Legislative Pardons Should Correct Unfair DC Trials

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Only 5% of Washington, D.C. voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump in 2020, reflecting how thoroughly anti-Trump the jury pool is there. It appears impossible for anyone perceived to be a Trump supporter to receive a fair jury trial in D.C.

There is a 100% conviction rate by D.C. jurors of anyone associated with Trump, while there has been a 100% acquittal rate for prominent Democrats. The jury selection process in the trial of Steve Bannon included startling revelations of how much animosity people in government-funded D.C. have for Trump and his supporters. 

In his second term as president Donald Trump would finally dismantle the Deep State, and details are already circulating of his credible plan to replace tens of thousands of federal workers to make this happen. Some jurors may fear a loss of their government job if Trump returns to power, or sooner retaliation by liberals who might post home addresses of jurors who dared to vote in favor of Trump or his supporters.

It is often said that a prosecutor can lead a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and a D.C. jury might even convict that ham sandwich if it were associated with Trump. It may be impossible to find 12 people in D.C. who would not face some kind of retaliation if they were to side with a Trump-supporting defendant in a trial.

Retirees and housewives are typically the most independent-minded jurors, but there are few of them in D.C. Nearly every family in that city is dependent on government in some way for income, which is why Trump received only 5% of their votes in the last election.

Trump could not obtain a fair trial on anything in D.C., and Democrats are salivating at the possibility of charging him before a jury there. It would be like a presidential debate before moderators and an audience that were handpicked to be stacked 95% against Trump.

Democrats plan to checkmate Trump by getting him before a D.C. jury on unprecedented charges. Trump-hater Liz Cheney (R-WY) has been doing everything she can to push criminal charges against Trump, while time is running out for her with less than 3 weeks left before her primary in Wyoming.

Fortunately, the Constitution does not permit unfair checkmates. When one or two political branches abuse their power, as we watch the Democrat-controlled House improperly collaborating with the Justice Department, then frequent elections in the House and its ability to check-and-balance other branches should block the overreach.

Republicans are predicted to retake control of the House of Representatives in January. Republicans should announce now that they will reverse all injustices inflicted by the Pelosi-picked committee that pursued its jihad against Trump.

The Republican House should rescind all of the Democrats’ votes for contempt, and also vote that the subpoena on which Bannon was prosecuted was invalid when issued. This should require reversal of his conviction, and dismissal of the similar charges against Peter Navarro.

The House should then pass resolutions of pardon for every target of the Democrat-controlled Select Committee on January 6th, including Bannon and others who exercised their constitutional rights as supporters of Trump. A pardon of Trump is not needed at this time but by pardoning Bannon and others the House would signal a willingness to protect Trump against any politically motivated prosecution.

Our Founders intended for the House of Representatives to be the preeminent governmental body in our country, to wield powers far in excess of all other branches of government. No one can become a member of the House without being directly elected by the people, and members must stand for reelection every two years.

Revenue-raising bills can originate only in the House, in further reflection of the Founders’ intent to give it the greatest authority. The Constitution also authorizes the House to act alone when it impeaches a president, which is something Democrats exploited twice against President Trump.

Whether the House may act alone, or with the Senate, in issuing a legislative pardon has never been decided by a court of law. In 1974, the Justice Department’s highly respected Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) recognized the lack of any federal precedents on this issue, and gave an opinion supporting a legislative pardon power by Congress concerning the president but not generally of others.

The OLC’s view was that a president cannot judge and pardon himself because of the inherent conflict of interest, and by the same logic a president has a conflict of interest concerning declining a pardon to his political opponent. It falls upon the upcoming Republican House to exercise its legislative pardon power for Trump supporters, thereby ending the political prosecution strategy pursued by Democrats.

Tyranny-by-prosecution happens in dictatorships. House Republicans should now announce their plan to protect Trump and his supporters against this injustice.

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 Overcomes Boycott by Trump-Haters

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Pandering to the liberal media, the Professional Golfers’ Association last year canceled its big annual tournament that it had scheduled at a Trump golf course. This began the PGA-led boycott of Trump's top-ranked golf courses, to the delight of Trump-haters.

Golf courses are how Donald Trump earns a living. By boycotting his golf courses, the Left cuts off Trump’s income and his financial means of funding his legal defense and political work.

But now Trump overcomes their boycott. Next week his same PGA-rejected golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, will host an LIV tournament, and many of the top players have switched from the anti-Trump PGA to the pro-Trump LIV side.

Greg Norman, a supporter of Trump, is the CEO of LIV (pronounced as in “live free”). He will also hold another tournament this year at Trump's golf course in Miami, where tickets have already sold out.

Norman has assembled a group of Trump-friendly golfers who want to Make Golf Great Again. The anti-Trump media are treating the golfers with questions as hostile as those they ask Trump.

Hanging in the balance is whether the vicious liberal boycott of Trump’s properties – akin to a military blockade – will hold against Greg Norman’s valiant effort to breach it. The golfing world has suddenly become a proxy war over Trump’s political future.

The liberal media ambush golfers who have switched to LIV with odd questions about playing on Trump’s golf courses, which was never controversial before. “Lefty” Phil Mickelson, one of the greatest ever and the biggest name to join LIV, was impertinently asked last month, “How do you feel about playing on Trump courses?”

Implicit in that question is that someone should have qualms about playing on a golf course owned by Trump. Mickelson responded, “I care more about the quality of the test of golf, the quality of the golf course, the fan experience and their ability to see and view the golf, and the challenge of what the venue provides for the players.”

Liberals do not quit, and when reporters came after Mickelson with hostility again last week at the British Open, he became blunter in his response. “Let it go, dude. … I couldn’t be happier.”

Sergio Garcia, the Spanish golfer having many fans worldwide, played at a Trump charity golfing event nearly a decade ago after other celebrities began shunning Trump. Garcia switched to LIV, and on Monday he announced that he was leaving the hostile European circuit altogether.

The Scotland Open banned players who switched to the LIV-Trump side, but then a court issued an injunction allowing them to play. The prestigious Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia, has not yet banned any of the LIV players from its event next spring.

An outspoken critic of LIV, Rory McIlroy, was leading the British Open this past weekend to the delight of anti-Trumpers. Now called the Open Championship, this major tourney was played at the historic St. Andrews course in Scotland, where the game was invented 250 years ago.

But with a record-setting flourish of birdies on the final 9 holes, a 28-year-old Aussie named Cameron Smith won a stunning upset on Sunday. The liberal media were shocked when Smith implied that he, too, might be interested in joining LIV, and thereby playing in its Trump-course tournaments.

Trump-haters were also apoplectic when the black NBA great Charles Barkley, an outspoken supporter of Democrats, emphatically responded to a question about his interest in becoming a television commentator for LIV. “So, to answer your question, yes, I’m gonna 100 percent meet with LIV.”

Liberals made the United States dependent on Saudi oil, yet suddenly opponents of Trump have a problem with golfers being paid by it. Because LIV is funded by Saudi Arabian investments, liberals pretend that Trump is turning his back on victims of Saudi Arabia, including a murdered journalist and those who died in 9/11.

But if critics of Trump consistently object to Saudi Arabia, then they should have complained louder against the pilgrimages by Obama and Biden to the Saudi king, and protest buying Saudi oil. The public wants tournaments at Trump golf courses, and Trump spoke more against Saudi misconduct than any other president.

Greg Norman is doing for professional golf what needs to be done to the NFL and other professional sports whose executives are more liberal than their fans. Norman, who succeeded as a golfer with 331 weeks as the world's #1 player, is taking the game back from the liberal tyrants and restoring it to the fans and players.

Players should be able to compete in an LIV tournament at a Trump golf course without fear of retaliation by the liberal-controlled PGA, who Trump observed on Monday is the real “disloyal” group. Last one out of the anti-Trump PGA should turn out its lights.

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.

How Biden Stole the Election

Ann Coulter tells how prominent Democrats have a history of not accepting election results, and writes:

The real cheating in the 2020 election — and every other election in recent memory — wasn’t that Iran, China or Chavez were manipulating our voting machines. It wasn’t the ballot harvesting allegedly exposed in Dinesh D’Souza’s movie, “2,000 Mules.” It was what liberals were doing right in front of our faces.

Democrats have what are known as “unmotivated voters.” As such, they need battalions of “Get Out the Vote” activists to track down the bored and the lazy. (Yes, the same marginalized people whom liberals claim are having their lifelong dreams of voting dashed by GOP “voter suppression” schemes can’t be bothered to get out of bed on Election Day.)

Over the years, Democrats have lured their voters to the polls with a free ride, a box lunch and walking-around money — even a gurney, if that’s what it takes. Volunteers give the voters detailed, childlike instructions on exactly how to fill out their ballots. Luckily, unionized government workers have plenty of time on their hands to “organize” voters.

Without these sorts of military-style operations, the day after the election, Democrats will find out half their voters overslept and forgot to vote.

Consequently, COVID was like manna from heaven for the left. It provided the perfect excuse to demand even more time for volunteers to round up the uninterested. No-excuse absentee ballots, mail-in ballots, drop boxes, months of early voting — all of it: Advantage Democrats.

Until Republicans stop being pushovers and shut down all mail-in balloting, all early voting, all drop boxes, and pass a federal law requiring ONE DAY, a NATIONAL HOLIDAY, to vote (which is fully within Congress’ constitutional authority), Democrats have a gigantic, unfair advantage. That’s not cheating. It’s being smarter than Mitch McConnell.

Time’s Running Out for Democrats

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Joe Biden’s approval has continued to fall, despite the Democrats’ efforts to prop him up. In the latest New York Times/Siena poll, Biden’s approval rating is down to only 33%, which is far too low for Democrats to retain control of Congress or the White House.

Early voting for the midterm elections begins in less than 3 months, with the vacation month of August in between. Time has nearly run out for Democrats to save their sinking ship.

With both Houses under Democrat control, public confidence in Congress has fallen to only 7%, as measured by Gallup. Confidence in the mostly liberal television news networks has fallen to only 11%.

Democrats had been counting on televised congressional hearings about the pro-Trump rally at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to be the game-changer they need to retain power, but their strategy hasn’t worked. According to a new Harvard/Harris poll, 53% consider the hearings biased, 63% feel Congress should be working on more important matters, and 67% say the hearings are dividing our country.

The fizzling of implausible testimony against Trump has boomeranged against the J6 Committee. The nonpartisan Secret Service disavowed the accusations by the surprise witness Cassidy Hutchinson, whose bizarre hearsay testimony would not be allowed in a real court.

The much-ballyhooed testimony by former White House counsel Pat Cipollone was another nothing-burger. He testified that he thought Trump should have conceded the election, but Cipollone is no expert on election procedure and his uninformed opinion is irrelevant.

In December 2020, Trump supporter Patrick Byrne lambasted Cipollone, calling him a “leaker.” “Trump is lied to by his own advisers,” Byrne said then about Cipollone and others, after a meeting with them and Trump.

Flailing away, Democrats have since turned to a harmless Tweet sent out by Trump a half-month before January 6. After wasting many millions of taxpayer dollars and a year-and-a-half on this witch-hunt, anti-Trumpers resort to what was public on Trump’s own Twitter account all along.

Trump merely invited supporters to attend his own rally on January 6, which is not a crime. The harsh punishment of Trump supporters who participated in that peaceful assembly does not help Democrats.

New signs emerge that Democrats are turning against their own president. A startlingly negative assessment of Biden in Saturday’s New York Times, followed by a column there on Monday saying that he is too old to run again, suggest that Biden may become a scapegoat for liberals.

In fact, Biden is several years younger than Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, and Pelosi is younger than her own heir apparent, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Election fraud, not Biden’s age, may be why people overwhelmingly reject him now.

Biden was placed in the White House through rampant ballot harvesting and the use of unattended ballot drop boxes, which were just declared illegal by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. These ballot dumps, often in the middle of the night, were done by hired Democrat ballot harvesters in battleground states.

Attorney General Bill Barr refused to investigate or challenge these and other unlawful election procedures, but instead quit and thereby left his office vacant at a crucial time. During his recent book tour, Barr had the gall to blame Trump for not spending $20-30 million of his own money to do the job that Barr should have done at the Department of Justice.

As a result of his unjustified carping against Trump, Barr was subpoenaed by Dominion in its lawsuit against Fox News. Barr will be required to answer under oath whether he had personal knowledge about voting procedures exploited by Democrats in 2020, and he can explain under oath how he did nothing to investigate anomalous results.

Election integrity is an issue that too many Republican officials have run away from for far too long. Last week’s ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court vindicates Trump’s position that the 2020 election was conducted improperly.

The collapse in Biden’s ratings is not due to low unemployment or any desire for gun control, which Biden signed into law amid much fanfare a few weeks ago. His low approval rating may not even be due to his age.

Instead, Biden’s problem may be that many of the votes supposedly “cast” for him in 2020 were the result of paid ballot harvesters dumping ballots into illegal absentee drop boxes. Those ballots could have been filled in for “voters” who never felt any allegiance to Biden.

If more than 80 million Americans earnestly voted for Biden less than two years ago, then Biden would have more support today. If millions of ballots were filled in by paid ballot harvesters, Biden's low approval today is partly the result of too few people wanting him in the first place.

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.

How Biden Stole the Election in WIsconsin

Slate complains:

On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Republican majority outlawed ballot drop boxes by a 4–3 vote, abolishing a reform that had made voting easier and more accessible in the state. The lead opinion—authored by the notorious fringe-right reactionary Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley — contains alarming language casting doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. It also grants credence to the GOP’s collapsing “investigation” to prove that illegal votes put Biden over the top in Wisconsin. Without a shred of evidence, the court has thrown its weight behind a dangerous conspiracy theory that helped to fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection. ...

In her opinion for the court in Teigen, Justice Grassl Bradley declared that every single drop box was illegal, and every citizen who used this method cast a ballot illegally.

The court determined that Wisconsin law required voters to deliver their votes in person to the clerk. The votes cannot be collected by bundlers, or put in drop boxes.

The law is a good law, because the bundlers and drop boxes are not authenticated.

In other words, Biden stole the election in Winsocsin, and the Democrats were about to steal another. Pennsylvania and other states also used illegal vote collection methods.

Okay, you may say, didn't the J6 committee find that AG Bill Barr advised Trump that he had insufficient proof of fraud to reverse the official vote counts?\

Yes, he said that, but the WSJ just reported his explanation:

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told a podcast recently that Mr. Trump was duly warned to get solid lawyers working to defend business-as-usual voting processes. “One of his aides went in and said, look, you need to set up a fund of $20-30 million in escrow, because lawyers don’t trust you to pay their bills, and you need to get a top-flight firm in here,” Mr. Barr said. “He ignored that advice. He did not have a legal team prepared to go and fight around the country. So a lot of these, bending of the playing field, were his own fault.”

Got that? Barr was in charge of the US DoJ, and knew that the states were violating election law. But instead of using the DoJ to enforce election law, he told Trump to use his campaign money on a team of lawyers to privately enforce election law!

In retrospect, Trump should have filed a bunch of lawsuits before the election to enforce election law. He probably thought that it was unnecessary, and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would surely obey their own election law, and Republicans in those states were better positioned to see to it.

Back to Slate:

Electoral outcomes obtained by unlawful procedures corrupt the institution of voting” and “pollutes the integrity of the results.” Bradley complained that “hundreds of ballot drop boxes have been set up in past elections” and “thousands of votes have been cast via this unlawful method.” The alleged “illegality of these drop boxes weakens the people’s faith” in the election and calls “the results in question.”

She then went further: “If elections are conducted outside of the law,” she asserted, “the people have not conferred their consent on the government. Such elections are unlawful and their results are illegitimate.” The implication here could not be more obvious: The 2020 election was “unlawful,” so the results—and, specifically, Biden’s victory—are “illegitimate.”

Then Bradley drew a comparison between Wisconsin’s 2020 election and undemocratic, rigged contests in authoritarian nations. “Throughout history, tyrants have claimed electoral victory via elections conducted in violation of governing law,” she wrote, continuing:

For example, Saddam Hussein was reportedly elected in 2002 by a unanimous vote of all eligible voters in Iraq (11,445,638 people). Examples of such corruption are replete in history. In the 21st century, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was elected in 2014 with 100% of the vote while his father, Kim Jong-il, previously won 99.9% of the vote. Former President of Cuba, Raul Castro, won 99.4% of the vote in 2008 while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was elected with 97.6% of the vote in 2007. Even if citizens of such nations are allowed to check a box on a ballot, they possess only a hollow right. Their rulers derive their power from force and fraud, not the people’s consent.

This is correct. Even if you favor bundlers and drop boxes as legitimate ways to get more voters, they were not clearly auth orized by law, and they are not accepted by the public as being free and fair.

Liberal World Order: “As Long as it Takes”?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm,” declared Biden Administration official Brian Deese. “Liberal world order” is apparently what globalists meant all along when they spoke of a “new world order” and a “new normal.”

Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, uses the “Great Reset” to refer to the globalist vision for the future. The elite met there again in May to reassert their control over politics worldwide.

Expanding bloated NATO remains atop their agenda, by adding Sweden and Finland to its membership. This begins a process by which the United States promises to send troops to those countries if they are ever attacked, further entangling our country in the intractable conflicts of Europe.

Also called the "liberal international order," globalists insist on a system in which all the important decisions are made by phony experts who set norms of conduct without input or rejection by citizens of individual nation-states. The views of American voters are irrelevant under this scheme, as voters are then told we are bound by treaties and must participate in foreign wars.

“For as long as it takes” was the talking point chanted by Joe Biden to the press who followed him all the way to Madrid, Spain, to cover the NATO Summit to ask Biden questions he’s been avoiding. Ignoring Peter Doocy of Fox News, Biden referred to his cheat sheet and revealed that “I’m supposed to go down the list here.”

The first name on Biden’s list was an Associated Press reporter, who asked Biden about the recent pledge by the democratic G7 leaders to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” The AP reporter asked, “I’m wondering if you would explain what that means to the American people, ‘for as long as it takes’?”

“We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes,” Biden responded, without directly answering the question. “We are going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes to make sure that they are not defeated by Russia.”

Next on Biden’s list was a reporter from the Democrat-friendly New York Times, who asked Biden how his plan to cap Russian exports would affect the high price of gasoline in the United States. “Are you confident that that cap would bring down prices for American drivers?”

“How long is it fair to expect American drivers to pay a premium because of this war?” Biden apparently did not understand this simple question, so the reporter had to repeat it. “The war has pushed prices up,” the Times reporter continued, although gas prices were already rising before the war began. “How long is it fair to expect American drivers to pay that premium for this war?”

“As long as it takes,” Biden chanted again like a trained parrot, “so Russia cannot defeat Ukraine. This is a critical position for the world. Why do we have NATO?” Let’s hope no one asks Putin or Biden why he has nuclear missiles.

With that circular reasoning based on the mere existence of the unproductive NATO expanded more than it should be, Biden declared “I’m outta here.” He then ignored a roomful of reporters including Fox's Doocy who shouted questions as he left the stage.

NATO’s original purpose was to protect Western Europe from invasion by the Soviet Union, but that Communist nation disintegrated 30 years ago. Originally consisting of 12 countries, NATO membership increases to an unmanageable 32 with the addition of Sweden and Finland, and their admission doubles the length of the tense land border between NATO and Russia from 754 miles to 1,584 miles.

Biden will not defend our southern border, so he should not be committing Americans to defend a long border with Russia that is being doubled in length. “There’s going to be a new world order out there,” Biden told CEOs at the Business Roundtable on March 21, “and we’ve got to lead it,” though he never explained why.

Standing firm for the “liberal world order” is the defense asserted by the Biden Administration to $5 per gallon in gas. That was its response to a good question posed by CNN, “What do you say to those families who say, ‘Listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years. This is just not sustainable’?”

Conservative Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), fresh from her landslide primary victory against an all-out attempt by liberals to unseat her, criticized Democrats for imposing higher gas prices to prop up a liberal world order. “The White House openly stated that you’re just going to have to pay more in gas so that they can hold the ‘liberal world order,’” Boebert tweeted.

The cat is out of the bag: higher gas prices are due to Democrats’ insistence on a liberal world order. No thanks to that.

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.

Not a Muscular States-Rights Federalism

The NY Times reports:

The tearing at the seams has been accelerated by the six-vote conservative majority in the Supreme Court, which has embraced a muscular states-rights federalism. In the past 10 days the court has erased the constitutional right to an abortion, narrowed the federal government’s ability to regulate climate-warming pollution and blocked liberal states and cities from barring most of their citizens from carrying concealed guns outside of their homes.

None of these decisions have anything to do with states-rights, or a muscular states-rights federalism.

Wikipedia says:

Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a loaded term or dog whistle

It explains that it is a code word used by racist Democrats.

Roe Reversal Is the Decision of the Century

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“I never like to take credit for anything,” Donald Trump told a hostile reporter last month. “God made the decision,” he added recently about the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Let’s give credit where it is due: Trump went 3-for-3 on his Supreme Court nominees on the pro-life issue, and Republican Never-Trumpers were wrong to oppose him. In less than six years Trump achieved the overturning of Roe that stymied Republicans for a half-century, a feat no other Republican president attained.

All three of Trump’s High Court nominees were needed for this 5-4 margin of victory in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, to reverse Roe entirely. Justices Alito and Thomas deserve special gratitude for courageously leading their 3 new colleagues against the scourge of Roe that has long been the raison d'etre and sacred cow of the Left.

Many others, too numerous to list, deserve thanks for this spectacular triumph. Included in that list should be all who supported Trump in 2016 and all who support him now against retaliation by the Left.

Without Roe, liberals have no authority anymore for their campaigns that promote abortion. Without Roe, Democrat politicians no longer have a basis for continuing to loot taxpayers to fund abortion, which many Americans oppose.

Democrat politicians threaten political consequences over this decision, but none is likely now as may have occurred 30 years ago. Today Democrat politicians are heavily dependent on demographic groups that do not support abortion, and will not be more likely to vote for a candidate who advocates for it.

The media portrays a new War Among the States over this issue, but if so then it is a war that the pro-abortion states will lose by their declining population. Already red states gained many new congressional seats and electoral college votes in the latest census due to migration, and with pro-life laws going into effect their population growth will continue to outpace the blue states.

As the majority on the Court pointed out in its splendid decision, states were long allowed to prohibit abortion for most of our country’s history, including when the 14th Amendment was adopted. Most states did outlaw abortion, and the recent Court decision allows a return to pro-life laws that existed before Roe.

The Constitution contains nothing that supports abortion, the Court properly held. The Roe v. Wade decision was severely flawed in numerous ways that the Court picked apart.

Without a solid historical basis for legal abortion in the United States dating back at least to the 1800s, there were never any valid grounds for finding a constitutional right to it. At the time of Roe v. Wade, the national consensus was against abortion rather than in favor of it, so that could not justify creating a new constitutional right to it either.

Several states are already benefiting from a boost in carrying pregnancies to term and childbirth by prohibiting abortion. While the abortion industry has started filing lawsuits in state courts to block pro-life laws, states such as Alabama have constitutional provisions prohibiting any creation of a right to abortion.

“Trigger laws” in nearly a dozen states automatically restore bans on abortion in anticipation of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade. There is a slight delay in some of those states to await official certification of the Supreme Court ruling before unborn children are saved by this automatic ban.

This reversal of Roe creates an historic opportunity for conservatives to attract more young voters, who are increasingly pro-life. This is perhaps the only issue where young people are more conservative than their parents, and fan favorites such as Justin Bieber and Tim Tebow are outspokenly pro-life.

The only real argument by supporters of Roe v. Wade is to abide by how the Court had previously ruled, a doctrine known as “stare decisis,” but the conservative justices shredded that as inapplicable to a decision as unjustified as Roe was. Moreover, Phyllis Schlafly kept the Equal Rights Amendment out of the Constitution, so that could not help abortion although liberals filed last-ditch arguments to invoke the never-ratified amendment.

The Court correctly shut the door on the argument that abortion must be allowed in order for women to enjoy the equal protection of the laws. If a new Equal Rights Amendment attempts to create a right to abortion, then under this ruling it would have to do so explicitly, which would never pass.

The three Justices appointed by Trump referred to the “unborn” child more than a dozen times, while the Justices appointed by Clinton and Obama did not use that term even once in their long-winded dissent. The future belongs to the unborn, as the Court majority recognized and held in reversing Roe, and America will benefit from contributions by those not aborted.

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.

End Vaccine Mandates for Summer Travel

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last Friday was the busiest travel day of the year so far, but hundreds of thousands of airline passengers were stranded by flight cancellations. Including last Thursday, more than 35,000 flights in the United States were canceled or delayed over the holiday weekend.

Nearly a third of all flights last Thursday and Friday were late in arriving. At least those travelers ultimately reached their destination, except where delays caused passengers to miss a connecting flight and then be stuck overnight in an unfamiliar city.

Hundreds of passengers were grounded at the Atlanta airport for more than 24 hours. One mother with an 11-month-old daughter was stranded without infant formula, which had gone with their checked bag to Omaha.

The delays and cancellations continued into Monday, when more than 3,000 flights bound for or departing in the U.S. were delayed, while another 370 flights were canceled by 5 p.m. ET. Thanks to public tracking by the website FlightAware, the government cannot hide this travesty.

Media stories fail to report on the underlying reason. The primary cause is not weather or similar routine disruptions, but ripple effects caused by vaccine mandates demanded by the Biden Administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Like many Americans, pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are saying “no” to vaccine mandates by not showing up for work, leaving travelers deserted at airports. Neither Biden nor any Democrat has been willing to admit, four months from perhaps the biggest election of our lifetime, that their vaccine mandates were a mistake.

“A variety of factors continue to impact our operations, including challenges with air traffic control, weather, and unscheduled absences in some work groups,” was the official explanation by Delta, which canceled the most flights this past weekend. Other airlines have had numerous cancellations at other times this year.

“Unscheduled absences in some work groups” is a euphemism for disruptions caused by vaccine mandates. Public opposition to Biden’s vaccine mandates is hurting his approval rating and harming Democrats’ chances of holding onto control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.

Last year the pilots’ unions warned that vaccine mandates against them would result in travel chaos for many Americans, and it has. Yet airline executives failed to stand up against the Biden Administration’s demand for universal vaccination, perhaps because the executives are heavily dependent on direct subsidies from the federal government totaling more than $50 billion last year for pandemic relief.

With their credibility at stake, the public health authorities continue to insist on mandatory vaccination for the military, for federal workers, for some schoolchildren, and for pilots and other airline employees. These mandates persist despite how the fully vaccinated, boosted, and masked-up Dr. Anthony Fauci recently caught Covid anyway.

Past and future presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg threatened even more tyranny from his position as the Secretary of Transportation, which oversees the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He says he can order the airlines to hire more workers, as if he knew how to find and train the highly skilled and dedicated people who safely operate America’s air travel network.

Buttigieg himself saw his flight from Washington, D.C., to New York City canceled this past weekend, and he drove the mere 225 miles instead. That option is not available to most travelers who are unexpectedly stranded by a canceled flight, and the astronomical cost of gasoline discourages driving anyway.

The airline travel chaos “is happening to a lot of people, and that is exactly why we are paying close attention here to what can be done and how to make sure that the airlines are delivering,” Buttigieg pompously declared. But he fails to get at the root of the problem, and instead treats this as an opportunity to expand government control of an industry that was working just fine when President Trump left office.

More regulation to try to solve a problem caused by overregulation makes no sense, and would lead to more subsidies by taxpayers of big corporations. Having the federal government dictate how many employees private airlines should have would be a wrong turn on the runway.

Meanwhile the Biden Administration pushes harder to impose Covid vaccination on everyone. On Friday FDA vaccine advisers voted 21-0 for children younger than 5 years to receive the Covid vaccine.

This affects infants as young as six months, with unknown long-term consequences. In April, a poll showed that only 18% of parents wanted to have the Covid vaccine given to their infant children.

A vaccine cannot be licensed unless its safety and effectiveness is proven by six months of data, but only two months are required under an emergency use authorization. As with adults and teenagers, the FDA exploits this same loophole to urge Covid vaccination of infants, despite how there is no genuine emergency for young children to receive this controversial vaccine.

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 says Election was Stolen

Donald Trump has released a statement, opposing the J^ House show:

Stop the Count

On Election Night, America watched as my lead grew and grew over Joe Biden, as I was set to claim another victory. By the morning of November 4th, the day after the Election, I led by 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania,1 300,000 in Michigan,2 and hundreds of thousands in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin.3 Then, the same “little dictators” who destroyed the separation of powers made the treasonous decision to stop counting.4 These same states, who had counted millions of ballots in a single day, had to stop counting in order to count a few hundred thousand ballots over the next four days to call the race on November 7th.

Why would it take four more days to count a few hundred thousand votes when they had counted millions in one day? They needed time to traffic the ballots and manipulate the outcome of the Election. The Swamp was so determined to keep their stranglehold on power that they delayed the results of the Election so that they could find, manufacture, or produce more ballots, after they knew how many they needed to beat me. They cheated! There’s no reasonable explanation for why it took so much longer to count the few remaining ballots as opposed to the millions on Election Day – other than they needed to traffic more ballots, and it took four days to produce the ballots and do it. They couldn’t have done it without an elaborate ballot trafficking scheme.

If the J6 congressmen were honest, they would address what Trump says.

All of the voting and counting should be done on election day. There is no good explanation for doing it any other way, and no way to trust the outcome if it takes many days.

Pork and Injustice in Senate Gun Control Bill

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

With fanfare, a gun control compromise was announced by the U.S. Senate on Sunday and its supporters seek passage by the end of next week. But instead of addressing the recent mass shootings, this legislation wastes billions of dollars in handouts to liberal groups while advancing feminist ideology.

The mass shootings had nothing to do with alleged domestic violence. Yet a central part of this gun control bill is to broaden a lifetime deprivation of Second Amendment rights of men subjected to accusations by women.

Teenage boys are the worst perpetrators of the mass shootings, who typically lack any relationships with girls. Yet the Senate gun control bill jeopardizes rights and reduces job opportunities for men who have been accused by women of unwanted touching, as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was.

Ten Republican Senators, four of whom are retiring now at relatively young ages, support this gun control bill. None of the other six are up for reelection this year, and half of them include perennial anti-Trumpers Mitt Romney (R-UT), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

The 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate will block passage unless all ten Republicans cross over to the Democrat side on this. After wasting $54 billion on Leftist politicians in Ukraine, allocating billions more to Leftist groups in our country may not seem like much.

But a billion dollars to push enactment of gun control at the state level, such as euphemistically named “red flag” laws that can be misused, could improperly go toward tipping the scales in close elections. The billions of dollars in new funding for mental health clinics would not have prevented the recent shootings by defiant teenagers.

If mental health experts cannot distinguish between men and women, how could they reliably identify potential killers? In some cases mental health clinics can be a means to take children away from good parents, or install mental health testing in public schools to detect and deflect conservative political attitudes.

Couching feminist ideology in gender-biased terminology, the legislation seeks to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to cause lifetime deprivations of Second Amendment rights. A spat with a girlfriend, as many popular athletes, politicians, and others have once had, would then be misused to stigmatize and exclude for life these men from ever holding a job that entails carrying a gun.

The Lautenberg Amendment, enacted in 1996, already denies for life the Second Amendment rights of any man ever convicted of a minor misdemeanor domestic violence charge, which is sometimes broadly defined to include even offensive touching of one’s wife. Now Democrats want to expand this to enable any girlfriend to make a false accusation that could result in men being barred for life from jobs in the military, police, or other gun-carrying professions.

Johnny Depp spent millions of dollars and several years of his life to clear his name of false domestic violence accusations. But most men are unwilling or unable to do that, instead accepting a misdemeanor plea bargain; they should not permanently lose their constitutional rights and job opportunities because of it.

Gun control zealots want to expand the draconian Lautenberg Amendment, even though it would not have prevented any of the recent mass shootings by teenage boys. The Senate bill would deprive men for life of Second Amendment rights based on a mere restraining order requested by a girlfriend, which is often issued based on an unproven accusation and without a hearing for the accused.

Many injustices already arise under current law when a man does not realize that a misdemeanor offense from decades ago senselessly makes it unlawful to possess a gun for his own defense today. Rather than be warned about this or moderately fined, he faces mandatory imprisonment for owning a gun for self-defense merely because of an obscure federal law.

Harsh penalties in this draft gun control bill would be enforced by inflexible federal courts, and a bill proposed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) seeks 5-year mandatory minimum sentences for a gun peacefully carried by someone having a minor outdated offense. Some judges like locking up someone for a long time for the “offense” of harmlessly carrying a gun, based on an outdated misdemeanor triggering a deprivation of his Second Amendment rights.

Older men, husbands, and fathers are not the people who have been committing these horrific shootings. Teenagers addicted to video games are the culprits, yet this supposedly bipartisan legislation is silent about that.

Gun rights were unjustifiably taken away from peaceful participants in the Trump rally on January 6. One who pled guilty to a minor misdemeanor petitioned the judge to restore her gun rights, which the Trump-appointed judge granted but was criticized for it by the media.

Pouring billions of dollars into Leftist groups to advocate for state gun control laws, funding bigger mental health clinics, and imprisoning older men due to an unproven domestic accusation or minor misdemeanor will do nothing to stop mass shootings by teenagers.

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.

J6 Propaganda Show Won’t Stop Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

While Trump-endorsed candidates win stunning primary victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democrats and the liberal media go all out with a propaganda hearing to air Thursday evening at 8pm Eastern. ABC, CBS, NBC, and every other network except Fox gang up with the same futile goal: to try to stop one man, Donald Trump.

Americans have already heard and rejected the anti-Trumpers’ fraudulent spin on last year’s January 6 rally at the U.S. Capitol, and the public has long since moved on. More Americans prefer Trump to Biden now, as we struggle to cope with the “Bidenflation,” another foreign war, and many other problems.

But rather than address real issues facing our country, Democrats and Liz Cheney (R-WY) resort to their theater of the absurd. They will present their tedious, biased version of January 6, while Tucker Carlson will compete with an honest explanation of what happened.

The U.S. Capitol is a public building, and video evidence shows that police officers opened an entrance to welcome the rally-goers inside on January 6. Other video evidence shows uncharged individuals who infiltrated a peaceful crowd and incited confrontations that day, yet government witnesses refuse to explain the active role of government agents and informants.

Liz Cheney is not a Hollywood actress, and should not embarrass herself by trying to be one. No amount of make-up can transform her dog-and-pony show into anything more than an amateurish county fair skit.

Desperate people do desperate things, and no one is more desperate than Cheney now as she faces a rebuke by Wyoming voters in her primary in two months. She is delusional if she thinks Wyoming voters support her never-ending jihad against Trump.

Congress lacks credibility with the American public, and few are fooled by its fake, self-serving investigations. The Pelosi-led House has failed to gain traction with its headline-grabbing subpoenas, contempt citations, and silly disclosures of old text messages.

A reality show about how the Deep State mistreats January 6 activists would have higher television ratings. Video from the “D.C. Gulag,” where patriots who exercised their First Amendment rights at the Capitol remain incarcerated under inhumane conditions without a trial, would attract a larger audience.

The first witnesses at the upcoming prime-time hearing should be the provocateurs who were never arrested or charged. They need to be asked why they incited the crowd, and who paid them to do that. Federal agents spend too much of their time in undercover work that borders on entrapment, eliciting alleged criminal conduct that never would have occurred without their incitement. The recent jury acquittals of men accused of trying to kidnap the Michigan governor was a repudiation of government sting operations.

The next witnesses at the upcoming J6 hearing should be the many innocent people who entered the Capitol to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights. The public should hear about the toll that the Deep State infringement on their constitutional rights has taken on them and their families.

A real hearing would invite testimony by Trump supporters abused in the DC Gulag, who could be brought into the hearing room in shackles and chains. Then the public would benefit from testimony by their family members about how difficult this ordeal has been for them.

Television ratings might perk up from abysmally low levels if the colorful Shaman were invited to appear in costume. He was callously sentenced to nearly 3.5 years in prison for the “crime” of his entertaining protest against Vice President Mike Pence, who had planned to fly to Israel that same day rather than listen to Trump supporters.

Viewership would perk up by inviting testimony from the guy who declared he “broke the internet” by carrying off Pelosi’s podium. That was genuine entertainment by the stay-at-home dad Adam Johnson, for which he received a 75-day prison sentence, and rewatching those images would attract a larger audience than the communist-style show hearing that Pelosi and Cheney will air.

A television audience might gather if there were candid testimony about the DOJ’s biased practice of prosecuting conservatives more harshly than liberals. The unfair sentencing recommendations by the DOJ of J6 participants was criticized by federal judge Trevor McFadden: “The U.S. Attorney’s Office would have more credibility if it was evenhanded in its concern about riots and mobs in the city.”

Democrats and Liz Cheney are in panic mode now a mere 4 months away from early voting for the midterm elections. If the negative 13-point approval/disapproval rating of Biden persists then it will be a Republican landslide, which Democrats are trying anything to avert.

Fortunately, Americans dislike propaganda shows. Trump’s post-show mockery of the Pelosi-Cheney charade will be more worthwhile and interesting.

Congress was humiliated by the public on January 6. But Congress has not learned, and steps into more embarrassment for itself.

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.

Where’s the Praise of Heroic Border Patrol?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Border patrol agents were the heroes who risked their own lives to intercede during the shooting at the Uvalde elementary school, located merely 70 miles from the border. These agents defied requests by local police to stand down, and they stormed the classroom to save lives by killing the assailant.

These heroes recognized this as a suicide mission, because the 18-year-old shooter had barricaded himself inside to kill whoever tried to stop him. Highly trained by playing many hours of violent video games as teenage shooters do, the assailant probably sought to rack up his "score" by killing as many as possible.

One of these valiant border patrol agents took a bullet to his head as fired by the assailant before the agents killed him. The bullet pierced the agent's baseball cap and the skin of his scalp -- there was not enough time to obtain protective gear -- and he needed four stitches later to patch his wound.

Yet missing is national praise for these border patrol agents who put themselves in peril to save children. Biden should be immediately granting them Presidential Medals of Honor, as Trump would have already done by now.

Our border agents should know that their heroism will be recognized, especially when they go above and beyond the call of duty. Instead, an unhelpful blame game against local law enforcement is being played by the media.

On Saturday, Trump held in Wyoming the biggest rally in its history, as the crowd overflowed a 10,000-seat arena. That is an immense crowd in the sparsely populated state where a total of only 267,000 voted in the last presidential election.

Trump earns credit for Ken Paxton's 68-32% victory over George P. Bush in the runoff for Attorney General of Texas, which ends the Karl Rove-Bush era in the GOP. Trump pointed out at the rally how weak George W. Bush was in failing to pardon a high-profile victim of a political prosecution, Scooter Libby, the top adviser to Bush's Vice President Dick Cheney.

Trump himself had to correct that injustice by pardoning Libby in 2018, a decade after Bush should have done it. Bush’s effete record on political prosecutions may have weighed down George P. Bush in his race against Paxton in a state called home by two presidents named Bush and a large Houston airport bearing the Bush name.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) tried to help George P. Bush by criticizing Paxton for being under indictment, but that tactic only seemed to backfire. Voters realize now how politicized prosecutions are, and the indictment of a Republican may simply mean that he is being effective.

Bush and Cheney also refused to pardon two other courageous border patrol agents, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos (no relation to the school shooter), and merely commuted their prison sentences after a Bush-appointed prosecutor locked them up for decade-long terms for defending our border. The Biden Administration continued the abuse of border patrol agents by wrongly accusing horseback agents of using whips to corral illegal aliens.

Phyllis Schlafly was highly critical of the prosecutions of border patrol agents Ramos and Compean, who were punished based on a confrontation in 2005 with an illegal alien who was smuggling a million dollars-worth of illegal marijuana across our border. Trump granted those border patrol agents the full pardons that they deserved, and they never should have been prosecuted in the first place.

Trump also commuted the sentence of former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), who received a grossly unjust 10-year prison sentence over a dispute about fundraising. Trump pardoned many other victims of political prosecutions, and promises to pardon more when he returns to the White House.

The Department of Justice refuses to accept any oversight or accountability, and its Biden-appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland called on the FBI to investigate parents who object to a Leftist curriculum at their public schools. Rather than immediately honor the heroic patrol agents in Uvalde, the Biden Administration is apparently investigating what happened instead.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said to Garland after learning about parents being targeted by government, “This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful. Thank God, you’re not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, judge.”

Meanwhile, some Democrats and perhaps anti-Trump Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) hope for an indictment of Donald Trump, which would be improperly politically motivated. It would backfire on the Democrats and Cheney if such a stunt is attempted against Trump, just as political misuse of an indictment of Paxton backfired against his opponents.

Democrats who exploit the criminal justice system to obtain unjustified indictments for political reasons should be put on notice by Paxton’s landslide victory while under indictment. The corruption is in politically motivated prosecutions, not in the Republican candidates they target.

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.

Out-of-Touch Globalists Seek NATO Expansion

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Amid chaos on many fronts, globalists march forward into the night. Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum convening in Davos, Switzerland, welcomed fellow globalists with this: “The future is built by us, by a powerful community, as you, here in this room.”

Meanwhile in the United States we face soaring gas prices, shortage of baby formula, and the highest inflation seen in 40 years. The global elite would find more reality than their self-aggrandizing meeting if they drove to nearby France for the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival, where Tom Cruise drew a five-minute standing ovation for his new Reagan-era movie, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Covid restrictions were rescinded for this film festival, and the French Open in tennis is not banning the top men’s player for being unvaccinated, as Australian authorities did. Over the weekend, Australian voters rejected the Fauci-like policies of lockdowns and vaccination, by defeating their ruling party such that its Covid-dictatorial prime minister, Scott Morrison, resigned Saturday.

Democrat incumbents should brace for the same defeat here, with the average price of regular-grade gasoline spiking in the last two weeks by 33 cents to a kneecapping $4.71 per gallon. Baby formula is widely unavailable in the United States now, while Congress instead sends our money to Ukraine.

The unelected globalists convening in Switzerland plot their next moves to entangle us further in foreign conflicts. High on their list is to add Sweden and Finland to NATO, thereby provoking Russia even further.

Turkey has already vetoed this, which it has the right to do, but globalists do not take “no” for an answer. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) insist on pushing this expansion anyway.

Donald Trump lifted McConnell to reelection in 2020 when Trump won Kentucky with 62%, having coattails that pulled McConnell up to 58% against a spirited, $90-million-funded challenger. Without gratitude, McConnell rejects Trump’s “America First” principles and probably resents Trump’s greater popularity.

McConnell-led senators voted against oversight and transparency for the $40 billion in new American funds to be sent to Ukraine’s “NGO regime,” a web of shadowy non-governmental organizations unaccountable to voters and taxpayers. Billions will thereby flow to Leftist groups, some likely associated with George Soros, to promote liberal politics in Europe and possibly even back here in the U.S.

Indeed, we have already seen much clamoring for Poland to rescind its pro-life laws in order to accommodate liberal politics for the 3 million Ukrainian refugees charitably accepted by that country. A tiny fraction of the $40 billion blank check might be enough to flip conservative Poland to the Soros side.

Hungary’s conservative president, Viktor Orbán, was just reelected for the fourth time in a landslide, and he has criticized the globalist approach to the Russian-Ukraine war. The European Union is not supposed to impose embargoes unless there is unanimous consent, and Hungary does not consent to an embargo by the EU on Russian oil.

The U.S. Constitution requires a 2/3rds vote in the Senate in order to ratify any treaty, such as the proposal to expand NATO at this perilous time. This Treaty Clause is the provision in our Constitution most hated by globalists, and there should be conservative opposition to any attempt to ratify treaties to entangle us further in the European conflicts.

Polling data does not support what the globalists are doing to our country. A CBS News Poll taken over the weekend reveals an astounding 69% of Americans say that our economy is “fairly bad” or “very bad," most of whom chose the "very bad" description.

By a 53-47% margin, Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling the Russia-Ukraine war, and by a 70-30% margin Americans disapprove of his handling of inflation. Fully 74% of Americans feel things are going somewhat or very badly.

Yet McConnell and the attendees of the World Economic Forum do not seem to have gotten the memo. Some Republican primary candidates have gained support by criticizing McConnell, including Mo Brooks in Alabama to rejuvenate his campaign and Eric Greitens in Missouri to remain competitive there.

Democrat Party voters are also toppling the globalists. The Establishment-preferred Democrat candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, clean-cut Rep. Conor Lamb, lost by a landslide 33 points to a tattooed stroke victim whom no one would mistake for a globalist.

In Oregon where ballots are still being counted from a week ago, globalism supporter and 7-term Democrat Rep. Kurt Schrader apparently lost to a school board member who criticized D.C. politicians for not addressing American needs. Incumbents were also surprisingly defeated in state legislative races in Kentucky and Pennsylvania last Tuesday.

Challengers are emphasizing how out-of-touch Congressmen are today. Biden and congressional leadership seem intent on sending endless cash to Ukraine without any accountability, and focusing on expanding NATO to provoke still more military conflict.

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.

Violent Video Games Unleash More Terror

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“He was definitely into video games - shooter games,” a classmate observed about the Buffalo grocery-store mass murderer. A British tabloid reported this truth about the tragic massacre, while liberal American media hid this crucial detail from their one-sided accounts.

Classmates confirm his devotion to online streaming video games, but internet trolls quickly shouted down anyone suggesting this link. Even a black former lineman for the Green Bay Packers was forced to delete a tweet pointing out the obvious similarity between what happened in Buffalo and the shooter video games.

In a rare split a decade ago between Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, Scalia held that violent video games are free speech fully protected by the First Amendment. Only two members of that 5-4 majority creating this constitutional right remain on the court, one of whom, Elena Kagan, has since publicly doubted her support of that bad decision.

Justice Alito, who reportedly wrote the strong first draft to overturn Roe v. Wade in the pending abortion case, did not endorse a First Amendment right to train teenage boys to maim and kill, as many video games do. Neither did Justices Thomas and Roberts, and they would likely rein in the exploitation by the $60 billion video game industry. By comparison, the film industry had box office receipts of only $11 billion at its peak, in 2019, before the Covid pandemic caused movie revenue to drop sharply. Meanwhile, the video game industry surged in revenue during the pandemic, as more teenage boys stayed in their rooms playing these games for many more hours each day.

Video game playing is up 14% over its already-high levels in 2020, such that the average player wastes nearly 8.5 hours weekly on video games. A quarter of all players spend more than 12 hours per week on these games, which is enough time to hold a part-time job or learn a useful skill instead.

The next time you’re waiting endlessly on hold for customer service, you might wonder if the workers are playing video games instead. One survey found that 14% of respondents play video games daily during work hours.

Binge gaming, which may be a key factor in mass shootings, has also increased by 13% since 2020. A third of gamers say that they sometimes play for five hours in a row, which further desensitizes them to the depravity of killing someone.

Few doubt the enormous influence of Hollywood on culture and politics, but the video game industry is many times larger and more consequential. In video games, spectators do not merely watch while eating popcorn, but are drawn into the game as participants who win or lose based on how many people they kill.

The accused upstate New York shooter, Payton Gendron, who is only 18 years old, dressed up like a character found in violent video games to which millions of teenage boys are addicted. He wore camouflage and a helmet as can be seen in images from “Call of Duty,” one of the most popular shooter games having billions of dollars in sales.

He has no military training and yet ruthlessly killed with horrific efficiency, just as a “gamer” is trained to do by these shooter games. Being shot at by a security guard did not faze him, as these games train players to continue shooting rapidly in order to score as many points as possible.

The deadly skills developed and encouraged by playing thousands of hours of shooter games make it more difficult to stop a player when he goes on a real rampage. The heroic security guard at the Buffalo grocery store, a retired police officer, repeatedly shot the intruder only to be killed himself by the teenager trained by shooter video games to quickly fire back.

Young men at age 18 should be learning skills to become productive members of society. Gendron is apparently from a strong family having parents who are civil engineers, so familiar arguments about broken families leading to crime do not explain this shooting rampage by a privileged young man.

This was not the only mass shooting over the weekend. In Milwaukee, gunmen opened fire on a crowd of 300 to 500 people after game six of the NBA playoffs between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics.

Police complained about understaffing to handle such violence in a rowdy crowd, which resulted in 17 people being shot, none fatally. But understaffing of urban police does not fit the liberal narrative, either.

Republicans are obviously not to blame for these mass shootings, and should lead to address the contributing causes of addictive violent video games and understaffing police departments. The demagoguery by Democrats in exploiting these tragedies does not help prevent them.

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.

Fauci’s Next Lockdown Victim: Free Speech

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Anthony Fauci delivered a bizarre commencement address on Saturday at the University of Michigan, where he implied freedom of speech should be the next lockdown target. After botching the Covid pandemic, team Fauci needs a backup plan to reduce their accountability in the upcoming midterm elections.

Fauci sang from the same song sheet recently used by other officials in the Biden Administration. Their top priority has become to control information and demonize those who dare to question the powers-that-be, in order to limit the political fallout that would otherwise drive liberals out of office.

“It is our collective responsibility not to sink to a tacit acceptance of the normalization of untruths,” Fauci urged the impressionable young college graduates. Ironically, this was a combined graduation of several years for students who were denied a timely commencement ceremony because of the very misguided restraints imposed by Fauci.

A generation ago, liberal speakers urged college graduates to embark on the lifelong pursuit of free inquiry that they were supposedly encouraged by higher education to embrace. Today’s liberals urge the opposite approach, to lock down debate and criticism of anything contrary to what Leftist elites dictate.

There Fauci stood, maskless, giving a pompous address that lasted not even 15 minutes in bestowing his words of wisdom during this so-called Comeback Commencement. Much of America has predictably stopped listening to Fauci altogether, and as recently as two weeks ago he had to reverse his statement that the pandemic was over because the White House tells us the opposite.

Apparently not even the almighty media can restore credibility to a man who has so often contradicted himself. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, Fauci disparaged mask-wearing as paranoid, and after the pandemic began he criticized drug store masks as ineffective, yet before long Fauci became insistent on mandatory mask mandates, even for schoolchildren having little to fear from Covid.

Fauci has demanded mandatory vaccination but recently the federal government had to reverse its recommendation for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of the severe injuries it apparently causes. Last week federal agencies finally admitted to 60 confirmed cases of a deadly clotting disorder known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome associated with this vaccine.

The chant by public health authorities of “anecdotal” and “no evidence” of harm caused by Covid vaccines finally stopped last week as the government confirmed nine deaths from this vaccine adverse effect. It took the federal government more than a year to admit to this vaccine-related harm after it was identified in early April 2021, then recognized but deliberately ignored by the Biden Administration.

On Sunday, despite being fully vaccinated with boosters, New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul tweeted to the public that she just tested positive for Covid. Cases have recently risen in New York to high rates not seen since January.

Against this backdrop, a new $10 billion spending bill for Covid has stalled in Congress, as congressional leaders instead focus on sending four times as much money to the corrupt government of Ukraine. It remains to be seen how congressmen will explain to voters this fall that they prioritized sending money to perpetuate a distant war before helping Americans against Covid.

Fauci’s odd phrase decrying a “tacit acceptance of the normalization of untruths” sounds eerily like the Disinformation Governance Board that was revealed on April 27 by another functionary in the Biden Administration. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, spilled the beans about that Orwellian agency in his testimony to Congress.

Last Friday, the commencement speaker at the University of Minnesota Medical School graduation was Andy Slavitt, MBA, who was a senior Covid advisor to Biden. Slavitt had criticized President Trump’s approach in 2020, while praising liberal New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for his tightfisted extreme lockdown.

But many more Americans have died from the coronavirus under Biden than under Trump, and a tidal wave of new infections is predicted. The latest estimate is that 100 million Americans will be infected by coronavirus this fall, which may be rattling the economy now. Despite this, Biden demands that Congress place greater importance on rushing $40 billion in new funding to Ukraine before helping Americans harmed by Biden’s mishandling of the Covid pandemic.

Mandatory vaccination has not averted the continued harm caused to millions of Americans by the Chinese coronavirus. There is a loss in credibility by public health officials, who long pushed forced vaccination and masking that appears to have accomplished nothing or worse.

Perhaps realizing that the public no longer believes the sermonizing by Fauci and others, Democrats shift their game plan to control information and silence dissent. Fewer will realize how badly the socialists’ approach to the Covid pandemic has failed if criticism of it is marginalized and blocked.

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.

Most Extreme in American History

Wash. Examiner:

President Joe Biden said a leaked draft opinion striking down federal abortion rights could prompt legal changes that threaten the rights of gay and transgender children in schools.

The leaked opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, drafted by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, could endanger other liberal precedents, Biden said.

“What happens if you have changes in the law saying that children who are LGBTQ can't be in classrooms with other children?” Biden asked during a Q&A session with reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “Is that legit under the way the decision is written?” ...

“What are the next things that are going to be attacked?” he said. “Because this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history, in recent American history.”

I am not sure Biden knows what he is saying, as this is pretty crazy.

Biden said in 2015:

Look, every single morning since I've been 27 years old, I've got up and someone's handed me a card like the one I have in my pocket with the schedule on it, of all the things I'm gonna do. I don't know what to do if I didn't have that card.

Biden’s Vote-Buying Scheme: Shift Student Debt to Taxpayers

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As the midterm elections fast approach, Democrats have lost a key demographic that they relied on in 2020: college-educated men. The biggest defections from the Democrat Party since the last election have been by this group, amid an overall decline since inauguration of 19 points in support of Biden by those under age 35.

The Democrats’ playbook for attracting voters is to toss them some handouts. So it is no coincidence that, six months before Election Day, Biden is working on a plan to give potential supporters upwards of $500 billion.

A half-trillion dollars is a lot of money, even by today’s standards of sending truckloads of new cash to almost anyone who asks for it. Inflation is soaring to levels not seen in 40 years.

Student debt tops $1.7 billion, as racked up by merely 13% of the population due to overpriced higher education. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that Congressional approval is required before that debt is forgiven, which would burden all Americans.

Yet Biden plans to bypass Congress, and instead transfer these dollars to his potential supporters through the Department of Education. Biden and the Democrat Party want to claim credit for this on the eve of the election.

Biden told reporters that he has rejected waiving as much as $50,000 per student in loans, which would be more than the average student debt of $37,000. Biden can try to buy millions of votes with a waiver of $10,000 per student.

Already in default is 8% of this debt, which is not dischargeable in bankruptcy due to federal legislation that Biden supported in 2005. Changing the bankruptcy laws for those who are truly bankrupted by student debt would make far more sense than simply waiving debt obligations across-the-board.

The real culprits are the university elites, who in lockstep manner have overcharged Americans for the privilege of being indoctrinated by far-Left professors preaching to their captive audiences. In 1971, the average cost of one year at a public university was only $1,410, which was merely 16% of median household income.

Families could afford college then without going into debt. But by 2018, the average annual cost at a public university had risen to $21,370, which constituted a whopping 35% of the median household income that did not increase as much as college costs did.

That means most families have to go into debt to put a child through a public college, let alone two or three children in college. At private colleges, the costs are far higher and thus the debt much greater.

Among students graduating from college today, more than half are in debt with student loans. Worse, good jobs are not available to new college graduates today except in mostly STEM-related fields.

Universities have made this situation worse by lengthening the time periods for obtaining bachelor's and graduate degrees. No longer is 4 years the expected duration of completing college, as now the government considers graduating within 6 years a success.

Today less than half of students who enroll at a 4-year college actually graduate within 4 years, and only about 60% graduate within even 6 years. That winding path is enormously expensive and wasteful, as the student is typically then unable to work at a full-time job during those years of peak productivity.

Yet Biden is not criticizing his Democrat supporters who control these schools as they senselessly rack up so much debt for students. Meanwhile, these same schools bring in foreigners on visas as another way of grabbing more revenue.

Many of these foreign students then overstay their visas and never return to their foreign countries, and either take jobs from Americans here, take government entitlements funded by taxpayers, or commit heinous crimes. Graduate-level positions, many funded by government grants, are increasingly filled by the foreigners here.

In the last decade there has been a 39% increase in enrollment by foreign students in the United States. Today they total an estimated 1.1 million students in college, a third of whom are disproportionately from China, which hardly seems deserving of more handouts by Americans.

Statistically, those with college educations tend to make more money, jumping from an average of $600 per week for persons having no college education to nearly $900 weekly for those with some college education, to about $1,300 weekly for those having a college degree. The numbers are higher for those with professional and PhD degrees, averaging about $1,900 for both.

Euphemistically described as “loan forgiveness,” erasing student debt is shockingly unfair to those who went to work during their prime years or paid off their student loans. Colleges should be the ones refunding students who did not receive good jobs they were misled to expect from a liberal arts education.

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.

Twitter Needs Trumpers Now

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

When Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump, it appeared that censorship had won. A tidal wave of additional censorship ensued, causing Twitter to become the dullest place on earth.

Free speech vanished on Twitter after excluding Trump. On Earth Day recently, Twitter announced that it will ban advertisements contrary to liberal assertions of man-made global warming, and the European Union recently implemented the Digital Services Act to require further censorship by Twitter and other social media.

Initially, the San Francisco liberals running Twitter appeared to thwart Musk’s takeover bid by adopting a special “poison pill” to frustrate it. But apparently Twitter’s Board of Directors had an epiphany over the weekend, after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and 17 other Republican congressmen sent them a letter Friday telling them to preserve their emails and other records as they opposed Musk.

The Republicans’ letter observed that “the Board’s reactions to Elon Musk’s offer to purchase Twitter, and outsider opposition to Musk’s role in Twitter’s future are concerning. Twitter’s Board Members have fiduciary duties to the company’s Shareholders,” the letter continued.

“These duties apply despite how many corporations’ leaders increasingly pursue progressive policy goals divorced from shareholder interests,” Jordan pointed out. Lawyers might have also advised the Twitter Board members that they would be subject to lawsuits for shareholder harm they could cause by blocking Musk’s bid.

Jordan is a former NCAA college wrestling champion who knows how to take down an opponent, and his timing was perfect. The congressmen who joined Jordan’s letter included Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), who is a Super Bowl champion defensive back fully adept at tackling an adversary.

“Why are Twitter’s board members scared of @elonmusk and free speech?” Rep. Jordan tweeted in addition to his letter. More than 52,000 “likes” of Jordan’s tweet showed how the public supports him, and free speech.

Free speech won on Monday, when the Twitter Board reversed itself and voted unanimously to accept Musk’s bid. If only a little birdie could report next on the communications among the Board members who reversed their initial opposition to Musk’s generous offer.

Reflecting the liberal political fixation of Twitter employees, after the announcement of the Board’s decision to accept Musk’s purchase one employee asked the Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal whether Trump would be reinstated on the platform. Agrawal said he did not know.

Trump, however, stated he does know: he’s not returning to Twitter even if allowed back. This sets the stage for Musk to beg and urge Trump to return, which is how the free market works best.

Trump plans to work on lifting his own platform, Truth Social, by posting soon there. Trump’s platform is outside of European censorship rules, and need not cave into demands by Leftist trolls or allow their stream of vile, senseless response tweets welcomed by Twitter to litter Trump’s prior account there.

"I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on Truth," Trump declared on Monday. "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he'll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth."

Twitter’s current Board of Directors took in a total of $3 million in compensation annually, and Musk has vowed to have a volunteer board for Twitter to save that waste. Indeed, Musk seeks to take the company private so that it will no longer be subject to intrusion by securities regulators.

But without Trump and his supporters, it is difficult to see how Twitter can recapture its spark of 2020 during the presidential election and its aftermath. Amid its increased censorship, Twitter’s stock had fallen sharply in the last nine months, and its bankers reportedly advised Twitter that restoring value required accepting Musk’s offer.

Twitter banned free speech about Covid-19, including terminating the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for criticizing the Covid vaccine. While it seems likely that Musk will unblock Trump, it remains to be seen whether he will allow free speech against the Covid vaccine or healthy promotion of early treatment for Covid.

The decline in the value of Twitter stock prior to Musk’s offer was not only due to its ban of individuals, as its suppression of speech expanded broadly to many Covid tweets. When it did not outright ban someone for Covid-related tweets, Twitter posted ugly disclaimers for disfavored tweets that were critical of vaccination.

A year ago Trump observed that Twitter “has become totally BORING as people flock to leave the site.” He added, “I guess that’s what happens when you go against FREEDOM OF SPEECH!” Elon Musk needs Trump and his many supporters to turn that around, and he should not allow Europe to stifle free speech here. To succeed, a new Twitter needs to restore blocked accounts and end its censorship.

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.