country. In December 2016 Obama insulted Russia as a “smaller” and “weaker country,” which fails to “produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil and gas and arms.”

Democrats falsely insisted that Trump’s presidential victory over Hillary Clinton was due to Russia, and Democrats used their fiction to disrupt two years of Trump’s first administration. Ukrainian president Zelensky, who refuses to allow an election to replace him, campaigned in Pennsylvania for Democrat Kamala Harris against Trump last fall.

The Left cannot accept any victory by Russia. When Vice President JD Vance told Zelensky at the White House that his regime is “going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems,” Zelensky did not deny it.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is the only member of Congress born in Ukraine. She recently described Zelensky’s government as “worthless,” and observed that “the American people want to see what we’re getting in return” for the hundreds of billions of dollars we’ve sent there.

We should stop arming Ukraine to fight for NATO’s liberal social agenda. On Sunday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wisely declared, “If NATO’s moving on without the U.S., we should move on without NATO. Time to leave.”

This echoes what Phyllis Schlafly said against NATO in 2016, when she wrote that NATO repudiates George Washington’s advice “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Phyllis repeatedly warned against our entanglement through NATO in foreign wars in 1996, 1998, and 1999, during the wars of NATO aggression in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia.

It is not the moral duty of the United States to intervene in every foreign war. As Trump says, the Ukraine-Russia war would have been over quickly if the United States had not propped Zelensky up with aid that thereby prolonged it.

On Monday, Trump properly halted the delivery of military aid by the U.S. to Ukraine, after Zelensky harmfully declared that peace with Russia is “still very, very far away.” “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” the president responded on TruthSocial.

There was in excess of $1 billion in arms and ammunition scheduled for delivery to Ukraine. Trump was right to withhold that, at least until Zelensky makes a good-faith effort toward ending a war that has killed or wounded more than a million people.

“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country - So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.

Russia is more like conservative states in the U.S. on social issues than Europe and Zelensky are, as Russian laws reject the trans agenda and abortion-on-demand as many states here do. Yet on Friday, Zelensky warned Trump that our country “will feel it in the future” as the next victim of Russia if we decline to continue fighting it in Ukraine.

That warning of our American president by a foreign official was both unjustified and insulting, and Trump properly admonished Zelensky for it. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem,” Trump responded.

Trump continued, “You’re in no position to dictate that. Remember this, you’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel good. We’re gonna feel very good and very strong,” and Trump’s right due to his strong leadership.

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.

Deep State: Stop Invading Our Airspace with Drones

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As concern mounted over the wave of unidentified drones flying over populated areas of the Northeast, President Trump felt compelled to cancel his trip to his New Jersey home this weekend. Trump soberly declined to say whether he had received a classified security briefing about the drones, but pointed out that “The government knows what is happening. Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense.”

White House spokesman John Kirby is not disclosing the full story, obviously, as he’s already backed off his implausible assertion that most of the low-flying objects are really airplanes. He still insists, however, that hobbyists are behind many of these drones, which are too large, too sophisticated, and flying too late at night to be from amateurs amusing themselves.

It appears likely that the numerous high-tech drones are searching for something from their low altitude of 400 feet and less. By flying only at night they must be using sensors that can detect substances on the ground in the dark.

After four years of an open border under Biden, it’s possible that a weapon of mass destruction has been smuggled into our country. But it’s more likely that this drone operation is another stunt by the Deep State to exert power over everyday Americans, and even Trump, under the false pretense of national security.

Realistically, threats from distant lands of destruction in America are probably nothing more than a teenage boy in someone’s basement emailing a prank message. The calls to Springfield, Ohio in September that shut down its schools and hospitals were phony threats from a foreigner that were taken too seriously.

Trump said on Monday that Biden knows what is behind these drones, and that he should tell the American people. Any assumption that there would be panic about a revelation, for example, that the drones are looking for a nuclear weapon, would underestimate the resilience and healthy skepticism of the public about fake news from D.C.

The political timing of this mystery is suspect. Merely a month from Trump’s inauguration and on the eve of the annual bloated defense appropriation in Congress, whereby billions are wastefully allocated to a military having too many generals and not enough recruits, a more ingenious public relations stunt at this time for boosting expenditures is difficult to imagine.

The Deep State is demonically clever at asserting its own power and obtaining more lavish funding for itself, and may never fess up to the truth about this. Someone is probably making a fortune at taxpayer expense by providing these high-tech drones in the Northeast.

The federal government claims to have exclusive authority to regulate everyone’s airspace such that Deep State drones can buzz our homes late at night. One of these large drones, reportedly as big as an SUV or refrigerator, could crash into someone’s living room and kill innocent inhabitants there.

Part of the game plan may be to get Trump to back off from draining the Swamp and fumigating the intelligence community. This apparently military exercise is a way for the overpaid and underproductive spooks in D.C. to reassert their authority over our incoming president, even forcing him away from his summer home.

“Something strange is going on,” Trump said Monday. “For some reason they don’t want to tell the people.”

Meanwhile the usually talkative Elon Musk has been oddly silent about these drones, like the dog that didn’t bark in the famous Sherlock Holmes tale, which suggests that Musk may be selling drone technology under one of his many contracts with our military. Musk’s SpaceX has the expertise to pull off this type of operation while evading detection by Americans who have a right to know who is flying a few hundred feet over their homes.

“National security” is the phony reason given for the planned shutdown of TikTok on January 19, the day before the inauguration of Trump. Supposedly watching funny videos of children’s mishaps, embarrassing moments, and overbearing official behavior poses such a threat to our country from China that this popular rival of liberal-controlled Facebook and YouTube must be forced out of business.

Trump met with the CEO of TikTok on Monday, observing that the platform helped Trump get elected by enabling him to reach young voters. Liberals control schools, the media, and other internet platforms so TikTok is one of the few ways that a conservative message can reach them.

TikTok users and most of the American public would shrug their shoulders at a claim that a weapon of mass destruction may have been smuggled into our country, thereby supposedly justifying this intrusive drone operation. Many Americans want to know the truth about these drones, and want them out of their airspace over their homes.

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.

Deep State Invites Nuclear War

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Tuesday is the 1,000th day of the Russia-Ukraine War, and the Deep State irresponsibly escalates it further by authorizing Ukraine’s Zelensky to launch American-made ATACMS long-range missiles against targets within Russia. Pronounced “attack ’ems,” ATACMS was supplied to Ukraine by the pro-war, globalist military elite in Washington, D.C.

Ukraine quickly used a half-dozen of these missiles on Tuesday against Russian military stockpiles, which appears to be only the beginning. Soon U.S. missiles costing more than a million dollars apiece could rain down on Russia, perhaps eventually against cities, as Ukraine has forced teenagers into its army and kids may be picking the targets as in a video game.

Russia responded to the attack by updating its nuclear doctrine to declare its intention to respond, if it chooses, with nuclear missiles. President Putin signed a new document on Tuesday to the effect that “the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response.”

North Korea, which also has nuclear weapons, could likewise retaliate if its troops inside Russia are killed by American-made missiles. The last time we came this close to nuclear war was during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when Robert F. Kennedy (father of Trump’s Cabinet appointee RFK Jr.) played a pivotal role in devising a response.

Biden is allowing the globalist elite to run our government, and Americans are stuck with this for two more months until President-elect Trump is sworn into office. This reinforces the urgency of Trump being able to clean house and install his own team on the first day of his presidency, on January 20, 2025.

From a makeshift podium deep in the Amazon forest in South America that looked like a comedy skit from Saturday Night Live, Biden held a press conference about the importance of trees and then declined to take any questions about the consequences of his escalation of the Ukraine war. Biden next meandered aimlessly away from the podium and back into the jungle, giving new meaning to the term “lame duck” for officials who are on their way out of office, as Biden is.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives. Gotta lock in those $Trillions.”

The lawfare against Trump has completely failed, such that even the sentencing hearing in New York County against him was just canceled. The federal government is expected to drop all of its charges against Trump by the first week in December.

But the Deep State is trying to fill the anti-Trump void by hamstringing his presidency with the Pentagon’s own pro-war agenda. A campaign has started to try to block Trump’s appointment of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, partly based on the Christian tattoos that he proudly wore in the Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump’s superb appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence is also being attacked by globalists after she endorsed Trump as “a man who wants to end wars, not start them.” Gabbard will become the top intelligence adviser to the president, having authority over all our spy agencies.

Almost no one alive recalls the last time nuclear bombs were used, to end World War II in Japan nearly 80 years ago. For many decades afterward, political movements sought to disarm nuclear weapons, but it is difficult to find any liberals sounding alarm bells against war today because the Left committed to Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024.

World War III has become more likely due to the Deep State’s first fomenting and then mishandling the war in Ukraine. Norway, Sweden, and Finland have all just provided special information to their citizens to prepare to survive a war by stockpiling essential food and medication, and by learning what to do if there is an attack.

Democrats are failing to prepare American citizens on how to survive if there is a missile attack that destroys the internet, the power grid, or the supply chain for groceries. Norway just printed and sent 2 million copies of its pamphlet to prepare its people for war, one for each household.

The Left has hated Russia ever since it began to prohibit Pride parades more than a decade ago. Obama refused to attend Russia’s Winter Olympics in 2014 and, by authorizing Ukraine to launch American missiles at Russia, Biden is continuing the anti-Russia campaign by liberals against it.

In 2022 Biden’s hapless Secretary of Defense blurted out, “We want to see Russia weakened.” Now Democrats are putting Americans and our allies in harm’s way by provoking Russia to counterattack with missiles of its own, for a war that nearly everyone admits cannot be won.

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.

Globalists’ War Against Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Only one man stands in the way of the globalist agenda: Donald Trump. Globalists are doing everything they can to prevent his return to the White House.

On Sunday, Ukraine’s Zelensky visited the large munitions plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he was welcomed by Democrats Gov. Josh Shapiro and embattled Sen. Bob Casey Jr. Their implicit message is that sending more American-made arms to Ukraine, with permission to launch them deep inside Russia, would appeal to voters in this pivotal swing state.

In an interview published Sunday by The New Yorker magazine, Zelensky campaigned for the globalist-controlled Kamala Harris by improperly describing Trump’s VP as “too radical” for urging peace. JD Vance is the popular Senator from Ohio where many Ukrainian Americans reside, and Vance rightly speaks out against this senseless war as RFK Jr. and others have.

After sharply criticizing Trump and Vance – which should be considered an illegal foreign campaign contribution to Kamala Harris – Zelensky was flown at taxpayer expense to Scranton on a U.S. Air Force C-17A plane. Zelensky never mentions how many Ukrainians have really died in this futile war, which has inflicted over a million casualties and wanton destruction.

Globalists provided Zelensky with more security for his campaign stop in Pennsylvania than for Trump. The Deep State cares more about keeping Zelensky safely in power than about protecting Trump so that he can become president again.

Zelensky is not helping himself by picking sides in our presidential race, or by lashing out at Trump and Vance as early voting begins. Trump will be tougher now in forcing Zelensky to accept a peace deal that would include holding the free election that Zelensky canceled when he declared martial law.

Meanwhile Ryan Wesley Routh, the would-be assassin on Trump’s Florida golf course, sat undetected in nearby bushes all night and morning waiting for Trump to reach the adjacent hole. No one swept the course perimeter, which would have easily caught Routh without gunfire.

Routh considered himself to be a “global citizen” and even wrote a book about it. “ALL GLOBAL CITIZENS COME STAND WITH UKRAINIANS NOW!” his book shouted in an excerpt available on Amazon.com.

Who paid for this assassin’s travel from Hawaii to Ukraine and back, and then to South Florida? When the British newspaper Daily Mail interviewed Routh’s 35-year-old son, Oran Routh said his father told him he was at the beach, which the son assumed was in Hawaii, not Florida.

The DOJ released a handwritten letter addressed to “Dear World” in which Ryan Routh admits “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.” Though grateful for the work of local law enforcement and the alert action by the Secret Service agent who shot at the would-be assassin, Trump properly criticized the meager charges that were filed against the wannabe killer.

“The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump stated on Monday. “Florida charges would be much more serious than the ones the FBI has announced.”

The Secret Service does not lack adequate funding, as the House pretended when it voted unanimously to send them hundreds of millions of additional dollars even before the agency accounts for its failure to prevent Trump from being shot in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. The real problem is that the Deep State hates and fears Trump, who should fire much of the D.C. elite upon returning to the White House.

The 741 self-described National Security Leaders who published a manifesto endorsing Kamala cited as one of their reasons that Trump would probably fire some of them if he takes office again. Biden and Harris have not fired a single person for more than 3.5 years, despite pervasive wrongdoing and gross incompetence as in their deadly pullout from Afghanistan.

At an overflow rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Trump explained how he kept peace in the world for four years as president. But war, not peace, is what the Deep State wants to justify its existence and engage in profiteering from arms sales and then construction projects afterward in the destroyed countries.

On Tuesday Biden delivered his final speech to the United Nations in promotion of the globalist ideology, mouthing words that were written for him to deliver. Biden pledged endless ongoing “support to help Ukraine win this war,” which is impossible.

In contrast, Trump explained to the crowd who packed the 6,000-seat arena in Indiana, Pennsylvania that the world is on fire because of Biden and Harris. They did nothing to prevent this war or the worsening one in the Middle East.

Globalists are pro-war because they enrich themselves from the weaponry sold and used, and from the rebuilding that follows. They picked Harris as their puppet to continue this agenda.

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.

NATO Summit Plunges U.S. Deeper into War

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As pro-war globalists convene in D.C. this week for their annual NATO summit, at the grand Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on Constitution Avenue, their #1 goal is to permanently entangle the U.S. in the war between Russia and Ukraine. This America Last crowd has even developed a multi-point plan to further ensnare the U.S. into this perpetual war, making it more difficult for a President Trump to deliver peace as he vowed at the debate.

Central to the globalist scheme is a proposed new agreement among the NATO members to promise to admit Ukraine into the alliance, which is what provoked the Russia-Ukraine War in the first place. This senseless war has inflicted up to a million casualties and caused many millions of refugees.

Meanwhile, military contractors have been lobbying leaders of both parties to expand NATO’s footprint around the world, while funneling tens of millions of dollars in cash to congressional candidates willing to vote for their deadly agenda. So it’s hardly surprising that congressmen from both political parties are lining up to expand NATO and waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on its boondoggles.

Not Trump. He defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 by accurately describing NATO as “obsolete,” while pointing out correctly that Russia never would have attacked Ukraine if Trump had been the president.

In anticipation of Trump’s retaking the White House, the NATO globalists want to lock the U.S. into a joint pledge of at least $43 billion in new military support for Ukraine over the next year, for which American taxpayers will be looted by Congress to pay. This month Biden and European countries are sending dozens of expensive F-16 fighters to Ukraine, which can strike Russian cities with deadly missiles.

Every time Ukraine uses American weapons to strike a target in Russia, it subjects Americans to possible retaliation by Russia, which it is fully capable of doing, even with nuclear warheads. Russia has vowed to retaliate against the U.S. for attacks on Russia inflicted by U.S. weapons, and Biden should not be placing Americans at risk of this harm in this way.

Last month Biden announced an absurdly long 10-year military commitment to Ukraine. This, again, was designed improperly to tie the hands of President Trump’s second term so that Democrats in Congress can then seek to impeach him if and when he repudiates this wrongful agreement.

Those at the NATO summit in D.C. want to establish a command center at a U.S. base in Wiesbaden, Germany along with other hubs in Eastern Europe to compel wider and greater participation in this misguided war against Russia. An increase in Western training of Ukrainian soldiers is on this summit’s agenda, which could easily lead to sending American advisors and then troops to the battlefield as happened in Vietnam.

Most Americans are unaware that this month the United States is being drawn further into this war with Russia due to the advanced new weaponry that Biden is shipping there. Tensions have recently increased due to this escalation, with Russia launching new strikes on Ukrainian air bases in anticipation of the F-16 fighter planes.

Democrats in Congress are demanding that Biden send far more weapons to Ukraine, and some of those applying this pressure on Biden are the same who insist that he quit his reelection race. Biden may appease his critics within the Democrat Party by ramping up our arming of Ukraine.

Moscow is barely 500 miles from the border with Ukraine, well within the range of a missile launched by an American-made F-16. Soon deadly missiles from Russia could be striking the Western world in retaliation, and U.S. military bases could become targets if NATO is allowed to entangle us further in this war.

Presumably with the approval of Biden, the Netherlands is already delivering 24 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, at a total cost of more than a billion dollars. There are doubts as to whether Ukraine can protect these expensive planes from being destroyed by Russia, so there will be an incentive for Ukraine to use them quickly to strike deep inside Russia.

As the host nation’s president, Biden is expected to lead this NATO summit but, at the same time, Dems are holding meetings this week to decide whether to force him out of his reelection race. Ukraine’s Zelensky is attending this NATO summit, despite not being a member, and Biden will have little say about what is decided.

Leadership from the Republican Party in addition to Trump is needed at this perilous moment. Congressional leaders should vow to reject sending more weapons and funding to fight a hopeless war against Russia, a war where there are no American interests at stake.

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.

GOP’s Right to Reject Funding of Perpetual War

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A dramatic meeting on Tuesday at the White House for sending $60 billion more to the NATO war in Ukraine was stacked 4-to-1 against conservatives. That is hardly fair but reflects the intense pressure by globalists to pour more money down this bottomless pit of war.

The two top Democrats in the House and Senate, plus Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who does not represent a majority of Republican senators on this issue, joined with President Biden to browbeat Speaker Johnson to allow a House vote on the $60 billion supplemental appropriation. Johnson emerged from this meeting by properly saying that we need to put the crisis at our own southern border first.

Speaker Johnson is on the same side as Donald Trump, whose influence grows despite Democrats’ attempt to exclude him. Trump’s landslide victory over the globalist candidate Nikki Haley in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday continues his trajectory toward reelection in November, rendering Biden a lame duck for the remainder of his term.

The satirical Babylon Bee quipped, “Congress issued a dire warning to the American people Friday, sternly reminding voters that if they do not keep sending billions of tax dollars to Ukraine, the war might end.” American taxpayers should not be funding more bloodshed there.

Yet the newly installed Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, went on CNN Sunday to demand this foreign aid, pompously telling Speaker Johnson that “the credibility of your country is at stake.” Sikorski speaks perfect English because he was educated at England’s Oxford University, which has promoted globalism since the time of the first Queen Elizabeth over 400 years ago.

Sikorski would not hold his position if the prior conservative Polish government had not foolishly allowed in more than a million Ukrainian migrants. This vast influx ran the Polish economy into the ground, and its GDP plummeted from a growth rate of 5.3% in 2022 to only 0.2% and high inflation in 2023.

Meanwhile Russia appears to be thriving by producing vast amounts of oil, in contrast with Biden’s anti-energy policies that hinder our economy. Last week Rosneft, which is Russia's largest oil producer, declared a 47% increase in its net profits for 2023, totaling $14 billion, and oil funds a third of the Russian government’s budget.

Russia’s military-based economy produces far more munitions than the West. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who opposes more funding of the war in Ukraine, told a conference of globalists last week in Munich that Ukraine uses in a month as many Patriot missile interceptors as it takes the United States a year to make, and the Patriot is now on a five-year back order.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Army announced its elimination of 24,000 positions, partly because of the shortfall in enlistment. Recruiting into our military has fallen far below expectations, and threats by D.C. politicians to send American troops to defend the borders of small NATO member countries will not be tolerated by voters.

Phyllis Schlafly called for disbanding NATO at the end of the Cold War, and she opposed the “mission creep” that has led NATO to meddle in Ukraine, in provocation of Russia. We should not support Ukrainian president Zelensky’s ambition to capture the Crimean peninsula, where the Russian navy has been stationed at Sevastopol for 240 years.

Zelensky canceled national elections that had been scheduled for this spring, and the globalists who pretend to care about promoting democracy should object to that. There is a large constituency of Ukrainian Americans in Ohio, where their Sen. Vance outspokenly opposes continued American funding of this war.

House Speaker Johnson has a superb opportunity to attach conditions before allowing a vote on sending billions more to Ukraine. First, Johnson should demand that Biden fully close our southern border to end illegal immigration there and, second, he should halt the funding of the politicized prosecutions against Trump and his supporters.

The latest data from the Biden Administration shows that Arizona has surpassed Texas in being inflicted with the largest invasion by illegal aliens. The Border Patrol reports that 250,000 illegals entered an Arizona sector in the last four months despite the treacherous landscape there.

The shocking murder of a young Georgia nursing student and “disfiguring her skull,” while she was jogging, was charged against an illegal alien arrested twice but released. “Instead of sending him back, Biden’s failed policies allowed him to be released into the country, where he murdered an innocent American girl,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) tweeted.

The politicians in D.C. should focus on the many problems along our own border before sending more money to fund a boundary dispute in Eastern Europe. Trump promises to end this war by forcing Ukraine and Russia into a negotiated settlement, which is the sensible approach.

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.

Unplug NATO’s War and Corrupt DC

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The last-minute deal to keep the federal government open did nothing to rein in wasteful and corrupt federal spending, or avert the predicted recession. Rather than react with relief that the federal government continues on, with its misuse of prosecutorial power, the stock market declined after the Sept. 30th vote in Congress to keep the lights on.

The consumer confidence index dropped to a four-month low in September, while new home sales have fallen sharply by 8.7% as of August. Gas prices have skyrocketed, including an 80 cent increase in merely one month in California.

Yet President Biden seems oblivious to the hard times ahead in this impending recession. It is in his political interest not to say this “R” word, as this impedes his diminishing chances of being reelected.

A silver lining to the stopgap funding bill was how House Republicans blocked sending billions more to the NATO war in Ukraine. As good jobs disappear in our country, it is dismaying that some Senate leaders care more about continuing to fund bloodshed halfway around the world than taking care of our economy back home.

Fortunately, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has led the fight against forcing Americans to fund NATO’s war to expand its membership to include Ukraine. Congress has already sent $113 billion of hard-earned American taxpayer funds to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky without accountability of where it ultimately went.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who has a large Ukrainian constituency, opposes pouring more American money into the war there. “Five years from now … you’re going to find a lot of people have gotten rich from this,” he said last month.

On Sunday, voters in Slovakia elected the party that promised to end military support for the regime in Ukraine. The election winners also vowed to oppose Ukraine joining NATO, which is what this war is about.

There is an upcoming election in Poland, which is prompting politicians there to promise an end to Poland’s involvement in this conflict. Last month the Polish prime minister announced, “We no longer transfer weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland.”

Our own presidential election is a year away, and the pro-globalism Senate leadership thinks that voters will forget by then or fail to assert themselves against this looting by D.C. of America. But on Saturday the American people won on this issue of pouring billions more into this war in Ukraine.

“Senate leadership tried to get Ukraine jammed into the CR and they just got bucked,” celebrated Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), talking about the continuing resolution enacted on Saturday. Yet the next day President Biden announced that he expects more funding of this NATO war in Ukraine to pass in a separate vote, which no Republican Speaker of the House should schedule.

“There’s going to have to be a major debate in this country” about continuing to fund this war, observed left-leaning Politico. This conflict has already killed or wounded a half-million soldiers and the practical effect of funding it is to keep Zelensky in power rather than give him an incentive to negotiate for peace.

CNN admitted over the summer that most Americans oppose Congress providing more funding for this war. Among Republicans, 71% oppose sending more money there.

Phyllis Schlafly correctly predicted in 1967 that President Lyndon B. Johnson could not be reelected if the Vietnam War continued through 1968. “Johnson’s political future depends on ending the war in some way,” she wrote 56 years ago in her book against the Deep State entitled Safe - Not Sorry.

That war did continue, and as now we were entangled in it without a full debate and formal declaration by Congress. Subsequently the otherwise invincible Johnson was humiliated in his own primary and forced to withdraw from the presidential race in order to be replaced as the Democrat nominee.

As the recession takes hold and deepens in the United States, Biden and Democrats will lose badly on Election Day next year if they continue to send money to fuel NATO’s agenda in Ukraine. They can avoid talking about the recession, but they cannot avoid voters’ wrath for advancing a pro-war globalist ideology rather than America First.

The average length of recessions after World War II has been 10 months, but the so-called Great Recession that swept Democrats into power in 2008 lasted 18 months while one in the early 1980s lasted 16 months. Ballots will be cast next year while Americans are unable to keep up with the spiraling inflation and interest rates.

Democrats talk of replacing Biden as their nominee because of his age, but an equally large problem for him is trying to defend his pro-war policies during a recession. Robbing Americans further to fund perpetual foreign violence during a recession is not a successful formula for Democrats to win an 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.